MTO C5

Chapter 5

“God is merciful. Surely He will also understand the circumstances that forced me to overlook the sins of my superior?”

At David’s words, Kaidan scoffed outright. Mercy? A lie. From experience he had learned that God was cold toward mankind—indifferent, unfair, pitiless.

David exhaled heavily.

“Still… I cannot help but feel pity for that man.”

“And pray, who was it that argued he should be strung up alive on the walls and left for the eagles?”

“…I had forgotten myself. I will pray the day he rests in God’s embrace comes swiftly.”

It had been David himself who investigated the state of the Valois Orphanage. Whatever he witnessed there, he returned in a rage, declaring the place housed demons and insisting they ride out at once to take the man’s head.

It was owing to that testimony that, by the following month, the orphanage’s director was to be officially replaced. Kaidan had already prepared the missive to send to the Church once Saint Pablo’s feast was concluded—denouncing the director’s despicable conduct. Because orphanages were under ecclesiastical authority, even a lord could not depose a headmaster without the Church’s sanction.

Now, of course, those letters were ash, replaced with a supplication for an inquiry into a man’s supposed sainthood.

“But, my lord, if rumors spread that a Saint is staying in the ducal fortress, you will be harried from every side.”

David was not wrong. Whenever a Saint appeared, people braved rivers and mountains for a chance to behold the blessing of God with their own eyes. If the headmaster dwelled here, the peasants would never dare approach, but the nobles would hound Kaidan without end.

Even this he had already considered.

“Let us be thankful it is midwinter. I will arrange for Spring to be the formal occasion to present him before the nobility. Until then, I shall make something halfway decent of him. Until that time—under no circumstances must he leave the keep—”

Crash!

As he ascended the staircase, Kaidan froze. The sound had come from the guest wing.

Currently, the fortress housed but one guest. It could have been some witless maid, but Kaidan knew better.

David, too, had heard; his face soured.

“That sound just now…”

“Let us see to the Saint.”

Kaidan sighed as he stepped to the chamber.

The door gaped open.

“What in heaven’s name is this?”

From the threshold, Kaidan surveyed the scene in disbelief. A massive ceramic vase—he hadn’t even known existed—lay in shards across the floor. A poker that ought to be by the hearth was rolling about at his feet.

And Michel—oh, Michel was the picture of comedy. Soot smeared his face and hands as he crouched, scrambling to fit pottery fragments back together. Their eyes met; guilt instantly drained the color from his face.

Beside him, Owen the guard, who had been sweating with panic as he tried to stop him, straightened rigidly the moment Kaidan entered.

“Y-your Grace.”

“I broke it, sorry.”

Before the guard could explain, Michel leapt upright.

“I was just curious what sort of training the knight order does, so I asked him to show me.”

“…I do not recall vase-breaking being part of our regimen.”

“That part was my mistake. Still not used to—uh—judging distance.”

Michel rubbed his chin awkwardly, only grinding soot deeper into his skin.

In that instant Kaidan grasped the truth. Michel had wielded the poker like a sword and shattered the vase during his clumsy play. What baffled him was why. Why would a priest mimic a knight?

More than once in the past few days he had glimpsed Michel exercising in odd ways within his chamber—movements oddly strenuous for someone with such feeble limbs. When asked, he answered that he was “training his body.” Curious, yes, but Kaidan had dismissed it as the boredom of confinement. This was harder to ignore.

Could it be the lightning had scrambled his wits so badly he now mistook himself for a knight?

Kaidan considered summoning the physicians again.

The guard bowed deeply.

“My apologies, commander.”

“Owen did nothing wrong! He warned me many times it was dangerous—I insisted I was fine! If you bring me tape, or glue—uh, paste—I could probably fix it. Was this an expensive one?”

Michel, despite his fear, defended the guard. The sight jarred Kaidan.

Before the lightning, he had spoken with Michel but once—and that alone revealed him for what he was: a man willing to exploit the weak for his own gain, the very type Kaidan despised most.

Yet now what stood before him? As a Saint, Michel had no need to apologize. He could have blamed the guard without repercussion. But instead, he shielded him.

Kaidan studied his face. Despite devouring the ducal kitchens these past days, he had put on no weight, restless as ever. His cheeks, once ghostly, were flushed pink from swinging the poker. His violet eyes, once clouded with drink, were sharp now. And his features… delicate, handsome even, in the dim light.

“…It was very expensive, wasn’t it?”

“…We will prepare another chamber. Fresh water will be brought for you.”

Kaidan wrenched his gaze away, unsettled by the thought that had flickered—pretty. It was a mask. Always a mask. A man’s sins do not vanish with memory. If anything, innocence made him more loathsome still.

“Wait!”

As Kaidan was turning to leave, Michel seized his cloak.

“I have something to say to you.”

Kaidan halted. Reading his unease at the others’ presence, he dismissed David and the guard. Once alone with Kaidan, Michel brightened.

“So what is it?”

“Was dinner good?”

“…What?”

“I enjoyed mine. Thank you for sending extra meat. The roast duck yesterday was delicious, but tonight that sauce in the bread—what meat was that?”

“…Venison, I suspect.”

In astonishment, Kaidan answered despite himself.

“Really? First time I’ve ever had deer meat. Delicious.”

Michel smacked his lips as though savoring the memory. Kaidan’s brow knotted.

“And that is all you wanted to say?”

“No, no. I guess you could call it… ice-breaking?”

The odd turn of phrase, his childlike grin—it was hard to believe this was a man in his thirties.

“So… is Michel all done now?”

Kaidan was struck dumb.

He had endured Michel calling him bluntly by name, ignoring his station—after all, a Saint could address whom he pleased. But this habit of referring to himself in third person like a simpleton… it was intolerable. If repeated in public, the whole kingdom would whisper that the Saint of Valois was an imbecile. That could not be allowed.

“Soon there will be a relief ceremony in the square. It shall be your formal introduction to the people of Valois. Come spring, I will convene the northern nobility as well. By then, you must have mastered noble etiquette.”

If the fool had not curbed his strange speech by then, Kaidan would have to make a decision. He intended, if possible, to keep him alive until the Founding Festival, when the sainthood would be formally conferred. But worst cases must always be planned for.

“Then who will teach me noble etiquette?”

“I shall provide a tutor.”

“Well… it doesn’t have to be every day, right?”

“At this rate, one at your side every hour would still be insufficient.”

Michel grimaced.

“Not necessary. I’ve got manners. I may not know ‘noble etiquette,’ but I do know courtesy. I am a teacher, you know.”

Orphanage children would have laughed to hear it. But Michel puffed his chest with pride, utterly convinced. His memory truly seemed gone.

“That said… I want to go back to the orphanage now.”

At these words, Kaidan’s gaze sharpened like steel.

“…Why?”

“What?”

“Why go back to the orphanage?”

“Because Michel is the headmaster, of course. Shouldn’t the headmaster not be gone so long?”

He used that vexing third person again, but Kaidan ignored it. His concern was elsewhere. He stared hard into Michel’s eyes.

“You are a Saint now. Wherever you dwell, none may gainsay you.”

The words were meant as persuasion, but the weight of them rang as a warning.

“Well then, I want to return to the orphanage. Just call me when Michel is needed here again.”

Either oblivious to tone or simply disregarding it, Michel answered lightly. Rage creased Kaidan’s face.

“Is there something you require? Whatever you wish, it shall be brought to you—just say it.”

“No? Nothing like that. Just… if I go back, maybe something will come to me.”

According to David’s inquiry, Michel had barely spent days at the orphanage. His haunts were taverns and gambling dens. And when he did appear, it was to lash out with cruelty on the children. They must be praying he never returned.

“And besides—I want to see the children.”

To hear such words in earnest from this man’s lips was repulsive—stomach-turning hypocrisy.

Even with lost memory… or had he lost it at all?

Kaidan’s eyes darkened. Perhaps all of this—the vacant act, the friendly smiles, the foolish speech—perhaps they were a mask, a feint to hide his true designs. And whatever he sought, the key lay within the orphanage. Or this talk of “return” was merely excuse to escape the keep’s gates. Perhaps to flee the instant he was outside.

What did he fear so greatly?

Whatever the truth, Kaidan would uncover it. No fugitive would escape his sight.

“Very well. But you shall take my adjutant with you. He will serve as your tutor in etiquette.”

At Kaidan’s concession, Michel’s face broke into a radiant smile, bright as a hundred candles at once. But in Kaidan’s breast, only cold suspicion churned.

Men did not easily change. The Michel he knew was a hypocrite. One day, he swore, he would tear off that smiling mask—and at last behold the true face beneath.