Chapter 159

Translator: Willia

What was to be left behind, they left behind; what was to be kept, they kept; and they pressed onward once more.

Autumn had a charm all its own, and in the north the taste of it ran especially strong. The autumn flowers blooming across the fields swayed in the wind, singing of the season's ripeness.

But autumn was not only about the harvest. It was a season of melancholy and loneliness, and of solitude as well.

Even so, those feelings were not merely hollow and empty; they made him look back on what he had.

Of course, with six thousand strapping men around him, he was hardly lonely.

The banners that had hung limp and rain-soaked were snapping again, and the sound of marching songs spread out across the autumn fields.

The marching songs were not all rousing, spirited tunes; a fair number were mournful, aching things, like the heart of a sweetheart back home waiting for her soldier.

Perhaps the soldiers, too, felt the spell of autumn, for those were the songs they sang.

But Ricardt did not lend an ear to the singing, nor did he spare a glance for the bright autumn flowers scattered across the fields.

Astride a horse as red as spilled blood, or as flame, he gazed off into the far distance, like an eagle or a hawk surveying the ground below.

In Ricardt's sight were mounted men carrying banners he could not place.

They did not draw near; from far off, near the horizon, they watched the Knight Order pass by, as though studying it.

Whenever he sent knights out to learn who they were, the men bolted at once, so there was no reading their intent. Whether they meant to fight, or only to watch, or whether somewhere an army lay in wait for the Knight Order.

In truth, had he recognized the device on the banners, he could have told which house they belonged to, and from that, roughly who they were soon enough; but Ricardt looked at the device and knew nothing.

He should have paid more heed to his studies, the thought flickered through his mind; but that was hardly the point now.

The trouble was that, with the army on the march, the range of their scouting was bound to be narrow. They had no fixed base anywhere to work from.

Ever since killing the King of Basque, they had cut clear across the empire all but unopposed, but it was about the point where obstacles were bound to start cropping up.

The lords of the surrounding lands, the great men in particular, dukes and margraves and the like, could not be sure of beating Ricardt in a fight, yet they had power enough to make real trouble for him.

Ricardt and the Order of the Steel Knights pushed south along Beringen's southwestern border, and Adeloron was very nearly within reach.

Were he alone, rather than at the head of an army, with Red Comet beneath him it was a distance he could have crossed in a single day.

But as the way of the world so often goes, a great trial lay in wait near the very end.

Whoever cleared that final trial tasted success, and a nation that cleared it was bound to set out on the road to empire. Fail to clear it, by contrast, and failure and ruin lay waiting.

Sure enough, it was not long before he learned who those distant watchers of the Knight Order's march had been. They came upon an army encamped on the far bank of a river, and it was from there the watchers had been sent.

There stood a great, sturdy bridge built back in the days of the ancient empire, and the army was planted firmly across it, blocking it off completely, as though it had readied itself long beforehand.

Ricardt reached the riverbank and looked across to the far side. Banners snapping in the wind, units arranged with careful deliberation, barricades thrown up along the bridge.

The Order of the Steel Knights' swift advance had at last come to a halt, and the two armies regarded each other across the river. The water was wide enough that the only way over was the bridge.

"Their numbers look considerable. I doubt we can force the bridge."

Raimund said it calmly, studying the far bank.

Since they had not surveyed from any height, there was no telling the exact count, but the enemy looked to be about equal to the Knight Order's strength, or greater. If there were reserves held in the rear as well, they might be far more numerous still.

Yet for all that it was a truly awkward spot, neither Raimund nor any of the knights looked rattled or afraid.

"First, we'd best find out what this is all about."

To any eye it was plainly an army drawn up to block the Knight Order's march, but it was worth making certain. So Ricardt, without a trace of fear, set off toward the bridge.

The barricades were set in a zigzag, alternating left and right, meant to hamper the movement of an army, not to keep a handful of men from slipping through.

When Ricardt showed himself, mounted on Red Comet and clad in his ornate armor and tabard, every eye on the far bank fixed on him.

Archers had been cunningly stationed near the bridge, set to loose their arrows crosswise from both sides, so that anyone who tried to cross blindly would end up a pincushion.

Even so, knowing it full well, Ricardt boldly advanced within range of the enemy. Planting himself at the very middle of the bridge, he studied the opposing camp more closely, and with perfect poise.

When Ricardt boldly came forward first, a band of knights emerged from the far side as well.

From among them, a man with a bushy beard, wearing a mail coif joined to his armor, drew close and asked,

"I am the knight Baldur. Who is the man on the red horse?"

"I am Ricardt. Commander of the Order of the Steel Knights."

"His Highness Prince Rotarius wishes to speak with you. Wait here."

With that, he turned and rode back.

Prince Rotarius was none other than the Second Prince. The one contending with the Fifth Prince, Bellator, for the throne.

Only now did Ricardt feel he understood, at least a little, who was barring his march from across the river, and why, so out of the blue.

Before long, a man who looked to be somewhere in his thirties came toward the bridge, attended by a large escort of guards.

His attire was lavish: his chainmail was gilded with gold, and his surcoat, black, was embroidered with a tree in gold thread. The tree stood for the Nibelinger Family, and the gold thread marked a prince.

Ricardt did not dismount to pay his respects. He merely stayed in the saddle and regarded the man whose face glistened with a sheen of oil.

The oiled hair was neat, the mustache well tended. He was handsome enough, true, but there was something faintly fish-like about the eyes that called the former Emperor to mind. The resemblance was there, all right.

For a man said to keep himself shut away, he did not seem to lack a hunger for the throne after all. Not with an army this size at his back.

"Younger than I expected. The knight-commander."

The Second Prince spoke first, a few curt words. But Ricardt added none of the usual pleasantries and came straight to the point.

"Why do you bar the road? Have I wronged you in some way, Your Highness?"

"No. You have not."

"Then stand aside and let me pass."

"Make me one promise, and the road will open of its own accord."

"And what promise would that be?"

"Swear your loyalty to me."

The rivalry between the Second Prince, Rotarius, and the Fifth Prince, Bellator, over the throne had been going on for some years now.

All that while, the two princes had thrown themselves into winning the lords' support and swelling their own power, and it was plain that whoever secured the Knight Order's troops here would gain an enormous edge in the contest. That was why he was making this demand.

But there was something rather off in the way he went about it. And that grated on Ricardt.

"When we've only met today? What meaning could there be in an oath that's nothing but words?"

"A knight's word carries weight. If you are not a frivolous man, you will keep what you have spoken."

"Loyalty wrung from a man by cornering him is no whole loyalty at all."

"No matter."

Ricardt held his tongue a moment and looked steadily at the Second Prince, Rotarius. And at the bodyguard knights around him, and the soldiers drawn up on the far bank besides.

A cool autumn wind swept across the water and reached even the men standing on the bridge.

Ricardt looked back at the Second Prince and spoke.

"I'll give you my answer, then. I cannot. The oath of loyalty."

"......And why is that? Do you already serve that young brother of mine?"

"No. I have no interest in your fight over the throne. I led the Knight Order all this way for one reason only: to end the war in Adeloron. Is that not the right course even with the whole empire in mind? I cannot fathom why you would stand in my way."

"The whole empire? What meaning has an empire with no Emperor? Dress up your ambition as you please, but here, between the two of us, I would have you be honest. You may make yourself king by force, true enough. But if you look to the distant future, you will need the Emperor's recognition. How long do you suppose you can hold a land left in ruins by war?"

The Second Prince twisted Ricardt's words to suit himself. And then to accuse him of being less than honest, when he had spoken the plain truth.

Ricardt felt a knot of frustration, but he wrung out every last drop of patience and kept up the barest courtesy.

"That will be for me to see to."

"Is that so? Then how about this. I am weighing the two of you, you and Grantz, deciding which would serve me better. Naturally, if your order came under my command, I would choose you. But should you refuse, well, there's nothing I can do. I will have no choice but to take Grantz. And even if you turn back for Adeloron, you'll not bring that war to an end so easily. Though of course, before that, you'll not so much as cross this bridge. Do not make a foolish choice."

Not content with merely blocking the bridge, the Second Prince pressed him further, threatening to throw a wrench into whatever Ricardt set his hand to.

"Why on earth are you doing this to me? When you get right down to it, are you not a half-brother of my wife? His Highness Prince Rotarius and the Second Prince, both, I mean. I have no wish to meddle in a family quarrel. That, and nothing more."

"I cannot believe you. It seems you have already struck some bargain with my brother. I heard long ago that the two of you were on friendly terms. Even though that brat wronged your order, you pointedly chose not to take your revenge on him. Now it all fits together. Do not try to deceive me. Unlike my father, I am no fool."

A dumbfounded, hollow laugh escaped Ricardt. There was simply no getting through to the man, and his mind went blank.

Battle was best avoided when it could be avoided. If there was no real need to swing spear and blade and spill blood, that is. To fight a fight that needn't be fought was a fool's business.

Ricardt and the Fifth Prince had no quarrel between them. So a fight could well be avoided.

But what was one to do when no compromise could be reached at all?

"If Your Highness fights me, you will lose a great many of the troops you went to such pains to gather."

"Hardly. As I see it, the overwhelming advantage is mine. By the age of ten I had already mastered the art of war and earned my father's praise for it. In those days I was foolish enough to lack the wisdom to hide my gifts, and so I was held in check. But no longer. I mean to display my talents fully, with nothing concealed. Should you fight me, my losses will be trifling, and your Knight Order will be wiped out to the last man. Can you not even read how things stand?"

A moment ago he had called his own father a fool, yet it seemed the praise he had won from the man had stayed with him a long while.

"......An army is not something you can command merely by reading a few books. You might ape the motions, perhaps. Have you ever seen battle, Your Highness?"

"Only lesser men learn through experience. I have heard much of your valor. They say none in the world can match you. But war is waged with the mind. Just as a blind squirrel happens upon a nut, it was nothing but luck that carried your recklessness across the empire and brought you this far. With me, however, that luck will not hold."

"Haa......"

A deep sigh escaped Ricardt unbidden. The man was clever enough, but shallow, narrow in his views, and far too sure of himself. He was exactly the sort of man Ricardt couldn't stand.

If he had to dig for one redeeming point, it was that the man did not hide his intentions or talk in circles.

It was for that one thing alone that Ricardt tried to keep up his courtesy to the very end.

"This will be a bitter lesson. Take care to keep yourself alive. On the battlefield there is only God and oneself. Rank counts for nothing there."

Ricardt turned his horse's head first and rode off the bridge. It was a rude thing to do, yet for Ricardt it was as much courtesy as he could muster.

Once Ricardt had returned to his own camp, the Second Prince withdrew as well. There would be no avoiding the fight.

To come almost the whole way and find a great trial waiting could leave a man hollow and drained, but then again, having come this far, there was no giving up either.

Cosmos in the fields, a cool wind and falling leaves; Ricardt still had no leisure to turn and take in the autumn.

Even so, it was a fine season for waging battle.

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