章節 14: 14.
Inri managed to scamper back to his run-down tower, carrying his awkward burden. He slipped inside, jerked the door closed, and dropped the small corpse in the middle of the empty ground floor.
Almost immediately, there was a timid rap on the door. Inri shot upright.
[Whoever this is, cannot have failed to see me come in--surely?]
He creaked the door open barely an inch, blocking the gap with his body.
On the other side stood a male youth holding a tray with a covered dish. "we'm kept this warm for you," he said. His face open and guileless.
"Well. Yes. Great." Inri stared at the servant; the servant stared back. "Just, um, put it on the ground there."
"On the ground?"
"Yes. Please."
After a long awkward pause, the young man complied. he stood looking between the tray on the ground and Inri, took a few steps backward. A few more steps. Then finally walked away.
Inri peered around, pulled the door in a bit more so he could step out and get his dinner. He got back inside and kicked the door closed again. There being no furniture in the windowless ground floor he just set the tray on the ground.
A few moments later there was another tentative tap on the door. With a grimace, Inri wrenched the door open an inch. On the other side was his erstwhile manservant, Seccat, looking excessively furtive.
"Apologies, my lord," he said, sotto voice with a sideways glance. "I hesitate to inquire, whether you might ask his royal highness to reinstate me in my former position with your household. You royal brother… ah…"
[The second-born Prince, Aftaro Prota Agar, kept a rather austere yet-still-somehow-chaotic household. His wife was a sage mother who insisted on keeping her three young children within her household rather than in the royal nursery. Seccat might have found Inri a rather underwhelming charge, but also one who expected very little of him and yet gave him status as a prince's only personal manservant. Being the third manservant in a household that had a rather greater need for nursemaids has become tiresome almost immediately. No one would tell him what to do, or where to find anything, but they never hesitated to scold him for a moment's idleness. Seccat saw an even steeper demotion in his near future, bringing shame to a family that had served the male line of the royal family for generations immemorial.]
Inro sighed and spoke. "Seccat I need you to…"
"Yes?" Seccat lept at the opportunity,
"...Go away, at least until morning. Mayhap I can discuss the issue with Aftaro tomorrow… lunchtime at the earliest." Inri was about to slam the door closed but hesitated. Even considerably distracted he could not help but notice how crestfallen Seccat was. "My royal father has a reason for keeping my current situation considerably… secluded, isolated," he said. "But I might be able to convince him to attach you to my position in a… geographically remote manner. If I convince him I still need you to function on my behalf while I am otherwise occupied."
"Of course, my lord." Seaccats face had that certain blankness shown only by servants humoring their masters when they make no sense whatsoever.
Inri added, "So I need you to discover everything you can about so-called Princess Nantuese. Anything at all, be it good bad or trivial." Inri leaned in, "For my royal mother intends that I marry her. Which if it is not already known, you should not speak of. I do not dream of questioning the queen's judgment and nor should you, but I would like to know what I would be getting into, so to speak."
Seccat's eyes widened. Now he did understand. A prince in seclusion would require a spy and a confidant to represent his interests in court. A man privy to affairs above his station but admired by all for his stalwart service as a nobleman's right-hand man. Inspired by the role he hoped to fill, he began to implicitly fantasize about what it was the king had set his youngest son to do, hidden away in a crumbling tower. He wanted it to be something… worthy. Something that would make him a servant who was remembered by the future generations of his line.
Inri was thinking more acquiring a gossip and tool, and just making Seccat go away… but their two notions were not really so far apart, all things considered.
"Yes, my lord," Seccat had bucked up considerably. "I shall return at dawn."
"Noon."
"Noon. Yes, my lord."
Inri closed the door and leaned his back against it. The ritual of rebirth was uncoiling inside him like a wakening cobra. He would need only an implement to make the symbols by parting the pale gravel to show the dark soil beneath. Some candles which he should find in his living quarters above if even the most minimal of preparations had been made for his residency.
He heard and felt against his back a vigorous pounding on his door. Some small spirit of the book and she-who-made-it rippled through Inri's spirit, exasperated at being disturbed again in this delicate matter.
He wrenched the door open, still just an inch, tension singing through his body and shouted, even before seeing the caller: "What!"
It was something of a surprise to see the tall spare frame of his brother Aftero, his manservant attending just behind him and holding a lantern high.
Aftaro puffed out his chest. "I will not have you suborning my staff…"
Inri felt the shadow-ire of the book-author casting her pale eyes over the scene and let himself speak her words, as sharply as she would have. "I will not have you calling on me in the dark and making menial accusations! I will not have you arriving unannounced and speaking without respectful greetings or polite pleasantries! You may not count me as a prince or treat me as a brother, but you are a prince and you will act accordingly for our royal parent's sake if not for yours or mine. I have not eaten a scrap yet today. I have not a single staff member to assist me in any way. I intend to use the hours of darkness as the Gadis directs in rest and contemplation of matters greater than the paltry affairs of paid servants. I bid you goodnight and I ask your to leave to call on at a more appropriate hour, after luncheon tomorrow."
The was a long pause during which Aftaro was still as a statue.
"Your leave, Your Royal Highness Prince Agar," Inri pressed. " Give it or not and I'll proceed accordingly." Inri heard his own voice as unfamiliar, hard and cold and sarcastically giving his brother his title, like any commoner addressing a prince.
"I, yes, Inri… ha, yes. If you must be like this, we shall speak then." Aftaro was about as baffled as if one of princess Parity's spotted dogs had suddenly turned into a wolf. It was not that he could not deal with it, but the matter required preparation, a different place, and the proper equipment. Aftaro nodded stiffly, turned and walked away--a movement whose dignity was undercut but colliding with his servant so that the lantern and the light was snuffed out.
Inri closed the door again, bolted it and determined to not answer it again this night come plague, riot, or flood.
He turned to find the cat eating his dinner.
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