For a long while, he silently stared down at the tip of the pen that had stopped moving. Ink spreading from the nib was forming an ugly blot on the surface of the letter.
As he carelessly crumpled it and pushed it aside, the man continued worriedly.
“But it seemed that unpleasant rumors about Her Highness the Grand Duchess were circulating because of that wolf. It also appears to clash frequently with the grand ducal house’s vassals.”
Varkas, who had opened the drawer and was taking out a fresh sheet of paper, frowned.
“Clashes?”
“Ah, it wasn’t a conflict serious enough for you to be concerned about. It’s just that the wolf is so aggressive...... The soldiers seem to be frightened of it.”
He scratched the back of his head and replied ambiguously.
Varkas’s gaze sharpened.
“Has that magical beast harmed anyone nearby?”
“No, it hasn’t. I watched it closely while I was staying in Kalmor, but it merely bared its teeth and frightened those around it.”
The man hurriedly denied it.
“It has an extraordinary protective instinct and possessiveness toward its master. Fundamentally, it seems to absolutely hate anyone approaching Her Highness the Grand Duchess. As long as no one went unnecessarily close to Her Highness, it was perfectly docile. It obeys Her Highness extremely well, and it is remarkably intelligent, so it didn’t appear likely to attack people indiscriminately.”
The man, who had rattled off the words as though defending it, paused to catch his breath before adding quietly.
“However, since it’s so enormous...... the problem is that those around it feel their lives are in danger from its growling alone.”
Varkas looked down thoughtfully at the pile of letters stacked on one side of the desk.
He, too, had already suspected to some extent that the direwolf was causing problems. Reports containing tactfully worded complaints about the direwolf had begun arriving from the subordinates he had assigned to protect her.
And his reply to them was always the same.
If it showed signs of becoming a threat to her or directly harmed anyone nearby, they were to subdue it by force. However, if it caused no actual harm, they were to leave it alone.
The fact that the wolf’s head was still attached to its body meant that, at least so far, it had not attacked anyone.
If so, he had no intention of taking any action for the time being.
He could tolerate all the priests and vassals complaining about her raising a magical beast. If it made her happy, what did it matter even if she raised the spawn of a demon rather than a magical beast?
As long as Talia recovered.......
At that moment, the image of her sobbing in the rain flashed through his mind like a burn scar.
He hurriedly shook off the afterimage flickering across his retinas and dismissed the man in a somewhat cold tone.
“If you’re done chattering, leave. Don’t you need to get out of the gorge before nightfall?”
“No, you were the one who asked me......”
The man, grumbling in dissatisfaction, let out a resigned sigh and turned toward the entrance. Then, as though something had suddenly occurred to him, he stopped and held something out toward Varkas.
“I nearly forgot. This is what I came here to deliver.”
He narrowed his eyes as he looked down at the rolled parchment in the knight’s hand.
“What is it?”
“A telegram sent by His Highness the Crown Prince.”
He accepted the scroll with an expressionless face.
Written in a scribe’s characteristically neat handwriting was a rather direct proposal requesting his participation in the campaign to capture Blodar.
Varkas impassively skimmed through it, then stopped at the words written at the very end of the document.
[Remember the oath you made.]
After staring intently at the sentence, he held the letter over the candle flame. Then he jerked his chin toward Edrick Rubon, who was looking at him in surprise.
“If your business is finished, leave now.”
The man’s lips moved as though he wanted to say something, but he soon left the barracks.
Varkas loosened the collar of his uniform, which felt like a noose tightening around his neck.
The letters on the parchment, slowly curling above the candle flame, writhed like tiny insects.
After watching it for a long while, he dipped the quill, its tip now dried out, back into the inkwell.
There would probably be no need to wage a siege against Amasek. Once the Emperor proposed negotiations, the Northern Alliance would throw open its gates and welcome the imperial army.
Even so, to placate the whining Gareth, he would have to show at least enough sincerity to move his army.
At the end of the letter he was sending to his vassals, Varkas wrote that he intended to return before the end of this summer, then sealed it with wax.
By the time this reached Laedgo Castle, the course of the war would already have been decided. He intended to make certain of it, one way or another.
* * *
Pale light poured down upon a world faded to ash-gray. Toward him, standing alone at the entrance to a pure white garden, a woman with the pallor of a ghost extended a white hand through which her veins were visible.
“Why are you standing there without moving? Hurry and come here.”
He looked up at the black-haired woman standing with her back to the sunlight. No. Perhaps her hair was not black.
He had never once seen this woman’s true colors. Even within a world stained in black and white, he could only clearly perceive that she was a figure of unusually stark light and shadow.