"Pierre, Georges. Come along on today's hunt. The youngest stays home and waits."
"Yes, Father."
"Yes, Father."
"Yes, Head of House."
Charles handed the finished, cleaned hunting rifle to Alain as he spoke to his sons.
He said he would soon take a short ride with Alain to check whether the horses had loosened up, then left the estate.
"Of course. When the refined House of Toulon goes hunting, it's only right not to bring along a bastard who doesn't match the class. Haha."
"Exactly, Brother. Father's insight really is incredible."
The moment Father disappeared from view, Pierre and Georges started tearing into me like they had been waiting for it.
Mm. Getting publicly roasted first thing in the morning—today was going to feel long.
Anyway, if I wanted to stay alive with all my limbs intact until the day I left this estate, I had no choice but to endure in silence.
They say blessings come to those who endure, and that if you swallow "patience" three times, you avoid murder.
Though I'd already endured far more than three times, so even if I beat those two to death, it felt like King Yama would say, "You're not guilty."
While I was thinking about all that, mentally copying out the Heart Sutra, Father and Alain returned after warming up the horses, took those two brats, and left the estate.
Left alone, I was briefly turning my thoughts over, wondering what I should do to earn a reputation for "killing time well," when—
I heard someone knocking on the estate door.
Serge Durand, the bishop of the Gehenne territory, was heading to Charles's estate at Charles's request.
"No matter how much of a lord he is, dragging a busy bishop back and forth like this is too much."
Even if a bishop commanded tremendous authority by overseeing local priests, that was something bishops in regions with real scale did. A bishop in a speck-sized territory like Gehenne spent his days in the chapel, passing time alone.
So although his mouth was busy complaining about Charles, inside he was quite pleased to be escaping the boring chapel and getting a breath of fresh air for once.
"The youngest son seems bright, so he wants me to take a look."
Bishop Serge mulled it over while recalling the letter delivered by the messenger from Charles's estate the previous night.
Once the trivialities were stripped away, the letter's content was simple—but that content didn't sound like something the normally upright and solemn Charles would write.
"To Bishop Serge Durand.
I would like you to test my youngest son's cleverness. Also, since you are coming, please feel free to take a few bottles of wine from my cellar. I would be grateful if you would visit. It is difficult to find anyone in our territory besides you who is intelligent and perceptive, so I make this request.
If you come, I ask that it be tomorrow at noon, if possible.
Respectfully,
Charles de Toulon."
"For a stiff man like Charles, who never boasts and only talks about duty and honor, this is extremely emotional. I hear the youngest is only thirteen."
Taking it as nothing more than a parent's ordinary wish for a clever child, Serge quickly stopped thinking about Charles's youngest son and instead focused on which wines he would take from Charles's cellar.
"Today's haul is excellent, my lord."
"Thanks to you driving the game well, Alain. Pierre, Georges—you two learned how to hunt today, so try it among yourselves sometime later."
"Yes, Father!"
"Yes!"
The four who went hunting that morning returned to the estate with two deer, the sinking sunset at their backs.
But the atmosphere at the estate was noticeably different from when they had left that morning.
For example, a man in clerical robes was pacing in the garden, looking at a loss.
"Bishop Serge? Is the matter not finished yet? Or did something go wrong with the wine you were going to take?"
Charles spoke to the priest as he dismounted, his expression puzzled.
"Charles! Why are you only returning now!? I have much to say. But…"
The man in clerical robes glanced past Charles at the two still on horseback—Pierre and Georges—then lowered his voice.
"There are many eyes here. I have urgent words for you."
"…Then to the study. Alain! Handle the cleanup. Pierre, Georges—you must be tired. Go to your rooms and rest!"
The two of them left everyone behind and headed for the study at a brisk pace.
Pierre and Georges, left standing there by the sudden turn of events, returned to their rooms in a daze.
"That child—your youngest son. What in the world is he?"
"…I don't follow. What are you talking about?"
"How does a thirteen-year-old have a grasp of literature, rhetoric, commerce, and even history!?"
"Explain more specifically."
"Fine. It's true he hasn't reached adult level yet. But his insight and the level of his thinking are not ordinary cleverness!"
The moment Charles closed the study door, Serge's rapid-fire barrage began, and Charles listened in bewilderment.
"At first, he solved the few problems I gave him well, so I posed more philosophical and difficult questions. Knowledge can be memorized, but depth of thought is different from rote learning. It's the best way to see how much potential a child truly has."
"And then?"
"Charles, when do you think a person dies?"
"Well. I suppose it's when the heart stops beating."
"A very rational answer. Sensible. Common."
"I'm glad you say so."
"And your son seems better than you."
"…Pardon?"
Who was this man, throwing strange questions at me from the moment we met?
He showed up out of nowhere in flowing clerical robes with a mild smile and tossed me something like a 'think big' workbook question. I answered a few well, and then he looked like he was about to collapse, furrowing his brow deeply.
Did something I said rub him the wrong way?
Whether he knew how I felt or not, the priest stared at me with a grave expression and asked again.
"Guillaume. When do you think a person dies?"
"…What?"
When do people die?
The instant I heard that, I thought of a pirate manga written by a cartoonist from the country next to Korea.
What was it… the snowy island episode? Wasn't it something a quack doctor said after eating a poisonous mushroom?
Should I say that? This priest wasn't that bizarre reindeer doctor or anything.
Seeing me hesitate, the priest's expression softened, returning from serious to gentle.
That look that says, "For a child, you're really thinking," and finds it endearing.
I hadn't seen that face since around the time I finished elementary school in my past life.
If he thought that well of me, it felt like I should say something. But could I really say "that"? It felt like stealing someone else's line, and it sat wrong with me.
This was a dilemma.
Wait. That manga artist—by the time I died, I remembered his art had gotten strange, and he started forcing bizarre settings onto characters he created. It was kind of ugly.
Fine. This was my "small revenge." I'd use what you were going to use first.
"I suppose it was a little difficult for our little Guillaume—"
"Maybe… when they're forgotten by other people?"
Future manga artist. Sorry!
Charles sat in his study as usual, tilting a wine glass.
But unlike usual, his mind and heart were filled with excitement and rapture.
To others, the cold sweat running down his cheeks combined with his strangely flushed expression would have made it easy to think something was wrong with him.
Just an hour ago at dinner, hadn't his sons asked whether he was feeling unwell?
"Your son is a genius! He will surely become talent that will lead France! That child's future will become this estate's standing!"
"Then what should I do? In my whole life I have never gone beyond Toulon Port and this Gehenne."
"The child is… thirteen, correct?"
"Yes."
"He is too young to go to the higher education institution at the University of Paris that he mentioned. Even the Holy Mother cannot look after such a matter. So…"
"So?"
"Send him to an army school. Many children enter there even younger than Guillaume, so sending him now will be fine."
"But is what the child wants truly to be a soldier?"
"I'm not saying he must become a soldier. He should receive systematic, formal education until he reaches the proper age for the University of Paris. And isn't an officer also an honorable noble duty? The path can be decided gradually once he is older!"
"For now… for now, I will think carefully about it."
"Understood. If you educate Guillaume, I too will support him as much as my position as bishop allows. However…"
"However?"
"On the assumption that wine will arrive regularly at our church chapel."
"Hah! If what you say is true, I'll give enough wine to fill the chapel."
After replaying the conversation with the bishop again and again, Charles said with a wide grin,
"They say even if the sky falls, there's always a hole to crawl through."
Bishop Serge, the only one with university experience. Guillaume, the talent he had certified. The army school and the University of Paris Guillaume would attend, and the future high officials Guillaume would form ties with.
And standing at the center of it all—
Guillaume de Toulon.
They say not to even look at a tree you can't climb.
So he lived like a dead mouse.
After being purged by his brothers and cousins in his hometown of Toulon, the streets he ran through as a child and the Toulon Port where he burned his youth as a harbor agent became something he could no longer even look at.
But now—
"Maybe it's a tree I can climb now."
Charles muttered softly as he pulled the cork from a new bottle of wine.