Chapter 127

When he gave his consent, Eugène drew toward him a loose sheet of paper from the disordered stack upon the desk and scrawled down a name. He stopped short before calling it finished, hesitated for a moment, then added another after long deliberation.

“Huh.”

Hunter accepted the slip pushed across to him and, after running his eyes over the two names, lifted an eyebrow as he looked back at Eugène. The first line of that sparse list bore a name so renowned that even a foreigner like him recognized it at once.

“Are you serious about this?”

Hunter clicked his tongue openly as his eyes followed the neat lettering. Empress Mother Héloïse. Even in death, she remained the most revered lady within the empire.

“Yes.”

“What exactly do you want to know?”

“The political stance of Margrave Renault around the time of the late Emperor’s marriage, and the precise standing he held within the Eastern nobility faction. And also, the real reason why the Empress Mother departed for the Grand Convent of Olverran.”

According to the official account, Empress Mother Héloïse had gone to the Grand Convent of Olverran to take her vows. But Eugène was asking for the ‘real reason.’ It was easier said than done; as it was, in plain terms, an order to investigate the mother of the reigning Emperor. Hunter stroked his chin with one hand and muttered sarcastically.

“The real reason, is it? This grows more entertaining by the moment. So you think she had another purpose altogether?”

This man, who had even sold his body to climb to power, had grown exceedingly audacious. Why was it that every commission he brought of late was of this nature? Perceiving without difficulty the danger bound up in the task, Hunter could not master his unease, and his expression hardened into a grim scowl.

At this rate, a life or two could be cast aside as nothing.

“I am no Anti-Chevalier. Is it not too much to lay such work upon a harmless and powerless fence?”

Eugène, though the displeasure on his face was plain, did not answer the complaint. There was no need for explanation, though in truth the thought had not originated with him, but was an opinion then widely shared among the people.

Most slanderous pamphlets were indeed little more than groundless rumor, yet they were not entirely without points worth noting. Just as with the countless broadsheets that concerned him, every rumor contained at least some faint seed of truth. Though that mustard seed might swell into the size of a house by the time it passed through men’s mouths, even such distortions were of desperate value to Eugène now.

“You know well enough there are easier ways than entrusting this to me.”

The Emperor’s affairs belonged to the Emperor. Even for Hunter, who feared nothing under heaven, Ebroin V was not a man easily touched. Tempted by the reward but reluctant to refuse outright, he cast out the suggestion with careful indirection. Eugène only smiled thinly.

“I came to you because I cannot do so.”

“And why is that?”

“Because in this matter, His Majesty himself knows nothing.”

The reply was quiet yet unshakably certain. A frown creased Hunter’s brow, but Eugène held firm. On this point, his conviction did not waver. Ebroin V was wholly ignorant of what was at stake.

Had His Majesty known of this affair in advance, he would never have rescinded even a portion of the prohibitions Empress Mother Héloïse had once decreed upon the forbidden books. Considering the thoroughness of his nature, it was far likelier that he would have left not a single trace of danger behind.

“How can you be so certain?”

“If His Majesty himself had intervened, not even the slightest clue would have remained for me to follow this far.”

qdxèOw TWMvw bfPn twkfTfZw pfOgrfPj. snMdxn Pnw bMCtT YMCw OM Tdkn JwgOfOx, ydOPwC kMdrt OMP nwrW YdP pwwr gO Mtt fCCfPgPfMO, gT PnMdxn nw bwCw YwfOx pMCkwt PM TfP PnCMdxn g JgO’T YMgTP Mp nfT rMZwC. ydOPwC’T pgkw PbfTPwt YCfwprj fO ZwmgPfMO, jwP nw Jgtw OM CwWrj, pMC PnwCw bgT OM xCMdOt MO bnfkn PM kMOPCgtfkP nfJ.

“syz mCJ IJhOyz? WCNm fI mCfI, mCJy? WCNm gDIfyJII hODLz N AtfJyz LfXJ eOD ROIIfgLe CNFJ EfmC IDhC N eODyq LNze?”

dJ LJm ODm N qtONy, CNLA hOoRLNfym Nyz CNLA IRfmJ, mCJy ALfhXJz mCJ ICJJm OA RNRJt EfmC CfI AfyqJtmfR. vm ENI RJmDLNyhJ oOtJ mCNy mtDJ fyUDfte. MyLfXJ mCJ AftIm yNoJ, mCJ IJhOyz EtfmmJy zOEy ENI DyANofLfNt JFJy mO Cfo.

The Empress Mother was a figure of monumental stature. This one, by contrast, was scarcely remembered. Even as a dealer in information, Hunter could not immediately place the name. Where had he seen it before…? He pressed his memory until at last it came to him that the name belonged to a noblewoman of high rank.

“She was seen in questionable company. Alone, without a chaperone.”

“And what is that to you? Do you intend to remarry?”

To Hunter, she had never seemed significant. Beyond the advantage of being born into one of the empire’s most illustrious houses, she was little more than an unremarkable lady of the nobility, neither celebrated nor notorious, merely ordinary. Could it be that his friend, still smarting from his former wife, wished to investigate a woman before even considering marriage?

Hunter raised a curious question as he dramatically expanded his imagination. But Eugène dismissed it with a single indifferent remark that swept away all speculation.

“She was meeting with someone thought to have ties to the Nightwing.”

“Is that so?”

Hunter’s face betrayed open disappointment, as though the matter had suddenly become dull. Still, he carefully engraved the name in his memory. If she was connected to Nightwing, then she was not to be taken lightly.

Committing both names fully to mind, Hunter fed the slip into the flame. The paper curled, blackened, and crumbled to ash, scattering in the air. He ground the last embers into the bronze ashtray and spoke with assurance to Eugène.

“Give me a week. I will gather as much information as can be found.”

“There is no need to rush, but I would have you be cautious. And do not forget. The condition was absolute confidentiality.”

“Please. This is not my first deal. Must we state the obvious?”

“I say it because I hope this will not be our last. I do not particularly care for you, but I have no desire to see your corpse rotting in some back alley either.”

At Eugène’s cold retort, Hunter gave a lopsided grin and shot him a sidelong glance.

“My, are you not brusque. Is that truly the best you can manage to tell a man to mind his safety?”

Eugène, judging the exchange beneath reply, merely reached for the hat that lay on the table, set it upon his head, and pulled the brim low. With business concluded, he was already preparing to depart when Hunter, feigning wounded pride, spoke again.

“Leaving already?”

“Of course. The matter at hand is settled. There is no reason to linger.”

“Harsh, as ever. But I am not quite finished. In fact, I have something you will want to hear.”

Eugène, who had just turned to go, halted in his tracks. It might be some trifling jest, yet he could not ignore it outright. For all his tiresome games, Hunter did, on occasion, let slip matters of weight.

“What is it?”

“Thierry Kiatek.”

“…What?”

“Do not tell me you have forgotten your own commission? The man who set the gutter rats on you. I have found him.”

Eugène slowly turned back, his gaze sinking into a sudden, dangerous calm. As if needing to confirm the words he had just heard, he asked in a measured tone.

“You have found him?”

“Indeed. Strictly speaking, I have found the rat-tail I set on him.”

Among criminals, rat-tail was slang for a shadow, someone who specialized in following others. It was work often done on the side by nimble pickpockets, though in larger syndicates, stalkers and spies alike carved out their own professional niches.

“Explain in more detail.”

Eugène’s eyes burned as he lowered himself once more into his seat. With a single phrase, Hunter had arrested his departure. Gloating, unable to hide his triumph, Hunter murmured with satisfaction.

“There now. Did I not say you would like it?”

***

The following night, Hunter guided him to the shabbiest alley in all of Cat Street.

The deserted house, burdened with the ghastly tale that a sudden fire had trapped the prostitutes behind their barred windows and burned them alive, was so sinister a place that not even the oldest and sickest of prostitutes dared to approach it.

The building had lost its roof to the violent blaze, and more than half of its walls had collapsed into ruin. However, by misfortune, or perhaps by fortune, a few of its rooms had escaped the flames unscathed. Hunter, who often had need of secrecy, would from time to time make use of this monstrous wreck of a dwelling as a clandestine meeting place.

“It is a child.”

Upon arriving, they found that a guest had already come ahead of them. Judging from the circumstances, that child was the very ‘rat-tail’ with whom they were to meet. Eugène, staring at the scrawny little one, as thin as a mangy rat and darting eyes full of unease, was momentarily at a loss for words.

The ragged skirt had ridden high upon bony shins. Her straw-like hair, dry and lifeless, was plaited into two pigtails, and her pale cheeks bore a bruise turning a sickly yellow. She was a frail little girl, and as chance would have it, Eugène knew her face well. It was the very child he had crossed paths with the day before, out in the street.

In truth, what Eugène had meant to say was, “She is a girl.”But, seeing her wringing her hands in fear while encircled by hulking grown men, he felt no need to remind her of such a fact.

He already knew, from experience, how the children of the slums were raised. All the more so when the child in question was from the brothel quarter, not the ordinary poor. Eugène needed no imagination to guess how harsh and grueling such a life must be.

“You need not play the gentleman. That one is no girl.”

Hunter, who had been watching with amused interest, suddenly burst into hearty laughter as he revealed the truth.

“What?”

“That child is a boy, despite appearances. Cunningly, he disguised himself as a girl to slip unnoticed into Cat Street. Before I uncovered him, he had so completely concealed his identity that he was taken in and given work as a runner at a certain brothel. Until very recently, he was the loyal ‘rat-tail’ in the direct employ of Clawhand Meville himself.”

“N-no, that is not true! I-I was never one of his gang!”

At Hunter’s explanation, the child, whose voice was still untouched by puberty and therefore thin and high, suddenly raised it in a burst of protest. The boy, mistaken at first for a girl, turned imploring eyes upon Eugène, and with both hands pressed before his chest, strove earnestly to plead his own case.

“P-please, merciful lord, hear my words. I have never been in the same gang as those criminals. M-my father was a wretched debauchee, and in drunken folly, he gambled until he owed them a vast debt. Having nothing with which to pay, my father sold me to them.”

“They say you told the keeper of the brothel that you were the child of a prostitute, that your mother died giving birth to you, and that the paramour who lived with her beat you and drove you out, claiming you were not his own blood.”

“I, I was forced to beg in the streets.”

“The truth is, you were nothing but an orphan rolling about the gutters. Among the petty pickpockets, your skill was exceptional, and you were shrewd enough to curry favour until you caught the eye of Clawhand Meville. They say you were so vicious that, at your age, you already bore a nickname. Is it not so, ‘Gecko’?”

“……”

Each time the boy attempted to speak, Hunter interjected, appending the truth as if adding asides. The boy, most often referred to without even a proper name, simply as Gecko, bit his lips hard in frustration when matters failed to turn in his favour. But he dared not vent his temper upon the Chasseur of the Jackdaws, and so his face merely burned red.

“Hey, Gecko.”

“…Yes, Lord Chasseur.”

Gecko forced himself to answer Hunter’s question with meek obedience. Hunter hooked his arm over Eugène’s shoulder and gestured at him with a jut of his chin.

“Do you think this gentleman looks easy simply because he treats you with courtesy?”

“That is not it.”

“So much for being cunning. A fair apple with rotten flesh. You are still too young, and it shows you do not yet know how fearsome a noble can be.”

Eugène looked coldly at Hunter, who had clung to him in mock familiarity, jesting without restraint. But Hunter, absorbed in coaxing Gecko, paid no heed to Eugène’s disdain.

“Listen, brat. We gnats who live for a single day must most of all beware the likes of him. Gentle and upright nobles such as this friend are overflowing with compassion for the innocent, but for criminals like you and me, there is no mercy.”

As the boy still seemed not to understand, Hunter pressed more bluntly.

“Brat. You must have seen with your own eyes how your fellows were slaughtered. Did you not?”

“I do not wish to speak of that again. I already told you everything last time. Why must you ask me the same thing twice?”

“Do you truly not understand why I bring it up?”

At Hunter’s repeated hints, the boy seemed to realise something. He lifted his head with a snap, fixing his eyes upon Eugène. He scanned the details of his appearance one by one, then gaped in astonishment and stammered.

“Could it be ‘The Butcher Baron’?”