Chapter 319 — Santis's Home
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
The little girl poked her head out the door, peering this way and that with one part nervousness and nine parts curiosity at the three carriages halted before the house. The great carriages, emblazoned with noble crests, looked thoroughly out of place on this street—though a good deal better than they would have looked parked on Sturgeon Street. A few residents of Cross Street had already been drawn out, watching from a distance, but none dared come too close. The imposing soldiers who stood beside the carriages, clad in black steel light armor and dark blue tabards bearing medallions, wore black steel longswords at their waists—blades with strange triggers and runes that filled the onlooker with awe. To the people of Cross Street, soldiers of that kind were not to be trifled with under any circumstances.
From inside the house came her mother's shout: "Pepe! Don't leave the door open! Get back inside!"
The little girl cast one last reluctant glance at the soldier standing near their door. The fierce, armored soldier noticed the little girl's gaze and gave her a kindly smile and a nod.
The little girl let out a small gasp and darted back into the house.
"The Duke has ordered me to return to the royal capital to recruit a number of mages," Santis explained to his parents in the main room, accounting for his sudden homecoming. "I won't be staying here—I'll be at the Duke's residence on Crown Street."
The middle-aged couple had already worked out what was going on, and their hearts had settled—yet they still gazed at Santis in his finely woven robe with a kind of disbelief, as though unable to believe that this high-spirited young man was truly their son, the one who had gone off to the Dark Mountains and ought by rights to have been suffering hardships out in the world. Their eyes inevitably drifted to the people standing beside Santis, and the mother spoke: "And these are...?"
"Greetings, madam. I am Gipri, a mage's apprentice in service to the Cecil family, appointed by the Duke's command to serve as Mr. Santis's assistant."
"Pierce. A guard, nothing more."
The two agents, graduates of the Military Security and Intelligence Bureau, introduced themselves in keeping with their assigned identities and temperaments—but Santis, wedged between them, was plainly not adjusting well to the atmosphere. The young arcanist hastened to break the somewhat stiff mood: "Where's Miles?"
Miles was his younger brother, the second child of the family.
"Miles has gone to the tanner's," his father said. "There's little work to be had in winter, but he found a job tanning hides for a noble lord."
Santis nodded. Outside Cecil Territory, it was well-nigh impossible for common folk to find work in winter—but this was the royal capital after all, and the noble lords still needed a certain number of servants to do things for them come winter. For commoners scraping by, such odd jobs were a tremendous boon; and so, meager as the pay might be, everyone scrambled for them.
Yet as his gaze swept across the main room of the house, the young arcanist's brow furrowed slightly.
"Didn't I send money home three times?" he said, frowning. "Even if it wasn't enough to move to a better neighborhood like Felton Street, you should at least have repaired the doors and windows, enlarged the stove... Why is it still like this?"