Ch157 - Side 2 - To you, far away (2)

Of course, the Emperor was firmly opposed to his deployment.

It was, by any reasonable standard, absurd. Eugène was an enormously prominent figure, not only within the empire but even in neighboring countries, and if he were captured by the enemy, his rare and valuable position would become a catastrophic vulnerability.

The Emperor had been so openly doting that it was widely speculated, even publicly acknowledged, that if Eugène had given his consent, the man would have ascended to the position of Empress. For such a man to personally head into a region indistinguishable from lawless chaos did not seem like something a sane person would do.

Eugène, however, was always a sane man who did outrageous things.

‘There are two qualifications for being a Punitor. First, one must be the supervising officer who trained him as an apprentice officer in his youth. Second, one must be the senior captain who, as a recommender, handed over command of the ship he commanded. By coincidence, I fulfill both of these requirements. No matter the circumstances, I cannot pretend ignorance of Colonel Morlière’s death.’

‘You do not even have a ship to operate, do you?’

‘Why would I not? I have the Queen’s Chair, given to me by Your Majesty.’

The Queen’s Chair, a gift from the Emperor, was officially the flagship of Admiral Chastan, but was managed by Jacques Boisson, Eugène’s first mate, on his behalf as he spent most of his time in the capital. The Emperor narrowed his eyes upon hearing this. Eugène was signaling that he intended not merely nominally but in fact to reclaim his position.

‘You have seized quite an opportunity. You have not been waiting idly for this moment, have you?’

‘…A subordinate officer I cherished died young in battle. I do not think this is a matter worthy of such words.’

Come to think of it, he had been like that, too. Eugène had truly been upset, and Ebroin V, because of a slip of the tongue he should never have made, could neither utter a word nor do anything but helplessly let him go. In truth, the situation was far too unfavorable for him to bend Eugène’s will according to his own feelings.

Someone as clever as he was could not have been unaware of Eugène’s predicament. The Emperor certainly knew how much trouble Eugène had gotten himself into within the military because of his relationship with him.

Though he had returned legally, the fact that he was playing the Emperor’s lover in a man’s body left a decidedly unfavorable impression in various ways. He had once been the rising star of the Imperial Navy, a respected hero known to all, so he was not entirely without allies, but Eugène’s position was one that, just as it afforded friends, also created enemies.

While it might have been possible in high society, but in the military, it was difficult to endure without a manly image. Therefore, he could not withdraw from this matter unless he was prepared to lose his influence within the Navy.

‘Do not forget to write.’

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And yet, after waiting in constant longing for three whole weeks, the first letter he finally received bore that accursed heading,‘To His Majesty the Emperor.’How could Ebroin V’s mood have been anything but foul? It was entirely understandable that the Emperor, clutching the letter, exploded with rage.

Even so, a promise was a promise, and during his travels Eugène did send letters to him with due regularity. Regular, at least, by his own standards. For the Emperor who waited, however, those days were an agony.

The farther Eugène went, the longer the time it took for letters to come and go, and the more infrequent they became. As they grew fewer, they grew longer. Still, even news that came no more than once a month was not something he could simply rejoice in without reservation.

The Emperor wanted to see Eugène’s face, not his impeccably neat handwriting.

If the first letter was something to behold, the second was even more serious. Eugène had completed his revenge for Colonel Morlière and safely recovered his remains, yet he did not return to the empire immediately afterward. Instead, he reported that he expected to continue sailing for some time longer, a declaration that turned the Emperor’s insides completely upside down.

That utterly unreasonable notion had been prompted by a private explorer who, even after being captured by pirates and held as a prisoner, had not let go of his dream of striking it rich.

The Emperor did not forget the man’s name. Christian de Merteuil. Although he had failed to discover the route itself, he had found a providential harbor where one could stop and rest briefly on the way east, and had been recognized for that achievement. As a reward, he was granted the privilege of receiving one-tenth of the taxes levied at that port. Along with that came the right to name the island as he pleased.

His second letter, once again, began with the words,‘To His Majesty the Emperor.’After that, too, Eugène continued to adorn the opening of nearly every letter with that same tastelessly stiff phrase.

‘That man was in a position where, had even a single day passed, he would have been sold as a galley slave. With one misstep, he might have spent the rest of his life without ever seeing the light, confined to a dark hold and forced to row while bound together with half-rotted corpses. But the fact that he had not yet been sold did not mean his situation was any better. He was an optimist who knew how to make people laugh even in dire circumstances, yet the pirates of the Confederation of Five Nations were not particularly fond of captives laughing and chatting in a language they could not understand.

– And who might you be, standing there? You look even better upside down. Hey there, handsome fellow. Are you going to be a kind savior who rescues this poor sailor, or an angel of death who simply passes by without a glance?’

The moment he spotted me, he shouted that. I looked up, having never imagined that someone might be hanging from a leafy tree.

– Why would you bestow such a grand title as an ‘Angel of Death’ upon someone who might very well pretend not to know you and walk away?

– You try hanging upside down for two whole days! You will think of nothing but how to ingratiate yourself with anyone passing by, just to get out of this sorry state!’

…In his reply to the first letter, the Emperor had advised him not to report only bare facts, but to try actively describing the surrounding circumstances. Eugène, who had admitted his lack of confidence, saying that he had little experience writing personal letters and was unsure whether he could do it well, followed that advice faithfully. As a result, the Emperor received an account of Eugène’s fateful encounter with Christian de Merteuil, vividly depicted in a handwriting uncharacteristically rich with immediacy.

It was this lively sailor who persuaded Eugène and became the instigator behind having him escort a group of adventurers until they had passed through all the dangerous regions teeming with pirates.

Like the other adventurers who had been held captive by pirates, he was rescued by Eugène, yet even after such an ordeal, he did not abandon exploration. Instead of giving in to frustration, he gathered those among his fellow captives who shared his views and formed a new expedition party. Penniless as he was, he went into debt to Eugène and purchased the very pirate ship Eugène had captured.

Taken at face value, it might sound as though Eugène had been taken for a fool, but he was hardly such an easy mark. In Christian’s forceful drive, Eugène saw the potential for success, and it was for that reason that he did not hesitate to make such a bold investment.

In return, he laid claim to half the shares of everything Christian and his companions would discover in the future. This agreement would later be remembered far and wide as the‘Arnaud Contract,’celebrated as an act of remarkable foresight. Having no idea what they might one day discover, Christian was more than satisfied with those terms and willingly signed his name to the contract.

Ebroin V read through the letters one by one, filled with yearning. Eugène was, just as he had said, clumsy at writing letters. More precisely, he lacked any immunity to laying bare his own feelings honestly. His writing itself was not particularly poor, but because he had little confidence in what he was writing, the content would often scatter in all directions.

His letters were usually like that. One day, in the middle of reporting on his own situation, he suddenly launched into a long and detailed account of ocean currents and the fishery resources shaped by them.

‘As we have not yet passed entirely through Myra’s sphere of influence, I cannot say when this letter will be sent. We are proceeding with caution at present. Your Majesty will remember that those who conducted privateering activities while posing as the Red Kraken pirate band were, in fact, an independent fleet belonging to the Myra Navy. However, there is no need for you to worry excessively. Though they did not shrink from illegal plunder in order to cover their war expenses, on reflection, that itself means their finances are being depleted. As evidence of this, we have not encountered their patrol vessels, which we have been observing for several days.

Last evening, we cast nets over the side and caught herring. Herring are a cold-water species that migrate along the Medrov cold current. Thinking that the seas of the empire I left behind and these distant foreign waters are connected as one filled me with a strange feeling. We ate some of the catch for dinner; half of what remained was salted, and the other half was smoked and dried, then stored in empty oak barrels. According to the cooper, these particular barrels are exceptionally sturdy and of the finest quality, so even hastily salted food should keep for a long time. All of this is thanks to Your Majesty’s benevolence in providing us with supplies of the highest grade. At a time when preserved food was scarce, securing fresh herring was of great help in alleviating our food shortage.’

After reading the letter, Ebroin V asked him to tell him more about himself, rather than (utterly unnecessary) stories like this one of herrings. The reply he received was as follows.

‘I wake in the morning and write a letter. For the time being, we will not be calling at any ports, so it will likely be difficult to find a courier hawk, but writing letters has now become a habit. I spend the time waiting for morning revising what I wrote the previous evening.

Bringing breakfast to my cabin is a midshipman in training named Marc Butez. He is only eleven years old, so he cannot run difficult errands, but he is an obliging child who tries his best at whatever he can do. He is positive in all things, with a bright and cheerful disposition, and his character is excellent, though regrettably, he has little aptitude for mathematics. To operate a ship, one must above all be proficient in geometry and algebra, yet this child is still struggling even with multiplication, which is a serious problem.

This morning’s meal consisted of a load of bread with ham and cheese, a cup of clear water, half a bottle of wine, and a thick potage made by boiling cabbage and old squash on a base of fish bones. The soup gave off a dull odor from vegetables that had begun to rot, and the biscuits brought out to be eaten with it were already crawling with weevils. While I ate, my midshipman spent the time picking insects out of a basket of biscuits meant to be eaten together at lunch. By the time he was done, his fingernails had turned black from crushing the weevils to death.’

The Emperor inwardly bristled at the horrifyingly detailed depiction of life aboard ship. He could not understand what it was that Eugène found worth insisting upon in a life where he ate wilted vegetables and food crawling with insects, remained confined in a cramped hold, and spent his days placating troublesome sailors.

By this point, even sending replies had become impossible. The distance between them had grown too great to be managed by courier hawks. The intervals between letters grew ever longer, and at times they were lost along the way and never arrived at all. At some point, the news stopped entirely. He had gone completely beyond the coastal regions through which letters could be conveyed.

And then three months passed.

Beyond the pirate-infested coastal regions, Eugène, who had said he would escort them only as far as nearby waters, had gone completely silent after his last letter.

Although he did not show it outwardly, it was a hellish time for Ebroin V. He did not even know whether his lover was alive or dead. The final letter he had left behind contained nothing of substance beyond saying that, for the time being, it would be impossible to send correspondence, that he would nonetheless continue writing steadily as if keeping a diary, and that he had no idea when he might next be able to send word.

For the last month, Ebroin V passed through a sleepless period in which he managed to fall asleep only once every two or three days, rereading Eugène’s letters again and again. Gazing at the empty bed and the cold pillow, he foresaw what shape the loneliness of the rest of his life might take.

If Eugène never returned, all that would remain to him would be a few articles of clothing he had worn and left behind, and Eugène’s letters. They seemed to have been written with the best of intentions, but the awkward, plain accounts that might become his legacy could hardly be satisfying.

And yet, in the final week of those long three months. On an autumn day by the calendar, when an entire season had passed, a single package arrived for the Emperor, whose blood had been drying up little by little amid hasty despair and hope without promise.

It was a letter from Eugène, delivered in a thick package.

T/N:guys, next chapter will be the last… 🥹 thank you so much for reading ! soon, we’ll be meeting for the last time here TvT