Chapter 335: Coming to a Hard Place

The party advanced slow in warm sunlight. On a day like this you get sleepy, I thought, and ended up dozing.

"Driver, do you not get sleepy on a day like this?"

I asked hoping it would wake me. Even driving, if someone talks from the passenger seat and the talk livens, you stop feeling sleepy. Strange, but even when a superior nags you sleepiness does not come.

The driver laughed.

"Well. There is that. But horses are clever things. Even if the driver dozes they follow the carriage ahead properly. Only the driver of the lead horse must not get sleepy. Ahahaha."

I had heard horses are clever animals, and it seems that is so.

"Indeed. Ahaha."

"But Lord Marie, I hear you guarded Her Majesty last night as well. Do not force yourself. You may sleep. There is no place to lie down, but no one will complain if you doze. Ahead there is a narrow place. When we draw near I will tell you, so please take it easy. Only if you tumble off there is nothing I can do."

"Yeah. Then I ask you."

I spread my feet, braced, set my body on the backrest, and shut my eyes. The sway of the carriage felt good and I fell asleep at once.

"Lord Marie, please wake."

I woke to the driver’s voice.

"Soon we will reach the hardest place on the way to the Eisleben tribe. Look ahead, please."

Told that I looked forward. In front a cliff more than ten meters high ran left and right the whole way. A river terrace? Or did it rise in an earthquake or something? From one corner of that cliff a river was flowing. Water had become a river from years of erosion, the banks had been cut, and it had become a gorge, I suppose. And it looked as if a road had been made along that river. Even in the gorge the river meandered, and now, a dry season maybe, only a little flow of water could be seen on the riverbed, but there would be times it floods. Then the road would sink into the river too.

"This road, after a flood, is sometimes gone."

"Washed away by water?"

"There is that, and huge stones roll down from upstream and block the road too."

"That is hard. Who moves that kind of thing?"

"Well. We ask someone who can use magic to smash the stone fine, or ask a great swordsman with a treasure sword to split it. How about it. Can Lord Marie do it?"

"No. I do not think so. If I had that kind of power I would not be in a place like this."

"My. Is that so? I was sure you had some outstanding power, and that is why you came here on purpose."

Nnn. I may have outstanding power, but I do not know if I have that kind. In the first place I have never compared power with other people.

"I do not know. I think I was called as a number."

The driver made an oh? face.

"Um, Lord Marie. Are you a different person from the Lord Marie on that stage?"

There was someone who knew the stage even here...

"Eh. Almost the same person?"

"Ah. As I thought. Then a person with that much power does not exist so often. In my trade as a driver I hear talk from knights and swordsmen, and what everyone says is the same."

"Heeh. What kind of thing are they saying?"

"That is, if that actually happened, an ordinary person cannot match it, they say."

"I see."

"Yes. An ordinary knight who can jump to the top of a mansion does not exist so often, they say. They also say they cannot dodge arrows flying at them or knock them down with a sword. They cannot think it is something a person does."

Then am I not in the category of person? I had a little awareness from being liked too much by aunties.

"Is that how it is. I do not know how other people are, so it is a reference."

"Ahahaha. What I know is only a small part, but I am glad if it is a reference. Just having been together with Lord Marie I can boast to the wife and daughter."

"The stage’s effect is large."

"No. That is a huge fashion in the royal capital. There is no talk that interesting! Those high-and-mighty nobles... oops, sorry, there are many nobles present. Anyway the commoners are hugely glad. I hear lower nobles are glad to watch too."

"Is it that kind of thing?"

"Yes."

There the driver left a little gap. He seemed to hesitate a little.

"Lord Marie, in that play Lady Eisleben held love for Lord Marie. Is that the truth?"

What would he ask, I thought, and he asked a straight ball.

"Yeah. You saw just now. That woman earlier is her. She appeared in the play too, yes? She herself came out."

"Haaa. What a hardship."

"Yeah. It is hard."

Then after a little gap the driver said,

"The road ahead of this is a rather hard road. Merchant trains that come and go hire guards. Beasts attack, you see. We have this many knights so there is no worry."

and put the talk back.

"Indeed that looks like a dangerous road. If you think to attack from the cliffs on both sides you can do as you like."

"Right? Normally I do not think there is a scoundrel who would think to attack Her Majesty’s procession, but beasts do not know it is Her Majesty’s procession, so we had best stay on alert for form, yes?"

Nnn. Driver, that is a flag. There is a tacit understanding that you think that kind of thing and do not say it.

"Ara? Did I say something bad?"

No. It is already too late.

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[A/N: Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it :D]