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Fettered by no speech,
The answer takes flight
On wings the ripe color of clay.
—The garden of wordlessness, J. Neil Garcia
I had expected that I would learn many things from Barok van Zieks when he accepted the responsibility of continuing to mentor me, but not like this.
Before my boots and my makeshift walking-stick, the grass parted like a sea of drab green.
Overhead, the sky was a pearly gray, and the harsh call of the geese as they headed to the stretch of deep blue water in the distance sounded like a familiar song. I give myself only a brief moment to acknowledge the birds before finally turning my attention to the back of the man that I had been following for about hours now.
“Have you seen it, sir?” I asked, and Barok van Zieks nodded, if I can call his slight jerk of the head a “nod.”
It was already deep into autumn, and the Earl of Tipperary invited my mentor to a hunting party that he was hosting in his estate in Scotland. Aside from it being an obvious social obligation, this was also supposed to be a holiday of sorts for the both of us, after a grueling series of trials where we had to nail our entire case on a single piece of evidence to place our suspect in the right place at the right time, and while my mentor was the lead prosecutor for the case, I was tasked to act as co-prosecutor instead of merely acting as his aide, a first time for the both of us. Usually, our arrangements consisted of either me assisting him, or else me acting as the lead myself. It might be strange to obsess over terminology like this, but—it was, perhaps, exhilarating as well to work on a case that you have worked on with, instead of for, someone else.
I probably didn’t make a lot of sense. I am still a little confused by it, myself.
We made a strange pair, dressed as we were in dark brown hunting clothes to blend well with our surroundings, though I’m sure that I looked a tad stranger than he was, since this was my first time to wear such clothing. The first thing that my mentor had done when I stepped out of my room back in the Earl’s manor was a sound that I suspiciously thought could be close to a snort.
But, right now, like this, at this particular time and place, he’s different.
Like this, when it’s just the two of us, he sheds his courtroom theatrics and energy and becomes almost entirely a different person. Still graceful, of course, still impeccably cold, but also, quiet and moody and introspective and still. Even after months of studying under his wing, I still cannot comprehend the stark difference between his public and private personas. It was as if his brilliant exuberance in the court is only matched by his absolute refusal to speak more than necessary when in the comfort of his home. Slowly, slowly, I became accustomed to reading Barok van Zieks by his body language more than anything; I’m proud to say that I can now differentiate between whether he wants me to ring up the bell for tea or bring him some case notes for a trial or if he just wants to talk about my output for the afternoon with just the way he looked up from his desk and glanced at me.
—Even now, as I followed him while he stalked for deer, I think I liked this softer version of him better.
I also suspect that I knew what caused the Prosecutor van Zieks to act this way, but of course, it’s something I can never bring up with the way that we are right now.
(Maybe in the future, but not yet.)
Somehow, there was an unspoken rule between the two of us to never speak of such things—at least, until when we are both able to confront ourselves, and each other.
I am still… working on my part.
“—There it is.”
He pointed with his gloved hand, and I spied the graceful, majestic form of the hart that we had been tracking since this morning, just a little distance from our hill and fortunately upwind. I could see why the Earl of Tipperary was so keen to stage a hunting party for this creature—it was a beautiful creature, its antlers particularly impressive and the head proud and well-formed, and the coat shone with a healthy red gloss. I glanced at the prosecutor, unsure about what I was supposed to do, and then he dropped to his knees and laid flat on his stomach, sheltering himself from sight, and instinctively, I did the same, quickly handing him his rifle while I laid myself flat beside him.
I watched him load his gun carefully, fully expecting him to shoot once he was ready, but then once he had finally brought his eye to the scope and placed a steady finger on the trigger, he only seemed to watch the deer caught neatly in his sights for two full minutes, his breath relaxed and gentle and coming out in puffs of mist. The sky above and before us was still a steady gray, and I wondered for an odd moment if it was about to rain.—
“—a gun in your hand before, Asougi?”
His question was so quiet and so out of the blue that I had time to blink and shake my hair out of my eyes before I could come up with an answer. Any answer. His blue eyes were expectant, even though they were trained on his stag. “I beg your pardon, sir?” I whispered back, and felt a little confused when he finally took his eyes off the animal just to give me his full attention.
“Have you ever held a gun in your hand before?” he repeated his question, patiently, and I felt a little floored. Goddamn it , I told myself. Stop being so speechless, Asougi Kazuma. This is not like you.
“Once or twice, though I haven’t shot one before,” I said, and the corner of his lip quirked in the ghost of a smile before he lowered the muzzle of the rifle and, to my honest surprise, handed it over to me.
“Then, let me teach you something new,” he said, and his expression brooked no argument.
Swallowing dryly, I accepted the rifle and copied his form like how I remembered seeing it earlier, poking the muzzle of the gun through the blades of grass and peering through the scope. I had to look around a little before I finally caught the stag in my sights, and I just realized that my finger on the trigger was shaking.
“You’re trembling.” He had inched closer to me, which meant his voice was practically at my ear—perhaps he did it so that I could hear him better, but it did nothing for my nerves.
“No shit,” I whispered back, feeling bold despite myself, and he smiled that ghostly smile yet again. I could feel, rather than see, his lip curl as he breathed against my skin.
“Pull the trigger,” he murmured against my ear, and I felt goosebumps, not unpleasant ones, travel over the back of my neck.
“Are you serious?”
“—Your tone is decidedly becoming more dreadful by the minute.”
“Oh, I apologize. I meant, are you serious, sir ?”
“Your wide variety of backtalk never ceases to amaze me. Just do it, Asougi.”
I glared at him, and he gazed back at me, maddeningly calm, and like any other time in my life when I was feeling unsure about something, I took a deep breath and thought, Ah, fuck it, and pulled—
The resistance against my finger was solid, and the trigger didn’t budge.
—CLICK.
The sound that emitted from the gun as it refused to go off was, admittedly, a blessed relief.
“W-Wh—” I was confused. What was happening?
—A snort from my esteemed mentor.
“I haven’t turned the safety off yet.”
Barok van Zieks was staring at me with a marked amusement in his light eyes at the success of his trick, and I suddenly had a great urge to kick something. Anything. Maybe his outstretched leg—it was the perfect distance—but he’s not Naruhodou, and I doubt he’d let me off easily if I did do that. So, instead, I did the next best thing I could think of: I let go of the rifle and let my head drop to the grass, suddenly limp.
“Don’t make me do that again, sir,” I said, weakly. He made a sound that is suspiciously close to a chuckle, and took back the rifle to finally switch the safety off. However, he didn’t make another move, just surveyed the hart with those pale blue eyes through the scope of the gun, and I glanced back and forth between him and the animal, wondering, wondering what was going through his mind right now.
“Aren’t you going to—?” I asked, when suddenly—
BANG!
A flock of geese hiding in a nearby bush flew out into the sky in a panic, and I was staring disbelievingly at where the stag was standing just a split-second ago.
A red splotch was spreading in its side. Someone nailed its lung. It was struggling to stay standing—
“Sir—”
“No. It wasn’t me.”
I glanced at him to see that my mentor’s gun hadn’t moved one inch. It was true—he wasn’t the one who made the shot.
“Then who—”
Some other young lordling was whooping from another hill opposite ours, and I could hear the answering whooping of his fellows. Barok van Zieks was just staying frozen in his spot, eyes still trained on the poor hart, who was kicking in a pool of its own blood, and I could almost swear that his lip was trembling a little even as he lowered his gun and flipped the safety back on.
I resisted the urge to reach out and touch him.
“—Sir?”
“It’s all over,” he murmured, sadly, absently, as if he had forgotten all about my presence, but then he glanced over my shoulder at me, and I caught my breath when I realized that our shoulders were touching together, and I hastily jerked myself away before he noticed my accidental impertinence.
His eyes were the color of the sky on a clear winter day.
—I could have smacked myself for that foolish comment, but…
With the way I dwell on them constantly, maybe, Barok van Zieks’s eyes do hold some fascination for me, after all.
We made the trek back to the manor in decidedly somber spirits, the prosecutor clearly keen to avoid the party of the lucky hunter, and we managed to slip into our rooms with nary an incident, except for when I almost ran into one of the maids with my muddy clothes. She immediately fled the scene with an apology and a flurry of lace, and the prosecutor glanced at me reprovingly, but did not say anything else.
The rest of the day passed by quite uneventfully, even as the sounds of gloating song over the spoils of the hunt resounded at times through the hallways. I took a long hot bath, busied myself with the books that were in the downstairs library, careful not to run into the other guests, and wondered what my mentor was up to. The day persisted in its gloominess, but the looming rain only remained as a threat and no more, and so the high windows of the library gave me an unobstructed view of the expanse of the moor that surrounded the manor.
I had abandoned my book on the soft chair to walk to the window, slightly in awe of the moor’s wild beauty, when I heard the soft snick of the door opening and then closing, and when I turned to see who it was, somehow I wasn’t surprised to see that it was Barok van Zieks returning my gaze. I was, perhaps, more surprised at the fact that he was holding one of his famous wine bottles in one hand, and a glass in the other.
“Feeling a little dry in the mouth, my lord?” I asked him, the corner of my lip lifting in a smirk, and he sighed and dropped down on a nearby loveseat.
“—You really should do something about your cheek. I tolerate it, but it is not meet to let someone else hear you address me like that.”
“Naruhodou did once tell me something about how I speak before I think, but.—” Leaving my sentence hanging, I turned back to the window to watch the scenery yet again, and I hear him uncork the bottle and pour out the wine. The sound of the sloshing of the liquid out of the bottle and into the glass was quite pleasant.
“Would you do the honor of doing the sabrage later, Asougi?”
“Later?”
“Yes. Over the celebration dinner, for the toast.”
“Alright. I don’t particularly mind.” It felt a little funny to me, even now, how the sabrage was one of the first things I’ve learned from this odd teacher of mine. I could feel his eyes on me as he sipped his drink, and I was going to pretend that I was still interested in the moor when I heard him set down his glass on the end table beside him and murmur—
“—Thank you.”
“It’s no big deal. I am here to represent you, too.”
The words left my lips a little too quickly. I wonder if I sounded like how I felt.
I have always wondered what Barok van Zieks looked like whenever he thanked me for small tasks, because somehow he was the type not to look someone directly in the eyes when he did so, but as I gazed determinedly at the sky, I figured that I could perhaps let it remain a mystery for a little while longer.
Sometimes, the man gazing at my back seemed both younger and older than I am all at once, and I think this is one of those times.
“Naruhodou wrote to me a while back, you know. He was still worried about the two of us. That we might not get along.”
“Oh?” His tone was light, delicate. I finally mustered the gumption to turn and look at him, and discovered that he had just finished his first glass of wine. “And do you think he should have worried?”
“...Well, you tell me, sir.”
“Again with your snarking.” But he was smiling, if ever so slightly, and I moved to his side and proffered the forlorn-looking wine bottle to him. He inclined his head in silent thanks, and I tipped the bottle into the glass.
The wine, as it left the bottle in a gentle arc and splashed into the chalice, looked almost like a stream of bright red blood.
“You didn’t shoot the stag from before,” I found myself saying out loud.
“What do you mean?”
“You had plenty of time. We found it first. But you didn’t.”
“Yes, I guess so. I didn’t.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“You’re being quite talkative right now. —Why would you care?”
I turned my face away, suddenly feeling a little hot around the collar.
“You could have been the one being celebrated right now if you had made the shot. So why didn’t you?”
Instead of answering right away, he glanced down, into the depths of his chalice, and a small sigh escaped from his lips.
“I was going to,” he finally said, “but when I finally got down to it, perhaps…”
He looked a little lost, as if he had just run out of words to describe what he felt, and fell silent.
Perhaps— perhaps what?
Finding the silence unbearable, I sit down on the armchair opposite him, the bottle still in my hand, and raise it towards him. He looked nonplussed at my gesture.
“To your good health, Lord van Zieks.”
I tilted the bottle into my mouth, and as the first sweet kick of the wine washed over my tongue, I think—
I think I may know the answer— or maybe it was just my wishful thinking, but—
Sometimes, I hate it so, so very much whenever Barok van Zieks was being quietly, and unbearably, kind, because it does not help me at all when he sheds his persona as the Grim Reaper of the Old Bailey and is just… just…
Just a fragile human.
—Kazuma, even in this land across the wide, wide ocean, I have made a true friend. A loyal friend.
“What are you thinking of, Kazuma Asougi?” he asked me.
Blue, childlike eyes. His expression, faraway.
See, this is unfair. I wanted to ask him that question, too.
What about you?
I suddenly remember the image of the hart caught neatly in my scope. The bang of someone else’s gun. The spread of blood in its side. The helpless look in its dark eyes.
That goddamn hart.
What are you thinking of, Barok van Zieks?