Lost In Character: Transmigration Chronicles Of A Nameless Heroine 46 The Funeral Vii

A deluge. From the start, that's what it was.

The people who'd been surrounding the biers from the time they left the Royal Palace tried to keep their places. Those closer in pressed inward even more – they had little choice in that. But those in the outer perimeters couldn't help but be displaced by the rush of newcomers. As long as there was a big enough s.p.a.ce between two people for the incoming crowd to squeeze through, they'll take it.

The first rule of any mob: stragglers die. If you stop moving with the current, you'll get knocked down, and others will run you over. No matter what, you must keep to your feet. You must constantly be aware of the direction the tide is taking and allow yourself to be buoyed by it.

Hilde's status protected her from the madness, but only just. The deafening noise of ten thousand voices keening for the bright hopes they lost a.s.saulted her eardrums; she felt its reverberation inside her ribcage. There, the echoes multiplied.

Over everyone's head, the noonday heat of the last days of summer rained down – n.o.ble or commoner, royal or soldier, in this too, they were all equals. Combined with the cloying heat from living bodies thrown into close proximity, the rising odors and the stray scents of perfumes, the whiff of salt from sweat and tears…

At some point, the distinct smell of blood might also get into the mix.

'If the Prince's Guards had not stepped forward for me...'

Well, Lady Ilse would have put her foot down, but that meant she and her daughter would have had to settle with one less s.h.i.+eld each.

Gripping her handhold, Hilde turned to her left, once again checking how Gisela was doing. Earlier, she'd felt relief upon seeing that her cousin had lost the preoccupied look and was giving her entire attention to the present nightmare. The soldiers surrounding her, Captain Helmut among them, were all old hands at royal funerals. Even after a quarter of an hour of jostling elbows and reaching hands, it seemed they'd barely moved an inch from their positions.

Seeing them, Hilde recalled a lesson she'd just learned that day. She turned to the soldiers around her. They were doing their own level best to stand their ground and – excluding the injured one who could still only do the first – at least prevent the physical aspect of the chaos from closing in on their charge. Though the choice of performing this duty might not have been theirs to make, it didn't matter. The fact remained that she was the recipient.

In a raised voice, she asked the man behind Raban and the man behind her, "Will you tell me your names?"

They frowned in confusion at the strangeness of the request and at the even stranger timing – just then, they had their hands full simply with keeping themselves from knocking against her with their hard, bruising armors. Noting the sweat steadily streaming down their faces and necks, Hilde winced – they must be cooking inside those sh.e.l.ls.

In the end, because she kept looking their way expectantly, they each gave their names. The one behind her also indicated whose son he was, marking him as a n.o.ble.

She repeated their names to them and, nodding in acknowledgment, simply said, "Thank you."

Whatever they were expecting, it wasn't that, judging from their answering looks. Facing forward and concentrating once more on placing one foot ahead of the other, she let them get back to their own vastly more difficult tasks.

As the h.e.l.lish minutes continued to trickle, the procession slowly but steadily moved forward. This was mostly through the stalwart efforts of the Prince's Guards manning the wheeled biers. Those a.s.signed to the second and third in the line, however, had to put in double the hard work: they were the primary targets of the influx. Hundreds upon hundreds of people, men and women alike, continually fought and shuffled their way through the press to get closer to the caskets – close enough to try to touch the people surrounding them or, if they can, to reach past the gaps and take a flower from the dead.

No one stopped them from doing the latter. Hilde heard there were families who'd preserved such flowers from funerals of bygone eras. Some make it a point to collect them, and they were kept as heirlooms to be pa.s.sed down the generations.

This was a form of history-keeping. It helped preserve the nation's ident.i.ty in the eyes of the people, common and highborn alike. Thus, despite the dangers and the relatively uncivilized nature of the tradition, it's being done, and done again.

It took them almost an hour to cross the city square from end to end, their way bending once to go around the fountain at the center. After that, it was at least two hours more of traversing the city's warren of streets, of grueling walking, shoving, and stepping on each other's feet – of punis.h.i.+ng heat and of nauseating odors – until the head of the procession reached the eastern edge of the city where a low hill stood. At its peak, mirroring the Royal Palace atop a much bigger hill, sat the royal tombs.

By this time, even the strongest of them were visibly drained of energy. This was especially true of the soldiers who did all the work of pus.h.i.+ng or pulling or preserving their charges from harm.

Despite not doing anything more arduous than following along, Hilde was by then breathing through her mouth. Sweat plastered her hair on her scalp; it drenched her back. When her headache returned some time ago, it was difficult to gauge whether it was her condition acting up or if it was merely caused by the sun's heat.

And, oh, her feet...

A part of her regretted giving away her medicine, but seeing how Inge was only slightly shaking as he leaned a lot more heavily on the bier, she decided it was worth it. With or without taking what she gave, if he'd gone down, it would have been a huge blow to her. On several levels.

Alas, despite their varying states of weakness, they must still go on. That was how life worked. She supposed this harsh tradition also served to remind them of that.

The people farther down the line got to pause and rest as they watched the first bier make their way up the slanting path to the hilltop. This was the first time she was seeing the ones who were up ahead – they'd been behind a dense gray wave of humanity before then.

When it was Lothar's bier's turn up the incline, she became aware of the strange play that must have been taking place since earlier: it was no longer Theodar standing on the lower-left side of his brother's casket, it was Leal. The foreign prince's clothes had gone several shades darker due to his hours-long exertion, and even at that point, he was still helping to move the wheeled bier forward.

It took Hilde several more seconds to realize her mouth was hanging open.

What in the world was he doing?