Episode 152
The old man was sitting on a shabby village bench, eating bread. He had spent nearly a week on edge, and it had been a long time since he had eaten a proper meal. The village where he had been staying for five days as a brief escape was among the more sparsely populated villages in the countryside.
In vulgar terms, it was a village on the verge of collapse. The useful young laborers had all been leaving for the capital or for cities with factories nearby, and it had long been the case that nearly half the village consisted of empty houses. The old man was staying in one of those empty houses.
As befitted a small village, its people knew one another’s faces by heart—and even knew each other’s circumstances inside and out. Yet they showed no territorial hostility, or even much interest, toward the old man who had suddenly appeared among them. The elderly were already so common in this village that one could trip over them.
Besides, it had long been since even the people who enjoyed prying into outsiders’ affairs had all left. Only a few particularly wary individuals had quietly informed the village sheriff of the old man’s sudden appearance.
At a glance, he looked like a thin, utterly insignificant old man, but he was someone who could boast of a life history that had been anything but easy. After roughly devouring his bread, the old man picked up the newspaper lying beside him and began to read. Calluses had formed on the tips of his fingers, one after another, as he turned the pages.
The newspapers he had obtained from the newsstand all carried reports from the capital. The reporters were still making a fuss over Sasha Grayson. With an impassive gaze, the old man skimmed through articles that seemed no more productive than those from several days ago.
It was the last errand Rosaline had given him. His noble mistress, who had taken him in when he was a beggar in his youth and used him freely as her hands and feet for a long time. The final errand she had assigned him was slowly drawing to an end.
The foreign maid who had stubbornly insisted on meeting Sasha in person despite his efforts to dissuade her would remain by Rosaline’s side all the way. The maid had said with a resolute expression that she would make it possible for Sasha to reach a decision.
She had said she would pass on to that child, who knew nothing because she had spent her whole life acting as a double, the very thing Rosaline had sealed away without being able to do anything about it. But as far as the old man was concerned, there was no longer any room for him to object. Not long ago, the girl had officially become his mistress’s adopted daughter.
Yes. And so, all the more, she now possessed the lawful right to make it impossible for anyone to object.
“Agh! It’s raining!”
A child who had been running around playing with a dog nearby shrieked in disgust and ran toward the houses. The dog, which had been circling the child as if teasing him while barking loudly, ran after him. The old man folded the newspaper he had been reading and rose from his seat.
He headed straight for the shabby house where he was staying. The sky overhead had filled with dark clouds in the meantime, and it looked as though rain might pour down at any moment. It had been overcast since morning, but now it truly seemed as if the rain would come down at once.
The old man stopped walking.
“A criminal?”
“That’s right. You let him into the village without even knowing who he was? He may look like a feeble old man, but he’s a criminal who was put on trial not long ago. They say he dragged an innocent man away and beat him nearly to death.”
Two men were standing squarely in front of the house where the old man was staying, conversing. One of them was a familiar face. He was the village constable.
The man speaking to the sheriff was a stranger. Yet a savage aura unlike that of an ordinary person seeped from him as though it were breathing. The word “criminal,” which he was reporting of his own accord, seemed to suit him better than anyone else.
“In any case, he clearly hid himself in this village. I’d appreciate it if you helped us find him.”
He was openly giving an order.
The sheriff frowned at the man’s words.
“No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll contact the police separately—”
Rather than obediently follow the man’s instructions, the sheriff turned away and tried to mount his horse. Before he could, however, the man seized him by the scruff of the neck and yanked him to a stop. The words he had been saying were abruptly cut off.
“There’s no need for that. I’ll send my own people to search. Just cooperate with us.”
“……”
“Unless you want the innocent people here to get hurt.”
It was an open threat.
Listening to the man so blatantly rejecting the intervention of the authorities, the sheriff belatedly realized that he had gotten himself into serious trouble.
The man chuckled as though the frightened expression on the sheriff’s face amused him, then patted him on the shoulder as if to reassure him. He was adding to the man’s sense of relief while simultaneously pressing him down with intimidation. It looked very familiar. Naturally. He must have been an expert at this sort of thing.
“There’s no need to be so frightened. All you have to do is cooperate.”
“……What do you want? As you can see, the house is empty.”
Before the man could answer, the old man had already left the spot and was walking away at a brisk pace.
“Tell everyone to bolt their doors until tomorrow morning and not let anyone come outside.”
Tap, tap—the rain began to pour.
“We’ll resolve this today. We’ll take him away quietly, so there’s no need to worry.”
The village was sealed off. The men stood guard not only at the entrance to the village but in front of every house as well.
The villagers who had hidden themselves in their homes, trusting the sheriff’s word, must have been trembling behind firmly locked windows and doors. Though deeply indignant at the fact that the harmless-looking old man was a criminal, they were probably waiting in the hope that those people would hurry up and catch him.
They were, in every sense, mice trapped in a hole.
From every empty house came the sounds of doors being kicked in and men shouting curses. The man who appeared to be leading the operation looked fairly seasoned, but his subordinates did not seem nearly as skilled at this sort of work. One of them even kept heaving sighs with an expression of utter irritation, and Theodore soon recognized the man’s face.
He was one of Geoffrey’s men.
Among Geoffrey’s servants, he was the thug who had come from a criminal background and was entrusted with all the particularly nasty work.
“He’s no ordinary old man, so don’t let your guard down. Be careful not to kill him the moment you catch him.”
That no-ordinary old man was climbing onto the roof of the stable. Fortunately, the rain was falling heavily enough to conceal the sound of his footsteps. He crouched on the damp roof and looked down, gauging the situation below. There were fewer of them than he had expected.
Though Theodore found that somewhat strange, he quietly jumped down into an alley thick with shadows, intent on escaping for the moment. He had to faithfully carry out the errand he had been given to the very end. It seemed that serving as bait to draw their attention would be his final task.
The rain grew heavier in the meantime. It concealed the sound of his footsteps, but it also drowned out the sounds of the men signaling one another in the distance.
Theodore moved through the darkened alleys with all five senses on alert, then abruptly stopped. His eyes had met those of a child standing in an open doorway and staring straight at him. The child looked to be about seven years old.
In that exceedingly brief moment, Theodore thought, That’s the child I saw on the bench earlier. The child, for his part, must have thought, It’s that old man. His eyes widened, and he opened his mouth as though he were about to call for an adult inside.
Just when Theodore vaguely thought that he would have to silence the child if necessary, a large hand shot out from behind and clamped over his mouth. As if that were not enough, a thick forearm wrapped around his neck, holding him so tightly that he could not move.
Don’t make a sound.
As though conveying exactly that.
The child, still standing in the doorway and witnessing the scene, stiffened in terror as if his own neck were being choked. A hand shot out from inside, seized the child by the shoulder, and pulled him in. Apparently, the adult inside had belatedly hurried to bring the child indoors.
Thud—the door closed.
“Don’t struggle.”
It was just as Theodore was desperately struggling to draw the knife at his waist. A low, almost sinister voice reached his ear.
Before Theodore could show any reaction, the man dragged him into a shabby building deeper in the alley.
“……You.”
Theodore pointed accusingly at the man. After releasing Theodore, the man tried to bolt the door, then cursed. The lock was broken.
Theodore stared at the man who had appeared before him, as if unable to believe his eyes. He was the man who had married that girl.
The utterly absurd man who was wanted throughout the country.
Isaac, without even glancing at Theodore, tugged irritably at the doorknob, then broke it off.
“Damn…… Never mind. Keep quiet. We’re getting out of here. Our people will soon lure those men away. We’ll take advantage of that moment and……”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Isaac turned around at the words that cut him off mid-sentence. He threw the doorknob he had been holding toward the other side and walked toward Theodore.
“What do you mean?”
Theodore was just about to reply to Isaac when—
Creak. Someone quietly pushed open the broken door from outside and entered.
“Ah……”
The sound of the damp rain grew clearer. The man who had been searching with half his body still outside mumbled in bewilderment.
Before Isaac could reflexively draw the dagger at his waist, a voice called out to him from behind.
“Hey! Is there something over there?”
Completely drenched, Cedric stood frozen with that beautiful face gone blank with shock, not answering the question.
Unable to do anything else, he stared at Isaac and Theodore standing directly before him.