Episode 159
The moving reunion did not last long.
Isaac soon said, with a truly reluctant expression, that he had to be somewhere now. And no wonder—until just a few days ago, he had been a man with a nationwide warrant out for his arrest.
The absurd charge of treason the General had pinned on him had been cleared long ago. The Queen had already been pulling strings for him behind the scenes, so the charges had been resolved in an instant, or so he said. However, due to the nature of military organizations, he said several complicated procedures, such as a court-martial, still remained.
It seemed that matters on Isaac and the General’s side had already progressed beyond exoneration to the investigation stage. After their last quarrel, Isaac had told Sasha about the entire process in considerable detail, filled with apology.
Betrayal begetting betrayal, traps sprung amidst it all, how they had anticipated him and planted people in advance—it was all so convoluted.
Frustratingly, just as he had expected, it was a bit difficult for Sasha to follow, but she could roughly grasp the flow of how it had been resolved.
That is to say, Sergeant York, who had once been Isaac’s subordinate, had already had his family held hostage by General Chester and was in a desperate situation.
So he had repeatedly sent letters to Isaac, approaching him however he could. As Isaac had expected, he had approached from the outset with the intention of betrayal.
That didn’t mean everything he had said was a lie. Sergeant York had possessed the original of the falsified reconnaissance report, just as he had told Isaac.
Watching the General cast Isaac aside, York too had held onto the General’s weakness in preparation for some future occasion. However, when the General began threatening him using even his wife and child, he couldn’t possibly expose it himself and had tried to use Isaac’s hand somehow.
York told Isaac the location of the report he had hidden, as promised. And at the same time, he reported this to the General.
The General, as if he had been waiting, captured Isaac and took back the report he had seized.
And by the time he belatedly realized that it had already been switched for a fake, Isaac—and of course York—had already gathered their families under the protection of the Intelligence Bureau and hidden themselves.
The General, seething with fury, issued a warrant for Isaac and simultaneously tried to charge York with desertion and arrest him, or so Isaac said. From here on, it was at least a story Sasha knew.
Sasha recalled the news about the General she had encountered in the newspapers, which she had checked in spare moments even while busy with the trial.
The General had already been cornered by then. Since he had been making such a fuss about not wanting to die, the Duke, who was tied to him, would have been all the more desperate.
So that was why he had carried out such an absurd act.
“The train was filled only with civilians. Even now, I can’t think of it as anything but madness.”
Isaac mentioned that absurd incident from just two days ago, speaking as if dumbfounded.
It was a meticulously planned, fabricated crime. The contractor’s subordinates intentionally caused a disturbance in the rear car, luring the agents and all the subordinates except Wilson, then immediately severed the connection to the front car.
They must have intended to eliminate Sasha before the eyes of terrified civilian witnesses, in a thoroughly isolated state.
Sasha had already become the Queen’s most important justification. So they must have judged that eliminating Sasha first would be better than chasing evidence with an unknown whereabouts.
It was a stroke of luck for everyone that Wilson had survived despite being shot. If by any chance he had died on the spot and been unable to intervene, she would have died right then. And they probably would have framed Jeffrey under the pretense of sparing his life, then dealt with him quietly.
Sasha recalled Jeffrey, who had still been acting stupid without grasping the situation at the time.
Jeffrey had been completely seized by terror and out of his right mind, but that alone wouldn’t have been enough to readily move that cowardly, fearful child.
Jeffrey had probably believed what his father had said. So when Sasha stabbed him cleanly, he had collapsed without any will to resist, as if he had been waiting for it. He wasn’t an idiot; he had known from the start that it was an absurd lie, and that his father would truly abandon him.
Still, he must have been uncertain. Surely he wouldn’t abandon me? Would he abandon me, his only son?
Sasha looked up at the man before her with a calm understanding of the whole story. Having heard it all, she could somewhat understand why Isaac had been so furious as to nearly go mad.
“…I see. So, then… you should go now.”
Anyway, Isaac really had to go now.
For someone who had said with his own mouth that he should go, Isaac showed no signs of getting up and was simply dawdling.
“Putting aside the investigation, when did you say that court-martial was?”
“…In two days.”
“Get up right now.”
Isaac couldn’t even utter a word of protest and got up. And rather, he looked at Sasha as if resenting her, but Sasha, while lying down, raised her intact arm and patted his shoulder—tap, tap.
“Sasha.”
“Yes.”
“…You seem far too unaffected.”
Isaac said with an uneasy face.
But Sasha, for someone who had nearly died just now, was acting far too composed.
In fact, she seemed to have left all her terror and commotion back on that train.
Perhaps after a little more time passed, she would rage and fume just as Isaac had. But for now, she was strangely detached.
Could it be because the man before her had already cried enough for the both of them?
“I suppose it’s because it doesn’t feel real. Or maybe it’s the medication.”
“I’ll get a nurse right—”
“Don’t. Isaac.”
Instead of replying to Sasha, Isaac rolled his unstable gaze this way and that. He checked the window and door over ten times with anxious intensity before finally letting out a sigh and putting his outer coat back on.
“What happened to the others? Miss Iver, for instance.”
“They’ve probably been called in for investigation. All the train passengers were called in. Your cousin has already been taken in.”
Isaac, who had been speaking as if chewing out the words, corrected himself with a look of sudden realization.
“He’s not my cousin anymore.”
“Yes. He’s become my nephew.”
It seemed that hadn’t been the kind of correction he intended to make. Isaac’s face crumpled beautifully. Sasha thoroughly enjoyed her husband’s distorted expression, regardless.
Even after getting ready, Isaac kept talking to Sasha about this and that, dragging out his stay. Journalists couldn’t enter, but other people could bother her using visits as an excuse, he said. He had been turning them away until Sasha woke up, but they might come again, so he repeatedly urged her to refuse them coldly and focus only on recovery.
This was probably the longest stretch of words Isaac had ever said to Sasha since they had met. Anyway, after nagging about this and that like a parent leaving a child at home, Isaac finally moved to leave.
“Then I’ll be going.”
“Yes.”
This conversation seemed to be the third time already.
Isaac now grabbed the door handle as if he were truly going to leave. Sasha reached her hand toward the water cup he had filled in advance only after confirming that Isaac had opened the door halfway. However, before she could grab it, the door closed again, and Isaac strode back over. It could hardly be called an embrace—far too little of them was touching. With his large arms simply draped around her body in an ambiguous manner, the man’s face drew near to the nape of her neck, almost but not quite touching.
“…Promise me you will focus only on recovery.”
Sasha felt quite a strange sensation seeing him so anxious. After all, she had been the one worrying that something might have happened to him.
Had the incident not been so grave, she might have savored his anxiety and thoroughly enjoyed teasing him.
But instead of that, she obediently replied, “I will,” and pressed her lips to his rough jaw. The stubble that had grown unevenly over the past few days was prickly.
It was only after hearing her answer that Isaac got up from his spot again. He looked back at her where she lay two or three times before finally going out.
There was no need for Isaac to urge her; Sasha had every intention of staying in the hospital without moving for the time being. Where could she possibly go in this condition?
She had to sleep first.
She had to rest, just as he had said.
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She really had to lie still without moving a muscle. Just breathe.
In truth, rest was only rest to those who had rested much. When she actually tried to lie in bed doing nothing as instructed, it was so awkward she couldn’t stand it.
In the end, after Isaac left, she fell asleep again and slept heavily. And when she woke up the next day, the real crisis arrived. Just lying there staring at the ceiling—how much longer would she have to endure this? Such thoughts came to Sasha.
Since it was too awkward to chat and laugh with unfamiliar nurses as if they were close friends, Sasha simply waited for visitors to come see her, as Isaac had said. However, even as the afternoon wore on, no one came. It seemed that because Isaac had been so firm in refusing them before she woke up, they couldn’t muster the courage to visit again.
Should she read a book?
No, better to read a newspaper.
It seemed best to check the outside reaction since the incident.
With that intention, she spoke to the nurse again and obtained permission for a brief walk. Once she got up, the gauze attached to one ear due to a ruptured eardrum, and her one arm thickly wrapped in bandages, felt somewhat awkward.
She soon left the room with familiarity and went down to the lobby.
The lobby was quiet. It was partly because it happened to be lunchtime, and partly because they were being more selective than usual about whom they admitted. Isaac hadn’t told her to stay put in the hospital for no reason.
Sasha bought a newspaper from the stand in the corner of the lobby, went outside the building, and headed toward the back garden.
The newspaper in her hand was already indicating August 16th—the middle of August.