Episode 61
“Master, if we are to transplant the spruce and apricot trees to the new mansion, we’ll have to dismantle this entire walking path. What shall we do?”
These days, Ezekaiel spent more time outside the mansion than within it. Having learned through repeated experience where to go if she wished to find him quickly, Madam Serva crossed the garden toward him and spoke as naturally as ever.
Ezekaiel was staring at the statue of the lovers kissing. It was the very spot where, when everyone else was asleep, he had walked holding Rose’s hand—and where, using the statue as an excuse, he had savored Rose’s cheek and lips again and again.
For a moment, he closed his eyes. As his vision was cut off, fragments of a day gone by brushed across every part of his face. Rose’s soft skin beneath his lips, the gentle touch of the hand that had swept back his hair—all of it came back to life on the strength of memory.
To be honest, by around this time, he had thought he would have put Rose in a carriage and sent her to the new mansion. Until he had settled his ill-fated ties with Akenaus, until Rose’s safety was guaranteed.
Yes. At most, that was the brief parting he had expected. A separation of only a month or two, even if it required considerable caution; one in which, if he resolved to see her, he could do so at any time; one that promised a reunion before long.
But all of it had been fantasy.
Every plan Ezekaiel had been preparing with Serva had fallen apart. The proposal, the move—of course they had, when Rose, the person at the heart of it all, had vanished without a trace.
“……Until I order you to clear it away, do not touch a single part of this garden, Serva.”
Even so, Ezekaiel’s command was firm. Madam Serva’s lips parted and moved for a moment, but she chose silence. Though she wore the expression of a faithful housekeeper, the pity she could not quite conceal showed in the wrinkled line of her tightly closed mouth.
That day, the man who had run out alone after Rose had returned alone. Madam Serva, who had waited in desperate hope for his return, could say nothing when she saw Ezekaiel appear in utter despair. She had been the one to first bring Rose into the mansion, and she had been the one who, taking an exceedingly favorable view of the girl, had deliberately recommended her to Ezekaiel. For that reason, Madam Serva felt a considerable sense of responsibility for the present situation.
“Even when spring comes, there’s no need to landscape it anew. Leave it as it is.”
Rose had left behind so little trace of herself that it felt almost hurtful. Ezekaiel recalled how, for some time before she disappeared, Rose had swept and wiped her room dozens of times a day. At the time, he had thought she was simply so diligent by nature that she sought out anything she could do. But not anymore. Had Rose already been preparing for their parting even then?
Not a single garment imbued with her scent, not even a strand of hair had Rose left behind. The only thing she had left was the cord that formed the garden’s walking path. Only this cord, stretching this way and that across the bleak garden that had never been put in order, proved the countless nights he had spent with Rose, the stories whispered softly between them, the slow walks taken one step at a time, and the kisses shared when they stopped all at once.
“From outside, people will think this place is a haunted mansion. Well, it’s so gloomy that no thief would dare come in. Though even if one did, there’s hardly anything left worth stealing now.”
When Ezekaiel removed the curtains, the servants were greatly flustered by the garden’s sudden appearance before them. Until then, it had been hidden behind black drapes and all of them had forgotten, but the garden untouched by human hands was astonishingly desolate. It was like an abandoned ruin.
“Serva, sometimes I wonder. How did Rose feel when she called this a walk?”
While he had held Rose’s hand and ventured through a jungle overlaid with illusion, Rose had been walking through a neglected garden where it would not have been the least bit strange for ghosts to wander. That felt precisely like the difference between him and her.
After slowly circling the garden, Ezekaiel stopped before the apricot tree and looked at the mansion.
“It’s an apricot tree with sturdy branches. I remember this tree. It’s in the place I can see if I draw the curtains in my room for a moment.”
It was positioned directly opposite the window of Rose’s bedroom.
Perhaps at some point, Rose had stood by that window, gazing blankly outside.
He had believed that once his sight returned, everything would work out. But now that all his plans had gone awry, he felt as though he had lost his way.
Madam Serva comforted him.
“Master, why not remain here safely for the time being and take your time thinking about what you will do next?”
“No.”
Ezekaiel answered while meeting the eyes of the Rose in his imagination.
“It’s time to return. To Claris.”
First, he had to reclaim the place where he belonged.
He had only been delayed for a short while by Rose’s unexpected disappearance; that resolve had never changed.
Rather, if he returned to Claris, he might be able to search for Rose even faster. That place, after all, was where people and goods overflowed.
Yes, he would face Rose not as the blind beast of remote Derosa, but as the proud heir of Valdemaera.
“Do you mean to return to the main house? When?”
“Right now, even today.”
“Just a moment. It is not that I do not understand how every hour must feel precious to you, Master, but……”
Even in the midst of this, the cautious Madam Serva expressed her concern.
“If you intended to return to the main house, strike the traitor from behind, and seize control of Valdemaera, you should not have gone to Sielsa to search for Rose. Your appearance is extremely conspicuous, Master. The eyewitness accounts must already be making their way toward Claris. Rumors are faster than feet.”
Ezekaiel immediately understood what Madam Serva regretted. Since he had once carried out a miserable flight to avoid threats to his life, she had wished for him to appear suddenly before Akenaus in that very form he had so painstakingly regained from the past, and drive him into shock. But because he had first shown himself in Sielsa while tracking Rose, the chances had risen that news of Ezekaiel’s recovery had reached Claris as well.
Even at this observation, Ezekaiel did not so much as blink.
“Then he must be waiting with the blood drying in his veins, wondering when I will appear before him.”
“Since there has already been a delay, would it not be better to make more thorough preparations?”
“Serva, my preparations are complete.”
A horse and a rifle—with only those, Ezekaiel had nothing to fear even on a battlefield surrounded by enemy forces.
And this was only Akenaus.
Ezekaiel smiled coldly.
“Now it will become quite entertaining.”
❖ ❖ ❖
Akenaus, in the middle of downing strong liquor, looked around. Was it his imagination? The way people were glancing at him now and then seemed somehow strange.
Of course, Akenaus was accustomed to unfriendly gazes. Rather than having been accustomed to them from the beginning, he had been forced to grow used to them. After he drove Ezekaiel, the war hero, out of the main house, several people who had regarded Ezekaiel favorably—especially those who had devoted themselves to the military—had cast cold looks his way for some time. But whatever such looks meant, most of those people were not worth comparing to Valdemaera, and Akenaus had brushed them off with a snort. Besides, as time passed, the uncomfortable public opinion directed at him had thinned considerably.
“Lord Akenaus. ……You know, that person.”
But his mistress began hesitantly, acting strangely.
Akenaus did not immediately realize whom his mistress was talking about. Naturally so. Ezekaiel, who had become a blind cripple and been driven to the north, had long since vanished from his thoughts. In fact, since Ezekaiel had gone down to Derosa, living so much like the dead, news of him had nearly ceased altogether. Even so, unable to relax completely, Akenaus would occasionally ask through errand men sent down from the main house to observe the situation, and the answer that came back was always similar. They said he had tried to call doctors and seek treatment, but every attempt had failed, leaving him barely human. They said he lived like a corpse, unable to die.
“Who? Do you think I know only one or two people?”
“Valdemaera…… the major, I mean.”
His mistress whispered.
“They say he was seen walking around in the north, perfectly fine. Is it true?”
Akenaus furrowed his brow.
Who was Major Valdemaera again? Not me, at least.
Wait, if another war breaks out and the army is mustered, who fills that position then? Me?
Then should I marry early? No, if I have a child, they might judge that an heir has been secured and forcibly summon me, so should I delay marriage as long as possible and have children late too?
In any case, he could not understand what great honor it was supposed to be, that the man would cling to it until the very end.
After his muddled, wandering thoughts passed, only Valdemaera remained in his memory.
He replied dully.
“They must have seen wrong. I’ve never gone north.”
“Goodness, aren’t you far too drunk? That person is hiding in the north, isn’t he? Ezekaiel Valdemaera.”
Though she clung to Akenaus because of his money and his family’s power, she could not disregard a hero who had once enjoyed fame. His mistress whispered Ezekaiel’s name in an uneasy tone.
Akenaus tilted his head. With his mind clouded by alcohol, he needed some time to understand what his mistress had said.
Ezekaiel Valdemaera? That bastard who went blind was walking around the north just fine?