Episode 67
At a glance, Ejekail understood Dr. Briman’s admiration. Rose’s handwriting was exceedingly neat and elegant. It was a script that resembled her disposition perfectly. Ejekail read through the composed sentences Rose had written. The letter was very short.
I am writing from Derosa to convey news of Lord Ejekail. The surgery ended successfully. However, they say we will only know how much of his sight has been restored once the surgical site has healed. With this, I believe this letter will be the final report I send you.
He still requires assistance from those around him, so I intend to remain here a few more days, then fulfill the promise I made previously before Lord Ejekail opens his eyes. I will not be entering Cleris, so you need not worry about the future. I respectfully decline the compensation you offered through your messenger.
At the end of the businesslike sentences were Rose’s initials. There was no longer any room for doubt. Ejekail’s eyes passed over Rose’s signature before fixing once more on the final paragraph.
“A messenger?”
He had wondered all along. Why, exactly, Rose had to disappear.
But now he knew. The main house had contacted Rose through a messenger.
There was no one in Derosa who did not know about his relationship with Rose. Ejekail had not particularly tried to hide it, either. She was the woman he meant to keep by his side for the rest of his life, so what reason was there to be cautious in front of the servants?
But if his father had been keeping watch on news from Derosa, and in the process had learned of Rose’s existence, there was no way he would have tolerated their relationship.
He could clearly imagine the pressure the main house must have placed on a woman who already found the Valdemaera family burdensome.
His jaw twitched of its own accord. Ejekail clenched his teeth and strode into the mansion.
“Are you determined to see your brother’s blood as well?”
That was his father’s first question upon facing Ejekail.
In the sharply frozen tension, only Ejekail remained utterly calm. The servants moved about cautiously, their faces looking as if they might faint at any moment as they silently set about restoring the mansion, which had become a complete mess.
Without so much as moving an eyebrow, Ejekail answered calmly.
“I already have.”
His father, who had returned rather late, seemed to have roughly guessed who had come back and what sort of incident had occurred when the two sons who should never have met had crossed paths, upon seeing the wretched state of the Valdemaera mansion with all its windows shattered. However, because the surroundings were dark, it seemed he had not yet discovered the bloodstains Akenaus had left scattered here and there on the ground.
“What have you done the moment you returned!”
His horrified father shouted.
“I merely returned what needed to be returned.”
And even that had not yet been fully repaid.
He and Akenaus had already crossed a river from which there was no return. Ever since that man had used a woman to contract a murder, and since they had pointed rifles at each other, the bond of blood between them had been completely severed.
“Did you kill him?”
“Not yet.”
Perhaps rendered speechless by Ejekail’s cold response, his father closed his eyes deeply enough to furrow his brow, then opened them again.
“……Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You truly don’t know?”
His father stared at Ejekail, whose expression did not change.
“……Even after recovering your sight, you did not return straight home. Do you think I don’t know why you were late?”
Ejekail met that gaze with composure.
Even after seeing him return with his eyes suddenly healed, his father had not been surprised. In addition, he also knew that Ejekail had left Derosa quite early.
“You’re saying you will return to the main house? When?”
“Today. Right now, if need be.”
Just as he had informed Madam Serva. Ejekail, who kept any words he had once spoken with blade-like precision, did not delay and set off. Instead, his destination changed. Before returning to Cleris, there were people he had to meet first.
“Wow, you really must have lived without seeing any light at all. Major, your skin is whiter than the boys who just enlisted.”
They were his subordinates from the 37th Regiment.
The subordinates who had raided the Valdemaera mansion and carried the blinded Ejekail to Madam Serva were exceedingly glad to see their commanding officer restored perfectly to his former self.
Peder was the first to thrust his sun-blackened skin forward and make a joke. Monkam also grinned.
“We knew you would return safely, Major.”
Facing Monkam, Ejekail swallowed the bitter regret that rose within him. The petty jealousy with which he had refused their visit because he had not wanted to show Rose to his subordinates first now struck him painfully to the bone.
He should not have done that.
He should have told Monkam, told his subordinates, of Rose’s existence.
So that if his subordinates, who traveled all over the country, found Rose, they could bring her to him,
“There was a matter we needed to discuss, so we have only been waiting for the day you returned, Major. It seems Dabis’s spies have crossed the border.”
Because they had steadily exchanged news and instructions by post in the meantime, his subordinates accepted Ejekail’s return naturally. After briefly sharing the joy of their reunion, Ejekail immediately entered a meeting to fill the gap left by his absence.
“If they crossed even the border to keep watch on people as their top priority, it’s obvious who they are after. They are likely people who distinguished themselves in the war, like you, Major.”
“They must be keeping a particularly close eye on the ‘King’s Army.’”
“To be honest, I suspect they were asking about your whereabouts the most, Major. There were so many rumors about you for a time.”
After hearing the rest of the news that had not all reached him by post, and after returning to Cleris and learning that Akenaus had gathered a guard unit, he had thought it possible that the spies had approached Akenaus.
Ejekail secretly summoned some of his subordinates and ordered them to keep watch on Akenaus. That was the reason he had no choice but to appear at the main house a little later.
Letting Akenaus go alive had also been part of that. Akenaus would believe he had survived by luck, but Ejekail had never intended to kill him today from the start. Once he was certain no suspicious person was hovering around Akenaus, and once all public matters had been resolved, only then would he carry out his private revenge.
There was still one more eye he had to take from him.
Dr. Briman and Polina had told Ejekail that the antidote had worked because, even so, the cause of the damage to his eyes had been poison. If he had been shot, or if physical harm had been done to them, there would have been no treatment at all; his eyeballs would have had to be removed. At that point, there would have been no hope.
That was why he had deliberately fired the gun.
So that one despair could lead to a second despair.
So that the bastard would never be able to dream of hope for the rest of his life.
So that he would live in terror, not knowing when Ejekail might appear to steal his remaining eye.
What he had been worried about, rather, was something else. If his father denied the existence of the messenger who had watched Derosa, and claimed not to know Rose, there was a very high possibility it would turn into an exhausting battle of nerves. In that case, Ejekail intended to search through every connection tied to Valdemaera if he had to, in order to find that messenger.
But his father had mentioned Ejekail’s movements first. Along with the suspicion that Ejekail, who had the authority to command a company, would not have simply let Akenaus go, there was also the warning that as long as Valdemaera blood flowed in his veins, he was still in the palm of his father’s hand.
That was very fortunate.
Ejekail seized the clue his father had let slip.
“Since you have just informed me that you sent someone to watch me, this will make the conversation quicker.”
Right now, only Rose mattered—the Rose who must have endured lonely hours in a place his hand could not reach.
She, who had seemed burdened by many other worries before his surgery.
She, who had gradually spoken less and begun to sink into thoughts of her own.
“You must know Rose.”
He did not ask indirectly.
“What did you do to Rose?”
“There was no need to do anything.”
His father did not deny it either.
“That girl said on her own that she had no intention of remaining by your side. She knew her place quite well.”
“Did you say she knew her place?”
It was as if fire flashed at the word his father had chosen.
Ejekail drew a deep breath and steadied himself. Rose was not a woman who could be casually belittled with an expression like “knowing her place.”
“What place does Rose need to know?”
“It was a compliment. She understood the situation from her own position with intelligence, and she conducted herself well. That child did not want to stay by your side.”
“It wasn’t that Rose didn’t want to. You must have driven the situation that way.”
“It seems you believe I pressed that girl down with authority or threats and drove her out, but on the contrary, I offered her compensation. As the head of Valdemaera, I was willing to pay her sufficiently.”
And Ejekail already knew the result of that offer from the letter.
I respectfully decline the compensation you offered through your messenger.
Rose had cared for him without any greed, then retreated because she could not cross the barrier called Valdemaera.
“Does offering compensation mean you did not drive her out? In the end, Father, did you not urge Rose to leave by whatever means necessary?”
“Ejekail,”
His father called his name in a low voice.
“You are questioning me now about that girl’s welfare, but when I think of your elder brother, whom you injured and drove away in some manner I do not even know, my heart feels heavy. You are my son, and Akenaus…… that bastard, too, bears the status of Valdemaera in any case, does he not? Are you not even worried about your mother, who suffered from nerves because of the two of you and left to recuperate?”
“I have only now learned that Mother went away to recuperate.”
Ejekail gave a cold sneer.
“Because no one told me anything of the sort. Thank you for reminding me anew just how much I have been ignored in this house all this time. I had forgotten.”