Episode 8
Even in the dimness, with the midday light blocked out, the elegant lines of his bones and muscles and the scars that swept across his body were visible at a glance. Every one of them was a mark left by a hail of bullets, weapon fragments, and bayonet blades—torn open, burst apart, shattered, then stitched back together. The history of war had quite literally been preserved in his flesh. So little of him remained unscathed that one almost had to be more astonished by the fact that his face had been kept intact.
On the day he had returned in a splendid officer’s uniform, accompanied by a grand triumphal procession, she had never imagined devastation to this degree.
Rose looked back at Mrs. Serva. The old woman quietly shook her head.
Do not be surprised, and do not show that you are surprised.
She understood the meaning of that gesture.
The medals pinned to his uniform were the price paid in his blood. As a man from the venerable House of Valdemaera, he had been commissioned as an officer at a young age. And that position was one in which he had to stand at the forefront, risking greater danger than anyone else as he commanded his troops. Men conscripted as common soldiers might, if they were afraid, slip away under cover of night, but for men from famous noble houses like Ejekail, there were only two choices.
Return alive.
Or return dead.
At least he had survived the suffering and come back alive, so it should have been his turn to enjoy honor. Yet before he could even savor the result, Ejekail had become blind and fled all the way to the barren northern hinterlands, where he now barely lived with bated breath.
Because of his own elder brother, Akenaus, who had envied his younger sibling.
And because of her, who had actually carried it out.
What on earth was she to do with this sin?
“Rose, the towel is here.”
There was no time to sink into thought. Mrs. Serva handed her a damp towel. Rose spread the towel thinly in her hands and, following the wine that had soaked his body, carefully pressed and wiped it away over the scars. Even though she knew they were scars that had healed long ago, their shapes were so wretched that she could not put any strength into her hands.
Her fingers brushed past the skin of his chest with the utmost caution, barely touching it.
“……Ah.”
Then she nearly screamed in sheer shock. It was because Ejekail had suddenly seized her hand.
Rose flinched and raised her gaze. Ejekail was looking down at her with a somewhat furrowed expression. No, “looking down” was not the right way to put it. The man, sensitive to presence, had pinpointed her location with remarkable accuracy, but the focus of his dark blue eyes, which had lost their sight, remained unclear.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry.”
Rose apologized reflexively. It was the result of having learned by now that, even if she did not know what part of her actions had offended him, it was wise to lower her head unconditionally.
After hurriedly changing him into dry clothes and trying to fasten the buttons, she grew flustered. Because of his broad, thick shoulders and chest, the front of the garment would not meet.
Naturally, she first watched Ejekail’s reaction. He had been in a bad mood all day today. On days like this, even the smallest pretext tended to grow into a major fault.
Sure enough, as Ejekail sensed that the clothes did not fit, a trace of displeasure slowly began to spread over his face.
“Just a moment. Another…….”
“It seems an old garment must have gotten mixed in.”
Rose was about to smooth it over by saying she would bring another set of clothes, even if it meant being scolded a little, when Mrs. Serva approached and fastened the gaping front as best she could.
“Was it six years ago, or seven……? Lord Ejekail came all alone to visit this old woman, who had grown old and withdrawn to the countryside. Even then, you were a head taller than most grown men, but now you’ve grown even more than you had back then.”
“Are these the clothes I left behind then?”
“That’s right.”
At Mrs. Serva’s calm answer, Rose glanced sideways at the clothes Ejekail was wearing. Under the power of the memory the old woman had evoked, the man erased his displeased look and closed his mouth.
The atmosphere softened and passed over. Feeling inwardly relieved, Rose folded the wet clothes and towels neatly into the basket.
Only after they came out and closed the door did Mrs. Serva give her a wink.
“You noticed, didn’t you? That those weren’t the clothes.”
Rose hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
“……Yes.”
Six or seven years ago, he would have been a boy of about fifteen or sixteen. Yet the clothes he had changed into were too old-fashioned and crude in style to have been worn by a teenage boy from a noble house.
Though there was no one to overhear them, Mrs. Serva lowered her voice further and whispered.
“That night, you see. The night Lord Ejekail arrived at this mansion, he came with nothing at all—just himself.”
Rose remembered. She had been told that Ejekail had been loaded onto his subordinates’ horses like baggage and brought here through a midwinter snowstorm.
Since he had barely managed to get himself out of a bloody struggle between brothers, he would have had no time to pack, so coming empty-handed was only natural.
“There truly was nothing. From head to toe, nothing at all. We took his measurements in a hurry and had clothes made, but clothes don’t simply appear in a day or two. In a rush, I sent people around the nearby area to procure clothes belonging to large men. But no matter how large the clothes they brought, they never fit his soldier’s build.”
“No wonder I thought something seemed strange. They were someone else’s clothes.”
Rose let out a long sigh.
“This place seems fortunate in many ways because you are here, madam.”
“……Well. It isn’t necessarily so.”
There was a certain bleakness in Mrs. Serva’s voice.
“It’s true that Lord Ejekail is gentle with me. I was his nursemaid, and I practically carried him on my back as I raised him. Perhaps, among all those belonging to the House of Valdemaera, blood relatives included, he finds this old woman the easiest to be around…… It may be presumptuous, but from time to time, I too find myself cherishing him as though he were my own grandson.”
Mrs. Serva gazed distantly into the air for a moment.
“But the person he needs is not an old woman like me. Even if I say I’ll stay by his side, how many years can I possibly have left? Once even I am gone, he will only grow lonelier and lonelier…… When I think of that, I often wake with a start even in the middle of sleep.”
Rose quietly nodded. She thought she understood Mrs. Serva’s concern.
The reason this mansion was still being maintained in a fairly tolerable state was largely due to Mrs. Serva’s presence, like oil that allowed the people of the household to mesh and turn like cogwheels. But if the old woman aged further and gradually lost her health, if the person who sometimes controlled the servants and sometimes protected them in front of Ejekail, whose temperament had grown vicious, disappeared…….
A blind master was bound to have limits when it came to taking control of the mansion, and Akenaus of Cleris was not the sort of man who would show mercy to his isolated younger brother.
“He needs a person. Someone he can keep by his side for a long, long time, someone he can trust, someone with the will to understand him.”
Mrs. Serva glanced at Rose.
“When Lord Ejekail was making his name on the battlefield, there was no one who did not admire that name. Even here in a remote countryside like Derosa. The girls who knew that Valdemaera’s villa was here used to linger nearby, hoping he might pass through the area and stop by. I’m certain the mood in the capital and the larger cities must have been even more fervent.”
“He was that famous, after all. I didn’t live in a city quite that large either, but even among the people around me, when they heard the name Valdemaera, many thought first of Major Ejekail of the 37th Regiment.”
Carefully mentioning Ejekail’s name, Rose lowered her eyes.
Mrs. Serva observed the new laundry maid, who had a quiet and composed air about her, with close attention. The face of the girl who had knocked on the mansion’s door on the day Rose first appeared, pale from cold and tension, was still clear before her eyes.
The reason she had begun to pay attention to Rose was actually simple. While the other servants only took care of their own duties and tried to keep as much distance as possible from Ejekail, Rose instead narrowed that distance. Even when she suffered the humiliation of having her clothes stripped off, she did not show it, and when she sometimes asked about Ejekail’s condition, she would reveal a helplessly anxious and worried air. Rose was also the first person to cover her eyes and try to experience Ejekail’s difficulties for herself.
And so Mrs. Serva had begun to think.
Perhaps this child…….
Under normal circumstances, it would have been utterly absurd. But the Valdemaera main house had long since fallen into Akenaus’s hands, and Ejekail, driven to the north, blind, and now even transformed into a man with a difficult personality, was no longer the knight who could set women’s hearts fluttering.
Moreover, the name of Valdemaera had instead become an obstacle to his future. Houses of appropriate standing would obviously keep their distance from Ejekail while gauging Akenaus’s mood. For now, he still had the subordinates of the 37th Regiment, who remained loyal out of camaraderie forged on the battlefield, but once a new commander arrived, even they would not be able to support Ejekail forever, materially and otherwise.
No matter how hard she thought, there was only one answer.
A young and healthy new chamberlain, a new butler, and a new mistress of the house.
If one combined all of that into one, it was a woman.
Ejekail needed a woman.
A woman who could serve as chamberlain, butler, and mistress of the house all at once.
She did not ask for much. Someone who knew her place moderately well would be enough. As long as she did not offend Akenaus’s sensibilities and did not become too greedy, at the very least she would never have to go unclothed or hungry.
Ejekail was no longer the excellent prospective son-in-law who would be named first as he once had been, and even if he could not play the role of a kind and good husband, his appearance alone was outstanding. There was also a certain amount of wealth Mrs. Serva had steadily set aside while managing the villa.
If Rose was in a position where she had to knock on the door in the middle of the night asking for work, her family circumstances could not be very good either. So this would likely not be such a bad proposal for Rose.
“You know, in my opinion, Rose, you…….”
“Madam, madam!”
One of the servants came running, urgently calling for Mrs. Serva. The sudden interruption left the conversation cut off midway.
“Mail has arrived for the master, and he says to bring you at once, madam.”
“Mail has come?”
It was welcome news. Ejekail, who was practically trapped in the mansion with his arms and legs broken, waited day and night for news from outside.
Mrs. Serva changed direction and headed toward the man’s bedroom. Rose, swept along without quite realizing it, moved with her.