Episode 82
As his men interrogated the household servants of the main estate and searched the woman’s home, the circumstances they pieced together fit together well enough that there was less need to force the woman to open her mouth.
Most likely, the woman had come to Akenaus to ask him to save her parents, only to catch the eye of a man who went weak for pretty women. Anyone could see she was exactly Akenaus’s type. They said people sought what they themselves did not possess; Akenaus, whose insides were sinister, liked women who appeared clean and pure on the outside. Whether the woman wanted it or not, once she was in the same boat as him, she must have decided it would not hurt to establish a private relationship with Akenaus.
“They say you shouldn’t judge a person by their face alone... What does that wench think she did so well that she’s been lying there in front of you all this time, Major?”
Peder grumbled.
Ejekail recalled Rizan’s pallid appearance. The woman’s recent condition, which he had seen at the camp, had in truth been quite unexpected to him as well.
“They say she miscarried there.”
“A child? Akenaus’s?”
Peder’s mouth fell open.
“She didn’t look pregnant to me. Not that I know anything about pregnancy.”
“Indeed, it is a little strange.”
Mongkam tilted his head as well.
“Her belly wasn’t showing at all, and if she were pregnant, I think she would have hesitated at least a little before swallowing poison. It wouldn’t have been only her own life at stake. Then that would mean she had become pregnant so recently that even she didn’t know... But would it really be Akenaus’s child? He lived almost entirely inside Cleris, while the woman must have been wandering the provinces before long.”
It was a reasonable point.
Upon hearing the sudden news of her pregnancy, he had immediately associated it with Akenaus, who was deeply connected to that woman, but the timing certainly did not fit for the child to be his. Of course, considering the woman seemed to have stayed in a city not far from Cleris after all, he could not deny the possibility that they had continued their relationship until recently while avoiding people’s eyes. Even so, unless the truth was confirmed from her own mouth, it was nothing more than speculation.
Besides, there was no rule saying Akenaus had to have been the only man in that woman’s life. If she wished, she could have used her appearance as a weapon as much as she liked.
In any case, it was all in the past. Whose child she had carried was not Ejekail’s concern.
“They say she miscarried in the end, so let us leave this matter here.”
It was time for a more productive discussion than a child who no longer even existed in the world.
With a brief jerk of his chin, Ejekail called the disordered atmosphere back to order. His subordinates, who had been chatting idly and as they pleased, shut their mouths all at once and straightened their posture. Soldiers who had come through harsh battlefields knew well how to distinguish between moments when they had to be tense and moments when they could relax. That was why they often appeared freer than ordinary units. But if the 37th Regiment had truly been a unit with lax discipline, it would never have earned the nickname of the King’s Army.
“There are Davis spies moving about all over Astrie. We need bait that will draw them to one place.”
As a soldier of Astrie, he could not tolerate the sight of Davis spies stirring up the country. Before they crossed the border, he had to cast a net, drive them into one place, and wipe them all out at once.
“They may have entered as they pleased, but leaving will not go the same way.”
Ejekail added coldly.
His subordinates agreed with their commander’s conclusion.
“They will have to bury their bones in Astrie.”
They would deal with the spies all at once, capture Akenaus along with them, and charge him with collusion. It was an utterly clean ending.
Even his father, who had shown a lukewarm attitude toward punishing Akenaus, would not be able to shield his eldest son to the end if he had acted together with Davis spies. Valdemaera’s position would be somewhat unstable for a time, but in any case, it would be the family resolving what it had begun from within, the only solution that could cover both fault and merit as one.
“If we’re talking about the bait the Davis bastards love most, isn’t that you, Major?”
“It works so well every time that it’s hard to believe.”
Davis soldiers, frantic to win military achievements, focused all their attention on Ejekail’s movements. Knowing this well, Ejekail had personally taken the lead as bait in battles both large and small.
“But we are not in wartime now, are we? You cannot step forward personally, Major. If the pretext is not clear, they will be suspicious as well.”
“The location is important too.”
Ejekail organized the flow of the discussion.
“They are disguised as ordinary citizens and moving through various cities. If a battle happens to break out inside a city, innocent lives will be lost.”
“In other words, we have to lure them outside the city.”
“Good grief, this won’t be easy.”
“We have to gather spies scattered all over the place into one location, come up with a pretext tempting enough for them to bite yet not suspicious, and make them come of their own accord to a place where there will be no civilian casualties even if a battle breaks out... No, does such a method even exist?”
This time, even the ever-composed Mongkam clicked his tongue.
“I’d rather just settle things by trading blows with my body. Using my head is not my strong suit.”
While his subordinates murmured among themselves, Ejekail silently glared into empty air. From the moment he had brought up an operation to lure out the spies, he already had one in mind.
He simply did not like it.
He pressed strength into his jaw.
...Rose, I do not know whether spreading rumors in every direction to find you was the right thing to do or the wrong thing.
If he were honest, he did not want to use Rose as bait. Yet on the other hand, he also could not abandon the faint hope that upon hearing the rumor that Major Valdemaera had found a woman, the real Rose might appear. Whether out of jealousy, or concern that he might have been deceived by a woman falsely imitating her, as long as she simply revealed herself...
I will snatch you up at once.
“Spread a new rumor.”
His decision was made.
Ejekail looked around at his subordinates.
“Say that Ejekail Valdemaera has found the woman.”
Yes, Rose. If I can shake you out of hiding, there is nothing I will not do.
“Say that the woman is riding in a carriage on her way into Cleris to meet me.”
“You mean to make the spies go after the woman?”
He nodded.
“At the very least, they will not be able to attack the woman inside the city. Cities are crowded, and the roads are complicated, so escape will not be easy. They will certainly look for an opportunity outside the city, where there are few witnesses and the roads branch in several directions, making it easier to flee. We will lie in ambush first, and when the carriage is attacked, we will wipe them out in one stroke.”
“But for that, don’t we need a woman to ride in the carriage as bait?”
The Davis spies would not blindly attack the carriage either. Only after observing whether there really was a woman in the carriage, and whether her appearance matched to some extent, would they launch the attack.
“Women with red hair and green eyes are not exactly common.”
“Her eye color won’t be visible from a distance, so that doesn’t matter, and we can say we’ll put a wig on her for the hair, but this is a situation where a gunfight could break out outside the carriage at any moment, isn’t it?”
After counting each possibility one by one, Mongkam let out a sigh.
“We need to find a brave and calm woman who won’t panic even in an unexpected situation and will stay hidden properly inside the carriage... I do not know what standard we should use to choose one.”
“On top of that, she has to be a woman who won’t want some reward from you with personal motives mixed in, Major. You’ve been famous lately, haven’t you? They say the threshold of the Valdemaera house is nearly worn away from so many women coming and going.”
“Finding a volunteer who fits these conditions perfectly will be the first obstacle.”
“No, as it happens, I know someone suitable.”
As soon as he had formed the plan, there had been someone who immediately crossed his mind. At times like this, the connections he had made at the Derosa mansion were extremely helpful.
Polina.
Ejekail recalled the woman with the tall figure and calm disposition.
That doctor could do it.
Not only was she bold enough to have escaped by taking the hand of the colleague who came in to save her from a great fire that had burned down an entire building, she had already married that man, making things clean and uncomplicated in private terms as well. Furthermore, even if she had specialized only in ophthalmic surgery, since she had studied medicine, she should possess the basic knowledge of surgery too. In many ways, she was the right person for this operation.
First, he had to find out where Polina lived. Persuading her would be the next matter. To do that, he first had to contact Madam Serva, who oversaw all affairs large and small at the mansion.
Ejekail swiftly wrote a letter asking for Polina’s address.