Chapter 89
Polina put on a long red wig, then covered it with a veil that hid her entire face. The attire for “Rose,” which Mongkam had relayed after receiving instructions from Ezekail, included several strange requests she found difficult to understand.
The day she first received the wig and veil, Polina looked at Mongkam in puzzlement.
“These were prepared to match her appearance. Red hair and green eyes, that is. The eyes will not be visible unless someone comes very close, so they do not matter, but I would like you to disguise your hair with the wig at all times.”
Polina fiddled with the wig for a while. The red-haired wig, made by cutting someone’s real hair, had a smooth, soft texture.
“It’s red.”
Sensing the unfamiliarity in her murmur, Mongkam took notice of her.
“Yes. Is there a problem?”
“Not a problem, exactly. I simply hadn’t known. That Miss Rose was someone with such a vivid color.”
“Doctor, did you not live together with her at the mansion?”
“I did, but I never saw her directly.”
Rose had been a woman who never left the shade. She had always lived behind Ezekail, in the night, hidden by shadows.
Polina set the wig down on her lap and began anew.
“When I first heard the rumor, I thought the Major was searching for some woman other than Miss Rose.”
Mongkam, who knew well how much anguish Ezekail had suffered because of the woman who had failed to appear no matter how thoroughly they searched, nearly jumped.
“What do you mean by that?”
“When I heard the description of red hair and green eyes, Miss Rose did not immediately come to mind.”
That was why, when all of Astrie was turned upside down over a woman with red hair and green eyes, Polina alone had felt doubt. Was the woman Ezekail so desperately wanted truly Rose?
“If someone had asked me what Miss Rose looked like, I would have answered that she was a beauty with a delicate and graceful air. The other servants at the mansion would probably say she was a calm and quiet person who did her utmost to care for the Major, not describe her as a woman with red hair and green eyes.”
Mongkam looked troubled.
“Doctor, information must be objective. You cannot find a person with subjective clues like a beauty with a delicate and graceful air. The clue that she was calm and quiet is the same.”
“I know. But there truly are no other expressions that can describe Miss Rose. The mansion was always dark so as not to irritate the Major’s eyes. To me, color was the most difficult feature to distinguish there.”
Rose, who had worked as a maid in the mansion, always wore her uniform neatly and wrapped her hair in a kerchief. Anyone who had lived with Rose inside that mansion, with its visual restrictions, would never have described her as a woman with red hair and green eyes.
That was why Polina thought it only natural that Ezekail could not find Rose. From the very beginning, those were clues with which it was impossible to find someone. Even someone who had seen Rose in person would be confused, wondering whether she was truly the same person; people meeting her for the first time would have even less reason to know.
Frankly speaking, the only reason such a large-scale search could have been carried out with information that did not even amount to half a lead, and in a manner little different from recklessness, was because Ezekail was from Valdemaera.
Mongkam countered cautiously.
“Could someone not have seen her in a bright place?”
“Of course, that possibility exists.”
Polina tilted her head.
“Then why would they have seen the same person differently from me?”
There had been only one time.
Rose, who had lived avoiding light like the master she served, had shown herself beneath the light only once.
On the day of Ezekail’s surgery, when Polina treated Rose after her thigh had been stabbed by a surgical knife, the eyes she had glimpsed by chance were……
A mysterious and beautiful hazel.
In other words, if Polina had not been mistaken, it meant that someone had lied to Ezekail.
Then could they be certain the other information was not wrong?
“Who was the first person to tell the Major Miss Rose’s appearance?”
Her question summoned a heavy silence.
Polina understood Mongkam’s silence. Anyone would have reacted that way. It was only natural for his thoughts to become complicated when all the effort they had put in until now might collapse into nothing but wasted labor.
“……Doctor.”
After falling into deep thought for a long while, Mongkam opened his mouth.
“I know very well how much the Major is shaken by even the smallest clue, so long as it is a fragment concerning her, because I have watched it from right beside him. However, we are currently carrying out official duty, and our opponents are soldiers of an enemy nation, all armed, whose scale we have not even grasped. Moreover, the subordinates who came ahead to lie in ambush for this operation are comrades-in-arms who threw themselves into danger believing the Major would lead them with cold reason. At the very least, until this duty is complete, the concentration of the Major, our commander, must not be disturbed.”
With official duty ahead of them, Mongkam deferred reaching a conclusion. For the moment, it was the most realistic decision. Polina also agreed with Mongkam’s judgment.
And yet this official duty in question showed no sign of ending even as they drew near Cleris.
Polina lightly lifted her veil to reveal her face and looked around. At first, she had been unable to relax, not knowing when the attack would come, but when peaceful days continued instead, that too became a worry.
Had the plan gone wrong somewhere?
After brooding over it, Polina persuaded Mongkam, who tried to stop her by saying it was dangerous, and boldly left the carriage on her own, pretending to get some air. Still, the result remained the same.
Now Cleris was just before them. They would stop in the final city and stay for a day, then travel two more days and enter Cleris.
The Valdemaera family carriage, having come all this way with a large party, slowly passed through the city walls. Polina opened the window and looked out at the street, where people were bustling about. The city itself was not particularly large, a small- to medium-sized city, but perhaps because it served as the final base before entering the capital, there were many travelers, and many inns to accommodate them. The bright energy unique to a region where outsiders came and went actively filled the entire city.
“Give me the biggest, sturdiest one. Tomorrow is the New Year, so we’ll use it for the party.”
There was another reason the people were in such a stir. The voices of a family choosing a turkey at a nearby shop were lively.
No wonder the atmosphere felt so excited. Today was the last day of the year.
Because she had spent so much time on the road, her sense of dates had grown dull, and she had completely forgotten.
“Dad! Look, a huge carriage is passing by!”
“Which family is it? Ah, Valdemaera.”
The people who saw Valdemaera’s crest on the carriage cheered. Valdemaera, which had Ezekail, a war hero, was a meritorious family welcomed wherever it went. As long as she stepped down from the Valdemaera carriage, people all treated Polina kindly despite her unusual appearance.
A child who had stopped while holding his father’s hand jumped up and down toward the veiled Polina, waving his arm in a broad greeting. Holding the hem of her veil so it would not flutter, Polina gave a small wave in response.
If only they had hurried a little more in their travels, everyone accompanying her could have spent the New Year with their beloved families like the citizens of this city.
But they had a schedule set according to official duty, so there was nothing to be done.
Polina thought of the husband she had left in the care of her family. She had worried about her husband, who would spend the end of the year and the New Year without his wife, but instead, her husband had worried about his wife, who had decided to travel as bait even while knowing she would be attacked.
When I return, I should say that we ought to start trying for a child soon.
She closed the window.
❖ ❖ ❖
“The carriage has finally arrived.”
Valdemaera’s splendid carriage was easy to spot anywhere. Even if it was not in sight, one could guess its location from the cheers alone.
Levian’s prediction was accurate. The soldiers who had brought the woman came to the most expensive inn in the city. The spies, who had called in their comrades scattered across various regions and arrived in advance to stay while pretending to be guests, had disposed of the innkeeper, the inn employees, and even the guests in an instant as soon as the scout brought news of the Valdemaera family’s entry into the city, thrown them into the basement, and naturally assumed their identities.
“Look. Is that the woman?”
Levian asked Mrs. Serva. With her arms and legs restrained, Mrs. Serva kept silent, pretending not to hear. When she did not move at all, another spy seized the old woman by the back of the head with a rough hand and forced her down against the window.
Thud—the sound rang out painfully.
“Mmph!”
Startled, Anna screamed with her mouth blocked by a gag. Half her face pressed down, Mrs. Serva trembled as she endured the throbbing pain.
Levian shrugged.
“See? How nice it would be for both sides if you simply cooperated quietly.”
“Move a little to the side. I’m dying to see what kind of woman she is too.”
Akenaus stood calmly behind Mrs. Serva and looked out the window.
Just then, the woman opened the carriage window, stuck her head out, and looked around.
“So that’s the woman he’s searching for.”
Akenaus clicked his tongue without realizing it. It was because the woman had covered her entire face with a pitch-black veil. She exchanged a few words with the soldiers who had led the carriage.
A moment later, a soldier opened the carriage door and offered his hand to escort her. The woman took his hand and stepped out of the carriage. At the same time, the wind blew, sending her veil streaming long behind her.
Akenaus immediately burst out in shock.
“What the hell? What’s wrong with her face?”
The woman’s face was covered in mottled burn scars. Her features were not bad, but the scars were so striking that her looks barely registered. For Akenaus, who had been waiting in anticipation of what kind of woman had made such an idiot of Ezekail all this time, it was a sight that drained all the energy out of him.
“Why is she so huge, too? If that body pinned you down, you wouldn’t even be able to breathe. Did they bring the wrong person?”
“I know. Could there be something wrong with Major Valdemaera’s aesthetic sense? The young master was famous for choosing only pretty women to meet……. And the young master’s mother was also renowned as a peerless beauty.”
Levian did not hide his bewilderment either. After examining the woman’s face carefully, he sneered with a hollow laugh mixed in.
“If that was his taste, I can understand why every prostitute we sent was driven away, though.”
“What kind of aesthetic sense would a bastard who was blind for a while have? Still, even so, you could tell there was something wrong with that just by touching her. Did he not know because he’s hardly ever touched a woman? Or is she amazingly good in bed?”
Mrs. Serva, too, saw the woman’s face that Akenaus and Levian had witnessed.
From the moment the veil fluttered, she had forgotten to breathe. The face covered in scars was terribly familiar to her.
How could she possibly forget? The doctor who had perfectly operated on Ezekail’s eyes.