Episode 99
“When we heard that the description we’d trusted was wrong, and you suddenly left us behind, Major, I did wonder if perhaps that was the case. Forgive my impertinence, but I agree with Peder. If that young lady truly is the same person we’ve been searching for, then you have been deceived more than once.”
Even Mongkam, who usually remained neutral, took Peder’s side.
Ejekail sank deep against the back of his chair.
If asked whether he had never once resented her, he could not deny the feeling entirely.
How could there have been no moments of resentment?
Looking back, it was true. Had he not loved, through all four seasons, a woman whose face and name were both lies? And that woman had been the one who, under Akenaus’s threat, ruined his eyes.
And yet…….
The one who had watched him closely as he drowned himself in liquor and opium, and first pointed out that it was dangerous; the one who had thrown her whole body into stopping him when he became violent from the aftereffects; the one who had stayed awake with him for nights on end, sharing warmth and leaning on each other; the one who had taken the hand that lingered only in familiar spaces and led him out beyond the mansion; the one who had walked with him through the deep night again and again—all of them had been Lizan.
The one who, despite all the pressure she received from the main family, had kept her mouth firmly shut so his heart would not be thrown into turmoil; the one who stood up for him, telling him there was still a way to restore his sight and asking him to trust her; the one who, even wounded herself, helped the surgery continue to the very end; the one who, in the end, had made this day possible—all of them, ultimately all of them, had been her.
The scars she had left were no longer on his body. He had overcome the past. But the scars born from it remained on her body as marks that would never disappear.
All his life, he had believed fear was not an emotion that existed within him. Even in the middle of battlefields where thousands died each day, he had always been unshaken.
But when he saw Lizan dying on the gallows.
Then.
It had felt as though his throat were being crushed.
If the first emotion he felt upon seeing Mrs. Serva’s death had been rage, then the first emotion he felt upon seeing Lizan’s death was fear.
So if asked whether he did not resent her, whether he was not angry at the deception she had committed, the answer was simple.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Because he had faced the worst possible outcome first, his feelings had become clear before he even had time to waver. Before her death, nothing mattered. Resentment and anger both lost all meaning.
It was enough that she had lived. Since he had resolved to pardon her, he would not dig up the painful past. Moreover, taking out his anger on a woman who had faced death and barely returned alive, gnawing over his own unresolved feelings again and again, was the sort of thing only despicable bastards did.
“But that young lady…… is she truly all right?”
Mongkam asked cautiously. Thinking about it now, even setting the past aside for the moment, it seemed astonishing that a woman who had attempted to drink poison had endured life in a detention camp without receiving any treatment.
“Ah, Major. What has become of that woman? I heard you met her several more times afterward.”
“Every time I went, she was lying down, saying she was ill.”
“She kept vomiting blood even on the day we caught her. Something must be seriously wrong with her, no?”
“Wasn’t it the very poison you suffered from for so long, Major? Since she simply gulped it down, there’s no way her throat would be fine. Then how about taking a doctor to her once?”
“Mongkam. That woman is a prisoner. You want me to summon a doctor for a prisoner and let her be treated?”
Peder flinched as well.
“What did that bitch do to deserve lying around in front of you all this time, Major?”
“They say she miscarried a child there.”
“She didn’t look pregnant to me. Not that I know anything about pregnancy.”
“True, it is somewhat strange. Her belly wasn’t showing at all, and if she were pregnant, I think she would have hesitated at least a little before drinking poison. It wouldn’t have been only her own life. Then it would mean she had become pregnant so recently that even she didn’t know…… but could it really have been Akenaus’s child? He lived almost entirely inside Cleris, and the woman must have gone wandering through the provinces not long after.”
Looking back, their superior had not even known he had a child. Having believed without a doubt that it was Akenaus’s child, only to discover the whole truth overnight, it was no wonder his complexion had grown haggard in just a few days.
It only showed less because his exterior was so cold by nature; his insides must have been in no better state. Even without asking, it was obvious. Mongkam and Peder, growing solemn despite themselves, awkwardly changed the subject.
“……The head housekeeper’s coffin has been placed in the underground ossuary as you instructed.”
“I heard you paid great attention to her burial plot. They say you’ll be erecting a large gravestone as well. Still, I’m glad the madam’s sacrifice was not in vain. There are few servants whom House Valdemaera has treated with this much honor.”
Instead of sending Mrs. Serva to a public cemetery or handing her over to some distant relative, Ejekail prepared her funeral himself. He ordered that a grave be made for her on the hill where, as a child, he had gone on picnics holding Mrs. Serva’s hand, and until the funeral was held, he had the ossuary—where only direct descendants of Valdemaera were laid to rest—opened so her coffin could be placed there for a while. It was the final courtesy offered to Mrs. Serva, who had served all her life as a loyal vassal of Valdemaera and had once even taken the place of a mother.
Bitter as it was, this was all one could belatedly do in return for the dead. Even so, there had at least been a chance to hold a funeral for Mrs. Serva, but not even that had been true for Lizan. Lizan, whom he had believed he would find and bring back no matter where she hid, live with happily until they grew old together, and, at the end of life, lie beside him in the ossuary, had nearly been buried in a pit with the other condemned prisoners, without even a grave.
He had nearly lost her forever that way.
He did not want to imagine it any longer. Ejekail forced away the afterimage of the execution ground wavering before his eyes.
By the time the meeting ended, two hours had already passed. Ejekail strode toward the bedroom where Lizan was. Two hours was on the shorter side for a meeting, and yet his heart was uneasy.
In truth, ever since rescuing Lizan and bringing her back, Ejekail had been plagued by a habitual anxiety. There had been no time when his heart was at ease, neither when she had disappeared nor now that he had recovered her, so by now it could only be called chronic. When Lizan’s eyes were closed, he could not tell whether she was asleep or had fainted from pain, and that made him ominously uneasy; when her eyes were open, he found it difficult to take his gaze off her, fearing what fierce impulse she might be enduring behind that calm face.
His steps grew faster and faster. The Valdemaera mansion was pointlessly large. If it had only been the size of the Derosa mansion, he would have arrived quickly, but the main residence, focused on grandeur and splendor, had twisted its routes inefficiently.
Ejekail crossed the corridor in long strides with his long legs and ran up the stairs. The servants he encountered along the way startled and stepped out of his path.
Only when he arrived before the bedroom did Ejekail take a moment to compose himself. Any loud sign of his presence might startle Lizan. Hoping that leaving Anna and Polina by her side had had some effect, he knocked twice on the door.
No response came.
Without hesitation, Ejekail opened the door at once.
The bedroom was empty. Anna and Polina were not there either. Judging from the disordered state of the bed, it did not seem that she had called a servant, told them where she was going, and left. If a servant had known, they would have made the bed, waited in the bedroom, and informed Ejekail of Lizan’s outing as soon as he returned. No—before that, they would have stopped her from leaving. Lizan did not yet have the strength to get out of bed.
He immediately turned around. Even if he called a servant and asked, there was no way to know who might have seen her, and it would take more time to ask around in circles. In that case, it would be far faster to search the mansion himself and find her.
“Lizan!”
Where on earth had she gone?
First, he looked into the bathroom, then checked the lavatory. Since she showed little enthusiasm for eating, the dining room was highly unlikely, and thinking she might perhaps be taking a walk in the garden with support, he repeatedly scanned the grounds below through the windows. But there was not even the shadow of the three women.
Lizan. Was there any place in this mansion you would willingly go on your own feet, or any person you would go to meet?
Just as every corner of the Valdemaera mansion clicked through his mind one after another.
“The head housekeeper’s coffin has been placed in the underground ossuary as you instructed.”
Mongkam’s report came to him at just the right moment.
There was. There was someone Lizan would have wanted to see, here in this mansion.