“Ah, and so! I was right on the brink of death, you know?”
Andrew Isaac, whose closely cropped hair had grown out enough in the meantime to resemble a grass doll, clenched his fist and raised his voice.
“Since I’d fallen and fainted back then, I honestly don’t remember! Anyway, they say there was an enormous werewolf down in that ravine. Those bas—, no, those things!”
“Andy.”
Lady Isaac took her youngest son’s hand with a troubled expression and surreptitiously gauged Eliza’s reaction. At an age when he should have been learning etiquette from a tutor, Andrew had grown up among knights who had no interest in what etiquette even was; he was, in the truest sense, ‘raw ore.’
“Ah, I spoke out of turn— mph!”
That was what made the unconscious so frightening. The words his senior knights used had slipped out without passing through his thoughts, and Andrew hurriedly covered his mouth.
Lady Isaac let out a deep sigh and shut her eyes tight, while Eliza maintained a cold expression, not even smiling.
“I apologize. I will take him back and educate him again.”
At Lady Isaac’s formal words, Andrew pressed his lips shut and bowed his head. This was not the Wall of Death, where etiquette did not matter, and even he could see that his behavior was unbecoming of a nobleman.
Just then, a voice as cold as the wind blowing from beyond the Wall of Death pierced their ears.
“I was listening with great amusement; why do you two apologize on your own and steal my enjoyment?”
When Lady Isaac and Andrew both raised their eyes, Eliza elegantly lifted her teacup and gestured toward Andrew with her gaze.
“Continue. You rolled down the ravine trying to save Grace, and while you were unconscious, a werewolf appeared. So what happened next?”
Andrew glanced stealthily at his mother, and Lady Isaac nodded to her son as if to say there was no helping it.
Andrew opened his mouth, choosing his words as carefully as possible.
“The older brothers said that My Lady leapt up and blocked my path.”
Eliza, who had been drinking her tea with downcast eyes, raised her gaze.
“She stood between the werewolf and me, and shot the werewolf with the arrow I had been carrying.”
“She shot a werewolf? With a knight’s arrow?”
“Yes. Though His Grace helped somewhat at the end, it was My Lady who took down that werewolf.”
Hearing this for the first time, Lady Isaac unconsciously asked back,
“She did not run when a werewolf charged at her?”
“If she had run away, I would have died there.”
Lady Isaac felt anew the relief that all three of her sons had returned alive. Her shoulders, which had always been held rigidly straight, slumped with her sigh.
Eliza watched the mother and son intently before speaking to Andrew.
“You leaped in to save Grace as well, so it seems you saved each other.”
Andrew turned to look at her.
The Queen of Richmond, whom his mother had devoted her life to serving, was indeed a woman befitting her title. Her elegantly coiled silver-white hair and high-collared black velvet dress exuded an atmosphere both graceful and severe.
“You’ve worked hard campaigning with the Duke. I shall never forget your labor.”
“It is an honor, Madam.”
Andrew rose from his seat and knelt on his left knee before Eliza, who personally raised him up.
“You’ve just come from greeting the Duke, haven’t you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“But mind your etiquette more. The treatment of knights is not what it once was. Henceforth, the battlefield will not be your only theater. Etiquette is also an invisible blade and shield that protects your person.”
“Yes.”
When the boy smiled shyly, wrinkles formed on his freckled nose. At the innocence only felt at that exact age, Eliza smiled for the first time.
“Since you are here, go greet Grace as well.”
“Oh, may I?”
“Andy.”
When Lady Isaac called her son with a sigh-like voice, Eliza waved her hand as if to say ‘it’s fine’ and spoke to Andrew.
“Do you think I need to grant permission for every little thing? Go and tell her to look over some documents while you’re at it. She seems to think there’s no one in House Richmond to look at paperwork.”
“Yes ma’am!”
“No, wait. If you say that, she’ll just smile and say she understands. Tell her I called for her. You are responsible for bringing her here. She’s been doing nothing but work all day.”
“Understood, Madam!”
“You needn’t speak so loudly; I can hear you fine.”
Andrew grinned and vanished like the wind.
Lady Isaac poured tea into Eliza’s empty cup and spoke as if embarrassed.
“I have found a tutor to teach him etiquette.”
“Do not watch my mood. I am only now learning that there are things more important than etiquette. The fact that he returned alive is praiseworthy enough.”
“.......”
“It is a relief that all your sons returned alive.”
With those words, Eliza gazed at the spot where Andrew had vanished and fell into thought.
The leaves had all fallen before anyone knew it, and the wind brushed through the bare trees. Just as Lady Isaac was about to suggest going inside,
“Taylor... Father always said never to be fooled by that family’s beautiful appearances.”
Lately, a blonde foreigner was always at the edge of Eliza’s mind. Lady Isaac already knew that Eliza’s gaze had never strayed from her. Her expression was, as usual, cold and seemingly heartless, but Eliza always wore such a face.
“He said they seem to sway gracefully this way and that like wheat bending to the wind, but asked how else they could have accumulated and maintained the greatest wealth in the Empire.”
“.......”
“Do you remember the stuffed werewolf we saw together? It was as large as a sizable tiger.”
“Yes. I remember.”
“She blocked the path of such a creature without a shred of fear, and killed it in the end... with that body of hers.”
“With such nerve, it is no wonder even the proud retainers of House Richmond follow the young lady’s words.”
“Yes. No matter that she is Lady Taylor, she has no connection whatsoever to Richmond. When ordered to obey such a person, there were stubborn retainers who would rise up asking what they were being treated as......”
Eliza, who had been continuing, eventually burst into laughter.
*The most important thing is this moment. Please forget who I am, and simply consider me a comrade with the same goal.*
Grace Taylor was courteous, her eyes reading documents faster than anyone’s, and her insight in uncovering the truth within those documents was without equal.
Eliza traced the smile lingering at her lips before slowly raising her head. Gazing at the branches hanging overhead, Eliza called out to the dead in a low voice.
“Are you watching?”
Her black eyes were steeped in regret.
For several days now, she had barely slept, reviewing the documents Grace processed. And finally, she had put all the choices to rest.
“It seems I must cut down the sons and grandsons of the retainers you cherished so dearly, with my own hands......”
Tears trailed down the wrinkled corners of her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
* * *
Meanwhile, Count Isaac, having seen Andrew, muttered in a dumbfounded voice.
“Crimson and Sirius said this one would switch professions to an attendant soon... they weren’t wrong.”
Another middle-aged gentleman passing by chimed in.
“I heard in passing that the youngest of Count Isaac’s house isn’t switching to an attendant, but to a coachman?”
At that, Count Isaac glared at him with blazing eyes.
“I’m already making my peace with him becoming an attendant; where do you get off spouting such nonsense about a coachman?”
Just then, a voice full of reverence flowed from the boy’s mouth, which had fallen open in a daze.
“As expected of My Lady......”
Andrew Isaac had survived three years in an army where hierarchy was life. That meant he had to figure out who was the strongest person in any given place as naturally as breathing.
The young knight’s eyes sparkled like stars.
The massive black desk piled high with various documents was, on a battlefield, the position of the commander-in-chief. The one who occupied that seat in this room was Grace.
She was conversing with an elderly bureaucrat. And behind him, bureaucrats clutching bundles of documents stood waiting in line.
One didn’t need to ask to feel it.
“My Lady is the strongest.”
“Oh my......”
Count Isaac, who had been watching to see what on earth the boy was going to say, let out a sigh. But since it wasn’t wrong either, he sighed at his son’s manner though he didn’t add much.
It had already been five days since Count Rinko’s faction had fallen and the Ducal faction had begun conducting affairs.
Richmond Ducal Castle was fighting an invisible war. At the forefront of the Ducal faction were the Duke, the Madam, and Grace. Of course, it was a secret that Grace was reviewing the documents.
“As you instructed, we have compiled all those who could have touched the gold ingots.”
To fully reclaim Richmond Ducal Territory meant securing land, people, and materials. They were in the process of sifting through the people, and the land could not be hidden as real estate so it was easy to reclaim, but the problem was the materials that could be hidden.
Seven-tenths of the gold ingots the Ducal House had possessed were missing.
The sloppily written financial documents claimed that five financial officers had embezzled the gold ingots evenly over a dozen or so years. But Ares, who had personally interrogated them, coldly asserted:
“They are men who couldn’t properly use a hundred gold ingots. They merely repeat the same words, likely because their weakness was seized; they have definitely never properly handled gold.”
Grace read through the list with swift eyes.
Surely, someone among them, or all of them, had siphoned off Richmond’s gold. What would have been the easiest way to embezzle the gold?
As Grace read down the list, she stopped breathing for a moment. With a flash of realization, the puzzle pieces drifting about in various shapes gathered onto a single board in an instant.
“Steel Canyon.”