“Rilke.”
Saren greeted him warmly. Patting the seat beside him with his hand, Saren sat him down familiarly and briefly explained the flow of the conversation. In the meantime, I sat a little ways away.
“The Free Cities? The one we went to last summer?”
Rilke opened his mouth with a smile.
“I remember being dragged around all day by you and Eugeid. The drawbridge and the wizard’s tower were really magnificent. We had a hard time because there weren’t clean restaurants or lodgings, but it was really fun.”
His way of speaking to someone familiar was much gentler. Saren also changed his tone slightly from when he addressed me and answered kindly.
“Oh my, thank you for saying that. Actually, Eugeid and I were worried that it had been a difficult trip for you.”
Listening quietly to their conversation that seemed to harmonize, I thought it would be okay to leave. I was getting up saying I’d bring tea when Rilke, who had been closing his eyes, suddenly stopped me.
“But, Joachim. I heard you talking about the Angelica drawbridge earlier. Did you say you’d been to the Free Cities?”
A glossy energy flowed through his innocent eyes.
“You’ve never been to Linlisgo.”
He said. At an angle only I could see, Rilke smiled deeply.
“……”
“How could you go when you were sick.”
Had I rested too deeply at Shade Palace?
The situation felt bewildering and distant. I had forgotten about Rilke’s methods like this.
Silence continued. Saren, equally flustered, opened his mouth instead of me.
“What are you saying, Rilke?”
“That Linlisgo’s bridges are beautiful. Anyone can make up that much. Based on hearsay.”
“Are you saying Joachim lied? Uh, that’s not it, Joachim really—”
“No. Rilke is completely right.”
I cut off Saren.
“It’s absurd. Just as absurd as someone like him who can’t even swim being able to rescue His Highness the Prince from drifting down a river.”
Rilke’s face hardened.
I stood up from my seat, leaving the bewildered Saren behind. I moved. I leaned against a wall some distance away and watched what he would do.
Rilke was conversing with Saren with a composed face. Whatever he was saying, Saren had an awkward but concentrating expression. Time passed and I saw his back as he left the reception room. Only those who sensed the strange atmosphere looked back this way.
Come to think of it, Rilke just now was uncharacteristically abrupt and sensitive.
I couldn’t understand why Rilke, who should be smiling at the center of the party, was acting like that. Variables had increased, events I hadn’t experienced were happening. The past was already changing a lot.
I thought of Benedict.
I recalled the time I spent with him, the conversations I had with him.
I learned how to spend time enjoyably and quickly without having to kill time leaning against a wall or conversing with someone. I just had to think of him.
Just thinking about Benedict, I could create another world inside me. His eyes, voice, lips, breath, how abundant it was. I could build a house, I could build a castle. I could make a forest. Though my heart ached, even if Benedict forgot me from now on, the summer memories alone seemed like they would be enough. Like it had become a large, deep lake, even if the stream flowing to me was cut off, it could flow for a lifetime.
But such restless feelings slipped away as soon as Mikhail returned in the late afternoon.
“What is this!”
Mikhail, who had received a letter from Miss Sana today, was holding another letter.
“The Regent Duke sent you correspondence!”
Mikhail threw what he was holding and flew into a rage.
“How dare that crazy old man presume upon someone!!”
The Regent Duke and Mikhail were both thirty-four, the same age.
Anyway, it was fortunate it was after the guests had left. Mikhail was seething and called me as a very sensible person would rightfully be angry.
“Do you know what that man said! To me directly! Talking about you, telling me directly! To deliver a letter!”
Mikhail jumped around like an angry horse, saying he had inadvertently accepted the letter in shock and even ended up playing messenger. It seemed he had met the Regent Duke while out on business matters. Both of them were interested in ancient islands, so their paths would naturally overlap.
“Joachim, now, answer honestly… I won’t get angry. Did you really meet the Regent Duke? Did you…… —why are you nodding!!”
Mikhail rushed at me.
“I need to check this right away…!! No wait, Jake! Jake!!”
Mikhail, who had released me, called for Jake like crazy.
Jake, who had been watching the situation from the second-floor railing, ran down the stairs like the wind.
“Check that kid! Check him, I say! That kid went to see the Regent Duke!”
Everyone was bewildered about what to check.
“Pardon? Yes, please continue, my lord!”
“Check that stupid thing quickly, I say!”
Mikhail continued to rage, and everyone was just flustered, overwhelmed by that emotion. Only the loyal Jake raised both hands every time Mikhail pointed, opened her chest wide, held her breath with eyes opened so wide the whites showed, and listened intently.
“Aah…! I understand……!”
Having listened with her whole body, she grasped the true intention and immediately rushed at me. Only then did I roughly understand what this was about, so I barely withstood Jake’s physical attack and shouted.
“Nothing happened!”
The faithful Jake seemed ready to actually strip my clothes off right here.
“I can’t trust your words!”
Only then did Mikhail come to his senses a bit. Mikhail told Jake to take me to the room later to check, then shouted angrily again.
“When on earth did you meet the Regent Duke without saying anything! You seem so soft and thoughtless! Why should I have to hear your name from the Regent Duke!!”
Not having the confidence to face Mikhail’s seething eyes, I quietly came to pick up the letter. It had fallen after hitting the stair post.
Before I knew it, Rilke was standing behind Mikhail. His face was stiff, and his gaze landed on the letter held in my hand.
“Calm down, brother. Joachim wouldn’t have done it on purpose.”
Rilke intervened as if mediating.
“I’m worried you’ll harm your health shouting like that. Please calm down a bit, I’ll ask His Grace once. I’ll handle it myself, so—”
“No, Rilke. There’s no need for that.”
Rilke, who had been holding Mikhail’s arm, raised his head. Mikhail did the same. I looked at them both alternately and said.
“I’m saying there’s no need to ask the Regent Duke.”
“What do you mean!”
“Rilke knows everything.”
Rilke, who had been the perfect mediator, stood in an awkward position and looked at me.
“…Joachim?”
A moment of silence flowed. I wanted to speak without emotion, as simply as possible.
“Should I say it?”
I wanted him to be in a position equivalent to what he had done. Rilke is not a mediator.
Lips that found their place twitched. Before those lips could deflect again, I hammered the nail in again.
“Rilke took me to the Regent Duke.”
‘That’s, that’s not Your Highness’s fault!’
Benedict called himself insufficient, but listening to it made me angry. He answered like a pilgrim accepting everything.
‘I’m also at fault for taking the easy way and not resisting.’
‘It’s not Your Highness’s fault. You were even younger then… The person who did wrong is living confidently, so why should Your Highness think that way?’
Hearing my words, he laughed.
‘You’re right.’
‘……Pardon?’
‘Rilke Meyer. What the Regent did wrong to you, it’s not your fault.’
‘…….’
‘Hearing my story, what did you think?’
‘…I was angry. And my heart ached.’
I felt sorry for him.
I couldn’t bear to use such an expression for Benedict, who was a prince, so I closed my mouth.
‘I felt the same hearing your story.’
He said quietly. After thinking for a moment. I answered that his case and mine were different, and Benedict said forcefully again that they were the same.
‘When you return, I’d like you to promise me you’ll tell Count Meyer what you told me. Whether your brother believes it or not, just try telling him.’
And Benedict added that if I couldn’t do it, he wanted me to agree to him delivering the information to Mikhail directly.
It was a request, but his eyes were resolute. If I refused, it would feel as if I were pushing my own matter onto him.
In the end.
‘……I will. Tell my brother directly myself.’
I had to face it.
“I must have misheard something.”
Mikhail was muttering.
The gazes of Mikhail, Jake, the butler, the servants, everyone in the mansion turned toward Rilke.
He was looking at me with a face that expressed extreme confusion and sadness.
And I.
Having said it myself, I was definitely more surprised than anyone here.
My heart was pounding as if I had done something wicked.
“This isn’t the first time.”
Since Rilke was keeping silent, I had to continue. It’s actually my matter.
Still suppressing my anxiously pounding heart, I said.
“When I went to see Her Majesty the Empress last time, I also met His Grace the Regent Duke.”
Like something broken, Mikhail’s head creaked as it turned toward me.
I covered it up for now, thinking that if I brought up whether the Empress’s letter was fake or whatnot here, the point would become blurred.
“N… No!”
Rilke stepped forward.
“No! That day we only saw Her Majesty the Empress!”
“That’s a lie.”
