I revealed things in a bit more detail than I had told Mikhail.
“‘Island of Iota’ in the ancient language.”
Benedict wasn’t greatly surprised.
“Given the speed of information so far, they’ve probably already crossed the bridge to their homeland.”
He only sank down calmly. It seemed he was thinking about what to do going forward. Naturally, the Empire’s spies were also active within Iota.
“I don’t know how to express my gratitude.”
Benedict lightly kissed my cheek, saying I’d made it possible to prepare. I felt shamefaced since I could only know this purely because I’d returned to the past, not through my own abilities, but I resolutely opened my mouth.
“Then may I ask a favor?”
It seemed I’d been asking favors of people a lot lately.
* * *
“You really had a home search?”
Young Lady Lifros, who readily invited me to the siblings’ house at my request, openly shared what had happened.
“I guess you can’t even freely believe in religion in the Empire.”
Young Lady Lifros grumbled sullenly. While drinking the tea she offered, I looked around the reception room that the investigators must have swept through.
“Why so many questions! How unnecessarily! Thoroughly they examined everything! And in the process, they even broke her cherished porcelain decoration!”
Young Lady Lifros added that although she was compensated double, she was truly upset.
The siblings were still living in a two-story building on one side of a bustling alley in the capital, not yet in a mansion. Thinking about how much patience and compromise must have been needed to let them rummage through every corner of this small but cozy-looking house made me feel apologetic for no reason.
“The Hyeon Church is a religious order that received approval from the Pope three generations ago! Of course, the current Pope hasn’t particularly expressed a position on the Hyeon Church, but checking for heresy just because someone is a Hyeon Church member is a sufficiently narrow-minded perspective!”
Since they were in the middle of searching for spies, they honestly couldn’t say so and seemed to be investigating under the pretext of heresy inspection.
“Of course, I understand the position of investigators who have to do what they’re told from above.”
While listening to Miss Lucia vent her justified complaints, I offered her waffles. I’d heard she liked thick Imperial-style waffles, so I’d specially asked the head chef and brought them.
After comforting Young Lady Lifros, who excitedly spread marmalade jam and butter cream while badmouthing the Empire, I pointed to the Hyeon Church decoration hanging on one side of the living room.
“Lucia, do Iotan people use that pattern often?”
She swallowed her waffle and answered, “Of course.”
“It’s literally decoration beyond just a symbol. From earrings, bracelets, and cufflinks to robes, veils, and hats with embroidered decorations. -Mmm!”
She kept exclaiming that the count’s household head chef’s skills were fantastic. She enjoyed it so much that she occasionally let out exclamations in Iotan as well.
“There was something I was curious about.”
“……?”
“What does this mean in the Iotan dialect?”
I imitated the unknown Iotan man’s words as I remembered them.
“Pfft-“
“Miss Lucia?”
“That pe-, kugh, you’re talking about that person, right?”
Young Lady Lifros, whose cheeks were greatly swollen with waffle, hurriedly covered her mouth. Her shoulders shaking, she barely swallowed the waffle and said.
“I’m talking about the man I chased away.”
Lucia mentioned the moment when I was looking at her fiddle alone.
“Yes, the same man.”
“First of all, it’s… not a dialect. If it felt like that, it’s what would be in Iota, um, a sultry tone! That feeling in Imperial. That man was speaking in his own way very passionately and seriously!”
“……”
Looking at my confused face, Young Lady Lifros began to smile subtly.
With a face that seemed to be holding back laughter, she continued, saying “‘<Cock… roach> pfft, not that but,”
“It was probably ‘<Want to switch>?’ It’s an idiomatic Iotan expression for exchanging each other’s constellations… I can’t translate that subtle feeling, you know? Do you understand? So he confessed to Joachim!”
A love confession! Lucia, who blurted it out, finally began giggling. Looking at her unable to stop laughing for a while, I could only cover my embarrassed face with a teacup.
Young Lady Lifros endlessly teased me, saying she’d been proud of her country’s poetic confession expressions until now, but it looked like she wouldn’t be able to hear confessions from Iotan men anymore, asking what I would do.
“You must invite me next time, okay?”
Young Lady Lifros urged me, saying that somehow she had ended up inviting me to her house first, and that she really wanted to see my reception room. After promising a date in the near future, I boarded the carriage heading to the count’s estate, holding the empty waffle basket.
There was much to do even after returning. A person sent by the Iotan merchant had come early, and the three of us—the assistant butler and I—put our heads together to adjust the details.
After sending the guest away, it was evening, and after the meal I drank orchid tea with Mikhail.
“Do you think it’s effective?”
Certainly after switching to white orchid, his complexion seemed to have returned. Though the spots hadn’t faded yet.
“I do feel more comfortable. Didn’t you tell me to keep drinking it?”
Mikhail set down his teacup. A much cooler breeze blew in from the open window.
“But about Rilke.”
Mikhail finally brought up that topic.
Until now, Rilke had merely been confined to his room. Mikhail hadn’t mentioned anything about that matter. From his face that seemed to be avoiding the situation and looking lost unlike himself, I could feel that he didn’t know how to resolve this.
“I’m not thinking of publicly punishing that kid.”
I just nodded at the expected words.
“If this matter becomes known, it won’t be good for your reputation either. Even though you say nothing happened, you know well enough what kind of gossip people spread, don’t you?”
In the meantime, Mikhail had only repeatedly told both the letters looking for Rilke and visiting guests that Rilke was ill. It was obvious he was trying not to publicize that child’s wrongdoing.
“Instead.”
Mikhail opened his mouth heavily.
“I’m thinking of giving Rilke some assets and sending him away. I’ll announce to society that Rilke and the Meyer family had a contractual relationship, and after that, just list his name as a patron. There will be some confusion for a while.”
I quietly only drank orchid tea.
“I told Rilke that’s what I decided to do. His expression wasn’t good, so it weighs on my mind… but he’s a more cunning kid than expected, so he’ll manage.”
Anyway. Mikhail said decisively.
“The opinion of myself and the key vassals is that we can’t keep him in the family. Rilke tried to deceive not only you but me as well, trying to get us in his grasp. What if later he schemes with the intention of harming not you but the family? Since the Regent is backing that kid up, wouldn’t it be a big problem?”
“You’re saying we can’t keep a spy in the house.”
To just leave Rilke alone would be like bringing in a spy, and to officially reveal what Rilke did would be a matter of losing face. It was the kind of choice Mikhail, who prioritized the family’s prosperity above all else, would make.
And on the morning of the day Rilke was to leave the mansion,
A short scream rang out from the second floor of the mansion’s main building.
Rilke had disappeared.
**7. Two Prey (1)**
What the maid discovered was a servant who had collapsed inside Rilke’s room.
As she opened the door, she was startled by the shadow of a black person caught in the doorway.
The servants in charge of Rilke’s room were sleeping in strange positions in the empty room.
Even when they asked the servants who woke up the next day, they couldn’t learn any detailed circumstances. They could only speculate how Rilke had escaped through the fact that they had been asleep, that their keys and keys from various places throughout the house had disappeared entirely, and lastly that the main gate was slightly open.
But just because they didn’t perfectly know the process of Rilke’s escape didn’t mean they couldn’t find out other things.
Rilke appeared again like a titmouse with a leaf in its mouth.
“Isn’t that crazy!”
Mikhail threw a fit.
Mikhail, who called in repairmen to instruct them to completely change all the locks and keys in the house, spared no expense trying to find out where Rilke was. But that was futile. Rilke didn’t particularly try to hide.
“The Regent Duke!”
Rilke was at Duke Yorick’s mansion.
What was he trying to do in that gloomy mansion? From what I’d felt, Rilke didn’t particularly like the Regent Duke either. I couldn’t know exactly why that child made such a choice, but one thing was clear.
Rilke thought that going to the Regent Duke was better than being driven out of the Meyer household and living under another name.
Mikhail tried to find out what on earth that child was doing there, but there were limits to buying information from servants coming and going to the Regent Duke’s residence, so the trail was eventually cut off.
“What the hell is happening to my peaceful life! Don’t tell me I used up all my luck this year on stabilizing your pheromones!”
“Absolutely not. Follow your conscience and look at the back of your hand.”
The back of Mikhail’s hand, in the midst of all the fuss, was finally showing the spots fading.
Mikhail, who would normally have punched me for talking back, briefly twisted his lips and silently drank his orchid tea.
And around the time Mikhail’s spots completely disappeared.
“The mansion’s atmosphere is unsettled.”
As promised, I invited Miss Lucia to the mansion. Her light purple eyes rolled around.
“Indeed. It seems Lucia made an awkward request.”
Sir Lifros was with her as well.
