Chapter 116

“-Of course, I am not suggesting that Your Highness need do the deed yourself. That is precisely what subordinates like myself exist for. The task of eliminating the imperial children will fall entirely to me and the Nightwing. There is no need for Your Highness to concern yourself with the details. All we require is your consent.”

And as if perfectly timed, the opportunity for compromise suddenly presented itself before him. Duke Fernand, who had unconsciously clasped his head with both hands, raised his head and looked across.

The windows were shut tight to prevent any sound from escaping outside, so he could not even make out the face just before him. Inside the carriage, not a sliver of light penetrated the thick, pitch-black darkness. All that was visible in that impenetrable shadow were the gleaming black eyes of the person across. Though his mind knew it had to be so, emotionally, Duke Fernand could not bring himself to make a decision. Like a man at the edge of hell clutching a lifeline, he stared at him desperately.

“Is there truly no other way?”

“Your Highness, simply think about it. Even if those children survive safely, what kind of future do you suppose awaits them? At best, they would be the offspring of a deposed monarch. Living under lifelong exile and pension is itself a cruel fate, but worse still, they would be used as pawns to justify a civil war. Their very existence would be the seed of rebellion.”

Duke La Mer spoke with regret but insisted this was the best way to reduce unnecessary bloodshed, trying to persuade Duke Fernand. Duke Fernand, so shocked by the proposal that he had completely forgotten why he had come to see him in the first place, wiped his dry hands over his face and let out a long sigh. Seeing this, Duke La Mer added a decisive remark to sway his heart.

“Above all, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Did you not say you wished to return to Ebroin V exactly what he dealt you?”

“I did.”

“Then why hesitate?”

Fueled by this deliberate provocation, the flickering flame of resentment reignited. Duke Fernand unconsciously recalled the inflated belly of Countess Bonatienne and gritted his teeth. She had six months left before delivery. His fiancée had been the same. But unlike Angelique, Louise’s remaining months could never be reduced.

“You are right. I was thinking too softly.”

“Do not blame yourself too harshly. Protecting one’s heart is never a bad thing. It is an essential virtue for a ruler destined to govern a nation.”

Duke La Mer comforted Duke Fernand as if he were some great loyalist; his skill in both striking and soothing was unmatched. Having lived like that all his life, it was no wonder that Duke Fernand, raised like a delicate flower sheltered in a greenhouse, could not endure it.

But beneath it all, Duke La Mer’s true intentions were mercilessly cold.

To have been so harsh in blaming others, yet to fall for such a simple persuasion? He is blinded by the fact that he does not have to soil his own hands. Such a pitifully humane pretense of entrusting his revenge to others.

He used revenge as an excuse, but seemed utterly indifferent to where that grudge should truly be directed. Where else could there be such a foolish feat of blindly fixating on the easiest suspect to blame without knowing the exact truth of the matter?

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It was not for the sake of the empire, but for himself and Madame Schuabel, that Duke Fernand was an indispensable asset. For the sake of their designs, his existence was absolutely essential.

***

Creak—

When he gripped the handle and pushed with all his strength, the heavy iron door yielded only with reluctant effort, groaning open inch by inch. Judging by the shrill scrape of metal against the floor, it was clearly not a door that saw frequent use, and the sharp, grating noise was enough to fray the nerves.

Three levels underground, with no trace of light. The repository, refashioned from what had once been a subterranean storeroom, bore something of the air of a monastery’s hidden archives from old tales. The gloom was oppressive, and the stale, musty scent of ancient books drifting in the air only deepened the resemblance.

“Please mind your step. There is a ledge there.”

Eugène, his gaze roaming over the long rows of shelves stretching in a straight line, nodded at the professor’s warning and stepped across the threshold. Professor Galle, director of the library of the Imperial Academy, La Royale University, and one of theCenseurs Royaux, began to outline the precautions to Eugène in his characteristically exacting manner.

“There is a ventilation shaft, but as this is underground, the flow of air is far from free. Moreover, as this is a place for storing books, the use of candles or lamps without windshields is strictly prohibited. When you enter this place, you must use only these glass-shielded lamps, and once you are finished, they must without fail be returned.”

Professor Galle was one of only three people entrusted with a key to the forbidden vault. The other two were the presiding Chief Judge of the High Court of Michèle and the Chief Commissioner of the Public Safety Bureau, making Professor Galle, for all practical purposes, the sole overseer of this forbidden library.

He looked as though the very word ‘scholar’ had stepped straight off a piece of parchment and taken human form. His frame was so lean as to verge on gaunt, his features marked by an almost monastic severity, and his attire was exceedingly plain.

The professor’s gown he wore bore no ornament except the insignia denoting a tenured professorship. The white collar at his throat was so stiff with starch it seemed it might cut the fingers if touched, and had been pressed to an immaculate crispness. It was clearly a fresh one put on that very morning.

“How many books are there?”

“The Marquis of Calver’s private library holds some fifteen thousand books and about five thousand manuscripts, or so they say. We cannot match that in quantity, but here there are about five thousand books. The absolute number is smaller, but in exchange, these are treasures you will find nowhere else.”

Of course, he would. They were, after all, forbidden books. Where else could one obtain such works? Eugène accepted his words and nodded.

“I see.”

“I am saying this out of concern, but I ask that you not take this lightly. These are ideas and knowledge that are forbidden now, but no one knows how history will one day judge these records. Please handle them with care, and under no circumstances damage the books preserved here.”

Eugène was surprised to hear the unexpected words. Indeed, the professor’s gaze toward him was far from favorable. At their first meeting, he had shown a tolerable degree of courtesy, but the moment he learned that Eugène’s business concerned the restricted archive, his manner had turned hostile. He was so sensitive and defensive that Eugène might have been kicked out if he had not appeared with an imperial charter bearing the Emperor’s own signature

At first, Eugène had thought it merely a matter of responsibility toward his position, but now it seemed more likely to stem from a scholar’s sense of duty.

“I shall bear that in mind.”

Eugène received the lamp from him. Thinking that he would also need to be entrusted with the key in order to secure the door, he waited in silence, but Professor Galle simply turned and walked out into the corridor. Eugène, puzzled, called to him from behind.

“Professor, I believe you have forgotten the key.”

“I have not forgotten, Your Excellency. This key is to me no different from an imperial scepter. By imperial decree, it is an item that must never be lent or entrusted to another.”

It was the first time Professor Galle responded to him with a joke. His parchment-dry face did not so much as hint at a smile, so Eugène could not be entirely certain, but from the faint trace of amusement in his voice, it seemed that it was indeed meant as a joke.

“Then how am I to lock the door when I leave?”

“Please do not concern yourself. I shall lock it now as I go, and when Your Excellency sends the signal, I will come to open it for you. Do you see this iron rope here? When you wish to leave the repository, simply give it a tug.”

Eugène glanced at the slender chain fixed beside the door and felt a chill run down his spine. If it were to snap midway, would he not have to remain trapped here forever? Professor Galle knew he was here, and before him, His Majesty knew as well, so the possibility of being shut in forever was virtually nonexistent, but Eugène could not seem to shake the needless worry.

Professor Galle, his face expressionless yet faintly amused by Eugène’s brief look of unease, closed the door to the vault. A moment later came the click of a lock, and the sound of the opposite door being secured. For a short while, Eugène could relish the feeling of a storybook hero, one who, of his own will, had walked inside, only to be tricked by an evil sorcerer into being shut away in a subterranean cave.

From here on, it will be either an adventure or a thorough beating

He thought as he looked around, raising the glass lamp Professor Galle had left him and casting its light about. In the end, both of those expectations proved wrong. What awaited him was nothing more than mountains of dust and tedium without end.

The forbidden book repository contained countless books, yet, unexpectedly, they were far from being properly classified.

…Strictly speaking, it is not as though they have no classification at all.

As a library of sorts, the place maintained at least a minimal standard. However, that standard consisted solely of three categories: ‘Forbidden Books: To Be Isolated’, ‘Forbidden Books: To Be Destroyed’,both explicitly labeled as such on the spines, and ‘Unauthorized Books: No Need for Return’. The real problem was that pirated editions of legal publications were occasionally mixed in as well.

It seemed that the censors in the field had developed a habit of sending any seized books here indiscriminately.

For several days now, Eugène had been struggling to unearth the information he needed among volumes thrown together with no regard for year of publication, genre, or subject. Brushing the dust from a book’s spine, he smiled wryly.

Fortunately, the mishap he had feared on the first day of being trapped underground had not come to pass. But a far greater ordeal awaited him. Over the days he spent here, he came to realize several things. The first was that the preconceived notions he had harbored about forbidden books were, in truth, mere prejudices.

In his naïveté, Eugène had imagined that such works must contain dangerous knowledge, radical ideas, or some secret arcana whose circulation in the world was prohibited.

That notion stemmed entirely from his childhood experience living in a boarding house where university students rented rooms. He had seen those students invite book peddlers inside and purchase seditious books they soldsous le manteau. Always thirsty for new knowledge, he had, despite an instinctive aversion to illegal acts, secretly harbored a fascination for that clandestine exchange of knowledge.

However, according to his own firsthand inspection, fully a third of the books designated as forbidden turned out to be erotic novels, and another quarter consisted of wildly exaggerated slanderous nonsense. Only the remaining half at most fit the criteria he had once imagined.

The second fact he discovered was that erotic novels based on real historical figures enjoyed staggering popularity. One could even find works inspired by people who had lived a century or two ago. This genre was so prevalent that one might almost call it a tradition of the empire.