Chapter 125

“I shall not fall short of Your Majesty’s expectations.”

“And what do you suppose it is thatWetruly expect? For all you know, I may speak thus, yet in my heart secretly wish for you to fail.”

As the familiar secret passage opened, the Emperor began to take his leave. Eugène watched him depart, then, on impulse, opened his mouth to speak. What he received in return, however, was nothing more than a light rebuke that sounded almost like a jest. With a tangled feeling in his chest, Eugène stood staring at the empty space the Emperor had left behind.

Yet not every word spoken in a joking tone can be dismissed as a jest. It did not take much for Eugène to discern that more than half of what the Emperor had said was, in fact, his unvarnished truth. The Emperor’s heart was as confused and disordered as the emotions that bound them together. Eugène, his own mind left equally unsettled, dragged his hands down his face in a weary gesture.

***

Even with the fire practically at his feet, Eugène did not rush.

Urgency alone could not thread a needle without care. Though his body, still weakened, had left him with limited movement for several days, he had not squandered the odd scraps of time it afforded him.

No sooner had he recovered his strength that he made his way to the Imperial Library. With the chill of autumn setting in, the halls were far more crowded than in the languid days of summer. But Eugène’s business lay not in the ordinary reading rooms, but in the state archives stored below.

Even here, the imperial charter was nothing more than a magic key. The unreasonable request for materials that would ordinarily have been flatly denied was, with that single letter, granted as though by miracle. Eugène entered the place he had sought, tasting unexpectedly of borrowed power.

There he was buried beneath more documents than he had encountered in all his life combined. But among this ocean of records, fishing out what he truly sought was by no means an easy task. What troubled him most was that the vague unease he had felt back in the forbidden book repository had, at last, proven true.

No record of the Estates-General could be found here either. He checked and checked again, but whether from decades past or from its very first conception, not a trace remained of the session that had been cancelled before it even convened.

“Records from thirty years ago? That would be impossible. They would have been destroyed long since.”

“Even so, should there not at least remain an application? The attempts to convene the Estates-General, cancelled though they may be, are hardly so commonplace.”

Though Eugène already suspected the effort was in vain, he could not help but ask for help from the librarian who manages the archive. Unlike Professor Galle, who was strict, this man was genial and sociable, and all the more inclined to be cooperative toward Eugène, who was rumored to be the Emperor’s most favored.

But even he seemed at a loss before this request. He could not conceal his troubled expression and did his best to make Eugène understand the circumstances.

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“Let me see… yes, it was enacted under the regency council of Her Majesty Héloïse, the Empress Mother. As one might expect of a lady, she seemed to pay careful attention even to such minor details.”

Empress Mother Héloïse.

Her name arose yet again, as it always did at every point of obstruction, as though she herself had contrived to bury these matters beneath her hand. But Eugène could not imagine why she would have done so. No bond of loyalty remained between her and the Eastern nobility.

All of her relatives, including her father, had perished in the opening battle of the Second Landrienne Campaign. Indeed, if Eugène’s deductions were correct, that tragedy had been no accident of war but a deliberate calamity, brought by the betrayal of neighbors who had stood at their side.

She had once been devout enough to consider vowing to become a nun, but that did not mean she was so forbearing as to unconditionally forgive the murderers of her parents. Had she been as soft-hearted as all that, she could never have left achievements in a mere decade of regency to rival those of seasoned emperors.

Eugène gazed long upon her elegant signature inscribed across the page and sank into thought. In the empire, her renown had shone with a brilliance like the sun. During her regency, she had even outperformed her husband, Armand IV, and above all, she bore the merit of having raised Ebroin V, a sovereign for the ages.

However, except for political achievements and fame, it was surprisingly difficult to find personal information about her. The reality was that there was virtually no evidence of her personal life, let alone any records she had left behind.

…I must learn more of her.

Long had he wavered, but in the end, only one course remained to him. He had no other choice, for without her, no further path lay open. It was a risk, an inquiry that might even offend the Emperor himself, but the last remaining clue could not be cast aside.

For the shadow she had left behind was far too deep.

***

When he lifted his head, the sky above was so vividly blue it made his eyes ache.

This was no mere figure of speech. After spending days shut away in a lightless underground archive, straining his eyes by the dim glow of lamps, Eugène was now paying the price. He had to pull his hat low over his face to shield his stinging eyes from the rare afternoon sun.

The late-afternoon light fell evenly across the worn streets. By day, Cat Street bore a face wholly unlike the dazzling one it showed at night.

As he walked, Eugène came upon a famous brothel with a great glass façade opening onto the street. Known among the libertines of the capital as the ‘House of Mirrors’, it had earned popularity for its refined atmosphere, with stained-glass ornamentation reminiscent of a church or a noble’s mansion. Though now he saw that the vaunted stained glass was no true colored glass at all, but thin scraps of colored paper pasted together.

The other establishments were much the same. What by night had looked like marble decorations were in truth plaster imitations. Most of the houses had hinges eaten through with rust, their closed doors misaligned in their frames. The shop signs were often broken in places, or their paint was peeling away.

It was a scene shabby beyond words, like the bare face of an old courtesan stripped of her makeup. Eugène crossed the empty street like a traveler who had stumbled by mistake into a ruined city. Around him, there was not a soul in sight; the place lay desolate. Though this should have been the very hour when the streets were most alive and brimming with vigor, here it seemed midnight had already fallen. Every window was shut off with shutters or heavy cloth, the sight bleak and unwelcoming.

He lifted his head absently, and by chance his gaze met that of a gaunt little girl scurrying toward him. In a street so utterly deserted, the sudden appearance of a man must have seemed a grave threat, for the child, clutching a couple of white loaves wrapped carefully in a worn linen apron, showed a naked wariness.

She clenched her stick-thin arms tight around the bread and bolted into a side alley like a startled rat. Watching her vanish, Eugène felt a needless pang of guilt, though he had done nothing wrong. He had never meant to frighten an innocent child… With a bitter taste in his heart, he arrived at Hunter’s theater.

Though he had walked through streets so deserted, he never feared the theater would be empty as well. No matter how slothful the dwellers of this quarter might be in their daily lives, such did not apply to the man he was looking for.

The one he came for was a first-rate fence, and among back-alley dealers, a broker of rare caliber. For men in such a trade, mere diligence was not optional; without it, they could not maintain their business, nor even keep their own lives intact.

Eugène rapped on the door to summon the man. Because the place dabbled in unlawful affairs, its precautions were thorough, despite its pretensions of being a theater. He had been coming here for years, yet never once had he seen the door standing open.

Once, then again. He rapped the knob in succession, and only after a long wait did the door finally fly open with a bang. Through the wide gap appeared a familiar face. The very same man he had encountered on his last visit.

“Damn it! Who the hell comes at this hour? In heat, are you?!”

The doorkeeper, who had flung the door open with obvious irritation, blinked wide-eyed when his gaze met Eugène’s. With his rough features, he seemed more fit to be standing guard outside a brothel than a theater. But despite appearances, his eye for faces was sharp enough.

“Well, now. If it’s not a familiar gentleman.”

Muttering so, the doorkeeper looked Eugène up and down, who was plainly dressed.

“I am here to see the owner of the theater.”

“Have you brought the coin?”

“Here.”

Of course, a single prior acquaintance did not exempt him from the required procedure. The doorkeeper, indifferent, demanded the coin, and Eugène tossed him the customary payment. Catching it deftly in midair, the man slouched away into the interior.

Moments later, with his master’s permission secured, he returned and opened the door for Eugène. This time, however, the place he was taken to was not the box seat of his previous visit. It was a small office located further beyond the room.

The second floor of the theater was lined on three sides with box seats facing the stage. In its own way, it was a bold attempt at imitating the design of the Imperial Opera House. However, the hidden rooms where no such spaces should exist betrayed the true nature of this place.

After passing through the open space and turning a corner, a narrow corridor, he came upon a narrow corridor that looked as though it was meant for servants. It was so cramped that two grown men could not have walked side by side with their shoulders aligned. And yet, for all that narrowness, there seemed to be an excess of rooms: along the right-hand side of the short passage, no more thanfifty paetasin length, three doors were crammed in, set one after the other.

What is more, not even the shabby carpet that had been laid outside was present here. With the bare wooden boards fully exposed, every step he took wrung from them a painful creak.

Just as he set foot in the corridor, a door opened on the opposite side. Though it was hardly the season for it, a man in a thick, mouse-gray winter coat stepped out, having exchanged a word of parting with someone in the office. They passed each other at the midpoint of the hall, and Eugène, stealing a glance at the man’s attire, could not shake the sense that there was something uncannily familiar about his air.

“We have a guest.”

The doorkeeper announced inside and then ushered Eugène to go in. Opening the office door, Eugène found the small, windowless room crammed with furniture far too large for it. Muttering under his breath in exasperation, he remarked.

“Must have piled up quite a lot of sins.”

Not only the office itself but every part of the passage leading to it had been devised with tactical forethought, as if in preparation for an enemy assault. Whatever his fears, the man had turned his own office into a fortress.

Casting a sidelong glance behind Hunter’s mahogany desk, Eugène sank carelessly into a nearby chair, unable to hide the look of weariness on his face. The furniture was so massive and unwieldy that even if three or four strong men stormed in, hacking away in a frenzy, the barricade would hold for a good five minutes. However, rather than inspiring awe, it only looked pitiful.

On the desk itself, where Hunter had evidently taken his lunch, a half-eaten plate of white bread lay scattered. Confronted so abruptly, Hunter sat in his usual slovenly manner, both legs propped up on the cluttered desk, leafing idly through papers. He shot back with his habitual indifference.

“Scolding me the moment you see my face, are you my wife or something?”