Chapter 149

“Oh, right, Eugène. That young lady.”

Hunter, unaware of what Eugène was concerned about, suddenly shifted the topic with an offhand remark, as if remembering something. Eugène, who had been counting the corpses he had seen since earlier, barely paid attention to Hunter’s words.

“Who?”

“That young lady… the one you asked me to investigate… that incredibly noble lady. Why was she to be investigated?”

“Was there anything unusual?”

Only upon hearing that did Eugène recall whom Hunter was talking about.

“You were so insistent on her possibly being connected to Nightwing that I rummaged through everything I could. But nothing quite stood out. She is an ordinary young lady in every way. There were rumors she had a long-standing unrequited love for Prince Merrick, but that is common enough among the noblewomen in the capital… Oh, but there was one peculiar thing that caught my attention.”

Although it was not presently the matter demanding his concern, Eugène listened to Hunter’s report with patience. This was not mere idle talk, but the answer to a task he had commissioned, and thus it could not be disregarded.

“This young lady once requested that her nanny procure arsenic for her. Ordinarily, such an item is beyond the purview of an unmarried lady. Moreover, since she resides within the court, she must avoid actions that might give rise to misunderstanding. When the nanny inquired as to the reason, the young lady explained that a rat had appeared in the court, which caused her to be relocated from the second-best room to the third. She wished to return to her original room, and thus she required the rat to be caught. She proceeded to bring the arsenic accordingly. Does it not strike one as peculiar? What noblewoman would personally capture a rat?”

Ziiing—.

Upon hearing this, Eugène halted in his tracks. It felt as though the back of his head had been struck with great force, and a high-pitched ringing resonated in his ears. Hunter had spoken casually, yet this proved to be a crucial clue. It entirely overturned Eugène’s prior understanding of Louise’s death.

When Louise first entered the court, unfavourable rumours had circulated concerning the Viscountess Wemmel. It was said that the Viscountess had been greatly angered when she was moved from the best room to the second-best room on Louise’s account.

If there was one thing he had overlooked, it was that it was not only the Viscountess Wemmel who had been relocated, but that someone else had also been pushed aside on her account. Once that suspicion arose, situations that had previously escaped his notice began to emerge in rapid succession.

‘While we were talking, the Baron suddenly intervened and grabbed the Baroness.’

Eugène remembered what she had said to the Countess Patrí the very first day he had met Young Lady Freyr. By that time, Louise had already divorced him, yet the young lady persistently addressed Louise as “Baroness.” More than anything–

‘Lady Dumont. Do not simply stay in your room, and come out here. Viscountess Wemmel has just scored record-breaking Tric-trac points!’

Eugène grimaced, recalling that voice with vivid clarity. It was she. The very person who, apart from himself, had discovered Louise’s body first. She. The one who had made Louise respond to the Countess Patrí’s letters and had coated the quill with arsenic.

Good heavens. How could a young lady who had appeared so innocent commit such a vicious act? Only for the sake of securing a better room? Could that truly be the reason?

“…Wait.”

Eugène suddenly realized something, and his face turned pale.

“Hunter.”

“Yes?”

“TaGE ItEGEI… vJkSH QE iI… LIbI JwSN EaI cbGwHt VGEaIbIH EaIbI, Jb LIbI EaI GEEIwHGwEt QwvSkHIH Gt LISS?”

“ZQwvI EaIbI Qt hJbI EaGw JwI hIhiIb JY EaI QhrIbQGS YGhQSN, wGEkbGSSN, EaIbI GbI GEEIwHGwEt. FE EaI AIbN SIGtE, EaIN ibJkVaE GSJwV G hGQH Jb ELJ EJ tIbAI EaIh, GwH rIbaGrt G vJhrGwQJw EJ EGSB LQEa.”

“mGhw QE!!!”

OkVèwI YSkwV EaI iGvBrGvB aI aGH iIIw vGbbNQwV EJ EaI YSJJb GwH iIVGw bkwwQwV hGHSN HJLw EaI tEGQbt. skwEIb, tEGbESIH iN EaI tkHHIw, tIIhQwVSN QbbGEQJwGS GvEQJw, YbJRI Qw rSGvI GwH rIIbIH HJLw EaI tEGQbLISS.

“qaGE Qt EaI hGEEIb GSS JY G tkHHIw? sGAI NJk VJwI hGH?!”

He grasped the railing and called out to Eugène, but Eugène did not pause in his frantic pace.

“The reason I suspected Young Lady Freyr was that she had been clandestinely meeting with Duke La Mer! The one I thought to be a Nightwing operative associated with her was none other than him!”

It might well be a baseless fear. Their meeting that day could have been a simple coincidence, and Young Lady Freyr may have had no intention of harming anyone other than Louise.

However, the fact that a woman who had held secret talks with Duke La Mer and claimed to harbor an unrequited love for Prince Merrick was staying at the side of the imperial princes and princesses gnawed at Eugène to the point of madness. Above all else, what troubled him most was that the number of people remaining in this hideout was drastically fewer than he remembered.

“Go to His Majesty at once and report this. Bring back every single person you can pull from there!”

Eugène shouted to Hunter as he rushed down the stairs. Seeing how desperately Eugène was pressing the matter, Hunter grasped the gravity of the situation and nodded hastily.

“Understood.”

“You, you, you… No, everyone here. Follow me!”

He barked the order at the Anti-Chevaliers gathered in the mansion’s reception hall and stormed out like a gale without even checking whether they were following. Because he issued his command with such unquestionable authority, the Anti-Chevaliers did not even think to ask whether he had the right to do so, and followed him as if bewitched.

Moments later, a dozen mounted figures burst out of the estate at full speed.

***

The girl crossed her arms in front of a chest that had not yet even begun to form and declared stubbornly,

“This time, you are it.”

The boy jumped in protest at her words.

“No. You are still it!”

Princess Anne Meredith, who was being addressed as“Sister”by her younger brother born in the same year, merely because she was a few months older, lifted her small nose and argued confidently.

“You are it. I caught you while you were hiding, so you are it.”

“But you cheated. You did not find me, you found Theo instead.”

Still protesting, the boy cast an aggrieved look down at the puppy that had given him away. At his feet stood a large puppy, the very cause of the young masters’ quarrel, wagging its tail energetically. The young animal, still incapable of reading the mood, seemed delighted simply to be playing with its owners, panting incessantly with its small pink tongue hanging out.

“Ugh, that is—”

“You only found me because of Theo’s tail. That does not count. That is cheating. So you are still it.”

“And you found me over and over again because of the pannier I was wearing. Every time that happened, I did not say a word and stayed it.”

The half-siblings, who resembled each other so closely that one might have mistaken them for twins if not for their strikingly different coloring, were engaged in what was, to them, a very serious argument.

They shared the same bloodline, but they rarely had the chance to play together. They knew of each other’s existence, yet they lived in different places and had different mothers. To make matters worse, their nannies did not get along, which meant they almost never played together.

The children, who had never left the palace where they lived, had an exceedingly strange experience that day. They were woken far earlier than usual, had their eyes tightly covered, and were led through an unknown secret passage to the outside, where they were made to stay in a house they had never seen before.

Their mothers had fled in haste with only two or three ladies-in-waiting, leaving them flustered and poorly prepared. The nannies responsible for caring for the children were in an even worse state. Aside from Anne Meredith and Sigeber, all of the children were very young, and among them was even a newborn, barely one year old.

As a result, the ones who benefited most were the two children who had slipped away unnoticed from the busy maids’ watchful eyes and happened to run into each other.

They played freely, doing exactly as they pleased with no watchful eyes upon them. It was the first time in their lives that they experienced genuine freedom. The problem was that both of them wanted to play hide-and-seek, but neither wished to be the one who was it.

“There is no helping it. In times like this, you play rock, paper, scissors.”

The fairest method children could rely on in such situations was, after all, rock, paper, scissors. Prince Sigeber nodded as if agreeing with his sister’s decisive proposal.

“All right. But only one round, and no arguing afterward.”

Princess Anne Meredith accepted the bargain with confidence. Unfortunately, she was not blessed with good luck in games of chance. The single, fateful round ended in Prince Sigeber’s victory, and Anne Meredith, constrained by the dignity owed to an elder sibling, could not bring herself to ask for a do-over.

“All right. Then I will count to fifty, so hide. When I reach fifty, I will come find you right away.”

“Yes!!”

“One, two, three-.”

While Anne Meredith counted aloud, Prince Sigeber quickly dashed out of the room and into the corridor. Though it was nowhere near as vast as the palace where they lived, the manor was still more than large enough for a seven-year-old child to hide in.

If I hide in the next room, I will be found immediately. She will search thoroughly up to the third room in both directions. So where should I hide?

Prince Sigeber ran about in a flurry, deep in thought. Theo, excited as though it were a race, chased eagerly after the boy.

I am not the only one who needs to hide. He has to hide, too!

Only then realizing Theo’s presence, Prince Sigeber felt the rapidly dwindling numbers with his whole body and hurriedly scanned his surroundings. His sister counted quickly, so she might come searching very soon.

After finally avoiding being it, getting caught without even managing to hide would be unbearably humiliating.

As the boy looked around, he noticed something strange on one side of the sitting room and ran toward it. Behind an old tapestry hanging on the wall, something like a thin, dried blade of grass was sticking out, and he had somehow managed to spot it. Approaching the wall, the boy lifted the tapestry. Unexpectedly, there was a fairly snug space hidden behind it.

What Prince Sigeber had discovered was an early form of an alcove. Inside, though dust had settled, there were soft sheets and pillows, as well as a sachet of potpourri meant to ward off insects. Feeling as though he had found a secret hideout known to no one else, the boy let out a small cheer. Then, clutching Theo in his arms, he quickly crawled inside.

***

Eugène, who was not particularly skilled at horse riding, had ridden at full speed while nearly being thrown several times, but even so, by the time he arrived, everything had already happened.

The entrance hall was in shambles, like a fortress gate that had endured a siege. He did not know how many men had been stationed here, but judging by the desperate resistance they had put up, bloodstained handprints were scattered here and there along the inner hallway.

Bodies had already been discovered from this point onward. Young cuirassiers lay dead, their breastplates crushed grotesquely inward on the left side. From their uniforms, they were clearly members of the Emperor’s Guard.

“Be careful. The enemy has firearms.”

Eugène, stepping quietly over shattered furniture, issued a warning to those behind him. The Anti-Chevaliers, each carrying a personally issued pistol, nodded grimly and drew their weapons. Just as at the entrance, gunshot wounds were unmistakably present on the bodies strewn throughout the corridor and above it.

Although personal firearms continued to be steadily improved, muskets were still not automatic weapons. At a distance, one could fire several times, but within a range like this, it was usually possible only once or twice, and even then only selectively, when allies provided cover to allow time for reloading. Taking the visible gunshot wounds into account, Eugène roughly estimated the number of enemies.

Thirty to forty. Not a small force.

That number roughly matched the count of those who had disappeared from the hideout. Were they truly here? Eugène moved forward cautiously, sincerely regretting that he had not investigated their plans more thoroughly.

However, the careful advance did not last long. Before long, they heard the clamor of fierce combat erupting from one side of the building.Rat-a-tat-tat-bang!The crackling sound of musket fire, like beans roasting, shattered the silence. Startled, the group halted for a moment, then, without anyone needing to say a word, they all broke into a run toward the source of the noise.

“Halt!”

Charging in blindly without knowing the enemy’s numbers or deployment was nothing short of suicide. That was especially true if the opposing force was indeed close to forty. Though he himself was far from calm, Eugène forced himself to steady his nerves and stopped the group at the far end of the hallway.

Under normal circumstances, the room that served as a recreation hall would have been a place of leisure, but now a desperate exchange was unfolding before it. The defenders had piled furniture such as billiard tables, chessboards, and cabinets to form a barricade, responding from behind it, while the opposing side pressed the attack, wielding their numerical superiority as a weapon.

The attackers numbered some twenty young men. They did not appear to have received formal military training, but neither were they entirely ignorant of such matters, and their movements were fairly well coordinated.

Half of them are here. Then where is the other half?

Eugène cautiously scanned the surroundings, but no additional figures came into view. At least four or five of the corpses they had passed earlier had not been wearing the uniforms of the Imperial Guard, which meant that, at most, nearly fifteen enemy combatants still remained.