Chapter 28

Amid the flurry of people rushing about, it was more than one hour after Princess Kana and the others returned to the room from earlier before they finally learned how everything had turned out.

Old Clarence had returned after a physician examined him and found not so much as a scratch. By the time they had finished the tea and sweets served to them and were beginning to feel somewhat idle, Ashton entered the room.

“I sincerely apologize for everything that has happened.”

The moment he entered, he bowed deeply to both the old man and the princess. He explained that they had learned the broad outline of what had happened, but the count was still occupied with dealing with the aftermath and could not come himself, so Ashton would explain in his place.

“First, regarding the trap that Sacred Beast-sama and Clarence-dono found in the garden: Bryne had ordered the gardener to set it because he was plotting to obtain one of Saintess-sama’s Sacred Beasts. However, since Bryne never explained why he wanted the trap set, the gardener assumed it was meant for vermin and, as usual, sprinkled a small amount of ‘rat poison’ onto the bait. That was apparently why Sacred Beast-sama detected a smell resembling arsenic ore.”

Ashton took out a small pouch and showed it to them. He explained that it was an inexpensive rodenticide commonly sold at general stores, and that virtually every farmer or gardener kept some on hand.

“Therefore, the gardener will not be punished and has already returned to his duties. However, I instructed him to remove all of the traps immediately.”

Ashton paused there, poured himself some tea, and drank it down in one gulp. Then, after letting out a sigh, he continued.

“As for Bernetta, we discovered that she knew about Bryne’s plan and intended to steal Sacred Beast-sama away from him, then use that to place Saintess-sama in her debt.”

“I am sorry,” he said, bowing his head once again.

“Also, regarding the medicine Bernetta was carrying, she claimed that her nursemaid had given it to her. So while questioning the nursemaid, we searched her room as well…”

He paused, his expression twisting as though remembering something unpleasant.

“We found a bottle containing a poison known as ‘Widow’s Poison.’ We believe that is most likely what Father and the rest of us had been made to ingest.”

“What sort of substance is that?”

The old man answered the princess’s question.

“It was a cosmetic lotion that became fashionable around thirty years ago. At the time, it was marketed with claims that it would whiten one’s skin. However, it contained toxic ingredients, and one wife after another began abusing it to kill inconvenient husbands. That is how it came to be called ‘Widow’s Poison.’ Naturally, before long not only its sale but even its manufacture was prohibited.”

“And yet, some was found there?”

“Yes. And not only that. There were several other suspicious medicines as well…”

“I see. And what does the nursemaid say?”

“At first, she insisted they were all harmless substances intended for her own use. But after Father threatened her a little, she confessed almost immediately. Even so, she continues to insist that she never had any intention of killing Father.”

“She claims she had no intention of killing him, yet she was poisoning him?”

“Yes. She said that after Father was injured, Stepmother became terribly worried, so she merely wanted to keep him from going out on extermination missions. And as for poisoning us, she claimed she only wanted to grant Bernetta’s wish to attend an official royal ceremony and had no other motive. She apparently thought that if our health deteriorated, the duty of attending would naturally fall to the Countess and the twins…”

Ashton spoke with his head lowered, forcing the words out through clenched teeth. Both his hands were tightly balled into fists and trembling faintly. Whether that came from anger or from fear at having nearly been poisoned to death was impossible to tell from the outside.

“And do you believe that?”

At Burley’s question, Ashton shook his head.

“I cannot believe such nonsense. Especially not after seeing what that ‘sleeping drug’ actually does…”

(Oh? So they tested it. On whom, I wonder?)

Although the thought crossed her mind, Princess Kana deliberately did not ask. Whatever punishment House Owsley chose to impose upon the nursemaid or the Countess was none of her concern.

Moreover, Callahan himself had handed her a signed oath declaring that the twins would never again be permitted to go to the royal capital, so Princess Kana had no intention of interfering any further.

Clarence had also stated that since he had suffered not even a scratch, he had no intention of pressing charges. With no further reason to involve themselves, they decided to depart early the following morning.

Still, some lingering dissatisfaction must have remained within the princess, because when she purified one of the mana pools Callahan had requested, the flames rose far more spectacularly than usual.

“I wanted the Saintess’s fox. If I could get it, I’d become the only knight in the entire kingdom who could ride through the sky…”

When Callahan asked why he had drawn his sword on Clarence-dono, Bryne’s answer was so childish and self-centered that Callahan could only press a hand to his forehead and sigh. Perhaps he did not even see his father’s reaction, because Bryne never raised his head and continued speaking in a halting murmur.

“I had the gardener set traps for the fox, but I was worried they wouldn’t work. So I hid in the garden to watch what happened. Then, just by luck, only the old man and the fox came outside… I thought it’d be easy to take it from him. So…”

And that was how he had ended up being defeated instead. Bryne explained it with his head hanging low, sitting in a chair with his dominant hand wrapped in bandages and suspended from his neck in a sling.

“That Sacred Beast fox was never something a person like you could possibly control. Could you not even understand that?”

“…I thought I was special, so controlling a single beast would be easy…”

“What exactly is special about you?”

“Everyone said so. They said I had a special talent for the sword. They said Brother refused to write me a recommendation because he was jealous of my talent and wanted to hold me back. So…”

At those words, Callahan let out what must have been his countless sigh of the day. His eldest son was taciturn and rarely spoke about himself, so Callahan knew that he sometimes caused strange misunderstandings, but he had never imagined there was such a serious disconnect between the brothers.

“When Ashton was your age, he took the knight order’s entrance examination and passed with one of the highest scores. He simply chose not to join.”

“What?”

Bryne finally raised his head in shock at his father’s words.

“As the future count, he had mountains of things to learn, from managing the territory to commanding its soldiers. That is why he did not join. And from the perspective of that same elder brother, you simply had not reached a level at which he could write you a recommendation. That was all.”

“…But if he’d just told me…”

“I believe he told you many times to take the entrance examination.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean if he’d told me that he passed it. Then I would have…”

“My guess is that he found it difficult to tell you because he was considering how you would feel if you failed.”

Bryne stared blankly at his father’s back as Callahan left the room.

Click. The sound of the door being locked from the outside echoed through the room.

(…He thought I would fail the exam…)

Ever since childhood, Bryne had always wanted to become a knight. But he found tedious repetition with wooden swords and physical conditioning far less enjoyable than sparring with real blades, and believed the latter suited him much better. So he had dismissed the instructor his father appointed and replaced him with one recommended by his mother’s family. That had been around a year and a half ago.

Afterward, he believed his skill had improved so dramatically that even he was surprised. In mock matches against the territorial soldiers, he had not lost once over the past year, so he had been convinced that all he needed was a recommendation letter and he would become a knight. And yet—

From his father’s words, Bryne now understood that in his elder brother’s eyes, his skill had been nowhere near good enough to pass. He stared at his suspended hand. Perhaps because he had taken medicine, it did not hurt very much at the moment. However—

“Please give up the sword.” Those had been the physician’s first words after finishing his treatment. “Once the wound heals, I expect you will be able to live an ordinary life without difficulty. But swinging a sword will most likely be impossible…” Bryne could understand the words that repeated over and over inside his head, but he still could not accept them.

His thoughts spiraled downward and downward, as though tumbling down a winding staircase.

(What am I supposed to do now?… What am I supposed to do… what… what am I supposed to do……?)

“Is it wrong to have a dream?”

When Callahan sighed after hearing why Bernetta had been in the garden, she asked him that question.

“A dream?”

“Being noticed by a wonderful prince. That sort of dream. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Not enough to deserve… to deserve such a horrible punishment…”

Bernetta sat on her bed clutching the covers as tears dripped down. Yet her expression still showed that she could not accept what had happened. A splint and large piece of gauze covered the center of her face, held firmly in place by bandages.

“The nasal bone is broken. I have realigned it for now, but I expect it will remain slightly crooked. The area where it broke may also become somewhat thicker.”

Bernetta had gone deathly pale when the physician said that after finishing the procedure.

His wife Mirabel had pleaded that since this was an injury to a young woman’s face, they should at least summon a priest for Bernetta, but Callahan refused.

After all, Bernetta had taken pride in her looks and schemed because of them, so he considered the outcome only natural. If anything, he thought her behavior was worse because rather than stopping her twin brother from committing a crime, she had tried to exploit it for her own benefit.

“If only that Saintess had properly recognized my worth from the beginning…”

At his daughter’s muttered complaint—

“Recognized what?! You have not accomplished a single thing!”

Callahan could no longer stop himself from raising his voice.

“I will not say that having a dream itself is wrong. But what effort did you ever make to achieve it? A kindhearted young lady? What exactly is kind about someone who refuses to volunteer at an orphanage? Have you ever once visited a charity hospital?”

“But Elder Sister does all of that…”

“Exactly! You pushed every troublesome and unpleasant duty onto Audra. You yourself accomplished absolutely nothing, so what exactly did you expect anyone to recognize in you? Worse still, you not only failed to stop your brother from committing a crime, you tried to exploit it. Society has a name for women like that: wicked women!”

Bernetta went pale at her father’s fury and at the words being hurled at her, but Callahan did not stop.

“And when exactly did you dismiss the tutor I appointed and hire that sycophant instead? Why can you not understand that filling your head with useless fashions and gossip will do you no good? Let me make this clear: dreams are not so easy that you can achieve them simply by taking the easiest path while making no effort whatsoever to improve yourself!”

After saying all of that in one breath, Callahan waited until his breathing settled and then turned to leave the room.

“You—both of you—destroyed your own dreams with your own hands. It is time you finally understood that.”

Those were the final words he left behind.

“My lord, this is some kind of mistake! Please let me out of here immediately!”

The elderly woman pleading from inside the cell had been one of the maids Mirabel brought with her when she became Callahan’s second wife eighteen years earlier.

Originally, she had apparently been a housemaid in the count’s household where Mirabel was born. However, she had a relative who was an apothecary and could therefore prepare simple medicines and cosmetics. When Mirabel married, she was selected as one of her personal maids and later became the twins’ nursemaid.

Callahan had always thought it somewhat problematic that she favored the twins born later over his older children, but she had served his wife loyally and the twins were attached to her, so he had tolerated it to some extent. Now he painfully realized that had been a mistake.

“What exactly is a mistake? These were found in your room.”

A number of medicine bottles confiscated from the nursemaid’s room had been lined up on a nearby table. Among them were five bottles of the liquid known as “Widow’s Poison.” A physician had already used reagents to test them and confirmed that they contained ingredients similar to those in “rat poison.”

Even faced with the bottles, however, the nursemaid continued feigning ignorance. She insisted that every one of them was for her own use and that they were all harmless substances sent to her by her apothecary relative. Infuriated by her attitude, Callahan said,

“Then let us test this medicine. Apparently you told my daughter this was a ‘sleeping drug,’ but according to Saintess-sama, it is something far more dangerous. They say that if someone is rendered unconscious with it, they will not notice even if an arm is cut off. So let us begin by testing it on your right hand. If you scream in pain when your hand is severed, I shall believe what you just told me.”

He then ordered the soldier waiting beside him, whose mouth and nose were covered with cloth, to open the bottle containing the sleeping drug. Using wind magic, they carried its vapors toward the nursemaid’s nose inside the cell. Seeing the woman frantically cover her nose and mouth and desperately try to escape it, Callahan sneered.

“Why are you running? It is merely a sleeping drug, is it not?”

“I’m sorry! I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything, just get that away from me!”

The nursemaid threw herself face-down on the floor, trembling and screaming as she desperately tried not to inhale the drug. Thinking that this confirmed his suspicions, Callahan drew the bottle back and ordered the soldier to replace the stopper.

After that, the nursemaid began talking as though a dam had burst, but every confession came wrapped in excuses meant to protect herself.

She had only wanted to stop the lord from joining extermination missions because the Countess worried about him. She had only administered tiny amounts occasionally. She had merely wanted to somehow grant the young lady’s wish, and so on.

Even if every word of that were true, Callahan could not shake the feeling that somewhere beneath it all lurked an if fortune happened to favor her.

If fortune happened to favor her, the eldest son who went on extermination missions in place of the lord might be killed. If fortune happened to favor her, the lord, already suffering from chronic ill health, might pass away soon afterward. He could not stop imagining such possibilities lurking beneath her excuses.

He did not yet know whether the intentions of his wife’s birth family were involved as well, but he decided this matter had to be dealt with immediately. He had no desire to deal with troublesome interference, so he ordered the sentence carried out without delay.

At the same time, he decided to test the actual effect of the “sleeping drug” and carried out the threat he had made earlier. The result was exactly as the Saintess had described. Once the elderly woman collapsed unconscious, she did not so much as twitch even when her arm was severed or when her heart was pierced.

(If this had been used on me or Ashton…)

The thought sent a chill through him. Ashton evidently felt the same, because his face had turned deathly pale. They decided that all of the confiscated medicines would be placed under strict security.

The next thing Callahan decided was to divorce Mirabel and remove the twins from the nobility.

He hurried to assemble all the documents required for the divorce proceedings. Divorce among nobles was exceedingly complicated, but he could no longer bear the thought of continuing to live with her. Callahan simply could not believe that his wife had been completely unaware of what the nursemaid had been doing.

Still, he could hardly cast Bryne and Bernetta out to fend for themselves as commoners. In the end, recognizing that he himself had done very little as a father over the previous two years, he decided that at the same time as the divorce, he would pass his title to Ashton, retire, and live with the twins in a separate residence on the outskirts of the territory.

There, he resolved to finally do what he had failed to do as their father during those two years.

“I only hope it isn’t too late…”

The lord, who had suddenly become extraordinarily busy the moment his health improved for the first time in two years, murmured those words to himself.