#104

“If I were to speak ill of the knight, would the young lady perhaps get upset?”

It was a morning when the crisp air was so chilly, like the first frost, that it made my skin prickle with goosebumps. Alyona asked me as she set down a pot tightly wrapped in thick cotton cloth on the brazier. The water, which had been boiling vigorously in the kitchen, cooled and emitted hot steam, filling the inner room with a gentle warmth. The pot, which at first glance looked like it could be for heating the room, was actually a tool for the steam therapy that had become a ritual every other day since Johannes had obtained the tonic.

I knelt comfortably on the carpet-covered floor. Alyona crouched by the brazier and began fanning with her hand. With her nose fixed straight ahead as if the pot were the only thing that mattered to her, the girl pretended not to know, even though she had just asked me a question. However, I could feel her occasional glances and knew she was watching my reaction.

“Which young lady are you talking about now? You’re asking as if it’s about someone else when the person in question is right here.”

I chided the girl for her rudeness as I covered my head with a large towel. The towel covering my eyes made it stifling, but when I grabbed both ends of the towel hanging down and raised them above my head like a visor, the blushing Alyona reappeared, looking awkward. The girl rolled her reed-colored eyes to one side, noticed my gaze, and giggled.

“I appreciate your concern for me, but Johannes is doing this because he cares for me too much.”

“…Pardon?”

“Because he loves me too much.”

“Um… How can you tell?”

Alyona asked with eyes like a startled rabbit. Now it was my turn to feel embarrassed. I must have furrowed my brow without realizing it, because Alyona’s shoulders flinched as she stared at me. In an instant, the girl’s gaze, which had taken on an awkward air, fell quickly to the surface of the pot.

“Hmm, I think it’s best to use it all today. The remaining amount is ambiguous.”

Perhaps it was her intention to clear away the awkward atmosphere. Alyona rummaged through her apron pocket with unnecessarily busy hands and said as she pulled out a glass vial about the size of her thumb. When the girl poured the mercury from the vial into the pot, several drops fell, though I had thought there was hardly any left. I stared at this and asked:

“Isn’t that too much?”

“No, it’s not. The more often and the more you take of the tonic, the better. It’s just that people like us can’t afford to take it because it’s hard to obtain.”

Alyona answered nonchalantly. Well, that’s true, I nodded briefly in agreement. As I lowered my face to cover the top of the pot while holding the towel, the moist steam that pooled inside the towel seemed to hide my subtly flushed face. ‘How can you tell,’ indeed. It was a sigh too embarrassing to utter aloud.

“Actually, every time I see the young lady’s body, I feel upset.”

Alyona muttered softly as she used both hands to block the gaps so that I could inhale the steam evenly. At that moment, I didn’t rebuke her at all. Although the girl’s concern, which sounded like a complaint at first, wasn’t entirely unwelcome, I also wasn’t completely ignorant of its meaning. After all, that’s why I had blushed in the first place.

That morning too, Alyona ran into Johannes at the entrance as he was returning to his room. In fact, if Johannes had left at the time he had planned, the two would not have encountered each other at all.

Before dawn. Johannes, who had seemed fine when he was giving me water, stood up to return to his room, but then he staggered greatly once and collapsed onto the bed. It was as if his knees had been suddenly cut off below.

Soon after falling sideways onto the bed, he couldn’t get up again. Clutching his chest and swallowing several irregular, rough breaths, it looked just like the day he had his first seizure in Gustavus. I was startled and clung to Johannes. The nape of his neck caught my eye.

When I hurriedly lifted his top, more than half of his back was bronze-colored.

He’ll be better soon, it’s fine. Johannes tried to comfort me, almost as if delirious.

“You just stay here.”

Even in the midst of this, he said such things while pulling the back of my head and kissing me frantically.

His breathing, which had even become feverish, only subsided somewhat around the time the sun had fully risen, and Johannes, who had finally managed to get up, covered his eyes with his hand, apparently still feeling dizzy. Thus, even though he had set out late, saying he should go now, he ended up encountering Alyona.

Alyona froze stiffly as usual, like a hummingbird with all its feathers puffed out. Johannes, upon discovering the girl, staggered for a moment while holding the doorknob, then immediately turned his head and crossed the threshold. A forceful avoidance, as if with difficulty. He didn’t even offer a brief, silent bow. It was as if he couldn’t see the girl at all.

Alyona, who had shrunk even more at his cold attitude, barely stepped into the inner room only after hearing the sound of a door opening and closing from the far end of the corridor. What the poor girl discovered while timidly attending to me was, of course, all sorts of traces left behind by Johannes.

It was as if a wildfire was spreading. Although Alyona had seen the unusual night’s passion marks several times before, she blushed her cheeks so fiercely anew….

“I understand that Johannes might seem rough to your eyes. But I feel affection in his attitude. So it’s alright.”

I said in between inhaling and exhaling the mercury vapor. I caught a glimpse of Alyona tilting her head beyond the brazier.

“It’s strange, young lady.”

“What is?”

“How can you feel affection from such behavior? Didn’t it hurt?”

“My goodness. Look at you. You know, I think your question is stranger…. Isn’t this always how a man shows love for a woman? From what I’ve seen, Johannes is rather gentlemanly.”

“…Gentlemanly? This?”

“Yes. Quite gentlemanly indeed.”

There were numerous reasons why I could assert this so confidently. Pitiful and gentlemanly. After quietly repeating this as if to reaffirm my belief, I closed my eyes completely, which had been narrowed due to the steam. The eyes of Winfrid, who occasionally regarded me as more worthless than the objects he cherished, pooled inside my closed eyelids. The cold indigo color resembled that of the men.

At that time, I was recalling the men from the dark years. First, I recalled my father. I recalled my first husband. And I recalled the witnesses who silently watched my wedding night, barely reaching my husband’s waist, the men of Indradason, young and old, and Henrik who said he loved me. Lastly, even the old man who persecuted me more than his own son.

Though their appearances differed, their colors seemed exactly the same.

“You know, it’s not for nothing that ‘woman’ is synonymous with ‘sinner’.”

My lips parted without me realizing it.

“Men are usually cruel. Even if they’re not particularly evil, they’re just cruel to the extent of their inherent nature. And enduring this quietly is the duty of being a sinner.”

“Is that so…?”

“Yes. How old are you to not know this yet? Didn’t your mother tell you?”

“She did tell me to be careful with my behavior.”

“That’s what I’m saying. We always have to be careful and endure. Sometimes it might feel unfair, but what can we do? They say our ancestor was the one who brought mortality by going against God’s will….”

My words gradually faded. My mother’s touch, twisting my arm as if to break it, suddenly came alive midway through the story, and I felt a surge of anger rising.

“Be prudent, be careful, fulfill a woman’s duty and don’t show your face carelessly, you shouldn’t leave the inner chambers until you have a husband to protect you at least…”

Like a madwoman.

I quietly shook my head under the towel and tried to shake off the unpleasant memory. The pot no longer emitted steam. As I rose and removed the towel I had been wearing, holding it out in front of me, Alyona carefully received it. I tilted my heated face up into the air and opened my eyes wide. Come to think of it….

“You know, if you think about it carefully, isn’t it evident from the shape of the lower body? Inserting and receiving. Given that shape, whose role do you think endurance would be? The one doing the inserting?”

“Ah, ah, ah, lower….”

Alyona, who had been burying her nose in my towel without realizing it was improper, perhaps wanting to receive some of the tonic’s effects herself, lifted her face with a startled expression. Her stiffened head, sitting across from me, looked as if it might emit steam in place of the pot.

“No, young lady….”

“Hmm?”

“A young lady should speak modestly and innocently like a young lady, how can you speak so shamelessly about such matters as if you were a widow who has seen it all?”

“Oh… Really? Is that so?”

“Please don’t do that. It makes my knees weak for no reason.”

“If I’m being immodest, why are your knees weak?”

“Th-that’s because… Young lady….”

Alyona, who was about to answer my chuckle, suddenly shut her mouth. Only a pair of eyes remained on the girl’s pale face, which looked as if she was about to cry. With even the ends of her delicate eyebrows turned downward, her face looked exactly like a drowned puppy. Because the young lady is a widow. Alyona muttered in a barely audible voice.

“What?”

There was no answer even when I asked.

“What did you just say?”

Feeling a bit bewildered by the girl’s strange mutter, I urged her again. Alyona, who had been hesitating while biting her lips tightly, looked at my expression and mumbled:

“Well… you see….”

“Yes.”

“The young lady is a rare beauty with blonde hair and blue eyes….”

“Yes.”

“You speak the common language….”

“That’s right.”

“And when I mentioned Pessoa Castle, you knew about Indradason….”

“……”

“Moreover, your twin… no, your cousin… Huh? Uh, no, that….”

Alyona seemed to realize midway that the story she was trying to tell was inconsistent and became flustered. The girl’s eyes rolled back and forth with her mouth wide open. The meaning behind her behavior seemed clear even without hearing the rest of the story.

You know who we are. It felt like my blood ran cold. I sat up straight and stared at Alyona.

“Anyway, I… I think I know who you are and where you’re from, partly because of what I heard from a peddler before.”

It was as I had guessed. Trying not to reveal my slight trembling, I asked:

“What peddler?”

“……”

“…You seem to know who we are.”

“Well… that crazy… Ah, no! That!”

“……”

“That….”

“……”

“You’re the… princess from the northwest, aren’t you…? The princess locked in the tower.”

Alyona carefully laid out what seemed to be a near-certain guess. I watched the girl for a moment as she bowed her head halfway, tightly clasping her nervous fingertips, and peered at my eyes. I’m sorry, Alyona quickly apologized to me.