131.

09. Under the Water

Why, of all times, this moment brings back memories of that day, I do not know.

***

That day.

Johannes, who had been deeply asleep, suddenly opened his eyes to a chill. The iron fortress was still engulfed in darkness, with the bedroom immersed in the dark blue dawn air where even night predators dozed. Johannes rubbed his constantly drooping eyelids and looked to the side.

There was the bridge of his elder sister’s nose, who had pulled all of their shared blanket to wrap around just her own body. Johannes propped himself up on his elbow and lowered his breath quietly.

His elder sister curled up like a cocoon in the hazy darkness. The curve of her forehead, half-buried in the pillow, was gentle. Her cheeks were red, but the beads of sweat on her fine hair looked quite cool.

“Are you cold?”

“……”

“Inette.”

The one sleeping alone gave no answer to the call. It was a deep slumber, as if the world had stopped like a single painting.

Johannes stared blankly at the unconscious girl’s eyelids. Then he quietly moved closer to his elder sister’s side. He wiped her damp forehead with his sleeve, patted her shoulders that were trembling like a hummingbird, and finally lowered his face close to hers, touching their noses together.

The small hollow above his elder sister’s upper lip already held the familiar scent of illness. What was bound to come has come. Johannes sighed softly.

I wish you would fall ill more often. Strangely.

His stomach tightened.

Quietly, he curled up and crawled, as if to push his crown under his elder sister’s chin. Just like his elder sister, in a posture like a butterfly cocoon about to hatch. The only difference from his elder sister was that his bare body was not wrapped in a blanket. He tried to sleep as he was, even if cold.

He could feel his elder sister’s breath pouring onto the top of his head. He smiled faintly. Today, what unreasonable demands will you make of me using your illness as an excuse? Johannes, unable to fall back asleep, spent the dawn with his eyes half-closed.

His elder sister’s illness was so familiar.

Like that day, his elder sister would fall ill for three or four days each season.

It was a rather periodic and chronic fever, as if it was only natural to be sick when the time came. Fortunately, it wasn’t as stubborn and severe as Winfrid’s, usually subsiding completely after a day or two, but it seemed equally grueling.

Is it hard? It must be.

Even staying up all night by his elder sister’s side as she groaned in pain with a body that seemed to be steaming hot, it was difficult to gauge the intensity of her pain. Even trying to understand, he didn’t really know what pain was. Laughably, in his short life of just over seven years, he had never particularly experienced being ill.

It would be no exaggeration to say that the only pain he had experienced in his life was the numbness of stubbing his heel on the corner of furniture when pushed by his rushing elder sister. Sometimes he got minor scratches from trivial accidents, but even those healed quickly without leaving traces. Some priests even marveled at how mature his body was. Saying his delicate appearance resembled the princess consort, while his sturdy constitution was just like the duke’s. However, it wasn’t that Johannes had never been ill at all.

It’s just that neither the priests nor Johannes himself had been able to diagnose it properly.

Dawn began to invade the siblings’ bedroom.

Johannes left the bedroom as soon as day broke. Normally, he would have woken his elder sister to start the day together, but that day was different. Lest he wake her up. He had even moved to a different place to finish dressing.

“What whim is it today?”

Griselda, who was attending to him, asked flatly with her characteristically blunt eyes.

“…Something good happened.”

Johannes just smiled slightly without giving a detailed explanation. Griselda didn’t probe further either. In fact, she didn’t seem particularly curious. Perhaps she was just trying to give him a hard time for no reason. Thinking, “This woman only acts like this with me,” Johannes shook his head.

After finishing his grooming, Johannes immediately left the main tower and killed time by aimlessly wandering around the training grounds or the base of the assembly hall. Though he stood composedly among the gathering companions like a surgeon leading a swarm of bees, all his attention was focused on the bedroom.

Is she coming now? Will she come soon? Isn’t it about time she starts looking for me?

Half a day felt as long as a season. As he anxiously watched the sun climbing to the center of the sky, only then did he hear the pitter-patter of a maid’s footsteps searching for him everywhere.

“Here you are!”

Her round eyes, which had been searching every nook and cranny like a mouse, locked onto him. The maid ran over and reported.

“The young lady is urgently looking for you. Will you go see her?”

“Uh… now?”

“Yes, yes.”

“What’s the matter?”

The maid urged the heir with just a glance that seemed to say there was no time for words. You know, if I don’t bring you right away, the young lady will finish me off. That kind of look. Johannes pretended to be puzzled but immediately followed the maid.

As he excused himself from play so early in the day, the disappointed looks and complaints of his companions followed. He smiled awkwardly as if apologetic, but in reality, he had no lingering attachment. His footsteps were quite cheerful as he crossed the brilliantly dry sunlight towards the bedroom, enough to make his elder sister feel upset. His eyes and lips were quite bright as he strode straight ahead without looking back even once.

Having finally reached the bedroom door, Johannes stopped without entering. The interior was clearly visible through the entrance, which was never closed due to frequent comings and goings both inside and out.

The impression of the bedroom on days when his elder sister was ill was different from usual. The countless people gathered in one place because a body not even half the size of an adult was running a fever. The priests surrounding the bed, busily prescribing bloodletting or herbal remedies to reduce the fever of the still tender and precious bloodline. The footsteps of maids taking charge of their errands, alternating between the bedroom and the storehouse, resembled the bustle of a kitchen preparing for a banquet. And as always, his elder sister’s impatient urging mixed in with that busy commotion, occasionally flowing out.

“What are you doing? Hurry and bring Johannes…”

……

“Does he not know how sick I am?”

……

“Can you not hear me? Someone answer me…”

……

Subtly.

Heat rose in Johannes’s chest. His skin felt hot all over. This was exactly the sensation. He had been waiting for this symptom. The heat as if his elder sister’s illness was transferring to him. The ecstasy concealed by unintentional innocence. Unbearably hot. This ecstasy that felt like melting softly from within was why he had secretly anticipated and welcomed his elder sister’s illness. Thus, the place where his elder sister lay ill was rather a festival ground.

Having confirmed his elder sister’s unreasonable demand that he had waited for all day, Johannes finally entered his elder sister’s space. He didn’t particularly hide his melted inner feelings. There was no reason to hide it. He didn’t know. His whole face just radiated a scattered light. With such an uncontrollably bright expression, he approached his elder sister.

His elder sister’s side profile, throwing a pointless tantrum at the priest examining her, appeared and disappeared between the colorful sleeve cuffs. Their eyes met briefly. Upon discovering the brother she had been desperately searching for, his elder sister brightened up as if she had never been irritable. Her cheeks, flushed with fever, gleamed especially brightly, like some kind of pearl.

My elder sister.

Giovinetta stirred her whole body as if about to pounce on him right away. Johannes’s face, which had only shown a cheerful smile until then, finally showed a hint of surprise. There’s no need to rush to me with a body that seems about to die. He was anxious. As the bed was quite far, he signaled with his eyes and hands to ‘stay put there’ while approaching his elder sister. His elder sister, not missing his intention, pounded her knees with both fists. Her habitual impatience was deeply embedded in the spoken words ‘Come quickly’. Throughout this, there was not a single moment when the siblings’ gazes left each other.

Johannes pushed through the crowd, and pushed, and entered, stepping on the footboard of the bed and leaping up. He sat leisurely on the edge of the bed, gazing at his elder sister with welcoming and interested eyes. The priest handed a silver cup filled with medicine to his elder sister. Though grimacing at the bitter taste, she reluctantly accepted and drank it.

Johannes was curious about the taste of the dark-colored medicine. Was it made by grinding dried chicory or Cnidium officinale and mixing it with water? He didn’t dislike the bitter herbal scent that usually lingered around his elder sister’s mouth when she was sick. His elder sister glared at him as if to say, ‘How can you crave such a thing?’ while greedily biting into a lump of sugar offered by a maid.

That concluded the examination.

The priests returned to the chapel without a sound. The maids who had finished their duties also left one by one. After that came the light of the ripened afternoon. The tranquil bedroom soaked in deep golden light. There remained only the two siblings in that quietness. Johannes, finally free from the gazes of the household members, sat down almost lying back, leaning his shoulders against the headboard. His elder sister, sitting sideways, glanced at him.

“You… were late.”

“It wasn’t me who was late, but the news.”

“Excuses… But it’s fine now that you’ve come.”

“What would you do if it wasn’t fine?”

Johannes grinned. His elder sister puffed up her cheeks sulkily.

“I don’t know.”

“If you don’t know, come here.”

Johannes patted the space between his elbow and waist, and seeing this, his elder sister opened her lips as if dumbfounded.

“What are you demanding first now that you’ve finally come?”

“I said come here.”

His elder sister’s gaze, unable to retort but looking flabbergasted, was quite trivial and sweet. In fact, normally she would have challenged him for dominance, but now she was in a state where even managing her own head was difficult. It was a provocation made knowing all this. Johannes tilted his head to look even more annoying. It was then that his elder sister suddenly burrowed into his stomach while silently watching him.

“Ugh.”

Johannes bent over, as if in reaction to that violent movement, covering his elder sister’s shoulders as if embracing her. He even pretended to groan, burying his nose in her shoulder blade that had entered his arms.

“You should come in gently. It hurts, you know?”

“That’s funny. The patient is right here with eyes wide open, and you’re the one exaggerating.”

His elder sister hit Johannes’s abdomen with a thud. A truly pained groan erupted long from his completely defenseless stomach.

“Ah, ugh… This time, it really, hurts…”

“That’s why I said to behave.”

His elder sister scolded him as she turned over in his arms. Johannes looked down with a sulky face. His elder sister was looking up at him with smiling eyes, her head resting on his waist. Those eye corners, round lines falling downward like neat fingertips. Eyes so gentle they seemed unsuited to her somewhat rough personality, as if about to scatter white petals even in the midst of illness.

“You purposely fall ill often just to annoy me, don’t you?”