#48

Griselda, who had been sitting beside the princess consort until then, screamed and fell backwards. She crawled backwards, probing with her bent elbows.

As if the ‘thing’ inside was inhaling and exhaling, the red mist repeatedly sank down and surged up, spreading uncontrollably in all directions.

Griselda wanted to run away just like that. She was utterly terrified from the bridge of her nose to the corners of her eyes. The temperature in the inner palace was changing, as if something’s long tongue was licking away the living energy of the two women.

Just as she had felt earlier in the birthing room.

However, the princess consort paid no heed.

“Come out…. Come out, please, hurry and come out…. Come out.”

She merely sat close beside the coffin, muttering anxiously.

Griselda did not know what the princess consort was waiting for. She had no energy to care. Only the image of the princess consort’s trembling back turning frighteningly red was etched in her mind. Though she had not yet realized it, in fact, the entire inner palace was completely red.

Goosebumps had already formed due to the chill that completely cut through the air, and the blood clouds touching every frozen surface were lukewarm like freshly drawn blood. An indescribably dramatic temperature difference. That vividness of blood vessels and intestines wrapping around arms raw.

It’s a demon. Griselda thought. Her jaw couldn’t stay still, convinced that demons awakened by the call of the mentally broken princess consort were surely rushing in. Her chattering teeth made a clacking sound each time they collided up and down.

“Come out….”

Whether what she was waiting for had not come out, the princess consort finally cried out, her entire body shaking.

“Come out…! Kretzman!”

And that’s when it happened. When the dark-haired shadow passed by Griselda.

The shadow busily walked out from somewhere amidst the blazing mist. A demon? No.

It was a person. A man. His face was not clearly visible. He only wore an outer garment with wide, long sleeves cinched with a belt. Judging by his simple attire, he looked like a wandering priest or a beggar from somewhere.

Though he was quite an ordinary man like that, Griselda couldn’t even scream. The reason was that she was so startled her hair stood on end at the sudden appearance of an unheard-of and unseen figure in that bone-chillingly eerie moment.

That man who had barely brushed past Griselda disappeared into the mist, treading the same path he had come.

And he reappeared.

While she couldn’t even make a sound as her heart pounded, Griselda’s eyes tenaciously followed the unidentified man. The man looked visibly agitated at a glance. He appeared urgent, yet also somehow familiar and routine-like.

Griselda ultimately had a strange impression. As if she had been unable to see someone who had been in this place from the beginning and only now finally noticed.

How long had he been here? From the start? No.

Absolutely not. There had been no one in the inner palace except the princess consort and herself.

The man was busy crossing here and there alone. To be precise, he was darting back and forth between Griselda and the princess consort. And when he briefly stopped, he repeatedly made futile gestures of crouching down and standing up, very thoroughly from the top of his head to below his knees.

To Griselda’s eyes, that motion looked like rummaging through shelves and cabinets that were invisible to her. What is this?

What on earth is he doing now?

“Where, was it, where was it….”

When the man stood close by, Griselda could hear him muttering busily.

“…ere is it. Where did I put it….”

The man’s mutterings did not cease. … is needed. What is needed? She unknowingly listened closely. … well… is needed. … . What? …saw.

“A saw is needed. A saw…. A sharp saw…. Where is it.”

The chilling monologue sharply gripped Griselda’s throat.

The man ‘searched’ near Griselda for a while. Soon he turned around abruptly, making his collar flutter, and began striding purposefully. At the same speed as before, without the slightest deviation, straight towards the princess consort.

And something unbelievable happened. How could it be believed? What on earth is this? That man who seemed so alive right here. That man who was passing right through the prostrate princess consort, the coffin…. He is not human.

Like a ghost.

“Kretzman….”

The princess consort finally noticed him as the man passed in front of her. She twisted her waist urgently and cried out.

“K-Kretzman…. Kretzman, Kretzman!”

The princess consort sprawled out, nearly prostrate. Having used up what little strength remained, she was utterly powerless. She just flailed on the floor, following the man with her head. The man did not give her a single glance.

It did not seem intentional. His attitude was as if he could neither see nor hear the princess consort calling him, and he also seemed to be overflowing with anxiety. Yes, the saw must be urgent right now. Griselda instantly grasped this one thing. The fact that the man was not ‘here’. No, at least he himself thought so.

So that man is now looking for a saw somewhere other than here, and the princess consort crawling on the floor as if to grab even his trouser leg is as good as nonexistent to him.

The man who had swept through the inner palace like a storm and somehow passed through the wall soon hurriedly returned.

Facing the blood clouds head-on, he ran to the edge opposite the princess consort and knelt on one knee as if sliding. Then he made a gesture of taking something out. It must be the saw. She could tell without needing any explanation. But…. A new question painfully arose in place of the fear that had not yet faded.

What is he trying to cut?

Now the man seemed about to perform a pantomime right in front of Griselda. On the dark red stage, the man strongly pressed down on something about knee-high, and bent his arm holding the saw outward at an angle. And that bent arm, laboriously, laboriously. He began to shake it back and forth desperately.

So the man was cutting through the air. Shrugging his whole shoulder, like a madman.

The subtle shaking of the sawing elbow was so convincing that the sound of cutting through the air seemed to ring in her ears, creaking and creaking. Blood pooled on the man’s hand gripping the ‘saw’ and dripped down.

Griselda watched the blood staining the floor in a daze. It seemed too real. Even the urgency surrounding the man was an eerie and creepy energy, so the princess consort’s desperate cries on the other side barely registered.

…s.

The man muttered. At a glance, it sounded like someone’s name.

…as.

She couldn’t tell. Not only was his voice too low, but mixed with the princess consort’s pitiful voice, Griselda sitting far away could not hear clearly. Only faint scolding barely came through.

The man spat out intermittently, as if unable to contain his anger. Saying it’s noisy. Don’t cry. Shut your mouth. Don’t, struggle. Endure it, be patient, don’t make a fuss, don’t curse at me, isn’t this all your own doing, you! If you’re truly a knight!

“Shouldn’t you be able to endure this much pain!”

“Kretzmaaaan!”

The stone walls all around reverberated. The princess consort and the man’s shouts burst out simultaneously. Was it because that reverberation was so deep? All of the man’s movements suddenly froze as if struck by dry lightning.

Huh. Huh. The princess consort, having shouted with all her might in one go, poured out gasping breaths onto the floor her belly was pressed against. Only then did the man move.

Griselda thought some old tree was being twisted. Still in his sawing posture, the man turned his waist so stiffly, creaking and creaking, to look at the princess consort. The princess consort looked back at him, panting. It was the moment when the two anxious man and woman finally met. And unexpectedly, one neat side of the man’s face was fully revealed.

Thirties? Past his forties perhaps?

It was an appearance strangely difficult to guess the age of, as if he alone had become detached from time. He also looked like a death mask overlaid on a well-polished and groomed face. A sharp nose bridge, smooth cheekbones as if molded from wax, and cold cheeks. The thin lips drawn below were especially unfeeling.

However, his hair, disheveled and drenched in sweat, was plastered flat against a forehead that was not entirely youthful, and in his eyes, wide open as if in shock and glistening, not a speck of blood or vitality could be found. As if strong liquor had been poured into his eye sockets. Though the sunken area under his eyes was moist, it did not seem to be traces of tears. It was likely due to the utterly inhuman atmosphere.

And when his face was fully revealed, Griselda swallowed her breath. His face was covered in scars on one half. It looked like burn marks at a glance. Compared to the neat other side, it appeared excessively ugly.

It was as if time had been cut away. Such cold air, the moment frozen still.

“I….”

The man opened his mouth.

“……”

It did not continue. The princess consort waited for the next words with only her gaze sharply raised. But it ended with just silence. The man’s slightly parted lips closed again, and he twisted from the shoulders. Dragging his gaze long, long fixed on the princess consort, he turned around and resumed sawing the air.

Creaking, creaking. Endure…. Endure…. Scolding like that, he sawed someone who clearly had not even taken their last breath.

“Kret…!”

Just as the princess consort, reaching her limit of patience, was about to foam at the mouth, the man abruptly stood up and changed direction. He began making the gesture of pressing down and sawing from the beginning again, saying:

“…I am Kretzman. One who has lived the days to come….”

The man randomly continued his broken speech. He kept talking.

“One who will live past days and only does not remain in this moment. Do you have anything to ask me? …du Comigne.”

There was no inflection in his pronunciation, completely cleared of rough breathing. It was neat like a freshly carved wooden statue in an instant.

But the creaking, creaking sound of sawing something nonexistent still seemed to be heard very clearly. His back seemed to be saying to ask now if you’re going to ask, as he had no intention of turning around again.

The princess consort breathed a sigh of relief rapidly. She soon opened her mouth wide, revealing her cavernous throat. She hesitated. Once, twice her mouth gaped. Griselda saw confusion and hesitation caught deep in the princess consort’s tongue root.

Only after gaping five times did the princess consort finally manage to ask.

“W-who is the one who murdered Dietrich Bartholomea du Comigne?”

After a moment of silence, the man answered.

“That du Comigne dies impaled on a spear. That spear will be held by Gaarder of Gascony.”

“Gaarder….”

The princess consort chewed over the name she had just received like a ball of cotton. Her face crumpled like a thin sheet of paper. Gaarder. It was a name Griselda knew well too. She couldn’t not know it.

Even the maids in the back courts forbidden from entering the main tower often recited the names of knights the duke used like his own limbs, and if it was Gaarder from Gascony, wasn’t he the famous hunting dog crouching in Gustavus’ shadow? Valdemar’s faithful hound.

“I knew it…. I knew it…. He killed him. He killed them all…. Just to get one coffin!”

The princess consort covered her mouth with both hands. Trembling from shoulder to fingertip, she groped for Griselda with bloodshot side-glances. Griselda remained frozen, unable to give any response to that jagged gaze.

Suddenly the princess consort asked her:

“What should I do?”

“……”

“Hm?”

“Your Highness….”

“Hm? What should I plead? Griselda, I don’t know. Come up with a new plan for me.”

“Your Highness. Your Highness. What you’re saying now, I really don’t….”

“I want to beg to be saved. To be saved….”

Griselda still clearly remembers the princess consort chewing her nails beyond the bright red mist. After confirming the man was focused only on his task, Griselda crawled on her knees, inching towards the princess consort.

“You… must have heard about our family’s unfortunate history somewhere at least once. …Do you know?”