#57

“What are you hesitating for?”

The duchess approached the duke, stepping on the puddles of screams on the floor. Her slightly twisted gait seemed rather anxious.

“Whatever his intentions were, arson is a serious crime, is it not? Moreover, he burned the barn, didn’t he? Although it narrowly escaped complete destruction… Ah, just thinking about the coming winter, my heart is already weary.”

“My lady!”

The husband cried out frantically at his wife’s terrible suggestion.

“I heard he didn’t even care that there were many eyes watching. So even if he shows a repentant attitude now, we must not let that completely insane fellow go free, even by mistake. Who knows what he might try to burn next? This time it was the barn, but who can guarantee it won’t be the main tower next time?”

“My lady!”

“Please, burn him immediately as an example. For the sake of your successor, if nothing else.”

“No, it’s not like that!”

The husband shook his head desperately.

“As I said before, there was no malice or intention. I thought others would surely have seen him too!”

His upper body lurched forward. He crawled on his knees, drawing close to the duchess. His golden nape, drenched in cold sweat, looked so desperate that even from afar, one could see the slight trembling at the tips of his hair.

“Moreover, my lady, although I may not have received your family name, am I not also a descendant of Ducomeng…! I beg you like this. Please consider that I am, even if only half, your flesh and blood!”

“…This…”

Griselda trembled violently, her eyes fixed on the duchess who was biting her pale lips. Her eardrums buzzed.

“Insolent bastard…”

The duchess’s voice was so distant it was barely audible. At that moment, Griselda was finally entranced by the connected pieces of clues. The unidentified fragments scattered throughout her memories were suddenly fitting together.

What I saw was indeed not an illusion. It wasn’t a dream. The eldest son who seemed human only on the outside no matter how you looked at him, the duchess who checked on such an eldest son several times a day. The arm like a trap in the coffin, the arm sprouting in the blue flames! The husband’s monster with only one wing! The duchess’s second pregnancy!

Ah, she must have finally broken the stone coffin and called that man back!

“Please spare him, my lady!”

Griselda shouted out loud. She abruptly stood up and rushed to where the husband was kneeling at the duchess’s feet. She could no longer keep silent. Right now, someone who would believe the husband’s words, which everyone else dismissed as nonsense, was desperately needed. Kneeling down with enough force to shatter her knees, she desperately begged for her husband’s life.

“My lady, this man is not lying, please believe him! This person also saw what you summoned that day! Since a season ago already! This stupid and foolish man was just trying to protect us with his own hands! So if you must punish him, punish his ignorance, my lady! He’s not evil to the core! Please! My lady, spare him!”

She had no other choice. She had to finally speak out about those things she had witnessed with the duchess, which she hadn’t been able to properly tell anyone until now – the man in the basement and the black devil. As she continued speaking, the duchess’s face turned pale with horror, but in the urgency of life and death passing with each second, there was no capacity to deeply consider the situation.

However, it was a complete misjudgment that drove her husband to his death.

“My lady, this man was trying to catch that monstrosity…!”

“Take him away!”

The hem of the duchess’s skirt fluttered like waves as she cried out in pain. The duchess almost fell forward as she sat down, grasping the duke’s arm resting on the armrest with both hands. She looked up at her husband, panting heavily.

“Isn’t it the law that a wife has no voice? How long must we silently listen to those mad words coming from a nonexistent mouth as if they were testimony? It’s a waste of time.”

“My lady!”

“You know, don’t you? Even if he’s half my blood, I don’t care at all.”

“No, my lady!”

“A criminal is a criminal. Take him out and kill him immediately.”

“Ah!”

“Burn him.”

“My lady!”

Griselda’s throat felt like it would burst with blood as she cried out to the duchess.

The stake was erected in an instant.

The charred wood pieces scraped from the barn, more like blackened human bone fragments, were piled up in the square like a rounded mound. One single mistake. Facing a sudden death like a bolt from the blue, her husband wailed, shedding tears profusely.

The guards sweated profusely trying to drag him out of the hall as he thrashed like a dog. Her husband, who was being dragged along with his heels dug into the ground, only collapsed after being hit on the back of his neck with a sword hilt several times. Griselda, Griselda! Her husband screamed.

Even with the oil-smelling stake right before her eyes, Griselda couldn’t believe that her husband would soon die. She threw her whole body at the feet of the guard taking her man away, but it wasn’t because she believed in death.

It just felt wrong, this couldn’t be real, as if she alone had been separated from that place, it felt unreal. Yes, there was nothing real in that place. This is a lie, right? This is nothing but a nightmare, right? She didn’t know their parting would come so soon.

“Ah, ah!”

She didn’t even realize she was screaming. She was just dragged back, caught by a newly arrived guard. Her husband’s upper body was being tied to a tall pole. Griselda, Griselda! Her husband screamed.

“No! No!”

With strength from an unknown source, she shook off the guard’s grip. Tearing away the hand that was wrapping around her neck like a rake, not noticing the splinters from the woodpile digging into her skin, she frantically climbed the stake. She embraced her husband, whose eyes were covered by a blindfold. His body was trembling like an aspen tree. Griselda shook her head. This can’t be happening. He really can’t go like this. Griselda, what should we do. Her husband screamed. I’m afraid. I’m scared.

“What should we do! Ah, what to do, Albe! What to do! What to do!”

She could neither do this nor that, and just stamped her feet. She frantically embraced his face. Her husband’s blindfold, which touched her fingertips, was soaked. Perhaps her face was wet too. Everything before her eyes was blurry.

Then at some point, she tumbled down as if falling. The guards quickly ran over and dragged her body away. Griselda, don’t go! Her husband screamed. Don’t go!

He probably wasn’t asking her to die with him. He just couldn’t bear the loneliness of death that he had to face alone in the end.

The fire was thrown.

Her husband writhed in loneliness amidst the flames that surrounded him in a circle, in the midst of the crowd. Griselda, Griselda! It was her husband’s last scream.

“Albe! Albe!”

Griselda kept screaming, enveloped in the smell of burning wood, burning cloth, and burning flesh. This can’t be happening. What I’m seeing and experiencing now can’t be real. She couldn’t believe that her husband was dying in such a state. We were just living our ordinary life until this afternoon? She hadn’t felt even a shadow of death.

“Albe! I’m here! Albe!”

That afternoon.

After diligently scraping her husband’s insides, she left that place of her own accord. In fact, she felt a bit stuffy with each step she took, partly due to some feelings of guilt. However, there was no sign of her husband, and only the midday sunbeams came running to lightly strike her eyelids. The last afternoon Griselda spent with her husband happened to be so bright.

Of course, the weather has nothing to do with the weight of remaining sorrow. Even if the weather had been bad that day, even if the world had been turned upside down with everything splitting apart, unexpected hail pouring down, or a drought storm raging, that day would have remained an absolute tragedy for Griselda. Just the fact that that afternoon was their last slowly crushes the heart that survived alone. It’s being crushed.

The appearance of regret is always the same. If only I had looked back that day.

Perhaps I would have seen you, with your sharp eyes habitually reddened, if only I had looked back that day.

I might have wiped your grown-up eyes and patted your back, just like when we first met in the corridor, if only I had looked back that day.

I would have sat you in a sunny spot. I could have finished your last afternoon of life with an apologetic and awkward smile. I could have hugged you and comforted you, saying I’m sorry, I love you, I loved you. And I would have greeted you. Although this afternoon is our last, I was happy to have met you. My daily life with you was all the happiness I enjoyed. This life we shared seemed like a fleeting moment. So someday… we.

We will surely meet again.

“Ah, ah, ahhh…!”

Griselda collapsed in front of the stake where there were no more screams. Her stomach hurt unbearably. It felt like her waist would break in two. As if the flower burning her husband was splitting the darkness, it felt like that flower was tearing into her stomach and uprooting all her insides.

One of her cheeks was scraped by the rough sand as she fell, but she didn’t even feel it. When she barely lifted her trembling gaze towards the flames, only the terrifying feeling that came over her in an instant when she saw far beyond the stake remained like a scar on her cornea.

Was it an illusion?

“That thing!”

On the night when the flames were blazing and the ominous moonlight was falling. She saw the silhouette of a giant bird standing on the rooftop of the dark tower, with the white moon behind it.

“That thing…! Everyone, that thing! That, ah! Ugh, ahhh…!”

She gritted her teeth at the pain that felt like a pile of stones pressing on her stomach. Her throat choked with something, whether tears or shock. She couldn’t finish that one sentence asking everyone to please look at that thing. No, she couldn’t say to please put out that fire.

Griselda’s head, which had been rattling as if about to spring up, slammed into the ground, and at that moment her eyeballs rolled back inside her eyelids. She fainted right there. That day, Griselda lost everything while unconscious. Even her child, once again.

“As you are the wife of a serious criminal… according to the elders, you should be banished from this fortress immediately…”

“……”

“But considering your circumstances of having nowhere else to go, I will show consideration for your past dedication. It seems your milk hasn’t dried up yet… so… you shall continue to take care of my children as you have been doing.”

The duchess said, noticeably cradling her swollen belly. Although her words faded at the end of each sentence, it wasn’t from any emotion. There was no focus in the duchess’s blank pupils.

“Thank you.”

Griselda quietly bowed. There is no mouth before a sword. The duchess was the power holding the sword hilt, and she was just one of the faces with only a nose left, prostrated flat under the blade. If told to live, she would live; if told to die, she would die. Half a life. Griselda turned around just like that, turning her back on the duchess who was sitting lengthwise in an armchair, receiving the midday light with her whole body through sleepy eyes.

“Don’t have any strange thoughts… Don’t… resent me too much.”

The duchess murmured softly and closed her eyes.