Chapter 7
“I see,” Adi replied, but didn’t point out the contradiction. Bert looked at Adi with an amused expression.
During the week of escorting Duke Woodpecker, Bert was undoubtedly the person Adi Grimaldi had been closest to. Bert, too, had heard plenty of rumors about Adi Grimaldi. More accurately, he had investigated. He had received notice that the escort knight had been changed just before arriving at Palesa.
When he heard that Adi had received his title from the Crown Prince, Bert wondered if the Prince had planted him there. Currently, the Crown Prince was more wary of Duke Woodpecker than even his own siblings.
“If you have no more questions, shall I ask one?” Bert inquired.
“…”
Adi already looked exasperated.
For Adi, who lacked social skills from birth and had limited contact with others during her upbringing, conversations with others were difficult.
Not knowing what questions to ask or how to answer, her lack of social grace was often exposed when meeting skilled conversationalists. She hadn’t realized it before as people rarely approached her this way, but talking with Bert made her feel like all her information was being stripped away.
Bert had asked many questions over time.
He inquired about trivial matters like why Adi came to Palesa despite earning a knighthood, or what he had done to earn such a bad reputation. He also asked about food preferences, relationships with the opposite sex, and even same-sex relationships, saying such things were common among men.
“Your title was given by His Highness the Crown Prince, wasn’t it?”
“It was in writing.”
“Still, he wouldn’t have given it for no reason. Were there any conditions?”
Bert asked. From what he had learned, while it was true that Adi Grimaldi had received his knighthood from the Crown Prince, neither the Prince nor Adi had ever seen each other’s faces.
Granting a knighthood to someone you’ve never met? It’s not impossible. After all, titles were sometimes used as a means of transaction.
“There might have been conditions,” Adi replied.
Especially considering the surname Adrian Grimaldi.
“But I don’t know about them.”
Even if there was a deal, it would have been with Spencer Grimaldi. At the time Adrian received the title, she was in such a weak state that she could barely rise from her bed on her own.
“I suppose you can’t tell me,” Bert said.
“No, I really don’t know. To begin with, I…”
To begin with, Adrian…
“I thought I was going to die.”
Had already been buried underground.
“Because of the curse.”
“But it was your sister who died, wasn’t it?”
Sometimes, Adi felt guilty for being alive. As if she had wrongfully taken his place.
“The Duke also had three younger siblings,” Bert said.
“And one older brother. They’re all dead now.”
As he spoke, he dipped his bread in the soup. That was another story Adi didn’t know.
“Lord Yuls is the only one left.”
“Is it okay for you to tell me these things?”
“Everyone else probably knows this already, don’t they?”
That’s right. Just because Adi didn’t know doesn’t mean others were ignorant. Especially for someone like Duke Woodpecker, who was the subject of so much gossip.
“One died right after birth, one was murdered along with the previous Duke and Duchess, one from a fall, and the last one disappeared.”
Adi was similar in that regard.
People she didn’t know seemed to know about her. They gossiped about her story as if it were fact, without even asking or verifying if it was true or false.
Adi felt a hint of kinship with the distant Duke Woodpecker. The way others judged and talked about the Duke felt as if it were directed at himself.
“It’s all thanks to me that Lord Yuls is still alive,” Bert boasted.
How ironic that the Duke’s only ally was this man who freely spoke about his affairs.
Adi felt a little sorry for the Duke. But at the same time, she wondered who she was to feel sympathy for him. After all, it was Adi herself who should be worried.
“Then is staying at Palesa a means of survival? To avoid assassination attempts?” Adi asked.
“How could that be? Surely his own territory would be safer than Palesa.”
Bert looked at Adi as if she had said something nonsensical. It was a gaze that seemed to view Adi as an ignorant country knight.
“You’re such a Palesa bumpkin. Haven’t you ever been outside?”
“…I’m not from Palesa, you know.”
“I know, you’re from Grimaldi. It’s a beautiful place.”
He spoke as if he had been to Grimaldi. While knights did travel freely and might have seen various places, few would have gone that far.
“They say during the witch hunts, women were burned while tied to fig trees because it produced a lot of smoke. Cruel bastards.”
“Grimaldi’s specialties are figs and chestnuts. During the witch hunt period, they used figs because it was chestnut harvesting season. The hunts were most active around autumn, after all.”
“Figs grow in such a cold place? Do they cultivate them in greenhouses?”
“It’s not that cold. We get a little snow, but it’s enough for them to winter over.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Bert replied with a surprised look. Adi fell silent at the implication that they might have designed it to make the deaths more painful. Such a reason might not have been entirely absent.
“Well, anyway, the details are secret, but it’s also partly for other reasons. The Duke needs to arrange a marriage, after all.”
Adi wondered who would agree to marry someone who looked thirteen, no matter if he was a Duke. Of course, while his inner age might be twenty-six, his appearance was only half that.
“The Duke doesn’t have a strong foundation, you see. He needs someone by his side. Preferably someone from a good family. Someone who can support the Duke.”
Bert spoke as if it were regrettable. What nonsense. Woodpecker was a Duke and the King’s nephew. In his own territory, he was called the Woodpecker King, with a solid foundation. What need did he have for someone to support him? If anything, the Duke would be supporting others.
“It’s such a shame your sister died,” Bert said.
“…Pardon?”
“Well, isn’t it? The Grimaldi family also has the weakness of a curse. But aside from that, the Grimaldi family isn’t bad at all.”
“Do you really think a vulgar family of human butchers isn’t that bad?”
“Human butchers? They were witch butchers.”
“I’m sure there were ordinary humans among those witches who were killed.”
“That may be true, but what does it matter?”
Bert said. Adi looked at him. This is why people in this kingdom received indiscriminate curses.
“Yes.”
Like Adrian Grimaldi.
“That’s right.”
The same goes for Adrina Grimaldi.
“With just that much of a flaw, they would have been good matches for each other. Though Count Grimaldi probably wouldn’t want that.”
“Why not?”
Adi asked. This time, Bert looked surprised. Seeing that Adi truly didn’t know, he closed his mouth.
“Why do you think so?”
“I don’t think anything.”
“People should live by thinking.”
“For a servant like me, it’s better not to think and just do as told. It’s more useful that way, isn’t it?”
A wise statement. If he were just a simple knight.
But Bert thought it didn’t suit Adrian Grimaldi to say such things.
For someone like himself, who started as a commoner and became a knight through good fortune, thinking like Adi was common. But for nobles, or even the gentry who couldn’t quite become nobles, or wealthy commoners, they think, judge, and make decisions. Just like Bert does now.
“…You’re the legitimate heir of the Grimaldi family, aren’t you?”
Nobles stand above such people. Adrian Grimaldi was a noble who could inherit the title. Bert thought there must be a reason for him to be in a place like this.
“That’s right, but…?”
“Aren’t you going to inherit the Grimaldi family in the future?”
Could it be that he’s hiding his true thoughts because he doesn’t want to reveal them? Bert suspected.
Adi gave a slight smile.
Thoughts, huh?
Had she been raised to be capable of such things?
At least what Spencer Grimaldi wanted from Adi Grimaldi was probably not something like that. Spencer Grimaldi wants someone to continue the family line, but there’s no guarantee that person would be Adrina Grimaldi.
Adrina Grimaldi is a substitute for Adrian Grimaldi.
If Adrian Grimaldi hadn’t died, he might have been sold off as some kind of tool, as Bert suggested. But because Adrian is dead now, Adrina could survive, and while she might be able to produce heirs, she is the soil, not the seed.
“That might be the case,” Adi said.
If the scattered seeds grow into sprouts, they would nurture them in their own pots, but would the soil remain in its place? Wouldn’t it be ruthlessly discarded and turn into wasteland?
“Or it might not be.”
Moreover, Spencer Grimaldi has probably already chosen that seed.
If Adrina Grimaldi gives Spencer Grimaldi a grandson, this role will end. Whether that end means freedom or eternal rest is unknown.
Adi is just waiting. For Spencer Grimaldi’s order.
“I have no authority, after all.”
Bert found this statement strange. If anything, it raised suspicions. Adi continued eating nonchalantly.
She wished the order would come quickly. To end everything.
However, Adi never imagined that the order would come in such a manner.
