The Hand That Held You Now
Life at the Calista main residence had been peaceful.
So peaceful, in fact, that it had become almost boring.
Thanks to the consideration and kindness of Lady Erpe Calista, the Grand Duke Sabre’s wife, Yuno and I had managed to live the fairly comfortable life of guests within the estate.
The servants in the mansion were no doubt aware of our labels—the queen of a defeated kingdom and the traitor who had destroyed his own homeland—but because of Lady Erpe’s strict oversight, none of them dared show outright disrespect.
And during that peaceful week, I never once took Yuno, the wife the Emperor himself had recognized.
In fact, we slept in separate rooms and kept a thorough distance from each other.
Even though I’d taken as my wife a queen with a beauty any red-blooded man would have found hard to refuse.
That was entirely thanks to the political advice Lady Erpe had given me.
“Sir Lassen.”
A few days earlier, while serving tea, Lady Erpe had carefully broached the subject.
“Do you know why His Majesty the Emperor, upon approving your marriage, insisted that your first official event be held in the imperial palace’s new hall, and that it wait until construction is complete?”
I had shaken my head with a teacup in hand.
“How could I possibly fathom the depths and breadth of His Majesty’s great benevolence? I assumed it was simply his mercy, so that he might grant you a grand ceremony.”
At my clumsy show of humility, Lady Erpe smiled faintly and shook her head.
“It means His Majesty intends to watch and wait.”
Her gaze sharpened for an instant.
“The new hall in the palace won’t be completed for at least several more months. There has never been a time when the world changed more rapidly, both inside and outside Valerium, or when noble power shifted more violently, than in the aftermath of war. For those few months, His Majesty plans to quietly measure Sir Lassen’s value, the movements of Europia’s remnants, and the direction in which my husband Sabre’s power is flowing.”
I swallowed hard.
“If, in those months, Sir Lassen were to do anything unnecessary that displeased the imperial family, or if Lady Yuno’s existence were judged a threat to imperial authority...”
Her voice turned colder.
“Then His Majesty could cancel the marriage at any time, marry Sir Lassen off to another noble daughter, or even purge both of you at once.”
If I took Yuno to bed and the Emperor later changed his mind and voided the marriage...
Then I might have my head cut off for the crime of carelessly laying hands on a trophy that was not even yet a proper wife.
“So until the official ceremony is held, please be extremely prudent in how you conduct yourself.”
I took Lady Erpe’s life-and-blood advice to heart.
That day, while sharing tea with her, I had also confessed my own honest feelings.
Of course, they were not political calculations at all, but the worries of a painfully ordinary man.
“Lady Erpe. I will keep your advice firmly in mind, but... I can’t help feeling that my staying here at the Calista estate with Yuno for this long is bound to become a burden to you and Lady Celine.”
I made a genuinely apologetic face.
No matter that Sabre had given his permission, it still felt awkward for a man and a woman with troublesome baggage to be mooching off a household with only a mistress and a young daughter.
My conscience kept prodding at the thin shred of courtesy I had left as a guest.
But Lady Erpe set down her teacup and gave a firm shake of her head.
“Please stop thinking that way, Sir Lassen. When it comes to repaying a benefactor, calculating your own convenience first is not what a woman of the Calista family should do. My husband called Sir Lassen a friend, and it was his decision to open this house to you.”
“But... we really are only guests who stumbled in empty-handed. I’d even like to pay for our meals, but there’s nothing I can offer you.”
When I offered my pathetic excuse, Lady Erpe gave me a gentle smile.
“Just easing my loneliness while I wait for my husband in an empty house is more than enough.”
To soften the heavy atmosphere, Lady Erpe tossed in a light joke.
“And besides, you say you have nothing to give me, yet you also said you planned to leave our mansion and live elsewhere empty-handed. That makes it even more impossible to send you out. Do you have any idea how expensive life is in Valerium? If you went out now, you’d be starving within a week.”
At that, I coughed awkwardly and laughed under my breath.
Because it was true.
A penniless traitor trying to find a house in the capital without imperial protection was basically suicide.
“If it’s really bothering you...”
Lady Erpe turned her soft gaze to Yuno, who had been sitting quietly beside me, and made an offer.
“How about Lady Yuno takes on the role of Lady Celine’s tutor for a while?”
“Pardon?”
Yuno and I blurted the question at the same time.
Lady Erpe remained serious.
“Our Celine has plenty of interest in martial arts and horseback riding, as though she were a boy, but she simply refuses to sit at a desk and study. Lady Yuno received the finest education as a royal princess, so if you would teach my child etiquette and academics, it would be a far greater kindness to me.”
Yuno looked thoroughly flustered.
“I-I am hardly qualified, but... all I learned in the royal court was empty etiquette and...”
“If nothing else, I would very much like to ask Lady Yuno to teach her history.”
At Lady Erpe’s resolute request, Yuno visibly flinched and shook her head.
“I cannot.”
Yuno refused strongly.
“You want me to teach her history? Lady Erpe, that is far too dangerous an idea. My teaching would inevitably be biased. I am the princess of Europia, the defeated kingdom... and I would be teaching Valerian’s glorious history of victory through Europia’s eyes. I may only confuse her.”
Yuno’s concern was reasonable.
Entrusting one’s young daughter’s historical outlook to the princess of a defeated enemy nation was, by any common standard, a strange idea.
But Lady Erpe replied with calm wisdom.
“You yourself must think Valerian’s history, written only by the victors, is distorted.”
Her eyes held Yuno’s without wavering.
“Whether the history told through Europia’s eyes is true or false, and what is right or wrong, is entirely for Celine to decide. I do not want my child growing up as a narrow-minded person who sees the world through only one set of eyes.”
Yuno, struck speechless by that broad and thoughtful view, opened and closed her lips a few times before bowing her head.
“...I will do my utmost to repay Lady Erpe’s profound kindness.”
And so Yuno’s role was decided, while I, who had become utterly useless as a guest, scratched the back of my head in embarrassment.
“Uh, Lady Erpe. Yuno can at least tutor the child, but... I really don’t know how to do anything in this house except swing a blade. Should I chop some firewood or something?”
At my pathetic effort, Lady Erpe burst out laughing.
“Hohoho, Sir Lassen. You are already performing the finest role possible simply by staying in this house.”
Her voice brimmed with pride as she added, “Who in Valerium would be bold enough to sneak up here and scale our wall when the infamous Sir Lassen himself is staying under this roof?”
Thanks to that excessive praise and her warm consideration, Yuno and I were able to set down a little of the weight on our hearts and spend that week in a quiet, almost ordinary rhythm.
And then, on a night after that week had passed...
After dinner, I was walking down the corridor on my way back to my room, having been assigned a separate bedroom out of Lady Erpe’s consideration.
“Lassen.”
Just as I was about to turn the corner, Yuno suddenly grabbed my collar.
“Hm? What is it? Why are you grabbing me when I’m trying to go to sleep?”
When I turned back in confusion, Yuno was looking at me with a wounded expression.
Like an abandoned cat.
“...Why have you not once taken me to bed this entire week?”
“What?”
“I am your wife. Your wife, publicly declared before heaven and earth.”
Yuno tightened the hand clutching my collar and finally let out the complaint she had been holding in.
“And yet after being moved to separate rooms... why have you not once come to my room at night? Do you know how miserable it is to sleep alone in this vast and frightening house...”
I let out a dumbfounded laugh at her grievance.
After pushing me away all through the escort journey, even going so far as to injure herself from the pressure of her own anxiety, now that we were in separate rooms she was angry that I hadn’t come to hold her for an entire week.
I checked around to make sure no one was listening, then pulled Yuno into a corner of the corridor and lowered my voice.
“What’s wrong with you? You heard Lady Erpe’s advice too, didn’t you?”
“I did...”
“Then why are you doing this? You know all of that.”
“I do not know either... My hand has now grasped you.”
Yuno slowly let go of my collar.
Then she looked up at me with something bitter in her eyes.
“You... really are someone who wants to live... someone who fights and struggles just to keep living...”
She drew in a shaky breath.
“I... I just want to sleep.”
“You want to sleep?”
“So please, let us sleep together after all this time. Just lie beside me and hold me tightly.”
The corners of Yuno’s eyes were faintly red.
“When I am left alone in this house... in a room with walls on every side... I feel my solitude far too keenly. The blood from the day I beheaded my father keeps drifting to the tip of my nose, and the screams of my people who died in Eufront keep battering my ears... I have not truly slept even once each night.”
Crushed by the immense guilt of being a princess of a defeated kingdom and the loneliness of being stranded in a foreign land, she could barely breathe.
Without someone else’s warmth, she felt as if she might go mad.
So she was begging me to save her.
Just as I lived in order to survive.
Yuno, too, wanted to sleep in order to live.
Meeting her trembling eyes, I sighed.
“Ha... so you’ve developed a strange habit.”
I grumbled inwardly, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave her alone to sleep by herself.
In the end, I checked the corridor one more time, took Yuno by the wrist, and drew her into my bedroom.
Bang.
The door closed, and I lay down on the bed, pulling Yuno tightly into my arms.
I kept every trace of desire out of it and simply held her shaking body still.
“...Warm.”
Buried completely in my arms, Yuno murmured the words with her first deep breath in days.
“At last... I think I can sleep.”
She buried her face against my chest, and within minutes her breathing had turned soft and even as she sank into a deep, peaceful sleep.
How long had passed?
In my arms, Yuno’s breathing had become perfectly steady.
She had definitely slipped into a deep stage of sleep.
At this point, I can carry her without waking her.
I carefully pushed myself up.
However much of a guest I might be under Lady Erpe’s generosity, if the servants’ mouths started spreading rumors that a man and woman who had not even held their wedding ceremony were sharing a room every night in someone else’s mansion, it would become a headache fast.
I intended to lay Yuno back in her own room and return to mine.
As delicately as if I were handling a feather, I lifted Yuno in a princess carry.
She shifted faintly in my arms, but did not wake.
I opened the door, crossed the dark corridor, and carefully turned the handle to the bedroom assigned to Yuno.
Creeeak.
The instant the door opened and I stepped into Yuno’s room...
I nearly dropped her in shock.
“...?”
Beside the bed, a small girl was standing very still.
“...Lady Celine?”
Moonlight spilled into the room.
Celine, Sabre’s only daughter, was standing there.
In her hands was a cup of warm milk, steam still rising from it.
I could roughly guess what had happened.
During the week she had spent learning history and etiquette from Yuno, Celine had grown attached to her without even realizing it.
She had also learned that Yuno often struggled with nightmares and slept poorly.
So she had quietly warmed milk in the kitchen to help her fall asleep more easily at night.
Her tender heart made me laugh breathlessly, and I even wanted to pat her head for being so sweet.
But both my hands were occupied holding Yuno, so I couldn’t.
“Lady Celine. What brings you to Lady Yuno’s room at such a late hour...”
I began to approach, speaking softly.
Tap, tap-tap.
Clutching the cup, Celine trembled and took her first steps toward me.
Even though she was still frightened of my huge, intimidating frame, the child clung to me below the knees and wrapped both hands tightly around my leg.
“...?”
When I looked down in confusion, Celine, pale-faced and hanging onto my thigh, whispered in a voice no louder than a mosquito’s:
“There’s... a strange noise in the room...”
“What...?”
Before the words had even fully left her mouth...
The same razor-sharp instinct I had felt more than a hundred times on the battlefield, when something was out to take my life, sent goosebumps racing across my entire body.
Clank-!