Interlude (6)
It was during my military service that I lost my fingers.
The accident happened one summer, right in the thick of clearing season. I'll skip the detailed circumstances and give you only the gist: a brush cutter had spun out of control, and the hand I thrust out to knock it away from my junior was shredded on the spot.
I did manage to save him—in a manner of speaking—though not long afterward, he died anyway. They said it was the sheer volume of blood he'd lost. Even by my own recollection, there had been a great deal of it.
Naturally, it made the news; articles were written. For a while I was famous as the subject of lurid gossip, and yet I felt nothing at all. Which was only natural. I had lost my fingers, and the junior I'd tried so hard to save hadn't been saved after all. Honestly—what a hollow, pathetic spectacle I made.
That was when it truly sank in: that reaching out to help others when I couldn't even look after myself was what had reduced me to such a wretched state. It must have started back then—my resolve never to help another person again, not even at the cost of sacrificing myself.
And yet here I was, in another world, wearing another body, doing the exact same thing all over again. With the very same body part, no less.
The blood showed no sign of stopping. The blade had gone deep into the exact center of the back of my right hand, so the bleeding trickled on and on. My central nervous system had to be pumping out adrenaline by the gallon, and it still hurt like hell. With every nerve in the body crammed into the hands, I supposed there was no helping the extra agony when they got wounded.
It's been a while, hasn't it—ruining a hand. It even felt as though the phantom pain I'd long forgotten had come calling again. Right—I had been a little lonely without it all this time. I curled my mouth up into a crooked grin.
Perhaps something in that expression unnerved them, because the woman watching me flinched hard. What they'd just witnessed probably sat outside anything they could comprehend. I idly picked my own behavior apart. Raise a dagger to strike down—then drive it into your own hand instead. Hurl the dagger away on top of that, and grin like an idiot while you're at it. A maid, no less? Call her a madwoman, and there'd be nothing left to argue.
Silence stretched between us for a while. Unfortunately, I had no time to be lounging about, and in the end I had no choice but to speak first.
"See something amusing?"
My tone had come out more flippant and crooked than intended—blame the burning pain radiating from my hand. Cold sweat was probably sliding down my forehead even now. Neither of them had ever dreamed of hearing such words from me; both wore blank, stunned expressions. Sean and Bianca alike. How could the two of them make the exact same face? The old saying about daughters taking after their fathers and sons after their mothers flickered through my head.
Just as I was chasing that inane thought along, if only to forget the pain, Sean asked:
"You could have brought it straight down. Why stop—why go so far as to stab your own hand?"
His tone was so level it was hard to believe this man had nearly died minutes ago. At the same time, it carried an undercurrent of censure. Why had I stopped partway? Well then—why had I? I turned the question over inside myself. What lay at the root of what I'd done?
If I had to pin a name on it, I supposed it was repayment of a debt carved into my heart. If Sean's words hadn't offered me even a sliver of comfort. If I hadn't been carrying guilt toward Bianca. If, at the very least, I had turned my face from her gaze at that final moment—then I would never, ever have staged such an idiotic performance.
My heart no longer sat uneasily as it had before. If anything, I felt almost relieved. My actions had been foolish, yes—but they had not been wrong.
A future of being called to account by Rihardt? Of course that frightened me. Terrified, sure—but so what? I simply could not kill them. Damn this maudlin streak of mine. Damn this family love. In the end, however much I lectured myself—playing cool, playing cold, playing practical—my core remained this flimsy. Neither a complete villain nor a complete saint: an indecisive gray. Truthfully, it wasn't just me; most ordinary people would have done the same.
And that was exactly what made Rihardt a madman. He was the type who considered everything else secondary, so long as he got his stimulation.
I looked at Sean. He seemed to be waiting for my answer. What a trusting fool—as if my answer mattered at a time like this. Getting out of this place even a minute sooner was the only thing that mattered.
"Who cares what I think? What matters is that you got Bianca out of here safe, Mr. Sean. Come on, then—let's not waste any more time. Go, quickly. Or what, were you planning to execute the impertinent maid who aimed for the back of your head before you leave? Grant the demon of a maid who butchered Bianca the very same agony in return?"
Why had I exposed a sin he'd never even known of? Because I wanted the shock to move him—wanted him to act, however it happened.
"…………Miss Lucifer."
"Ah, but there's hardly time left now to carve blade marks into my body the way I did into Bianca's. What a shame. Well, what can you do? Seeing as it's come to this, you'll simply have to make your escape a magnificent one."
I'd laid it on a bit thick, but every word was true. Which meant Sean would find me loathsome. Whether he flew into a rage at my words and ran me through, or turned away with a frigid glance—either was fine. I only wanted to see him move. There was no more time to squander, and the faster they made their choice, the better their odds of living. Who could say when Rihardt's caprice might carry him down to the Basement?
Sean, who had been cradling Bianca, rose from where he sat. Then he picked the dagger up off the floor and came toward me.
Humans are, at bottom, emotional creatures. If someone wounded what they treasured and tormented it on a whim, how vast must that fury burn? Honestly, the sight of Sean bearing down on me set my heart pounding in spite of itself. I forced out a bluff and kept talking.
"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather this ended short and clean."
Sean clenched the dagger tight—and held it out. Toward me. I squeezed my eyes shut. But no matter how long I waited, the searing blow I'd braced for never came. I cracked one eye open to find Sean looking at me as though I were utterly ridiculous.
"Honestly, what goes on in that head of yours? A vicious thing like this ought to be kept somewhere proper."
"...Pardon?"
"What are you so startled for? Did you truly think I meant to stab you?"
"But I—what I did to Bianca—"
His thumb and forefinger pressed firm against my lips.
"Is Miss Lucifer really so wicked a person that she'd commit such a thing for no reason at all? I don't see it. Besides, what good could ever come of fellow victims baring their teeth at one another?"
Sean was a fine man—in what showed on the surface, and in the substance beneath it both.
"Above all, I haven't the heart to rebuke someone wearing so guilty a face."
I bit into my lip as if to tear it clean away. Unsurprisingly, it tasted of blood.
"I'm sorry."
I bowed my head. With everything in me. I didn't so much as dare think of raising it.
"I know it wasn't your fault. If anything, I'm grateful—thank you for not swinging that dagger."
"I'm sorry. Truly. I'm so, so sorry."
Somewhere in the speaking, my feelings crested. The rims of my eyes went hot; my throat closed up. Like a doll wound to do nothing else, I apologized over and over. It still didn't feel like enough, and when I tried to sink to my knees, Sean stopped me—then pulled me into a brief embrace.
"You've been through so much, haven't you. You have my respect for all of it."
"...I'm sorry."
I did not stop apologizing.
After a measure of time had passed, the turmoil in my chest settled somewhat, and I went through the process of calmly reviewing what I'd done. ...God, it was mortifying. I wasn't a child—was carrying on like that really acceptable? Perhaps I had simply been pushed to the very edge of my mind.
Sean hoisted Bianca onto his back. Given the state she was in, it was the only sensible choice.
"Will you be needing a horse?"
The moment they left the Basement, they needed to flee as fast as their legs could carry them—and for that, a horse was a superb means of escape. The only catch was that horses, in this era, were ruinously expensive. Well, naturally. They held the same standing a car did in my old world: a luxury.
"I tethered one near here at midday. We can take that one."
Apparently the wages Sean had earned as a stablehand were nothing to scoff at. Owning a horse of his own said as much.
"I see. That's a relief."
Sean's brown eyes settled on me.
"...If it suits you, Miss Lucifer—would you come with us?"
It was a genuinely tempting offer. But I knew, better than anything, that I could not.
I shook my head slowly.
"I'm honored by the offer. But the moment I vanish, that lunatic will come hunting with fire in his eyes."
"...I see."
"I'll stay behind and report that I disposed of both you and Bianca. So please—put as much distance between yourselves and this area as you possibly can."
"Then that's what we'll do."
"Um..."
Bianca, who had been quietly watching our exchange, spoke up. Sean and I, needing no signal, fell silent at the same instant and turned to her. Perhaps the concentrated attention felt heavy—her body shrank in on itself. But then she found her courage, and bowed her head to me.
"Thank you, Lucy. For stopping, right at that last moment."
Words with real sincerity in them—you know it the instant you hear them. Regrettably, I was not someone fit to receive her gratitude. Rihardt had not been the only one who had dealt her a wound that could never be washed away. And so I waved a hand, smiling sourly.
"Bianca, I am not a person with the right to accept your thanks."
"Yes, you are. You must have been terrified too, and you still found the courage."
Sean, and Bianca too. Honestly, where do people this good come from? Idiot Rihardt. Kicking people like these away with his own two feet—if that counted as a talent, then he had it in spades.
I let out a long, heavy sigh.
"...Aren't you two a little too good-natured for your own good?"
"Like you, Lucy?"
"...Quit teasing me and get going, please."
Bianca laughed, a touch awkwardly. And with that, the two of them made for the outer passage. Just before they left, Sean turned back around one more time and asked:
"Now that I think of it, I never did hear!"
"Hear what?"
"The reason you didn't run me through!"
You simply couldn't leave without hearing it, could you? Even as I gave an empty laugh, his expression stayed dead serious. And—ironically enough—a certain thing Rihardt once said to me floated up from memory. It made a perfectly tailored excuse for this exact situation.
"Let's call it petty sympathy."
"Even though it might well have cost you your life?"
He was right. Right at the very end, I had gone and done something senseless—after scratching and clawing so desperately, for so long, just to stay alive.
"So what? I'd have died, that's all."
Both Sean and Bianca blinked at my tone. It must have looked nothing like the Lucy they knew—hardly surprising. Sean soon collected himself and bowed his head. I returned the gesture with equal formality, one hand raising the hem of my maid's dress in a small curtsy. It was the first day in my life I had ever felt a sense of accomplishment.
Having seen them off, I disinfected the wound the dagger had punched through my hand and smoothed a potion over it. Potions were not something to be used freely without Rihardt's sanction. But surely that beat dropping dead of blood loss on the spot? Is he going to seize on this as another pretext to torment me? A thoroughly nauseating bastard, through and through.
The punctured back of my hand healed over rapidly. My, healing potions really are as good as advertised. No wonder he'd made Karen Florence—the one who could brew the things—his very first target. No matter how savage the torture, one dose restored the body whole. What an ever-so-gracious product.
I scooped up dirt from the outer passage and slathered it over my body—enough that the smell of earth wouldn't wash out easily. As for the bodies, best to say I dumped them in Pli's grave, the one Rihardt dug before. So this was how it turned out. The moment has come to test my dubious acting skills. I had precious little confidence. But it was far too late for that—what else could I do? I would carry on as far as I was able.
And so I whiled away the time in the Basement. It was only as dawn began to break that I finally returned to the mansion through the passage linked to Rihardt's bedroom.
The lock gave with a click, and Rihardt's bedroom opened up before me.
He did tell me he'd sleep like a baby while I saw to Bianca. I hadn't believed a word of it. I'd been certain he would be wide awake, waiting for me. And right I was—
"...Young Master?"
What I hadn't anticipated was the room standing empty. Rihardt was nowhere to be seen. Had he stepped out somewhere? The knighting ceremony was being held today, of all days. I resolved to wait right there until he returned—who knew what I'd be accused of if I wandered off on my own.
Perhaps ten, perhaps twenty minutes slipped by. Then the doorknob turned, and the door swung open. The person entering was, of course, Rihardt.
"You weren't here, so I was startled, Young Master Rihar—"
The moment the door opened, a reek of blood stabbed into my nose, so foul it made my brows knot. And yet Rihardt himself was immaculate—not one drop of blood anywhere on him. Then what, in the world, was that atrocious stench? I was evidently not the only one to sense something wrong, for his expression warped, just slightly.
"Lucy. Are you hurt somewhere?"
"Yes, there was a small incid—"
He closed the distance in a blink and snatched up my hand. Precisely the wounded right one.
"Agh—!"
His grip was so merciless that a cry tore out of me before I could stop it. The potion should have healed everything, yet the right hand in Rihardt's hold throbbed as though it hadn't. Having inspected the back of my hand, Rihardt spoke in a low voice.
"So you used a potion."
Did using one leave some distinctive trace? I ducked my head in a hurry.
"For the audacity of using it without so much as asking your permission, I am beyond—"
"As long as you're in one piece, Lucy, that's all that matters."
Why was he acting like he cared about me? Perhaps Rihardt caught the strange look I was giving him, because his face smoothed into a smile at once.
"In any case—the task went well?"
He asked it as if it were of no consequence. I matched him with the same tone I always used.
"Yes. I buried Bianca where Pli lies."
"Where Karen's horse is buried?"
"That's right."
"You killed her yourself?"
"...Yes."
"I see. And nothing else out of the ordinary?"
"Well—Young Master, there was Bianca's father. Sean."
"Mm. What about him?"
"He caught me in the middle of disposing of Bianca, so I disposed of him as well."
"You did? With your own hands?"
"Luck was on my side."
He let out a token sound of admiration.
"Must have been perilous in the extreme. You're weak, Lucy."
"Yes—just as you say. Had it gone wrong, the one dying would have been m—"
His enormous hand closed around my throat.
Why? There was no time even to form the question before the grip bore down hard.
"Cough—khk—hkk—Y-Young Master?!"
"Lucy's weak, you see. I'll have to be careful with her, won't I?"
"I-if I of-fended you, I'm s-sorry."
"I admit I share some of the blame. I got too carried away enjoying myself and left a variable unattended. That was the mistake."
Too carried away enjoying himself—and left a variable? What was he talking about? Air was failing me by degrees. With the oxygen to my brain thinning out, my thoughts refused to turn; even my vision dimmed another shade.
"Ah—sorry. Held on too long."
"Cough, cough—ghk—hah—heh."
Had he truly meant to strangle me? I heaved and gulped down air in ragged pulls. Rihardt waited, unhurried, for my breathing to settle—stroking his chin as he did. The gesture needlessly set my nerves on edge. He did not readily speak, as though he were waiting for me to say something.
"...Young Master."
"Yes? What is it, Lucy?"
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
There it was again—I didn't know what I'd done wrong either. So what, exactly, was I apologizing for? Watching me agonize, Rihardt curled the corner of his mouth upward.
"Apologizing when you don't even know what you did wrong?"
"You're sulking like this because I did something that displeased you. Isn't that right?"
"Our Lucy certainly reads the room quickly."
Affectionate words; an utterly unaffectionate voice. That cold, sunken tone seemed to squeeze my heart and my heart alone. Son of a bitch.
"Well—never mind. What use is there in scolding you for a wrong you yourself can't even see?"
"...I'm sorry."
"I said, enough."
And with that, the conversation was severed. A subtly uncomfortable current drifted between us. Partly to change the subject, I opened my mouth first.
"By the way, Young Master—where did you go at this hour of the—"
"Lucy."
"Yes, Young Master?"
"Must I really report such trifles to you?"
"My apologies if that displeased you. Worry got the better of my tongue."
"Ha. Ha."
That laugh was the turning point. An alien aura, as though he had been dropped there from some entirely different world, bloomed up from him.
"You were worried about me? You, Lucy? Genuinely?"
"Is it so strange, a maid worrying over her master?"
"It makes me happy. Your worry."
And that was a happy man's face? When I only stared back in silence, Rihardt gave a shrug.
"Well, it's nothing. I was on my way back from catching some escaped livestock."
"...Escaped... livestock?"
Only a fool would miss the metaphor. What need would Rihardt ever have to chase actual livestock? He had servants for that, and a knighting ceremony just hours away. Then, all at once, dread closed over me. Had Sean and Bianca truly made it out alive? As though he had heard that very thought, Rihardt went on.
"They were quick, I'll grant them that. So they gave me a spot of trouble."
"...Did they, now."
"Mm."
With that, Rihardt's gaze traveled over me—a parched red light, holding about as much moisture as desert sand. He approached at a leisurely pace and brought his face in close.
"Hey."
Rihardt whispered, lips right against my ear.