My Prison Chronicles - 4
The moment I had feared most had finally arrived.
"Hnnngh— hic—"
Watching Margeta cry with her hand clamped over her mouth, stifling every sob, was enough to drive me out of my mind.
"Chief of the Audit Department. You have a visitor."
When the guard said it with the look of a man who had already given up on something, I wondered what was wrong with him—until I heard that Margeta was the one who had come. Then I gave up, too. What I abandoned was any remaining sense of shame and pride.
Letting someone see you behind iron bars is humiliating by nature. I never wanted Erich to see it, or Luise, or Irina.
And of all people, the one I least wanted to see me like this…
With Margeta, I would rather the sky fall than have her look at me in a cell. I knew how much she worried over me. I knew that for all her steadfastness, her heart was quietly soft.
So I had prayed, more than once, that even if the minister hit me with three disciplinary strikes in a row, Margeta would simply not come.
You couldn't even grant me that one thing?
Of course Enen was not idle enough to answer the prayers of an invasive species like me. He had his hands full listening to the native faithful of this world. Damn it all.
"Karl… Karl…"
Margeta kept shedding tears, one hand locked around the bars as if that were the only thing holding her upright body from collapsing.
She looked so pitiful, so heartbreaking, that I wanted to step out that instant and stroke her hair and tell her it was all right—but unfortunately that was impossible.
"I'm fine. I'm really fine, Mar."
From inside a prison, what I could do was severely limited. At best I could hold her hand through the bars and keep repeating that I was okay. Nothing more.
And even that only seemed to break her further.
"Waaaaaah—!"
In the end Margeta could no longer hold back the sound of her crying. The proud duchess who always minded her dignity and composure burst into tears like a child.
"Why—why! Why is Karl in there…!"
It sounded like a child's tantrum, or like someone confronting a riddle she could not possibly solve.
Either way, it was nothing like her usual self—she was drowning in confusion. The more I watched, the sharper my guilt grew.
"Why… whyyy…"
Muttering like that, she finally lost strength in her legs and sank to the floor.
"Unnie, are you all right?"
Luise, who had been watching from behind with anguished eyes, rushed forward and supported her.
Seeing that only deepened my self-loathing. The work I ought to be doing was being done by someone else. Or rather—if I had been outside in the first place, Margeta would never have been reduced to this.
"Luise, give her this at least."
From somewhere Irina produced a canteen and pressed it into Luise's hands.
Yes—get some water into her. She had cried enough to be dehydrated.
"Unnie. Let's step outside for a moment. You need some air."
"No, I don't want to… Karl is—Karl is right here…"
Even with worry thick in Luise's voice, Margeta shook her head and refused.
But that only steeled Luise's resolve to get her out. The fact that Margeta—who normally never dropped her polite speech—was sulking in casual language was proof enough she was not in her right mind.
In the end Irina joined in, and together they dragged the still-protesting Margeta out of the visitation room.
Anywhere is better than the underground.
I watched Margeta's receding back and let out a long sigh.
No matter how nicely they dressed it up, this place was still a subterranean dungeon. It was no place for a delicate duchess who had already spent all her strength.
"Hyung, you okay?"
"I was fine until a minute ago."
Only after the others had gone outside did Erich sidle closer. It was the first conversation we had managed since visitation began.
I understood. In that moment, who would have dared speak over Margeta? Erich's face still carried open bewilderment; he clearly had not expected her to break down that completely.
"What the hell happened? How does someone who was at the Academy end up detained?"
At Erich's question I let my gaze slide away. You know what? You are the first person who has actually asked why I was locked up.
The minister already knew the circumstances, the Demon Duke did not care either way, and Margeta had started wailing the second she saw me. I had received several visits already, yet I had never once managed to explain the reason for my detention.
How am I supposed to say it?
I almost preferred when no one asked. How do you even begin to explain a reason that insane?
But from Erich's completely uninformed point of view, I had been living peacefully at the Academy and then suddenly got arrested. If I wanted to clear up that misunderstanding, I had to talk…
Will it be all right?
To explain the situation I would have to mention that the Red Wave—a radical, anti-noble revolutionary organization of traitors—had approached the Academy itself. That felt a little too heavy for Erich, who was still a student there.
Still, aside from the damage to my own mental state, the whole affair had ended without casualties, and Erich was not the type to run his mouth. If I told him the way a mother-in-law hands down a secret recipe—"Just keep this between us"—he would stay quiet.
…Fine. I would tell him.
"It's a bit of a long story."
The more I spoke, the stranger Erich's expression became.
Shit.
Hold it in. I had to hold it in.
Why this trial of all things.
For a second I resented Enen. What sin had I committed that he would drop a trial this brutal on my head?
Was it because I turned Tanian down when he invited me to church? But I was not the only one who refused. Even Tanian himself said "Ah, alright" and left when others declined.
Did he go and offer a curse-prayer or something?
I pictured Tanian crying out, "Punish that unbeliever who rejected the faith!" Yes, that had to be it. That wicked bastard Tanian, doing something so vicious behind that smiling face.
People are allowed to skip church sometimes, aren't they? My church is built of the faith and belief inside my heart—
"Are you listening?"
"Ah—yeah."
Hyung's voice yanked my desperately wandering mind back. Disaster. Even my last frantic attempt at mental escape had failed.
I'm going to lose it.
I carefully lifted my head and glared at the ceiling, as if the tragic and unjust tale I was hearing had filled me with stifling frustration.
In truth I was only looking away because the slightest lapse in control would have me bursting into laughter.
"Don't go telling anyone."
I nodded with violent enthusiasm at hyung's words.
Republican traitors had come all the way to the Academy's doorstep, and hyung had personally wiped them out.
Every piece of it was extraordinary. The thought that the Academy had nearly been in danger without my knowing was chilling, but at least everything had ended safely.
Except for one detail.
Where am I supposed to tell a story like this?
If I repeated this anywhere, people would treat me like a madman. Even hearing it directly from the person involved left me speechless—how much worse would it be for anyone who heard it secondhand?
Hyung was locked up for killing a prisoner of war. Killing a captive was hardly commendable, but it was not normally a crime big enough to land someone in detention.
"I'd already written a lot of disciplinary reports, you see. One more this time meant actual detention."
The real problem was hyung's accumulated record, which turned a small offense into a massive one. That was when the first laughter alert hit me.
"And then that bastard brought up Ryutis. How was I supposed to just sit there and take that?"
When I heard the reason he killed the prisoner, the second alert went off.
That's how it connected?
I thought I would go insane. If the prisoner had simply made some ordinary provocation and hyung lost his temper, it would not have been funny.
But of all things, he had to mention Ryutis. He had brought up that legendary incident in which hyung had slammed a member of the royal family to the ground in front of everyone.
And because of that incident, hyung had received the unprecedented sentence of Academy confinement. He would probably bolt upright in bed if anyone so much as whispered about it—and he had to hear it from a republican traitor?
Yeah, no one could take that.
I would have killed the guy too. I was fairly sure even a Supreme Court justice would declare him not guilty after hearing that.
Anyway, I now perfectly understood why hyung was locked up. But solving one problem only created a new one.
"…Hyung. How are we supposed to explain this to everyone else?"
"Yeah…"
Outside right now, Duchess Margeta was probably still crying, and Luise and Irina were trying to comfort her.
I simply did not have the courage to tell those three the truth.
"Just say it was a work issue for now. If they don't ask first, stay quiet."
After long deliberation, that was the answer hyung produced. I nodded without a word.
Please, let no one ask.
Not long after I finished confessing the humiliating truth to Erich, Margeta returned. Fortunately she seemed to have calmed down a little.
Unfortunately, visitation hours were over and she had to leave again. The timing could not have been worse.
"Karl, I'll see you tomorrow. I'll come again tomorrow for sure—I promise."
She said it while tears streamed down her face all over again, and talking her out of it was exhausting. Honestly, visiting someone who is only locked up for five days twice already felt a bit much.
In the end I managed to persuade the stubbornly head-shaking Margeta and send her home, but only after promising that the moment I was released I would go find her first.
"Ah, hyung. The family knows you're locked up too."
On his way out, Erich left me with one last headache of a remark.
"Mother wanted to come as well, but I stopped her for now. Better to keep blocking her, right?"
Thanks to my considerate little brother, at least the number of visitors would not increase. Yes—I could somehow endure even Margeta, but "a mother come to see her imprisoned son" was more than I could handle.
…Even if I could not go see her the moment I was free, I would at least contact her first. That was only proper.
Damn it.
All this because I could not swallow a single moment of rage. If I had just stomped on the guy's thigh instead of cracking his skull, he probably would not have died.
I sighed and stared up at the ceiling—and belatedly a sense of wrongness crept in.
Why haven't they come?
Oddly enough, the section chiefs were silent.
It was a strange situation. The people closest to me—the Audit Department—had sent no word, while people from the distant Academy had shown up for visitation.
Truthfully I was more comfortable if they stayed away, but how often had those people ever cared about my comfort? I had assumed they would come for sure.
If they don't, that's better for me.
I decided not to dwell on it.
I clutched my skull as if it were about to split and rolled around on the floor. I needed to get up, yet I absolutely could not.
I have to go for visitation…
Originally I had planned to head over first thing this morning. The other section chiefs and even the deputy director had cleared their schedules so we could go together.
But last night an unplanned company dinner had appeared out of nowhere.
"We're having a company dinner to commemorate your department head getting locked up. Attend before you go visit him."
How do you skip a dinner the minister himself is hosting? Besides, it had been ages since the last one, so I had cheerfully shown up.
And this was the result. The minister had brought only the highest-proof stuff, and the aftermath was catastrophic.
"Uuuugh…"
As I thrashed about, a tangle of hair flopped into my vision.
My precious, carefully maintained white hair. Normally it was pretty enough to show off anywhere, yet today the mere sight of it terrified me.
Of all things, the liquor I drank yesterday had been white too… This is the first time white has ever scared me…
"Department heeeead…"
Thinking of the Chief alone and weeping in that cold prison made my heart ache.
I'm sorry, Chief. I really ought to come see you, but I don't think I can manage it today.