The Second Note (2)
“Ugh...”
Consciousness returned.
I tried to open my eyes, but my entire body felt as heavy as lead; even my eyelids refused to lift properly. Muscle aches and the searing heat of my wounds wrapped around me from head to toe.
Through the narrow slits of those hard-won open eyes, I found myself facing a soft, gentle scene.
Warm sunlight streaming down. Curtains drifting slowly in the breeze. Birds chirping outside.
It was nothing like the prison of the Disciplinary Unit where I usually woke.
I tried to turn my head slightly—and my heart plummeted.
Sitting in the small chair beside the bed, Vivian was staring straight at me.
“You’re awake.”
She spoke.
“You slept straight through two whole days. I thought you were dead.”
“...Two days?”
It had felt like nothing more than a brief, deep sleep, yet far more time had passed than I expected.
I asked her,
“How long have you been sitting here?”
“...”
She didn’t answer. Instead she rang the bell on my bedside table and summoned people.
Butler Pipin entered with neat, measured steps.
“Lord Kailo Allen. You’ve woken. That is a relief.”
If he was going to call it a relief, he could at least have put on a more relieved face.
I would have believed it more readily if someone told me Vivian had been the one fretting over me.
Her face looked haggard after whatever had happened these past five days.
If I hadn’t been the one lying here, I might have been the one fretting over her first.
“P-Pipin. Please call Scholar Crelin. A-And something easy on the stomach as well.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Vivian’s behavior was not entirely like her usual self. The fact that my sickbed was in such a clean room, the clear signs that she had been looking after me to some degree, the orders for a physician and food the moment I woke—none of it made sense.
“...Why the sudden change?”
I asked the question that had been gnawing at me.
Vivian finished speaking with Pipin and turned back to me. She paused for a moment at my question, then let out a sigh.
“Because if I don’t look after you, you might die. If you die here, that’s on me.”
“You’ve always wanted me dead.”
“I thought so too... but I’ve decided I’d rather keep watching you suffer.”
“...”
“You said it yourself, didn’t you? That ending things this way would be too boring.”
I turned my head aside with a faint, complicated smile.
Her words were full of contradictions, yet somehow I felt I understood them. That was how I looked at Vivian, after all. Perhaps she was acting from a similar place.
Scholar Crelin arrived before long. He examined me thoroughly, declared that rest would see me through without trouble, and left.
Next the maids entered carrying food. A warm fragrance filled the room.
Chicken soup and fragrant herbal tea.
A large-built maid who introduced herself as Rona spoke. Her voice was unexpectedly gentle.
“We simmered the meat until it was soft. It’s good for warming the body, and it shouldn’t be too heavy even on an empty stomach.”
Rona ladled soup into a small wooden bowl and set it before me. Steam rose gently, tickling my nose.
Vivian, sitting nearby, spoke in her usual indifferent tone.
“Eat.”
Even after hearing her, I hesitated a moment. My whole body still throbbed; I wasn’t sure I could even lift the spoon.
But as I stared at the soup, I finally realized how hungry I was. Appetite crashed over me like a flood.
I scooped up a spoonful and put it in my mouth. The warm broth slid down my throat, and the pain in my body slowly began to ease.
Vivian watched me for a long time. She simply stared at me eating in silence, then turned her gaze to Rona.
“...One for me as well.”
The words were cold and firm, yet the tips of her fingers trembled slightly.
I stopped my spoon and studied her carefully.
Fatigue was plain on her face. Even though I was looking right at her, Vivian didn’t seem to notice my gaze at all.
She must have been starving; her hands moved with a certain urgency as she spooned up the soup. The elegant motions she usually possessed were now clumsy and awkward.
Only when she realized I was watching her did her hands pause.
Our eyes met, and she turned her face away with a faintly awkward air.
“...You.”
I asked quietly.
“...You went hungry while I was out, didn’t you?”
“...”
Vivian didn’t answer. She simply lifted the bowl a little higher, as if trying to hide her face behind it.
She was trying to keep her composure, but the ears she couldn’t quite conceal were flushing red with embarrassment.
“You put on such a show about being fine without me, and you were starving? So you didn’t eat at all for five days?”
“...”
Without a word she finished the entire bowl in short order, then spoke bluntly to the maids.
“...Another bowl.”
I couldn’t help smiling as I watched her roughly wipe the soup from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand.
Vivian frowned at the sound of my laughter and warned me,
“If you eat too slowly, your food disappears.”
Then she took the next bowl the maids handed her and busily set about filling her stomach again.
I smiled at the sight of her and returned to my own spoon.
Sunlight still poured into the room.
Around an elegant wooden table, two or three figures sat carefully watching one another.
In the silence, the man seated to the left of the head of the table spoke.
“The longer we delay, the harder it becomes.”
The man at the head of the table rolled his eyes at the words.
“You know as well as I do. If we’re going to remove Vivian, it has to be done as quickly as possible.”
“We already tried poison.”
“If we were going to give up after one failure, we never should have started. The more we drag our feet, the tighter the security becomes. You need to move to the next stage at once.”
The man at the head of the table snorted.
“So what do you propose? Every time we use poison, that Kailo Allen bastard ends up eating it all. And if Kailo Allen isn’t at her side, that girl Vivian won’t even touch her food. What exactly are we supposed to do?”
“W-well...”
“Should we try a blade instead? Want to go do it yourself? The moment you’re caught, suspicion will fall on me in a chain reaction. Is that what you want?”
“Perhaps an assassination attempt...”
“How? There are eyes everywhere in the castle, and Vivian’s room is on the third floor. Unless you can turn into a shadow, how do you sneak that far? It would be easier just to tell you to climb the castle walls.”
Watching his advisor shrink under a few sharp retorts, the man at the head of the table clicked his tongue.
It was all because of that damned Kailo Allen.
Once again the Allen family was ruining everything.
It was Kailo Allen who had saved Vivian when she was on the brink of death from poison. It was Kailo Allen who had eaten the food first afterward, making poison unusable. It was Kailo Allen who kept pulling her out of the contempt she suffered. Always Kailo Allen.
It was as if the boy moved for the sole purpose of making them furious.
He had no duty to protect Vivian Rondore, yet he kept doing it.
They said the minds of the young were impossible to understand—this was exactly that.
From their perspective, no one was more troublesome than Kailo Allen.
Even if he stood in their way, removing him was impossible.
He was not some farmer from a border village; he was the son of the undefeated knight Jade Allen.
Touch him, and they themselves might be the ones to fall. The Rondore family could walk the path of extinction.
And that boy was stuck to Vivian like glue—enough to drive a man mad.
Worse, the time they spent together only grew longer, adding to the pressure.
“Why are those two stuck together like that anyway? I heard they don’t even get along.”
“...Perhaps they’re doing it to torment each other?”
“...Hah.”
If things continued this way and Kailo truly remained at Vivian’s side as her guard, just as the late Duchess Rondore had ordered... then they might as well consider every method of removing Vivian gone.
The man at the head of the table tipped his head back and let out a long sigh.
“...The next chance is the last.”
He knew it by instinct.
If they failed to eliminate Vivian on the next attempt, they would be left sucking their thumbs until she came of age.
After that, they would never slip the net as luckily as they had during the poisoning attempt.
Even when the poisoning failed, they had sweated blood killing off everyone involved one by one.
The longer the tail, the more likely it was to be caught. Miss the next chance, and they would have to live quietly for a good while.
He scrubbed his face dry again and again as he spoke.
“...First, somehow get that Kailo Allen bastard away from Vivian.”
His advisors nodded at the words.
“We’ll figure out the rest after that.”
Several days passed, and I was back at the river doing laundry.
The wounds on my body had healed to a certain degree, and my strength had returned.
Every time I felt life settling into something stable, a pointless little tune slipped out of me.
My standing in the Disciplinary Unit had improved somewhat, and Vivian and I no longer sharpened our blades against each other quite so fiercely.
The retainers of Rondore Castle had grown used to my presence; they no longer spat curses the moment they saw me the way they once had.
With a light heart I rose from my place.
And the moment I turned around...
“...You startled me.”
...a maid stood right in front of me.
“Oh?”
And she was the very maid I had been searching for all this time—the one who had given me the note that read “Watch the food.”
“I’ve been looking for you... and here you are.”
“As you already understand, I am not truly a maid.”
Enough time had passed that I had more or less figured that much out.
Even so, I could not hide the hostility I felt toward her.
Because the fact that she had appeared before me again... did not seem like a good sign.
“...My master offers this gift to Lord Kailo Allen, in light of what happened last time.”
The maid once more took my hand and placed a coin pouch upon it.
The heavy weight told me it held a considerable amount of gold.
“Then.”
Having delivered it, the maid turned without a shred of lingering attachment and left.
“...What? You’re just leaving like that?”
I could not stop her. Even if I had, she would not have said another word.
Besides, I had no desire to grab her and get tangled in something strange.
Still, I had gained one realization. Even inside Rondore Castle, there was someone secretly helping Vivian.
That fact alone seemed to lighten a weight on my heart.
But to reveal herself just to hand over gold coins... I wondered if she was less careful than I had thought.
“...Hm?”
In that moment I realized something was tucked beneath the coin pouch.
I clenched my teeth and let out a sigh through my nose.
Of course.
There was a note.
On the note was written:
Stay by her side.