Evelyn Rosetta's Past (4)
Liana Bell was smaller than I had expected.
She walked ahead of me down the snow-packed alley, clutching the medicine pouch tightly in my gloved hand.
…Her hands are a lot smaller than I thought.
My own hands were not particularly large, yet the gloves were far too big for Liana’s. The fingertips folded over uselessly, and the cheeks peeking out from beneath her worn cloak were flushed red from the cold. Even so, she did not hurry or stumble. She only drew the medicine pouch more firmly against her chest and paused for a moment whenever her feet slipped on the icy path, steadying her balance before moving on.
I watched her for a while, then looked away.
In the original novel’s illustrations, Liana had always stood in the light—the white robes of a saintess, the clear smile at the crown prince’s side, the warm hands that healed the people. Unconsciously, I had imagined her as someone already complete.
But the Liana before me was still a child. The image of her kneeling in the snow in front of the cathedral only moments ago rose unbidden in my mind.
It was strange.
Even while on her knees, that child’s gaze had never broken.
If anything, she had looked at me more directly. Honestly, that look made me uncomfortable. It was too straight. She was poor, she was weak, and until a moment ago she had been kneeling in the snow—yet somehow there was nothing broken about her.
I had seen those eyes somewhere before.
Not the saintess Liana of the original illustrations, but the eyes of people I had met on the Western Front. People with nowhere left to retreat. People who had almost nothing, and so refused to let even that last scrap be taken from them.
Liana was a child, yet she was not abject.
She knew how to say thank you and how to bow her head. But she did not cast herself down carelessly. The moment I recognized that difference, I felt even more uneasy.
The Temple loved children like her most of all.
Not because they were easy to break, but because they were easy to bind with guilt.
“You said your mother is ill.”
Liana lifted her head.
“Yes.”
“I need to see whether this is a sickness that ends with simply throwing medicine at it.”
The priest hurriedly cut in.
“My lady, there is no need to go that far—”
I looked at him.
“I will decide what is necessary.”
In the end the priest closed his mouth.
Liana hesitated only a moment before taking the lead. The snow-filled alley was narrow. I lifted the hem of my long dress and walked. Noah followed behind and spoke in a low voice.
“My lady.”
“What.”
“Aren’t you going too deep into this?”
“We’re already here.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
I knew.
Noah was warning me. For the Rosetta heiress to approach a child the Temple was watching so closely was dangerous. Especially if I acted as though I already knew her, it would be even more so.
But I could not turn back now.
And what did it matter?
No matter what nonsense the Temple pulled, they would never dare lay a hand on the Rosettas. In the Empire, the standing and renown of House Rosetta were second only to the imperial family itself—nothing strange about that.
How long we walked, I could not say.
I stopped in front of a house.
When I looked up, I saw the place where Liana lived. Her home was, frankly, small.
The roof was low, the windows covered with old cloth. When the door opened, the sound of coughing reached us. The room was cold. Almost no embers remained in the brazier, and a woman lay on the bed.
Martha Bell.
Liana’s mother. In the original she had appeared only in a few lines explaining Liana’s past. She had died of illness before Liana became a saintess, and that death had been written as the reason Liana followed the Temple.
She was still alive.
Ill, yes—but not yet broken.
In a single glance she took in the Rosetta crest that had entered the room, the gloves Liana wore, and the sword at Noah’s side behind me. Even with her breath coming short, she was reading the situation.
Perhaps what Liana had inherited was not so much the color of her hair as those eyes.
“Liana?”
Martha tried to push herself up with difficulty.
Liana’s face filled with alarm as she rushed to catch her.
“Mother, lie down. I brought the medicine.”
Martha’s gaze settled on me.
They were the clouded eyes of a sick person, yet her judgment was not clouded at all. She seemed to know at once who I was.
“Lady Rosetta.”
“Please don’t get up.”
I looked around the room.
The smell of herbs, the old cough, the damp. This was no simple cold. Without proper treatment she would not last long. The Temple knew that, and still used the cost of medicine as a hook to keep this mother and daughter bound.
“Noah.”
“Yes.”
“Summon a physician from the ducal house, and send firewood and food as well.”
“Understood.”
Liana looked at me in surprise.
“You don’t have to go that far…”
“Don’t misunderstand.”
I cut her off coldly.
“It isn’t because I pity you.”
Liana’s lips parted slightly.
I made my voice even colder on purpose. That way no attachment would form.
“I simply find it distasteful that the Temple is running wild as it pleases on Rosetta land.”
Yes. That should be enough.
Help them, but draw a line. Keep Liana from leaning on me. I was moving only to avoid the original story. There was no need to become emotionally entangled.
That was what I thought.
Then Liana smiled.
“Even so, thank you.”
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“Yes.”
“I said it isn’t because I pity you.”
“Yes.”
Liana looked down at my gloved hand.
“But it’s still warm.”
I could not answer.
The words caught strangely in my throat.
Martha watched us quietly. She asked nothing more. Instead, after taking the medicine Liana had given her, she spoke to me in a low voice.
“My lady.”
“Yes.”
“If that child has caused you any trouble—”
“She has not.”
The words came out quickly.
Martha’s eyes smiled, very faintly.
“I see.”
I cleared my throat.
“A physician will come within a few days. The cost will be handled by House Rosetta.”
“How am I to repay such kindness…”
“Don’t repay it.”
Liana looked at me.
I averted my eyes.
Martha did not weep at once at that answer.
Instead she swallowed a very small breath. It was the expression of a poor person when kindness is refused. Terrifying if told to repay it, and even more terrifying if told not to. The world always put the highest price on a favor that asked for nothing in return.
I recognized that face.
I had seen it any number of times at the treatment stations on the Western Front. People who returned after receiving the Temple’s free care always wore that same look—the relief of having survived, and the dread of the bill that would one day come due, layered together.
So I had to speak even more clearly.
“In return, if anyone from the Temple comes, say nothing. Especially do not say that anything strange happened to Liana’s body, or that she used any strange power. Never say those things.”
Martha’s face hardened.
“My lady.”
Only after a long moment did she ask,
“What do you know?”
I could not choose an answer.
I could not say I knew the original story. I could not say the Temple would make her daughter a saintess and use her for the rest of her life. I could not say this world had cast Liana as the heroine and treated the suffering of everyone around her as natural scenery.
So I spoke only the simplest truth.
“The Temple does not save people for free.”
Martha closed her eyes.
She knew it too.
The poorer a person was, the better they knew that the hand offered for free demanded the highest price of all.
I rose quietly from my seat.
“I will take my leave.”
Liana stood as well.
“My lady.”
“What.”
“…I’ll return the gloves.”
She started to pull them off—the gloves whose fingertips still folded over. I looked at them for a moment, then turned my head away.
“Throw them away.”
“Pardon?”
“Once I’ve given something, it’s yours.”
Liana clutched the gloves tightly.
I walked toward the door. Staying any longer felt unwise. Strangely, this small room shook me more than the training grounds ever had.
Just before I stepped out, Liana called again.
“My lady.”
I did not look back.
“What is it this time.”
“Thank you for letting me know your name.”
“…I never told you my name.”
“The priest called you Lady Rosetta.”
“That isn’t my name.”
A brief silence.
Liana asked carefully,
“Then… may I know your name?”
I stopped with my hand on the door handle.
A name.
Give a name and it becomes a relationship; a relationship becomes fate. I knew that. To avoid the original story, it was better not to give my name.
And yet my mouth moved on its own.
“Evelyn.”
Liana drew in a breath.
“Evelyn Rosetta.”
Without turning around, I added,
“Forget it.”
Liana’s answer was small.
“I don’t want to.”
That single phrase was strangely clear.
The child was afraid, yet she did not step back. Trembling with the look of someone who hated being in debt, she still refused to let go of the name. I tightened my grip on the door handle.
I should never have told her my name.
But it was already too late.
Liana Bell had heard my name, and I had heard her answer. A child who, when told to forget, said she did not want to. I had the feeling I would remember that child far longer than I intended.
That night, after returning by carriage, I looked down at my hands.
I had lost one glove.
It was only a single glove.
Yet my hand felt strangely empty. And that emptiness felt like a premonition of everything I would lose from now on.
For no good reason, I clenched my fist tight.