The Crybaby of House Edfolk (4)
Worn out from crying, Yulia sat in a daze from the carriage ride home after the banquet all the way through breakfast the next morning, as if she had forgotten how to speak.
Deschamps, and the household staff with Marchen among them, went grave at the sight. The girl who had always seemed so happy would not even lift her fork.
"Daughter. What on earth happened?"
In truth, Deschamps already knew. Aurora, the young lady of House Hershi, had told him everything the day before.
By the time he reached that private room, Yulia was already sobbing as if she meant to sink into the earth. He had seen her into the carriage and then gone back, and when he arrived Aurora dropped to her knees, hands clasped, begging as though she had committed a mortal sin.
"It is my fault for failing to keep the children in hand. Please—please be generous, and forgive me."
"......"
While he was still weighing how to handle it, his eyes caught the children trembling behind her.
At that, Deschamps decided to cover the matter over and let it pass. They were only children who knew nothing, and as a father himself he found the thought of seizing them one by one and interrogating them faintly ridiculous. Yulia, already on her way home, worried him far more. He gave them nothing but a verbal warning and returned to the manor.
Now he had only one concern: the wound his daughter had taken.
Hoping to comfort her, he had stayed at her side from the evening before through this very breakfast. She said nothing at all. She only groaned softly, like someone who had lost the power of speech.
"Daughter..."
Yulia rose weakly from her seat.
"Father, I'm sleepy."
"Yulia..."
"I'm tired. Please let me go in."
At those words, a stone seemed to drop with a thud into Deschamps's chest.
To hear such a thing from the daughter he had raised with every effort to keep a single crease from her life. Shocked, he could not bring himself to sit her back at the table. He could only let her return to her room.
So he resolved to give it time and watch her. The shock she had suffered looked far too great to face all at once.
He had thought he might be able to speak with her in three or four days. Sadly, that hope missed its mark. A full fortnight passed after the banquet, and Yulia stayed shut in her room until Karen—her mother, and Deschamps's wife—came home from campaign.
Karen returned with a bouquet for the daughter who ought to have come out to greet her. When Yulia was nowhere to be seen, she went to the girl's room without even taking off her gleaming armor.
"Yulia, are you ill?"
"No..."
"You don't look as if you have any strength at all."
"I'm not. I'm sorry."
"Something happened, didn't it."
Karen waited beside the bed, but Yulia only kept her eyes lowered in sorrow and said nothing.
Coming back out, Karen sought Deschamps first.
"What in the world happened? Yulia has wasted away like that..."
"Karen, take the armor off first, wash, and then we'll talk. I'll tell you everything."
"All right."
Deschamps, his face more drawn than hers after a campaign, managed a smile as if to say he was fine. Karen remained uneasy, but she did as he asked.
Afterward the two of them took their seats in a reception room where the family crest, a swan, and the sword bestowed by the Emperor gleamed.
"So. What happened?"
"First, Yulia and Yelich of House Serge—"
Karen listened to the rest and had little to say about what had passed between Yulia and Yelich, or about the magic Yulia had failed. She herself had known that sort of childish contest of pride, and Yulia's nature had always been a little soft.
"Hmm. Even so, lying in bed for a full fortnight over that much is a bit much, isn't it? We've raised Yulia too gently. Later I'll go and—"
"Karen, there was one more thing."
"There was more?"
"Yes. It seems the children said this and that about me."
"What did they say?"
"That old rumor that used to go around the Imperial Capital..."
"Don't tell me they were talking about the title bestowed on you."
When Deschamps kept his silence, Karen let out a long sigh, and her sharp eyes turned on the head maid.
"Were you the one attending Yulia?"
"N-no! Lady Yulia was attended by Marchen."
"You sent Marchen, still an apprentice, to a place like that? Whose witless decision was that? Yours?"
"I am sorry, my lady..."
"Karen, Yulia asked for it herself."
"Enough. Go and bring Marchen! Now!"
"Karen, there's no need to go that far..."
Deschamps tried to restrain her as the air turned lethal in an instant, but Karen, eyes wide, shook her head at him.
"You'll only try to smooth it over. From here on, I'll handle it."
"......"
"And you—what are you standing there for? I believe I just gave you an order!"
"I'll bring her at once!"
A short while later Marchen, who had been holding Yulia's hand at her bedside, was called to the reception room. At the sight of Karen's cutting gaze she could only swallow dryly.
"You were with Yulia at the hall?"
"The fault is mine, my lady. I should have kept such words from reaching the young lady..."
"Marchen, I did not call you because I want your apology. I called you because I want to hear what happened."
She said as much, but Karen's eyes looked ready to seize someone and kill them on the spot.
Kneeling under the weight of guilt, Marchen slowly told her what she had heard.
"They said the reason the Marquis became one of the Six Great Mages was that he had caught the late Emperor's fancy—or else that it was only the halo of House Edfolk. And they said similar things of you, my lady..."
Unable to repeat any further insult to the head of the house, Marchen could not go on. She bowed her head, her face stricken.
The room went as quiet as if water had been thrown over it. Karen turned the words over for a long while, then let out a hollow laugh and looked toward Deschamps.
"So. Filth like that actually reached your ears? Ha... hahaha!"
She laughed for a long time. The sound was like a crow's cry, and everyone in the room felt a chill. Then, as if a flame had gone out, she cut the laughter short.
"Who?"
"The children who were in the private room at the time, my lady. Lady Aurora, who was inside, tried to stop them, but..."
"Write down every one of those children, name by name, starting now. And have that young lady called Aurora brought here at once."
The moment the words left her, the head maid ran from the room. Another maid pressed paper and pen into Marchen's hands, and she began to write every name with a trembling hand.
"Not a single one left out. Do you understand? And write down who said what, as far as you remember."
"Yes, my lady."
Watching this, Deschamps asked her carefully.
"Karen, what are you planning to do?"
"What else? I'll have the ones responsible plant their heads in the dirt."
"They're children."
Until then her gaze on him had been soft. Now it hardened, and she asked him back as if she could not understand.
"Children? What children? The problem is those things who call themselves their parents."
"Hah..."
"They talk like that at home, and that's why the children say things no decent mouth should ever hold!"
"Karen, even so, Yulia right now—"
"Yulia? Is Yulia the problem? They're going around saying things about you that shouldn't even be allowed in a person's mouth!"
"......"
"I will not let this pass, so don't think of stopping me. It works out well, actually. I was already sick of hearing that talk behind our backs."
"Karen. I think you're making this far too large."
At his words Karen's eyes flashed, cold and keen. Then she brought her hand down on the desk with a bang, as if she meant to smash it.
"Deschamps! Think about who bestowed those titles on you and on me! It was no one else. The late Emperor—the late Emperor gave us those titles!"
"I know that well enough, but..."
"To belittle a title the late Emperor bestowed is to insult the late Emperor himself. I will never endure that."
"......"
"They ought to count themselves lucky! If 108 Swords or Flowing Water had heard those words, their manors would have been smashed to pieces or sunk underwater!"
"Hah."
After that Karen summoned Aurora as well, set her account against Marchen's, and sent letters to every noble house that had attended the banquet. The letters said that Karen—one of the Emperor's Four Swords, called the Sword of Judgment—was deeply angered, and that if they came of their own accord and bowed their heads before she summoned them, she might take their contrition into account.
She had written to every house present because she meant her fury to be seen by all. Houses such as Ropert and Mertios, long itching to humble the rising nobles—House Serge among them, who had been inside that private room—threw their weight behind her. And so, from the day after the letters went out, the heads of noble houses filled the lawn of House Edfolk, kneeling in hope of nothing but her mercy.
"Grand Duchess Karen, we beg your mercy..."
Three days after Karen Edfolk sent the letters.
Today, too, the heads of houses knelt in the garden of the Edfolk manor, begging her mercy.
"We are sorry, Grand Duchess Karen. Please show mercy just this once."
"It is my fault for raising my child poorly. We will discipline them as a house—please allow us to atone!"
"If you wish it, we will go so far as to cast them out. Please at least grant us a chance to apologize to Lady Yulia."
Before their bloodless, pleading faces, the white claymore that symbolized Karen stood driven into the ground, the earth cracked around the blade. Karen had a chair set upon a dais and sat with her legs crossed, looking down on them without expression.
But Yulia herself, the one at the heart of it, was crouched in the middle of her bed, unmoving, spending the day without shifting an inch.
A little earlier, several of the children who had been in that private room had come all the way to her door and knelt, saying they wished to apologize. She sent them all away without so much as looking at their faces. She had nothing to say to them, and nothing she wished to hear. The world that had been nothing but softness and light had shattered long ago, together with the cookie she had let slip from her hands.
From that day to this, Yulia had gone over what happened more than a hundred times, and then gone over it again. She carved the air of that moment, the voices, the people, deep into her bones. Then she began to walk backward through the past, one day at a time.
And strangely enough, she came to see it. Between the day her world broke and all the days before it, there was a vast gap in clarity. Unlike that day, when even the weight of the cookie in her hands rose vivid in her mind, every day she had lived before felt only hazy.
By then, the rude words, the looks that looked down on her, the attitudes that ignored her—those were no longer the problem. What had become unbearable was herself, sitting there small and shabby, unable to say a single word.
She was the daughter of a mother and father strong enough to bring everyone to their knees like that. So why had she been the one who had to hear those words, who had to endure those contemptuous eyes?
The thought sparked by that question chased its own tail until, in the end, it turned and clawed at her.
Yes. It's my fault. I looked easy to push around, so they did it. But... why did Father and Mother leave me this stupid? Why...?
When those pitch-black thoughts rose in her head, Yulia's emptied heart began to stain with a feeling she had never known even in dreams: resentment.
A second. An hour. Half a day. A day, and another day. In time that crawled with unbearable slowness, she painted that black emotion over her heart, and painted it again.
"Hic."
A few maids, and Deschamps, tried to comfort her as she sobbed under the covers, but each time she buried her face in the pillow.
And so several more days passed. The nobles who had lain prostrate in the manor garden for a full week received their promised leniency and went home. About two days after that, Yulia opened the heavy mouth that had seemed as though it might stay shut forever.
"Bring me scissors."
Marchen, who had been watching her with anxious eyes, went ashen and asked again.
"My lady, scissors? All of a sudden...?"
"Quickly."
"I cannot. Scissors are dangerous. I can't give them to you."
Yulia gazed at her for a long moment, then let out a thin sigh.
"...Then cut it for me."
"What?"
"Cut my hair. To here."
She pointed just below her chin as she spoke. Cut the hair she had treasured so dearly? Marchen could not believe it. Her voice trembled.
"My lady, to cut your hair—what do you mean..."
"It's in the way."
"This beautiful hair..."
"Marchen! Can't I even do what I want with my own hair?"
"That isn't what I meant..."
"What do you even think I am? You too? Are you looking down on me too?"
"No!"
At that razor-sharp voice, Marchen had no choice but to take up the scissors.
"My lady, even so, I should speak to the Marquis first..."
Before she could finish, Yulia snatched the scissors from her hands and snipped her hair off any which way. Her indigo hair dropped limply downward. Marchen screamed as if she had seen a ghost.
"My lady!!!"
"From now on... from now on, no one will be able to look down on me. No one!"
Yulia scrubbed furiously at her eyes, left the stunned Marchen where she was, and ran out into the corridor.
Deschamps and Karen, hurrying to her room, froze at the sight of her.
"Daughter, what—what is this? What happened...?"
"I... I have something to say."
"Marchen! Get out here and explain yourself this instant!"
At Karen's thunderous order, Marchen came running out. In that moment Yulia raised her voice to her father and mother for the first time.
"I said I have something to tell you!!"
Every sound in the manor cut off at once, and Yulia's rough breathing filled the silence.
"I cut my hair myself. Don't say a word to Marchen, and don't hold her responsible."
"You cut that hair with your own hands?"
"And please send me to the noble school."
"What are you saying all of a sudden?"
"I don't want to fall behind."
"Fall behind? What do you mean?"
Unlike Deschamps, Karen's tone was a little cold. Yulia answered her.
"Everyone laughed when they saw my magic circle. They laughed at me for not going to school, too."
"Yulia, you think that means you've fallen behind?"
"Yes. The other children summoned water and fire just fine, and I can't even unfold a single magic circle properly. Like a fool. Like an idiot."
"Yulia, think for a moment..."
"I want to go now. As soon as I can."
Faced with a daughter he had never seen before, Deschamps did not know what to do. At last he chose his words, trying to speak as gently as he could.
"All right. If that's what you want, we'll take a little time, match your progress, and—"
"No. I want to go now. If I stay here I'll only grow lax again. And the more time passes, the further behind I'll fall."
Even when he tried to speak gently, Yulia kept cutting him off. A twitch ran through the corner of Karen's eye.
"Yulia Edfolk! Your manners just now—!"
"I don't want to resent Father or Mother anymore."
At those words, the strength went out of Deschamps and Karen at once.
"Resent us?"
"I do resent you. All of it."
"Daughter..."
"I don't want to be a fool or an idiot anymore. You're the ones who made me this way."
"Yulia, are you finished?"
Deschamps's face rose in Karen's mind—the man who had sworn he would never let his daughter so much as wet her hands, who wanted to make her happy, who wanted even less to be a father she would be ashamed of. He had suffered on battlefields that did not suit his nature at all. Something in Karen's head snapped.
Deschamps, recognizing it, seized her upper arm hard.
For days now he too had been hearing from the maids that Yulia was suffering. Afraid that something truly terrible might happen, he had barely slept, night or day. And in those days he could only blame himself for raising her like a flower in a greenhouse. Life was not a thing in which one could meet only what was good. He had thought only of giving her happiness in the moment, and missed that simple, lucid truth. The regret of it weighed on him, and the price was as stern as what stood before him now.
But if there was any mercy in the misfortune, it was that Yulia had come out of the bed. In the eyes of the girl who had emerged, anger and resentment and pain shimmered like heat haze. And what she had chosen was not something as petty as tormenting a helpless maid. It was going to school.
What parent could stop that?
So Deschamps folded away, for now, the pain that felt as though his chest were tearing, and somehow lifted the corners of his mouth for her.
"All right."
"Deschamps! The child is saying things she shouldn't—"
"Karen, let's talk, just the two of us, in a little while. Hm? You'll frighten Yulia."
Karen stared at her husband as if she could not understand him. He had heard words like that and not so much as furrowed his brow. But his voice sounded more desperate than it ever had, and she had no choice but to stop.
Seeing that his wife had calmed, Deschamps let out a breath of relief. He went down on one knee so he could meet Yulia's eyes, and spoke to her with all the warmth he always had.
"I'm sorry, daughter. It was your father's fault. Still, we ought to tidy your hair. Cutting it was fine, but it's all crooked... It looks as if a mouse gnawed it, doesn't it? Haha. Right, Karen?"
"......"
"From now on, I'll give you all the support I never managed to give you before. Do as you wish."
Yulia gave her father a nod so small it was almost not a nod at all.
And that was all.
She no longer threw herself into his arms as she once had, and she no longer smiled with a bright, clear face. She took Marchen, who had been standing behind them like a criminal, and went into her room, and she flung the rabbit doll that had always sat on her bed onto the floor.
And from that moment, Yulia began to change with a frightening speed.