Of Corpses and Carpets
Crouching down, I studied the assassin's face closely.
The face revealed under the dim moonlight was unfamiliar.
Never seen this one before.
Call it a blessing, I supposed—he didn't seem to be one of the recruits from my days as commander.
Well. Not my problem, then.
Rising back to my feet, I slid the sword that had carved off a strip of cloth back into its sheath.
There was no need to overthink it. The Ariad Assassins had always been a loosely bound bunch by nature. I may have been their commander, but given the solitary character of assassination work, expecting deep bonds of loyalty from them was never realistic.
So he was a stranger to me.
Well, it would be a lie to say I felt nothing at all about it.
Still, letting someone who broke into the Duke's residence live just isn't an option.
Assassins came to the Duke's residence whether the Duke was home or not. The ones who came when he was away were, by and large, after the classified documents stored in his office.
Those hunting the Duke's life, those hunting his secrets—either way, the moment an assassin set foot inside the residence, their fate was as good as sealed.
Only, a new worry had just occurred to me.
What if the next one to show up is a face I actually know?
I rubbed the crease between my brows with a fingertip.
It's not like I can go tearing open every assassin's left shoulder as they come in. Which means I won't be able to confirm a thing until after they're dead.
It wasn't as though this worry had never crossed my mind before. I'd always harbored the thought that one of the assassins dispatched by the Tenasis Empire might, someday, turn out to be a member of the Ariad Assassins.
Maybe some of the ones I've already dealt with were, too.
After all, I hadn't checked for a shoulder tattoo on every single assassin who came calling.
This one was a perfect example. If he hadn't been carrying a dagger at his waist, it never would have occurred to me to check his shoulder at all.
So Serhin's finally making his move?
I hadn't thought of Serhin in a long while. My friend whose eyes and hair all shimmered gold—glittering, sparkling, every inch of him.
Come to think of it, it has been ages since I last thought about him, hasn't it?
Things had been nonstop since I became a butler. Nodding to myself, I dragged the body to a suitable spot, laid it down at the edge of the carpet covering the corridor, and began rolling it up.
It's soaked in blood anyway. Useless now.
What kind of butler in this world does this, honestly?
Dispatching assassins, then cleaning up the corpses after.
Truth be told, a large part of me just wanted to toss the thing somewhere in the remote back garden and be done with it.
But then I thought of whichever poor servant would stumble upon the body first thing in the morning, and decided a little extra labor on my part was the kinder option.
All the more so when I remembered that Sophia, the maid in charge of cleaning the third floor of the main residence, was pregnant.
This is a time when she should be looking at pretty things and eating good food, nothing else.
Heave-ho!
Draping the thickly woven carpet over my shoulder, I slipped carefully out the back door of the main residence. My route to the incinerator ran through the back garden of the Duke's residence.
The grounds were as quiet as ever. One person had infiltrated here tonight, and died with a single stroke of my blade—yet there was no one to witness or mourn it.
Kr-r-r.
Unidentifiable birds in the hills behind the residence cried low and mournful, thickening the desolate mood.
Then—
"Halt right there, if you please."
"……"
I stopped in my tracks. A figure that had been walking up behind me moved to block my path.
Aw. Busted.
It was Ed, the chief aide.
With Sir Allen having ridden out to war alongside the Duke, Ed had been assigned to guard me in Allen's stead. Officially, at least. In practice, he was my watchdog.
Either way, this aide of ours seemed far better suited to the watchdog role than Sir Allen ever had. Allen had always felt less like a watcher and more like a protector.
Arms crossed, Ed jerked his chin toward my shoulder.
"That thing on your shoulder. Put it down on the ground."
"Yes, sir."
I answered obligingly and lowered the carpet—corpse concealed within—to the ground.
"You really don't have to keep doing this, you know."
Ed let out a sharp Ha! through his nose.
"Spare me. Rather than watch you dig some half-hearted pit and set it on fire like last time, I'd rather handle it myself."
"……"
"In any case, I'll take care of this sort of cleanup. I would appreciate it, however, if you'd take some care to ensure that what's inside here is never you, Miss Freya."
"Haha."
I laughed a small, hollow laugh.
Our chief aide certainly has a gift for saying terrifying things in the gentlest of tones.
Six months since my appointment as butler.
In that time, I had produced roughly ten corpses.
Saying "produced" makes me sound like some impressive master craftsman, but really, it just means I killed the assassins who snuck in.
The day I killed the very first one.
I had dragged the body out to the hills behind the residence and set it alight.
And of all people, Ed had walked in on the scene. That was how it all started.
Ever since, whenever I dealt with an assassin, Ed would materialize and handle the body for me.
One could call him an accomplice, I suppose.
He spared me the bothersome, filthy work, so I was nothing but grateful.
Too embarrassed to actually say thank you, I just rubbed the tip of my nose with my finger.
Tomorrow I should brew him a big pot of apple honey tea. His favorite.
At that moment, Ed—who had been moving to pick up the carpet—cut off his own breath and exploded in fury.
"F-Freya! What is this? This carpet! Isn't this the third-floor carpet?"
"……"
Oh. You caught that, too?
Avoiding Ed's gaze, I dug the toe of my shoe into the innocent patch of dirt below.
His voice came again, thick with outrage.
"Honestly! I told you not to kill anyone on the third floor precisely because this carpet is so hard to replace!"
Ed was trembling from head to toe.
It was the carpet crafted by a famed artisan of the Eastern continent, or so he'd claimed. He'd also said that even a mountain of gold couldn't buy one now.
Hmph. I gave a light scoff.
"If it's so hard to replace, why on earth is it on the third floor?"
"Excuse me? Because it's the finest one, obviously! That's why it goes on the third floor!"
Because that's where His Highness spends the most of his time!
I answered placidly as Ed worked himself into a fervor trying to make me understand.
"Exactly. Which is why I'm asking—why would you put something that precious there?"
"Miss Freya!"
"Ed. What do you think is the reason assassins break into the Duke's residence at all?"
"……That would be the Duke."
I pressed on without pause.
"And then—what's the first place an assassin goes once they're inside?"
"……The third floor. Obviously."
Where His Highness's bedchamber is.
"Precisely. The vast majority of assassins who enter this residence targeting His Highness make straight for the third floor."
"……"
"So now let's think this through. Is it my fault the carpet got ruined? Or is it Ed's fault?"
At my question, Ed's expression turned complicated. Probably because he'd never given the matter any serious thought before.
After a moment's deliberation, he frowned and said:
"……Because of me?"
My eyes went round, and I answered with firm conviction.
"No! It's the sneaking assassin's fault. Why on earth would it be ours?"
Wouldn't you agree? I added sweetly.
"……"
For a moment, Ed's eyes wavered.
My logic struck him as deeply dubious, no doubt—but in the end, the part that mattered was that it wasn't his fault, and that alone seemed to bring him considerable relief.
Slinging the carpet over his shoulder, Ed glanced back at me three or four times as he walked, then disappeared toward the hills.
And so that singular carpet—of which only two were said to exist in all the world—found itself down to one, through no fault of mine.
My eyes snapped open.
Outside the window, the sky was still dark. When I checked the time, only about an hour had passed since I'd fallen asleep.
Ah. That strange dream again.
Scratching my head, I climbed out of bed and began changing into the clothes I'd had the foresight to press before turning in.
Who is that child?
Lately, I'd been hearing a little girl's voice in my dreams.
She wasn't tormenting me, so it didn't quite count as a nightmare—but hearing it night after night, I couldn't help reading meaning into it.
Could I be watching someone's childhood?
My own lost childhood, perhaps. Or maybe the memories of whoever originally owned this body?
And if not that—just some meaningless dream?
But there was too much strange about this dream to dismiss it so easily.
Remarkably, it was growing clearer by degrees. At first my vision had been nothing but pitch black, but it brightened day by day, and now faint silhouettes of children were beginning to take shape.
The little girl shrieking that she hated the name because it sounded like a boy's—and beside her, another child patiently indulging her petulance.
My sight still wasn't clear enough to make out their faces.
It was so blurred I couldn't even tell whether they wore hats, or whether that was simply their hair.
At this rate, it'll be a year before I can see their faces.
Parking the uneasy dream in the back of my mind, I hurried through getting dressed.
The second day since the Duke's return.
Today of all days, I cannot afford a single mistake.
After one last check of my appearance, I left my bedchamber.
Coming down from the fourth floor, where my room was, to the third, I found a brand-new carpet spread where the old one had been cleared away before dawn.
I stared at it for a long moment.
He disposed of the body and laid a new carpet? In that span of time?
What kind of creature is Chief Aide Ed, really?
I considered myself someone who economized on sleep to get things done, but Ed was operating on another level entirely.
He must have some hidden ability or other…….
The moment I dragged a body out of the building, he'd appear, having sensed it like a ghost.
They say he has beastfolk blood—maybe that's why he's so sensitive to the smell of blood?
Silver-gray hair, bright green eyes. There were moments—especially when I crossed paths with that face under the moonlight—when the sight of it startled me, just a little, every time.
Probably a wolf.
Or then again, judging by his antics and temperament, a snake wasn't off the table either.
Whatever he was, I was keeping a careful eye on Ed. I'd judged him to be the most dangerous person in the Duke's household after the Duke himself.
Having firmly stamped down the third-floor carpet with each step, I turned to head down to the second.
Then—creak.
Somewhere along the third-floor corridor, the sound of a door opening reached my ears.
When I turned toward the noise, my eyes met the Duke's. He stood one step out of his room.
Oh…….
With last night's events still so vivid in my mind, I felt a flicker of discomfort.
I'll just give a light greeting and head downstairs.
But the moment I moved to do exactly that—
Tik. The Duke tipped his chin toward his own room.
Hm?
And then, without a word of explanation either way, he turned and walked back inside.
…Was that an invitation in?
Oh, why!
Don't tell me this was about what happened in the early hours?
Bound as I was to the Duke's commands, with no freedom to refuse them, I tilted my head in bewilderment even as I had no choice but to step into his room.