Attachment Knight - Chapter 5

Park staff and outsiders kept coming and going from the castle, seeking Don Pisano without pause.

When the sun was already high, I finally opened my eyes.

Don’s bed was so soft it felt like my body would sink straight into it. The room sparkled with broken glass shards and spilled wine.

“My head hurts…”

I must’ve drunk some vicious liquor last night because the hangover was brutal.

“Miss, your bathwater is ready. You should also eat.”

The maid tidied the bedding as if she were used to seeing me sprawled there naked. She looked almost sympathetic as she glanced at the bite marks on my breasts like territorial markings. She wrapped me in a towel and led me to the bath, then began scrubbing me with a foaming brush.

Yerenika, the maid, was always calm, a woman like a machine.

“Does it hurt when I scrub?”

“I’m fine.”

“This is the softest brush, but you flinched when it grazed you.”

She was right. Even though she was moving gently, every time it brushed my nipples, a needle-like pain jabbed through me.

“I want to get back in the water.”

“You need to get out so I can put medicine on, miss.”

“Don is really harsh. When he gets in bed, it’s like he’s a different person.”

I grumbled as if testing her. I already knew the truth. This prim-looking maid reported every word I said to Don without missing a syllable.

I knew that perfectly well, yet I talked badly about him on purpose so he’d hear it and reassure me afterward.

“I sometimes think Don goes too far as well. You’re delicate, miss, so the marks stay easily and don’t fade quickly… so does it hurt?”

Her soft, slow kindness that adjusted to me didn’t feel bad.

“Sometimes it’s good. It hurts, but Don always makes me feel good.”

“Then I’m relieved.”

When Yerenika smiled, I let out a nasal laugh.

Today, I felt like talking to her.

If I didn’t, she’d rarely open her mouth on her own. The clear distance of someone who refused to cross more than necessary made me feel lonely now and then.

It wasn’t that I trusted her. She was a boring, tedious woman with a talent for smiling on the surface while tattling behind others’ backs. But even so, isn’t there always a moment when you can’t help but seek out a person like that?

You can’t exactly talk forever to the indifferent plants or the birds that sit briefly on the windowsill.

“What if the bite marks don’t fade before I get onstage?”

“That would be troublesome.”

“You said you picked out a dress for me.”

“Of course. I found a ruffle dress that emphasizes your beautiful neckline and shoulders, Miss Millicent.”

“And the jewelry?”

“I ordered red gems that’ll make your golden hair, dazzling white skin, and sharp features look even more beautiful.”

I stared at Yerenika’s reflection in the mirror. Her mask-like smile suddenly disgusted me. My mood sank, and I lost interest in talking.

“Bring me food. I’m starving after soaking so long.”

“Yes, miss.”

After drying my wet hair, Yerenika pulled the bell cord.

Then, I asked again, “Tell me about Don Pisano’s former lovers.”

“Why are you curious about that?”

“Just tell me.”

For the first time, Yerenika’s smile vanished. Seeing her surprised face revived my interest.

“What should I tell you?”

“Anything.”

“The only ones I know are….”

Yerenika scooped a salad from a large bowl. With smooth, steady motions, she poured milk and set it before me, never neglecting her duties as a maid.

“Lady Catherine, the count’s daughter who’s a regular at the auction house, and Miss Dear Patricia, the proud beauty of the Bella Arane Club. Ah. And of course, there’s Miss Grisha, the longtime lover of Don Pisano and the one who even carried his child. Did that answer help you?”

“She carried his child?”

“Yes. She miscarried, though. Don’t tell me you forgot?”

For a moment, contempt flashed in Yerenika’s smiling eyes. As if she were silently accusing me: How could you, of all people, forget that?

I blinked slowly. I chewed the chicory covered in dressing and swallowed a chopped cherry tomato. My throat felt scratchy.

“I don’t really remember.”

“Of course you don’t. Have you been taking your medicine consistently?”

“Only when I remember.”

“That’s not acceptable.”

Yerenika placed pills and a glass of water in my hand with the tenderness of a mother.

“If the symptoms get worse, you’re the one who’ll suffer most, miss.”

People said I sometimes saw things that weren’t there. They said I heard voices that didn’t exist. From my point of view, I felt perfectly normal, but the physician insisted it was a side effect from drinking strong alcohol for too long. He said my impulsiveness, unpredictability, and emotional swings were because of that. That I didn’t know where I’d fall next. That there were countless pits and traps in front of me, and that I lacked the basic ability a human should have to tell solid ground from brush.

Quack bastard. Who has better danger instincts than me?

If I were truly insane, I wouldn’t have survived hundreds of fire shows. I’d have burned to death like a moth, buried along with the child who’d screamed after seeing Don’s bare face.

That doctor knows nothing about me. Nothing.

Even so, I swallowed the pills Yerenika handed me without a word. Not because I agreed with that quack, but because I took them like nutritional supplements.

“Your shoulders are very tense. Let me loosen them.”

“Fine.”

“Lie down. You overexerted yourself yesterday. A full-body massage will help you feel much better.”

Yerenika’s cool, gentle touch lulled me toward sleep. She felt like someone born for the sole purpose of making me drowsy. She left me defenseless, making me hate and doubt people who might truly be kind or good beneath the surface.

“Yerenika, why do you work for Don?”

“….”

“Does he pay you a lot? Are the benefits good?”

“He compensates me well enough.”

“How long have you lived on this island?”

Were you kidnapped too? Abandoned like me? Why do you stay trapped in a place like this? Did you erase who you are just to survive, wipe away your thoughts and emotions, and live like a machine?

Yerenika only smiled in silence. The troubled, sorrowful curve of her lips dragged me deeper into a pit of emotion.

“Why are you crying again? I told you to drink less, miss. And take your medicine on time.”

“Stop nagging.”

She gently dabbed my eyes with a tissue. It made me even sadder because she seemed like a mother I’d never met, not even once.

After a moment, Yerenika quietly observed my face returning to boredom, then brought up another subject.

“Have you heard the rumors about the slave knight you took in, miss?”

“Radem?”

“That was his name, I think.”

“A slave, huh.”

When I recall the aura that swirled around his body like a ferocious beast, a laugh slips out.

“If that man serves anyone, it would be the emperor of Apellant at most.”

The Rosenbauer family had served the imperial family for generations, so it wasn’t wrong.

“Just looking at his face, he might seem suited to be adored by everyone, but right now he’s a clown of the Colosseum and a slave who sells his body to noble ladies. His former life is meaningless now.”

“That man sells his body? He didn’t look that way.”

The champion of the Colosseum arena naturally becomes known. In the Colosseum, where not only matches but auctions and prostitution flourished, highborn ladies who hid their identities commonly bought young, sturdy men as one-night partners like stud horses. The ones traded like merchandise were gladiator slaves.

“They say he was a very devout follower of the goddess.”

“You’re being naive, miss. You can’t tell what men are like from the surface. Even high-ranking clerics visit brothels and keep churning out bastards somewhere like they’re breeding.”

Yerenika bent down and whispered in my ear. Her hand kneaded around my shoulder blade, slow and heavy. My eyelids drooped halfway. Some part of my body might already be drifting through a dream.

“Gladiator slaves are barbaric and cruel. They’re different from the young masters from good families you’ve dealt with until now or the old men with oil on their bellies.”

She probably meant to warn me, but that only made my curiosity about Radem Rosenbauer swell.

That he actually comes from a great, high-ranking house.

That he came from Apellant, a rich great nation across the sea that felt as mysterious to me as an oasis in the desert.

The more I thought of that man, so handsome and strong that even Yerenika, who rarely praised anyone’s looks but mine, admired him, the more a strange restlessness burned inside me.

The same way it did when I stepped onto a stage where the fire sizzled and roared.

“Even so, he has a limiter on, so he can’t move. Don’t worry too much.”

“You say that after scaring me to death.”

Yerenika laughed soundlessly as she cleared the empty plate. She lightly stroked the ends of my hair that curled softly with rose oil, then whispered softly, “Even so, be careful. Outsiders are dangerous. You mustn’t forget Don’s warning.”