Don't Keep a Dog in the Garden - Chapter 10

Cassia looked at Whisker with a weary face and answered calmly, “If you assassinated the Crown Prince, it will be hard to escape death.”

“Even if I say I didn’t, His Majesty will not believe me. Unlike me, he has no interest in the truth.”

“Was it really not you?”

“Why would I kill the Crown Prince? It was obvious I’d end up like this.”

Whisker turned his body and sat, protesting his innocence.

He raised his cuffed hands, and the clanging of iron echoed noisily.

Cassia also turned to face him, meeting his eyes.

As always, his unreadable red eyes only flickered with vague mischief.

As Cassia fell silent in thought, Whisker lowered the hands he had lifted and muttered sullenly, “You suspect me. Yet I believed in Your Grace’s innocence. How disappointing.”

His expression, feigning hurt he couldn’t possibly feel, looked pitiful enough that Cassia was once again dumbfounded.

She didn’t believe his nonsense, but this time she couldn’t help agreeing.

As he claimed, the Emperor’s suspicion that had been directed at Cassia because of the Crown Prince’s death had now shifted to Whisker.

Today it had been no more than whipping, but tomorrow the Emperor might cut off his head.

She could think of no reason why he would risk such danger just to kill the Crown Prince.

Then who could it be?

As she tried to think of who might have killed the Crown Prince after the Second Prince, Cassia suddenly met Whisker’s gaze.

The pale face lit by moonlight glowed faintly, and in the red eyes holding darkness, her own face reflected clearly.

At that moment, a thought brushed through Cassia’s mind.

The possibility that the one who killed the Second Prince Mesus yesterday and the one who killed the Crown Prince today might be different people.

Cassia’s golden eyes widened as she clutched the bars and drew close to Whisker.

“You, don’t tell me…”

She clenched her teeth and swallowed the question that threatened to burst out.

If Whisker were to admit it, then what?

What if the Emperor had killed Mesus to lay a trap for her, and Whisker had killed the Crown Prince to save her from that trap?

As Whisker looked into her wide golden eyes, his red ones curved.

The corners of his lips lifted, and seeing that, she found herself unable to ask.

With only the bars between them, Whisker’s face was close enough to touch.

Over the darkness thickly filling the cell, a low voice seeped through.

“Yes, Your Grace. Speak.”

Cassia unconsciously stepped back from the approaching Whisker.

Though the iron bars between them could not be cut even by a sword, she felt as though he might seize her at any moment.

Cassia frowned in confusion, then lifted her head as if in resolve.

Gold always pierced the darkness, and Whisker’s throat bobbed.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but don’t do it.”

Cassia’s voice rang quietly.

It echoed from the past, from deep within the heart where she had buried it.

“Don’t do it.”

Whisker bowed his head, gave a soft laugh, then spoke words he had spoken in the past.

“What is it I mustn’t do?”

“Anything. Don’t do it.”

Her answer was the same as before.

At sixteen, Whisker had been stubborn. He had feigned nonchalance and arrogance.

“Don’t order me.”

But in the end, he had obeyed Cassia’s words.

He had abandoned the assassination of Hamilton and fled.

He had failed his mission and suffered a punishment harsher than death.

At twenty-six, Whisker wouldn’t run.

He had long since become skilled at lying.

“If it’s your command.”

Whisker answered with a smile as though painted on, but Cassia, as back then, said nothing.

Enduring her gaze that seemed to peer into his heart, Whisker felt his own heart beat helplessly once more.

He had cut off all escape routes for himself.

The place he had to go had long been decided, and the end of a sinful dog would be death anyway.

What mattered was the path taken to get there.

***

Since the summer when a sixteen-year-old boy and a fourteen-year-old girl first met, it had taken quite a long time for Whisker to appear before Cassia again.

The two met again six years ago, when the Emperor introduced Whisker to the nobles as Bureau Chief.

At first, Cassia did not realize he was that boy.

Because the smile with which he shamelessly raised his head and laughed brazenly under glances of reproach, suspicion, and disgust was too unfamiliar.

At that time, not long after Cassia had inherited the title of Grand Duchess, Whisker pretended not to know her.

It wasn’t a reunion to be glad for, and so Cassia also ignored him. After that, they had little occasion to meet.

Cassia avoided the imperial palace as much as possible, and Whisker lived scattering ominous rumors in the shadows.

Time passed like that, until three years ago. It must have been at the Empress’s birthday banquet.

That was the first time since they met again that Whisker spoke to Cassia.

The Emperor’s hunting dog of uncertain birth, now in name and fact the fifth duke of the Fedemillon Empire, held out his hand to her.

“Your Grace the Grand Duchess, will you dance with me?”

To Cassia, whom no one dared approach for fear of the Emperor’s eyes, the Emperor’s hunting dog asked for a dance.

The Emperor, who had been delighted to see Cassia standing there like a doll, hardened his face, but Whisker was beaming.

As everyone held their breath and watched them, Cassia, staring at his hand, replied with a blank face.

“I refuse.”

“How cold. One would think a child who listened so well deserves a reward.”

Whisker drooped his eyebrows and grumbled with an exaggeratedly sorrowful face.

No one else in the banquet hall knew what he meant, but Cassia understood.

She looked quietly into his red eyes, recalling the day she had faced Whisker at sixteen.

She seemed to hesitate.

Mischievous anticipation filled Whisker’s red eyes, but after a long pause, Cassia gave the same answer.

“I still refuse.”

Leaving behind a refusal that was not without warmth, Cassia turned away.

Whisker, watching her retreating back, shook his shoulders and burst into laughter.

That was the day. The day Whisker’s unrequited love was pulled out from inside his heart.

More persistent than Cassia’s indifference, his courtship lasted three years, and today.

Cassia and Whisker sat side by side, kneeling before the Emperor for the second day in a row.

Giiern slammed the armrest of the throne and sprang to his feet.

“You don’t know? Did you say you don’t know? The Prince and the Crown Prince are dying inside the palace, and as Bureau Chief, you know nothing?”

“With all due respect, Your Majesty, the security of the palace is the Guard’s responsibility.”

“Silence! Did I seat you there to hear such words?”

Before Cassia, the Emperor, who always pretended detachment from everything, shouted, forgetting his dignity.

He had lost two sons in succession. And inside the palace at that.

The Crown Prince’s death was sorrow enough, but what kept Giiern sleepless was real fear.

The fear that after the Prince and the Crown Prince, he himself might be next.

The fact that the Emperor trembled in fear was itself an insult.

Within the Empire, if one were to name who could kill the Prince and the Crown Prince in succession, everyone would first think of Whisker.

Last night, the Emperor brought his long deliberation to an end and made up his mind.

He would finally discard the hunting dog he had cherished so much.

But how to catch that fierce dog? If he rashly brought out the club, the dog he had raised might bite his throat.

As Giiern agonized, his eyes fell on Cassia, kneeling beside Whisker.

She, Grand Duchess Diorent, who was said to live and die with the dog once he was useless.

A sly smile spread across the Emperor’s lips.

“The Grand Duchess is twenty-four this year, isn’t she?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Just moments ago, he had raged like fire, but suddenly speaking such nonsense, Cassia lifted her head.

The Emperor’s pupils shrank as if pierced by her indifferent golden eyes.

The fact that merely meeting her eyes had unsettled him filled him with irritation.

Even forced to her knees and bowed, her unbending nobility made him impatient.

Giiern licked his dry lips with his tongue and asked, feigning composure, “It is time for the Grand Duchess to marry. Do you have someone in mind?”

A crack formed in Cassia’s brow, and Whisker, head lowered, froze in place.

It was as if he had even stopped breathing.