Time of the Blind Beast - Special Side Story 3

This time, even the mighty Ezekiel could not help but be thrown into confusion. He looked the boy up and down.

At the very least, if he were someone exchanging love letters with Lisanne, shouldn’t he be an adult? Or was this someone who just looked very young for his age? Or had he come to the wrong address?

Ezekiel deliberately spoke the name written on the letter aloud, intending to watch the reaction.

“A letter sent by someone named Rose.”

“Oh, from Rose?”

The boy’s face lit up as he held out his hand. Ezekiel handed the letter to him and pressed further.

“You know her well, then?”

“Of course! Thank you for bringing it.”

The boy politely examined the letter front and back as he expressed his thanks.

So young and ignorant of the world, the boy didn’t seem to recognize that the man before him was the war hero himself.

“Oh, but the seal is…”

“Is there a problem?”

“N-No. It’s fine.”

Startled by Ezekiel’s cold gaze, the boy flinched as he opened the letter with its broken seal.

Pulling out the prettily dyed stationery and reading, the boy gave a small laugh.

“Seriously, Rose. She must have asked someone else to write this one too. Every time she sends a letter, the handwriting is different.”

Ezekiel, who had been watching the boy’s every move with a hard, rigid face, froze at that offhand remark.

“Someone else?”

“Rose isn’t very good with spelling. She enrolled at school saying she wanted to be a writer, but her grammar is a mess and she always gets the spelling wrong. Maybe she’s embarrassed. I heard she even asked a dorm mate to write for her before.”

“If she’s a student, is she enrolled at Lisanne Girls’ School?”

“Oh, is that what it’s called? If it’s the one in Cielsa, then yes. Rose’s house is right next door here. She said she was sick of living all her life in the sweltering South. Since she wanted to become a writer, she said she needed to gain lots of experiences, so she specifically sought out a school way up North.”

Absorbed in reading the letter, the boy answered without the slightest suspicion.

So the Rose who wrote this letter was actually a southern girl who dreamed of becoming a writer?

By pure coincidence, the name of his wife’s old alias matched, and because a student had borrowed Lisanne’s hand to write her letter, Ezekiel had ended up charging all the way to a small southern town. Stunned and dumbfounded, he finally let out a hollow laugh.

Surely Lisanne would never know how deeply anxious and fearful he had been, racing here. But once he confirmed that there was no other man in her life, the storm inside him vanished at once. He felt so much lighter. Better to face it directly than to live his whole life clutching fear.

“That’s right. Since you came all this way to deliver the letter, why don’t you come inside and rest a bit? Would you like a cool drink?”

“Your kindness is appreciated, but my training schedule is tight, so I must leave quickly.”

“Oh, I see. Then travel safely. Thank you so much for bringing the letter!”

The boy, oblivious to the crisis he had just avoided, saw Ezekiel off with the brightest of smiles.

Never once had Ezekiel returned to his wife empty-handed. On his way back, he purchased a box of the South’s most famous specialty, opals, to bring home.

***

Driven all the way to the south by a misunderstanding born of a single letter, Ezekiel slipped back quietly to his unit and completed the winter training. Then, meeting Lisanne, who had been overseeing school affairs in Cielsa, he returned with her to the Valdemaira main house in Claris. And so, the secret of that day seemed to fade away quietly.

“By the way, when will you tell us? During the last winter training, you suddenly disappeared on your own. Where did you go?”

It was during a dinner with his trusted subordinates. Hearing the news that Feder was soon to be married, Lisanne, who knew him, had expressed her wish to congratulate him personally, and at her suggestion, Ezekiel invited Montcalm and Feder to the Valdemaira estate.

The atmosphere was warm and cheerful. After a long time, they faced each other, exchanged greetings, and enjoyed delicious food together. Once, for complicated reasons, they had been in a relationship of pursuit and enmity, but since Lisanne had cut ties herself and Akenaus, who had schemed to threaten her into sin, had paid with his death, all grudges were settled. The past was long forgotten.

Then, half-drunk Feder suddenly dropped a bomb. Hearing for the first time that Ezekiel had deserted camp, Lisanne’s eyes widened.

“Ah, yes. You left without a word back then, so we thought some top-secret intelligence had come in and we stood on high alert the whole time.”

“We all know you read her letters over and over every day while waiting for news from Cielsa. You must have gone secretly to see your wife. You never told us either.”

“When you married, I thought you two weren’t an ordinary couple, but it looks like you’ll be newlyweds for life.”

“Tell us your secret. I want to live like you two as well!”

His two subordinates, drunk, exchanged teasing remarks and laughed about the couple’s closeness. Normally, Ezekiel could have frozen such talk in an instant with a single word, but it was an occasion to celebrate a subordinate’s happy event. He couldn’t bring himself to be cold on such a good day. All he could do was glance at Lisanne, hoping she wouldn’t misunderstand too badly.

“Uh…”

Lisanne herself, hearing all this for the first time, was bewildered. All she knew was that the last winter training had ended much later than usual, and that when it was over, Ezekiel had gifted her with a whole box of opals, saying he had found fine gems. Those opals had been crafted into a full set of ornaments by skilled jewelers introduced by Ezekiel’s mother, who had an eye for jewelry, and even now, a necklace hung around her neck.

Lisanne glanced down at the dazzling necklace.

Strange. How did he obtain opals, when he should have been in the north the whole time? There are no opal mines in the north…

Until now, she had never thought to ask where he had gotten them. Ezekiel already had a habit of showering her with gifts, as though determined to give her every beautiful and precious thing in the world. Having grown up as a commoner, Lisanne was not the type to question every gift. She simply assumed he had found something expensive again and let it pass.

Had he left to get the opals?

She considered it, then shook her head.

That couldn’t be. Ezekiel was not the sort of man to abandon his duties for the sake of buying her a gift. If he had left, it must have been for some other reason, and the opals were simply something he had picked up along the way.

What on earth is going on? How should I take this? What is this strange feeling?

Lisanne tilted her wine glass, hiding the stiffening of her lips.

The feeling was unfamiliar. She had never once doubted her husband’s actions. Ezekiel had always been a reliable husband. His words and actions were transparent; there had never been a secret between them. Every day, he told her many times that he loved her, and asked for the same words back.

Not once had she ever felt unloved, never felt his love wane. On the contrary, she had been too busy marveling at how much love a person could give another.

And yet, for the first time, her husband had kept a secret from her.

It was fine. In life, such things could happen…

No. It was not fine at all. If it had been a matter of state or the royal family, his subordinates would never have mentioned it so carelessly. No matter how drunk they seemed, they were soldiers. They knew what could and could not be said.

Which meant this was Ezekiel’s personal secret. Known neither to his subordinates nor even to her, his wife.

She had many questions she wanted to ask, but at the dinner table, she couldn’t reveal the turmoil in her heart. Lisanne kept smiling to the end, fulfilling her role as lady of the Valdemaira estate.

Only after seeing their two guests off did she turn to Ezekiel.

“Let’s talk for a while.”