Chapter 24 (1/2)

The black pheasant, all black like that man’s hair, fell down silently without crying. There was a note in a small backpack attached to its chest. He read the note as if he was used to it.

He opened his drowsy and detached eyes for a moment and then closed them again.

He jumped off the railing. Vivian sat naturally on his shoulder and then flew into the door of the cage in the room when he opened it. The little sparrow, which was pretending to be the cage’s owner until Vivian returned, could not even escape. Its sharp claws were stuck in the sparrow’s body.

Leaving Vivian behind, which was eating the sparrow, he left the room. While he was walking down the spacious staircase, he heard some noise at the hallway downstairs.

“Hey, Sir Curtis!”

He bumped into Milgrane. He was one of the few who could handle Curtis comfortably when most knights found him hard to deal with. As Milgrane was sociable and easy to get along with, he often hit it off well with Curtis who was heartless and chilly.

“Did you have dinner? If you haven’t yet, why don’t we have dinner together? I won against Carlton on a bet. So, he is going to treat me to a big meal.”

“Sir Curtis, if you’re busy, we can have dinner next time. Hahaha.”

“What are you talking about? Since he has decided to treat you, it won’t make much difference if he joins you,” one knight said.

“Of course, it will! As for Sir Curtis, I know he is one of the top gluttons in the north! ” another added.

“Hey, man. Don’t be so mean. Curtis is the pillar of Astolf in the future, Oh, he is already a big pillar there. I think I need to gain your favor if I can live comfortably later. Don’t you think so, Sir Curtis? Give stupid Carlton a chance to flatter you! ” Milgrane said.

Several knights around Sir Curtis giggled at Milgrane’s joke.

Curtis scratched his cheeks and smiled gently. He hardly ever smiled, so the knights surrounding him doubted their eyes momentarily.

“Well, I would love to join, but I’m going to be busy from now on.”

He even answered cheerfully in a clean break with his reticent and cold-hearted impression.

When they looked at his completely different images, other knights stiffened like stone statues. One of them opened his ugly mouth, the other rubbed his eyes as if he had seen a ghost, and another beat his cheek to see if he was dreaming. Leaving them behind, Curtis left the place quickly. Walking down the stairs two steps at a time, he looked like a different person.

As if he were happy, he lightly wagged the fingers of his folded hands behind his back. There some low whistling in the corner where he disappeared.

It was the beginning, finally. Yes, finally…

***

It was three days before the arrival of the messenger of the Imperial Public Affairs that Ober learned of the contents of the new bulletin.

“Say it again.”

“The daughter of Duke Kling was chosen as the emperor’s fiancee…”

Clink!

The glass he threw at the wall shattered to pieces with a clinking noise.

Laurent, the butler of the Chester family, looked at the carpet messed up with alcohol, ice, and pieces of broken glass. Spilt whiskey was Chester’s specialty whiskey, a 22-year-old rare liquor. The strong smell of alcohol filled the room, not matching the cold atmosphere inside.

‘What a waste! That whiskey is as old as I am…’

Without doubt, the only one in the family who could entertain such carefree thinking in this situation was Laurent, just like there was only one person in the Chester family who could spill such rare whiskey on the carpet.

“What kind of crap could spread such a groundless rumor?”

“It’s not a groundless rumor. This was already announced to the people on the streets in Milan. Assuming he takes a detour as there’s a pile of stones we laid on the road leading to Milan, the messenger of the Public Information Office will arrive in Chester in a couple of days at the latest.”

“Who sent the secret letter? Do you have it now?”

“Yes. here you are. Its handwriting appears to be Duke Hubble’s. ”

Laurent took a small piece of paper from his inside pocket and put it in front of Ober.

His grey eyes read the letters on the paper quickly and soon looked threatening.

“Damn it!”

Ober crumpled the paper on his desk. The handwriting on the secret letter was that of Duke Hubble’s. If he really wrote it in person as he was notorious for being arrogant and authoritative, at least the accuracy of the information was already guaranteed.

“This might be the emperor’s unilateral trick. Since I persistently demanded that he should find and marry a woman, he might have taken any woman in a fit of anger. What about the moods at the Lennox family? Weren’t there any unusual moves there?”