Chapter 67 |
The Duke was always busy, but she often made time for her sons.
We would have time to read a book in the library or have tea time together at a table in the garden with the three of us as we do now. It might be an understatement to call it tea time. Because no one was drinking tea in this place. Everyone was sipping freshly brewed coffee and eating a dessert that matched it. Isley preferred sweet ades or juices than the bitter coffee, but he followed the Duke and drank the coffee.
“Ugh…”
He took his mouth off the cup and stuck out his tongue.
‘How can Arthur and Osses drink it so casually? I don’t get it.’
Isley tried to force himself to drink coffee, but eventually gave up and poured sugar cubes in the coffee. Seeing this, the Duke said with a smile. It was like looking at something cute.
“If you can’t drink it, why don’t you drink something else?”
“Yes? no! I like coffee.”
“Really?”
I actually hate it. I just wanted to drink the same thing as my mother.
Isley, who made eye contact with the Duke, grinned at his hardened expression. Isley didn’t want her to see his hardened face, so he quickly bowed his head and pretended to eat a delicious castella. There was no taste.
Eating together, reading a book, drinking tea, shopping in the downtown area… One day, when the quiet daily life continued, an incident occurred.
It was a day when it rained like crazy. It was only four o’clock in the afternoon, but the sky was covered in clouds and the world was pale gray. Isley and Osses were playing chess in the drawing room. When it was his turn, Osses, who moved the black horse, uttered the word “checkmate” and looked out the window.
“… Don’t you think Arthur is a little late? The tower and the mansion wouldn’t be that far away.”
“I don’t know! Look at something else on the way back, huh? Don’t be mean and do it again!”
Isley looked down at the chessboard and wrinkled his face.
“… Is it?”
Osses nodded and cleared the chessboard.
On that day, strangely enough, Arthur, who had said that he had been to the tower for a while, did not return until late. The distance between the magic tower and the Emers estate took about five hours round trip. Arthur left around eight in the morning, so he had to come back a long time ago.
It was when the sound of someone screaming echoed through the mansion that they felt something unusual. Isley and Osses left the room and headed towards the front door where they heard the murmur.
The large door was wide open and rain was pouring in. With his back to the door, a bloody man stood sullenly.
Arthur, in the arms of a man who had been messed up with blades of grass, soil and blood. Isley didn’t notice at first that it was Arthur. He just thought it was a red sack. The moment he realized that the hilt was his brother, Isley was so stiff that he couldn’t move. Osses seized Isley, who staggered back and forth.
“Tongue…”
Isley wept and pointed a finger at the front door.
“There… Arthur….”
“It’s okay.”
He pretended to be calm, trying to reassure Isley.
“It’s okay… ”
Having said that, Osses’s body was trembling.
It was all because of the rain that Arthur did. On his way back, the carriage slipped in the rain. The carriage crashed down the cliff and shattered.
In the process, the driver died, and only the servant survived and brought the child.
While everyone was in a hurry, the butler cleared the situation. He moved Arthur to the infirmary and called the priest of the temple together with the doctor. This is because Arthur’s condition was far beyond the level that could be treated with a doctor’s treatment or a potion. There was nothing Isley could do there. Except for sitting idly by the bed on which his brother was lying.
Isley leaned against Osses and watched Arthur being treated by the priest. The more the white light from the priest’s hand hit, the better Arthur’s condition was. Soon enough, Arthur was able to regain his composure. As soon as Arthur opened his eyes, he looked around with a blank expression on his face. Like someone looking for something…
“… Mother… Mother…?”
From then on, Arthur continued to seek his mother. The priest said it is better to put him to sleep in order to recover, but Arthur only calls mother, staring at him with wide open eyes. Isley didn’t know what to say to his brother. The butler hurriedly used a magic tool to contact the Duke, who had gone to the Imperial Palace early in the morning, but she didn’t answer because it seemed like she was busy.
As Isley gasped for help and breathed heavily, Osses rose from his seat and squeezed Arthur’s hand tightly.
“It’s okay, Arthur. Mother will be here soon… She told me earlier that she had heard of your condition and that she would come soon.”
“… Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
Then Arthur fell asleep as if relieved.
Isley walked over to Osses and whispered softly.
“Really? That’s what mother said…? I knew she was out of touch.”
“No.”
Osses shook his head.
“There was no such thing. it’s just made up If we don’t do this… Arthur won’t be relieved.”
“Ah…”
Isley turned and looked at Arthur, who was sleeping soundly. He felt a sense of responsibility as his older brother with regret as he looked at his sullen brother’s face.
“I, I will go to the Imperial Palace and bring mother. If she knows Arthur’s condition, she’ll be right here!”
So he said that and ran out. Behind him, Osses shouted that he might get in the way of mother’s work, but he can’t do that. He forced the servants to stop him and got into the carriage. The butler used force to stop Isley, but to no avail.
In the end, they sent Isley to the Imperial Palace on the condition of being accompanied by an escort knight and a servant. As soon as they reached their destination, the child ran out of the carriage and urged the knight guarding the entrance to the palace to let them in.
The knight saw the family pattern on the carriage on which Isley was riding and led him into the Imperial Palace.
Isley sighed heavily and looked around the palace. Meanwhile, he saw the Duke of Emers coming out of a building and yelled at her.
“Mother…!”
“Shh, Izzy. This is the Imperial Palace. You have to be quiet, be a good boy.”
Isley rushed to the Duke. The Duke looked down at her child and asked.
“But what’s going on here?”
Isley opened his mouth with a face that looked like he was about to cry.
“Why didn’t you contact us…?”
“I had an important meeting today. I didn’t have time to get in touch because I was talking with His Majesty about government affairs. So what happened?”
“Mother, we have to go to the mansion quickly! Arthur is seriously injured…! He went to the magic tower, and on the way back to the mansion, the carriage fell off the cliff…!”
The Duke asked curiously.
“Did Arthur even die?”
“Yes…? Oh no. It was dangerous to the point of death, but now that the priest of the temple came, everything is fine.”
“Then there is no need to move in a hurry, right?”
“Ha, but… Arthur is injured and lying in bed…? The carriage broke… blood… and… the bones, broken…”
What?
“And… he kept looking for mother…”
Why?
“Then….”
Is it an innocent face?
Isley felt a sense of alienation in the Duke’s face, which had a soft smile. It didn’t feel like a real face. If you take off that masked face, it looks like there’s something behind it… Isley quickly shook his head from side to side.
‘What are you thinking like an idiot? … It can’t be, it’s a mask…!’
In fact, the child often felt the same way from his mother. But it has never been as bad as today. Isley bit his lip, not knowing what to say anymore. Because no matter what he said, she was likely to ask the same question as now, “Why would she do that?” The Duke glanced at the building from which she had come out, then turned her gaze to Isley.
“Then. Now that the work is done, shall we go back to the mansion soon? Shall we go together?”
Isley followed the advancing duke out of the palace.
He returned to the mansion with the duke. Inside the carriage, the Duke looked calm.
Despite hearing that the child was injured, there was no sign of nervousness or restlessness at all.
She is just reading the book she has brought with her with a calm attitude. Isley thought she was trying to make the figure reassuring herself.
The two of them arrived at the mansion and headed straight to the infirmary. When the Duke entered, Arthur jumped out of bed.
Arthur welcomed his mother with a happy face. The Duke lightly stroked the boy’s cheek and let out a formal expression of concern.
After that, she tried to leave the room immediately.
When Isley was injured, the Duke did the same thing. He grabbed her hand, let out a word of concern, and immediately turned around. At that time, Isley was upset and sad to the point of tears without realizing it, but she pretended that nothing happened. While her mother also has her own worries deep in her heart, he thinks that because she was a Duke, she cannot easily reveal it.
But now I couldn’t stand it.
‘I… It was just an injury, but Arthur, Arthur almost died…! But why are you acting like that?’
Isley spoke in a trembling voice towards the back of the Duke.
“Too much…”
The Duke turned around without opening the door.
“Is it not enough to just say that you are worried? It’s strange to treat a child who almost died like that. Aren’t you supposed to show that you care even a little? You should be crying because you were worried, and your heart was about to fall, so you had to hug him. Watching mother act… It’s like you has no feelings for Arthur.”
Isley brought out the words he had been pondering for a long time.
“Last time I was seriously injured, and when Osses fell off the second floor as a child, mother did the same thing. Does mother love Arthur, and does she love us?”
“Isley, why are you like this….”
Stop. She’ll be angry if you’re so rude.
Arthur grabbed Isley’s wrist with a frightened look on his face, while Osses watched the Duke with his mouth shut.
The Duke said casually.
“No way. I love you.”
“Do you love us?”
Lie! Isley exclaimed in his mind.
“I was always curious.”
At that time, Osses spoke with the Duke’s eyes on him.
“If you love me, why do you always look at us with such cold eyes?”
The brothers always felt a deep emptiness in her eyes. There is nothing in her eyes looking down at her child. Affection, anger, sadness, affection… She has nothing to show for emotions.
“Why didn’t I see anything in your eyes?”
The Duke would always look down on people as if she were looking at a stone of no value or use, rolling down the street.
The young masters were no exception. The brothers knew about it, but pretended not to know. They work harder, become jealous, and harder to deny that she doesn’t love them.
You study until you have a nosebleed, practice your swordsmanship until you fall down, and smile like a fool. Repeating actions that have no value or meaning.
Stupid, stupid and stupid.
“Also….”
Hearing the children’s words, the Duke smiled softly.
“Children are annoying. If Edward had not wanted children, I would not have you.”
But the words that came out of her mouth were not soft at all.
