Chapter 45
While Marlene gave the maid various instructions, Blanc leaned against the window to clear his head for a moment.
He definitely had not called for Marlene. Since he did not want to give Vieta even the slightest opening to find fault, he had been avoiding being alone with women at all costs.
Perhaps noticing that Blanc was flustered, Marlene spoke to him quietly.
“Your Highness, are you perhaps uncomfortable with my being here?”
“No, that’s not it. When did you come to my office, Lady Marlene?”
“Since I brought the materials you requested this morning. You must have been so engrossed in your work that you didn’t even realize I had arrived.”
So Marlene had brought those. Only now did Blanc feel as though the pieces of the puzzle were finally falling into place.
After fighting with Vieta last night and then having a major argument with Fulcare, Blanc had spent the night neither properly asleep nor awake.
On top of that, he had downed liquor alone in a fit of anger, so when he woke that morning, he felt as though he were literally dying.
Then the marquis had come to him with that strange request, and he had also been dealing with the affairs of his territory, so his mind must have gone blank for a moment.
“As Your Highness ordered….”
Marlene furrowed her brow slightly, then continued speaking with a radiant smile.
Her voice was gentle. It was not clear and crystalline, but her low, mid-range voice had no unpleasant edges and was easy to listen to.
However, Blanc’s mind was filled entirely with Vieta and Fulcare.
‘…I shouldn’t have been so hung up on my pride.’
He had merely wanted to treat them a little better. Since they had always helped him, he had wanted to be of help to them as well.
But a kindness the other party did not want was not a kindness. Besides, even if Vieta and Fulcare were hiding something, it was probably not because they disliked or intended to deceive him.
Blanc felt ashamed of his own pettiness.
“You may need to go to the sea yourself. I sent people to investigate, but I couldn’t find anyone who had seen the white girl in question.”
The word sea lodged itself in Blanc’s mind as he sat with his eyes closed, lost in thought. Come to think of it, Vieta seemed to like the sea quite a bit. They had even promised to play together in Bingsho….
“Your Highness, if you don’t mind, may I accompany you to the sea?”
“…You?”
The uninvited guest interrupting his thoughts made Blanc furrow his brow slightly.
“There’s no particular meaning behind it. I’m only saying this because I’m concerned about your condition.”
“I’m fine. Your thoughtfulness alone is enough.”
Blanc waved a hand and sat down at his desk. He was grateful for Marlene’s concern, but his priority right now was apologizing to Vieta and Fulcare. Now that they had fallen out, he could not afford to invite any more misunderstandings.
***
Late at night, Vieta, who had spent the entire day roaming around Ahan City, went looking for Blanc’s lodgings.
Tomorrow, she and Fulcare were planning to investigate the seaside.
The two of them could have gone alone, but she remembered their promise to play together at the seaside and came looking for Blanc.
Yet despite the late hour, conversation continued to flow from inside Blanc’s room.
Vieta sat near the window and waited. She had no habit of eavesdropping on other people’s conversations, so she sat as far away as possible, but because of the South’s wide-open windows, she could make out enough to follow the general context.
“Your Highness. Here are the materials you requested.”
“Put the documents there. And I believe the figures written here are wrong….”
The person speaking with Blanc was Marlene. There were many other maids and attendants in the office, but Marlene alone continued conversing with Blanc without pause.
“Your Highness, would it be all right if I revised tomorrow’s plan like this? Those going with us to investigate the coast will be ….”
At the word coast, Vieta’s ears perked up instinctively.
“Tomorrow’s investigation? I thought we finished discussing that earlier….”
“I’ll be coming along as well….”
Blanc and Marlene continued speaking, but their voices were drowned out by the voices of the attendants who had come to Blanc’s room and the clatter of dishes, so Vieta could not hear them properly.
As a result, the only words she caught were ‘sea’, ‘investigation’, and 'together', which she heard repeatedly.
The combination of those three words made Vieta feel even more hurt. She did not know whether Marlene would be accompanying them on the investigation, but since Blanc was talking with her this late, he must have found someone else to go with him.
Blanc’s change in attitude was unmistakable. Now that things had gone this far, Vieta had nothing more to say, either.
Vieta gazed for a moment at Blanc’s room, which was still brightly lit, then turned away.
***
Before going to bed, the Marquis of Ahan wandered alone through the rear garden. After listening to a lecture made up of every bit of nagging Anatole had to offer, he felt too stifled to go straight to his bedroom.
“No matter that this is a test, how can you ask us to catch a ghost?”
“Have you considered what this will do to Ahan Territory’s reputation?”
The lecture had lasted more than thirty minutes.
When his normally mild-mannered aide acted like that, the best thing to do was simply keep his mouth shut and listen.
Even so, the marquis did not back down from his position.
Even if the ghost had no physical form, it was obvious that leaving it alone would cause Ahan serious losses.
In fact, the beach where the ghost was said to appear frequently had been closed off and was no longer accepting tourists.
For now, only some of the northern coastline had been placed off-limits, but there was no guarantee that the restricted areas would not expand later.
That was not to say the Marquis of Ahan had taken no action.
He had personally searched the coast where the ghost was said to appear frequently, and even paid a large sum to hire mages to scour the area, but they had been unable to find a single trace.
Yet, as if mocking the marquis’s efforts, the ghost kept coming back, as ghosts do.
So he wanted to borrow a little of the prince’s power—and take the opportunity to test him as well.
It would be fine if they really caught the ghost, and it would not matter if they didn’t.
What the marquis wanted to borrow was the prince’s influence in Ahan Territory.
The words of the prince who had eradicated the pirates would certainly carry more weight than anything the marquis could say now.
“I suppose I should at least send over the materials from the investigation by early tomorrow morning.”
It would accomplish nothing, but he had to go through the motions, even if it was merely a token gesture, to soothe the old aide’s anger.
Once his overheated head had cooled sufficiently, the marquis started back toward his room.
He was walking along the long, straight corridor extending from the rear garden when a maid suddenly appeared out of nowhere in front of him.
“Eek?!”
The maid he encountered at the corner where the central passage met the corridor from the rear garden let out an utterly comical sound.
“I-I’m sorry.”
Ahan looked over the maid, who was bowing at nearly a ninety-degree angle.
Judging by her uniform, she was not a maid belonging to Ahan Castle, but one from the imperial palace.
“No harm done. Be more careful from now on.”
Since the marquis himself had also been in somewhat of a hurry, he let the maid’s mistake pass without a second thought.
“Thank you.”
The maid stepped aside while still bent at the waist.
It was the sort of movement dictated by etiquette, which required her not to block the path of someone of high rank.
The marquis proceeded without a word.
Once again, the marquis’s footsteps echoed over the black stone slabs.
Thud, thud.
Thud, thud.
Only his footsteps echoed through the corridor.
Puzzled, the marquis suddenly stopped, and the corridor fell utterly silent.
“!!!”
The marquis hurriedly turned around.
Although she was some distance away, the maid was walking along the straight corridor extending from the rear garden.
Yet not a single sound came from her.
The flickering torchlight reflected in the marquis’s eyes, and his pupils briefly widened.
The maid’s gait was not that of an ordinary woman.
She moved swiftly without leaving a trace, giving him the impression that he was watching a well-trained knight or assassin.
“You there!”
The marquis called out loudly, but the maid happened to turn the corner at that moment.
It was an awkward situation in which to give chase, and the marquis’s mind began racing.
‘An assassin?’
After considering various possibilities, the marquis eventually shook his head.
Considering the countless magical arrays in Ahan Castle, an assassin would not be able to stroll casually through its corridors.
Besides, she was wearing an imperial maid’s uniform.
Imperial palace supplies were strictly managed, from distribution and return to even reports of loss, making it difficult to smuggle one outside.
In other words, the maid he had just encountered was a genuine imperial maid.
Maid, maid, maid.
After muttering for a long while, the marquis suddenly recalled seeing Chief Fulcare inspecting the inside of the prince’s carriage.
‘What if there had been someone inside the prince’s carriage?’
At the time, the prince had been outside, so the only possible occupants would have been a lady’s maid or an ordinary maid.
There was no reason for Chief Fulcare to lavish such meticulous care on a mere lady’s maid or maid.
‘I need to find out who was in that carriage then.’
It seemed as though he had finally gotten a vague lead on the powerful figure he had been so desperate to uncover.
***
“Chief Fulcare has already gone out.”
Blanc dismissed the attendant with a mere gesture. It was the third day since they had arrived in Ahan, and he had cleared his schedule in advance so he could go to the sea with Vieta today. Yet both Vieta and Fulcare were out. It was obvious that they were together.
…How had this happened.
Whatever the circumstances, if he listed only the facts, Blanc had been stood up by Vieta.
Another unwelcome piece of news reached the flustered Blanc.
“Your Highness, it’s Marlene.”
The unwelcome guest had evidently decided to go to the sea with him.