The Mansion of Nettles — Chapter 11

As noted before, Kasvren's adoptive father, Marquis Selvain, was a man devoted to practicality. He was shrewd, too. He knew well that infants could die with ease, and so for the years it took the twins to grow, he let Kasvren remain in the Selvain household. He poured no affection on the boy, but he did allow his education to continue.

Yet once the twins had flourished past their seventh year, the Marquis could no longer avoid declaring that the adopted son he had once so desperately wanted had been reduced to useless baggage. With two rightful heirs born of Selvain blood, there was frankly no reason to keep a foundling of unknown origin under his roof any longer.

"There is no property to leave you in inheritance. Thank God merely for having fed and raised you all these years—had it been otherwise, you would have frozen or starved to death before you ever opened your eyes. Go to the monastery. Live out your days quietly there, and promise me you will never set foot in this house again."

The Marquis's words were as clear-cut as the small money pouch lying on the desk. Inside it was a meager sum, barely enough to shield him from prying eyes, and a slip of paper bearing the address of the monastery.

Taking it and leaving his adoptive father's study, Kasvren passed through the back garden, where he saw the twin boys playing with a bubble-blowing toy. It was pure chance—but in that moment, a vivid, raw hatred and enmity that he could never deny welled up inside him.

"I thought I wanted those children to drop dead where they stood."

Three glasses of wine had already gone down, and Kasvren's cheeks were flushed a dull red. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot and his focus somewhat blurred, but his posture had not slackened. His tongue never tripped. That searing hatred still lived in his heart like a brand burned into the flesh.

"I fled up to my room—no longer my room, though it was mine—and I fell to my knees. And this is what I prayed. 'O Lord, have mercy on this wretched soul! I have cursed innocent children in my heart, so visit upon me now the punishment I deserve.'"

But Kasvren did not tell the whole truth. He confessed—yet in the very next breath, he cursed God.

Every word spoken that day remained vivid, as though it had happened only yesterday. He simply could not go to the monastery. The mere thought of kneeling before God day after day, bowing and lifting prayers to heaven, was enough to drive him mad.

"My friend—blessed Johan—told me, a man left with nowhere in the world to go, that he would gladly offer his own home to me as a refuge. But I couldn't accept. I couldn't bear to. However stained my spirit might be, to burden a friend who had stood by me all my life in such a way was unthinkable. And yet neither could I go to the monastery. So I resolved to leave. And then……"

His words trailing off, Kasvren laid his hand on the table—the hand wearing the Grand Duke's ring. Under the candlelight, the gem seemed to hold a fire of its own, shimmering and glowing, and at the sight of it the stale old loneliness and desperate longing that had settled deep in his heart stirred back to life. His blue-green eyes rippled as they took on a hue close to sunset.

"It was only then that I finally looked closely at the keepsake my godfather left me. It shames me to say it, but until that moment my only thought was where and how I might sell it. Then I discovered there was a letter hidden inside the ring. It felt as though a new signpost had appeared, all at once, in a life that had lost its way."

Isolde spoke.

"So that is why you came to Dravenmoor."

"That's right. Only now have you come to know me as a person. Not entirely, of course. I doubt it could be otherwise. But everything I've told you amounts to nearly the whole of my life."

"And what do you intend to do here? In his letter, my father wrote that you were to protect me. But as you well know by now, I have no need of anyone's protection. I won't press you to leave. But if you have some other plan in mind, then I should know of it."

Her bluntness left Kasvren briefly nonplussed. What did he intend to do? What plan did he have? Well, then. That was a question he himself could hardly answer with certainty. Revenge on the Selvain Marquisate—on the adoptive parents who had raised him only to cast him away at the last? Dragging that family's name through the mud? But what good would any of it truly do?

"I really couldn't say."

After a pause, Kasvren swallowed the last mouthful of his wine with a sardonic little laugh caught in it.

"For the time being, I mean to look after the books in the library. The damp has gotten into them rather badly. While there's still sunlight, I'd like to save as many as I can."

"……"

"……That is, provided the idea doesn't displease you."

"Most of the books in that library were collected by my father or my grandfather. Some are extremely old. There are ones where the paper crumbles and the leather has all peeled from the spines."

Kasvren could read what lay beneath her words: that the collection would be devilishly difficult to maintain. Ha. How could I possibly know such a thing? Have I become attuned to her mind simply by laying my past bare before her?

"I once learned bookbinding by watching over a craftsman's shoulder. It was when I was young, so my memory of it is faint—but if I work my way through it bit by bit, I'll manage. Unless a book is badly damaged I'll leave it be, but where pages are coming loose, I'll restore them as best I can."

"Then do as you please."

After that, Isolde touched neither the remaining food nor the drink. She wiped her mouth and rose. She seemed to have eaten almost nothing at all. Kasvren likewise rose, having wet his throat and lips with a single sip of water. The floor seemed a little distant. Dizziness. He shook his head at Isolde, who was watching him.

"I'm a little dizzy, that's all."

"Do you require support?"

"No. Just a little…… I think it will pass if I stand a moment longer."

But Isolde sighed and rang the bell. Then she instructed Rad Dat to help Kasvren to his room.

"I'm quite all right."

Even as he said it, Kasvren felt his body sinking deeper and deeper toward the old man. It was mortifying. Rad Dat, who was practically carrying him, had a body so solid and a stride so sure that Kasvren's shame only deepened. But the dizziness would not lift until he was all but flung onto the bed, and the moment his back met the soft mattress, his body and the world seemed to spin in opposite directions, and he could manage no words at all.

He heard the door close. It sounded unusually loud. Had Rad Dat shut it hard? No—no, that wasn't it. Kasvren quickly realized his hearing had sharpened to an abnormal degree, for the murmured exchange between Rad Dat and Isolde beyond the door reached him as loud as thunder.

"What will you do with him now, my lady?"

"I'll simply leave him be. For a while."

And when that 'while' is over—what will you do with me, then?

But in the end, unable to force the words out, Kasvren began sinking once more into that deathlike slumber.

Kasvren jolted awake. But before he could rebel against those devilish, honeyed words, his consciousness sank down into the deep abyss.