The Thorny Beetle
"It was the gardener's storage shed."
"The gardener? Then there should be something useful for tending the garden inside."
Rad Dat answered.
"His tools are likely still there, my lord. Though I daresay you would have little notion of what most of them are for. Unless you have an important reason, I would advise against touching anything. Much of it will have rusted, and if you were to hurt yourself, it would be a grave matter indeed."
Kasvren brushed off his knees and rose. It was true that he knew next to nothing about gardening implements. What he needed now, however, was a single sickle. He did not say so to Rad Dat; the old butler clearly did not wish him to lay hands on garden tools. In that case, there was no sense in insisting on going inside. If one wanted something in this mansion, one needed discreet maneuvering and a judicious lie.
"I see. As you say, I'm a complete layman when it comes to gardening tools. Thank you for telling me."
Rad Dat offered no particular reply, closed the window, and vanished back into the house. Kasvren approached the shed, snapping the stiff grass stalks underfoot, and found an old, rusted padlock hanging half undone. He looked around in every direction, and only once he was certain that neither Rad Dat nor Isolde was anywhere near did he pick up a fist-sized stone and bring it down on the lock with all his strength. The sound of the corroded iron breaking was unexpectedly small.
When the shed door swung open, a musty smell of dust and mold drifted out, along with the sharp tang of metal gone to rust from years of neglect. Kasvren rummaged for a long while among the tools tangled in cobwebs before he found a sickle hanging in the corner of a shelf. It, too, was badly rusted, and its edge was in poor condition. But what choice did he have? He cleared the cobwebs from the handle and tried cutting the grass in front of the shed as a test. His unpracticed hand trembled with every swing, and the dry, thorn-studded stalks resisted fiercely, as if demanding to know why they were being tormented. Grabbing fistfuls of grass and tearing them out rather than truly cutting them, Kasvren felt a strange emptiness wash over him. Then he looked out over the garden, which seemed to stretch on endlessly.
This won't do, he thought. To cut down all the grass in the garden with a single rusted sickle would likely take him ten years. And when he finished the last fistful and turned around, the grass would have grown back in the meantime, lush and mocking, as if to ask when he intended to be cut down himself. A spade or a hoe might serve better. Weeds like these drove their roots down deep—rather than lopping off the tops, it would be wiser to turn the whole garden over.
But the moment that thought formed, Kasvren realized he had run into yet another obstacle. Cutting grass quietly was one thing; uprooting an entire garden was a considerable undertaking. Above all, there was no telling whether Isolde would accept such a change. Perhaps the garden had been left in this state because no one could bear to clear it—or perhaps she actually liked it as it was. He could not imagine any young lady in the world desiring a garden full of poison and thorns, but then, Isolde was nothing like any woman Kasvren had ever known.
He began cutting the grass again. As it had been when he carried the books, there was nothing so good for forgetting useless thoughts as labor that worked the body. When the thought came—if only he had known this method back when he lived at the marquisate—a bitter laugh escaped him.
— Big brother! Father says I'm going to be the marquis!
— No, it's me! Between the two of us, I'm the one who becomes marquis, little brother.
— You fool! I was born first, so I'm the marquis!
— No, I said it's me! Waaah…….
That wailing. The moment a child's crying began to drone in his ears like a swarm of hornets, Kasvren groaned in pain.
— Why did you make the children cry? Answer me!
The sound of a slap followed. He felt his right cheek sting. Dear God—was such a thing even possible? To feel pain from mere imagination……
"What are you doing over there?"
He bit his tongue and whirled toward the voice, sickle raised. His lungs, which had been holding their breath, suddenly collapsed, and a sharp gasp tore out of him. He lowered the sickle at once, but he could not stop Isolde's gaze from following it, clinging to the blade.
"……I'm sorry."
When he wiped his face, his hand came away damp with sweat. A breeze stirred, and his forehead went cold enough to shiver. His fingertips and cheeks were ice.
What a disgraceful spectacle. Kasvren berated himself again and again, feeling as though he wanted to beat his own chest. And in that instant, Isolde took a step toward him. Then she reached out toward his right cheek.
"What are you……"
"Hold still."
As she rose onto her heels, the distance between them closed a little more.
This scent.
Breathing in the fragrance that hung about Isolde, Kasvren drew a deep, involuntary breath. His head swam. Her black hair, and the nape glimpsed between the strands, white as a magnolia blossom; the proud line of her brow and her eyebrows; and beneath them, eyes that glittered as though they held stars……
"There. All done."
The instant Kasvren's gaze dropped to her lips, Isolde stepped abruptly back, as if to tease him. Then she held up her index finger and thumb. Caught between them was a very small insect with a violet shell, its legs squirming.
"What…… is that?"
"It didn't hurt?"
Kasvren touched his right cheek without thinking. It smarted. Thankfully, it hadn't swollen up into anything ridiculous.
Isolde spoke.
"It's called a thorny beetle. Its proper name is far more difficult, but that's what people call it around here. It's a strange creature that stays active through winter. Cattle, horses, pigs, children—it bites whatever comes near and sucks their blood."
"……There's a beetle that drinks blood?"
"That's right. That's how this one lives."
Then Isolde turned the beetle this way and that in her hand. Each time the sunlight caught it, the color of its shell shifted ever so slightly, and she seemed to be admiring it. From where Kasvren stood, he could feel no sympathy whatsoever for her behavior—in fact, he wanted to shout at her to drop the thing at once.
Isolde spoke.
"It rarely bites grown-ups, though…… which is why people say being bitten by one is proof that you're pure and innocent."
A little kick of laughter at the end of her words—and then, all at once, her fingers clenched tight. Without a sound, the beetle crumbled to pieces between them. Kasvren's eyes went wide at the sight yet again. Fluid the same shade as its shell ran down between Isolde's fingers, then stopped. She drew a handkerchief from inside her apron and wiped her fingers on it, sweeping away the crushed fragments of the beetle along with the fluid.
"Seeing as it bit you, I take it those old rumors about you weren't true."
"What do you mean by that?"
"A very pure, very innocent man—is that what you are?"
Pure. Innocent. At those words, Kasvren's ears rang out again—a sharp, singing whine.
— Brother! They say I'm going to be the marquis!
That face, that laugh—they were more than worthy of being called pure. The twins had been as innocent as newborn angels. And so, naturally enough—how he had envied them. How, in that moment, he had hated that clean blood, that utterly innocent, unblemished flesh and blood, with a ferocity beyond words.
That hatred had been the first purity he had ever known. Kasvren knew it to be true.
He watched Isolde tuck the handkerchief away and closed his eyes briefly, struggling to sink the torn fragments of the past back beneath the surface of his mind.
"……I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"I very nearly hurt you just now."
Only then did Isolde seem to understand. She made a small sound of realization and looked at the sickle in Kasvren's hand.
"If you'd swung that at me, I suppose I'd be dead. Either I'd have died today, or I'd have spent a week writhing in a burning fever before twisting up and dying of it. Tetanus."
"……I hardly know where to hide my face."
"But it didn't happen, so there's no need to apologize. We'll throw that sickle out. I didn't die, but next time you might be the death of me. I'll go to the market and buy you a new one."
"You mean…… right now?"
"No, in four days or so. Anyway, it looks like rain, so you'd best bring the books in."
He looked up at the sky. Though overcast, sunlight still filtered through; there was no sign of rain whatsoever.
But he obeyed her. The moment he carried in the last board and stepped into the study, a sudden drumming filled the air as thick sheets of rain began to lash the earth without mercy.