A Dead Man Needs No Killing
The room followed the conventional layout of a guest chamber. A spacious bed and wardrobe, a small private washroom, and—tucked further into the depths, where one would have to step inside to find it—a water closet. A porcelain chamber pot sat in one corner as well, though it looked so pristine it had evidently never once been used.
What seized Kasvren's attention above all else, however, was the window that opened onto the forest, and the small desk set directly beneath it, facing the glass. It had an antique hinged lid, and it bore the unmistakable look of a piece seldom touched by human hands. When he lifted that lid, though, he could not hide his disappointment. There was nothing inside. No books, no paper fit for writing letters, not so much as a pen. To obtain any of those things, he would presumably have to ask Isolde—or at the very least, Rad Dat.
Kasvren closed the desk lid again. There was a lock, but like everything else in the room it gleamed bright from disuse. A fierce longing to write a letter surged up in him, only to gutter out like a small flame doused by rain. There was no one left to whom he could write.
His circle of acquaintance had never been wide, even in his youth, and the handful of friends he had would be waiting anxiously for news of him wherever they were—but it was far too soon to announce that he was staying in the Dravenmoor Grand Duchy. Even if brave Johan worked up the nerve to come looking for him, Isolde would never allow him past the mansion's threshold. Considering Johan's fiery temperament... no, it was unthinkable. Kasvren shook his head and abandoned the idea of letter-writing. Part of him burned to let the world know he was alive and safe, but if that small kindness bred a larger problem, he was in no condition to shoulder it now.
He sat on the edge of the bed for a while and stared absently out at the forest beyond the window. Something about it made him feel that if he kept looking, he would be drawn straight into it and lost forever. The firs had grown so tall, so dense and impenetrable, that apart from the forest's mouth the paths behind it were entirely swallowed from view. When he narrowed his eyes and strained his gaze, the whole of the window seemed at times to drown in darkness.
For what purpose had that forest been preserved? Given the scale of the mansion—and the fact that this was a grand ducal seat—it had likely once been a hunting ground. During the bitter winters, the firewood that warmed this great house must have been cut from those same trees, too. Had the children of the late Grand Duke ever felled a tree for the Saint's Day and hung it with ribbons?
Kasvren found himself recalling the festival scenes of the Selvain Marquisate he had left behind. The beautiful hearth of white marble and the warm glow within it; the ribbons, small and plentiful, draped over the fir the gardener had trimmed to perfect symmetry. They used to collect ribbons of the finest colors all year round, just to adorn the festival tree.
He, too, had once been a boy so innocent.
But human life is quick to change its expression. One day it smiles and guides you down a bright and shining road; the next, it lashes you with a rust-eaten chain and drags you to the slaughterhouse. Kasvren had grasped long ago that this was the essence of the human condition. This place—Dravenmoor Mansion—was the refuge he had desperately sought after fleeing the slaughterhouse. A refuge rumored to be haunted by a witch, a murderer, and ghosts.
Kasvren abruptly had to suppress a rising laugh. What other refuge could compare? Surely one would search the world's ends and find nothing like it. And yet for him it was utterly singular, utterly desperate. The god of fate loves a contradiction. It herds a man down a road he can neither advance along nor turn back from, and then takes its pleasure in watching him flounder.
Still, he could not afford to sit despairing over his circumstances. Kasvren lay back on the bed and propped his mud-caked shoes carelessly atop a stool. As his eyes wandered, unthinking, over the honeysuckle pattern on the ceiling, he felt that damned curiosity begin to creep up on him, slow and insidious. He wanted to know the secrets hidden within this mansion—the truth Isolde had buried somewhere in its depths. The obsessive certainty that he would see with his own eyes what she truly was pressed down upon his shoulders.
"There's plenty of time."
Kasvren murmured the words, laced his fingers behind his head, and closed his eyes.
"Plenty of time."
And with that parting sigh, half groan, half whisper, he sank into sleep.
A piercing ring of a bell reached Kasvren's ears as he lay unconscious, drowned in a heavy, dreamless slumber. Out of habit he dragged the pillow over his ears to smother the sound entirely—but the next instant he bolted upright as though someone had slapped him across the face. This was no longer the Selvain Marquisate. Which meant that bell...
— Remember: keep the hours, or you will go hungry.
He briefly considered simply skipping the meal, but his stomach was churning with hunger too violent to ignore. He hurriedly washed his face, straightened his hair, and went downstairs. Rad Dat was nowhere to be seen, and the dining room stood as empty as it had the day before. Then who on earth had rung the bell?
He picked the bell up from the table with care. He gave it the slightest shake, and it rang out so clear and loud that it startled him. The moment he set it back down, like a child caught in some mischief, Isolde appeared through the dining room's rear door carrying a tray.
"You must have been terribly hungry. But do remember—there are no footmen or maids in this house who come running when you ring a bell."
Her sneering words didn't so much as register in Kasvren's ears. Yesterday's meal had been prepared by Rad Dat, but today she had brought the food herself, directly from the corridor that led to the kitchens. The steam still rising from the dishes made it certain: the food was freshly made.
Ignoring his outstretched hands entirely, Isolde set the tray down on the table herself. In that instant, Kasvren's quick eyes did not miss the cuts and scars marking her slender fingers here and there—or the very thin bandages wound around them.
"You've quite a few wounds on your hands."
At that, Isolde fixed him with another sharp look, and then, one by one, began transferring the dishes from the tray to the table. Catching the faint scent of butter drifting from her fingertips, Kasvren realized his remark had been completely ignored—and said it again anyway.
"Don't tell me you prepared the meal yourself."
Isolde, who had been quietly setting down a piece of toasted bread with butter melting across its surface, lifted the corners of her thin lips.
"Don't worry. I haven't added any poison today."
Kasvren, who had lost all track of time in the intoxication of the red sunset burning along the ridgeline, felt his mind snap back to attention at those words. She truly was an unknowable woman. Utterly unlike any of the women he had known before.
Breakfast had been laid for Kasvren alone; there was nothing for Isolde. When he asked why, she answered, "In the mornings, I drink nothing but tea." The faint scent of cream and the fragrance of tea leaves were unmistakably not for his meal alone. Kasvren stared down at the breakfast spread, lost in thought for a moment. Toasted bread and tea, boiled eggs, and mushrooms sautéed with pepper and cream. It was an appealing menu, and every dish gave off an aroma that prodded at his hunger.
Watching him hesitate to take up his spoon, Isolde spoke again.
"The tableware is all silver."
As the implication of her words sank in, Kasvren gave an awkward laugh.
"So I'm not to worry about being poisoned, is that it?"
"However many times I tell you I haven't added poison, if you insist on doubting me, there is nothing more I can do about it."
The words did not ring ordinary. Was she truly a murderer then, slyly confessing her hideous crime? Or was it precisely the opposite?
Either way, to Kasvren as he was now, the words carried no meaning and no weight. Just as when he had been cast out of the carriage onto the damp earth, just as when he had decided it wouldn't matter even if he met a mad huntsman in the heart of that dense black forest—Kasvren's heart emptied into a hollow void in a single breath. What did it matter whether the dish held poison or a softly boiled egg?
"Even if you did put poison in that food to kill me, it would have nothing to do with me. Isolde Drasken."
"What do you mean by that?"
Once more, Johan's voice rang out inside his head.
— They're going to kill you, Kasvren!
Kasvren gave a hollow laugh and replied.
"There's no method in this world for killing a man who is already dead."
He began his meal with the tea. It was excellent. Isolde watched him eat for a long while, and then, as though someone had called her name, hurried out of the dining room. Watching her retreating figure disappear, Kasvren felt an ungentlemanly flicker of amusement. That petty satisfaction—of having flustered a woman who seemed as though she would not so much as flinch if run through with a knife—filled his hunger better than the food itself.