There Was No Fate
Looking back, there was nothing like fate in our meeting.
Annette had once been quite the romantic fatalist. She had long since abandoned such notions, but when she was younger, that was how she thought.
Her philosophy teacher had insisted that fate did not exist. It was only when people took past coincidences and accepted them as inevitabilities that they came to interpret them as destiny.
If her teacher was right, then between them there had not even been coincidence.
Annette stared with dry eyes at the maiden name written on the envelope. Personal for Miss Rosenberg. The letter that contained the full account of her family’s downfall was nothing if not concise.
Considering the effort it had taken to obtain this single sheet of paper, it was almost pitiful. Communications devices risked surveillance, so everything had to be exchanged by hand, in personal handwriting.
Annette took the letter and left the room. Her steps carried her toward Heiner’s study. Her husband of four years now. The young Commander-in-Chief of Padania.
Arriving at the study door, Annette knocked without hesitation. Then, before any invitation to enter could even return, she flung the door open.
Considering how carefully she usually watched his mood and took pains never to offend him, it was an extraordinary act.
Heiner lifted his head as if to identify the rude intruder. When he confirmed it was Annette, his brows rose slightly in surprise, but no further emotion showed on his face.
Annette walked up to his desk and held out the letter.
“Would you like to read it?”
She asked in the same gentle, compliant tone she always used. Heiner, however, did not so much as glance at the letter.
“Madam, I am busy at the moment. It would be better to speak later.”
He spoke with bureaucratic coolness and returned his eyes to the documents. The pen scratched across the paper. Annette slowly lowered the hand that held the letter.
“Heiner. I went to some trouble digging into your past.”
The pen stopped dead.
“Father is dead, but that doesn’t mean all his close associates are. I know those people very well. So it wasn’t impossible.”
“……Madam.”
The low address carried a warning. It was also a demand for explanation. To Annette it was simply laughable. She was not the one who needed to explain.
“I’ve always wondered. Why you treat me the way you do.”
“…….”
“Why you treat me like this. The man who loved me so much when we were lovers—why did he change so completely? Feelings can cool, of course, but this is too much, isn’t it?”
“…….”
“But now I know.”
Annette smiled calmly. Heiner’s face, looking up at her, still showed no expression, yet somehow it had gone a little pale.
“From the very beginning, you approached me on purpose, didn’t you?”
“……That is correct.”
“You’re not surprised that I found out.”
“I always thought you would learn of it someday.”
The meeting she had believed was fate had been entirely under his direction. From start to finish she had danced to his plan.
“I see…….”
Ha. Annette gave a short laugh.
“It must have been hard, pretending to love the daughter of your enemy.”
They had married after two years of courtship. Annette’s father, Marquis Dietrich, was the nephew of King Piete; Annette herself carried royal blood.
Marquis Dietrich had been one of the five military commanders of Padania, and Heiner Valdemar had been a corps commander under him. After marrying his superior’s daughter, Heiner’s rise had been swift.
Everything had been perfect. Everything had seemed perfect.
The happiness she thought would last forever ended quickly. Before the honeymoon period was even over, the Revolutionary Army toppled the monarchy and a free government took its place.
It was around then that Heiner—once the most charming and affectionate of husbands—had completely changed.
“When I heard that you had cooperated with the Revolutionary Army to help establish the new government, and that in return you had been made Commander-in-Chief of the military, I was truly shocked. In effect you had betrayed my father.”
“…….”
“Even so, I believed in you. If that was the way the times were flowing, then it must have been a choice you had to make to protect yourself…… and for the greater good. Even if it meant killing my father.”
The old Annette had known nothing of politics. Free governments, revolutionary armies, royal houses—those things had lain outside her sphere.
But with the fall of the monarchy, arrows of condemnation had poured down upon the Rosenberg house. Her father had been killed by the Revolutionary Army; her mother had taken her own life. From that moment on, all of it had become thoroughly Annette’s affair.
“The assumption that you had been with the Revolutionary Army from the start and had approached me deliberately…… it wasn’t that I never made it. I simply couldn’t. If that were true, then I would have nothing left at all. The only thing I could do was believe in you.”
After that she had lived holding her breath. She could not even go outside. The moment she stepped out, she felt the citizens’ every accusation would rain down upon her.
Royal blood. Daughter of Marquis Dietrich, the military commander who had oppressed the Revolutionary Army and the people. A loathsome woman who had lived in luxury atop blood.
Living was not living. The only person she could rely on was her husband, yet Heiner had long since changed. He was busy, indifferent, and at times seemed to despise her.
“I tried so hard to win back your changed heart. Foolishly. When in truth you had never changed at all.”
“…….”
“You simply never loved me from the beginning.”
Heiner only stared at her, frozen like a statue. His face was impossible to read. He had always been that way.
Annette had once believed she knew Heiner thoroughly as a beloved lover, but in truth it had all been lies and illusion.
“Am I mistaken?”
“……No.”
“Then say something, Heiner. I need to hear the truth from you yourself.”
Heiner seemed a little surprised that such rough words had come from her mouth. Silence stretched for a moment. At last he spoke.
“I was trained as a spy at the military educational institution that your father supervised.”
The military educational institution. Annette had heard of it as well.
Two years earlier it had come to light that, under royal direction, trainees had been secretly raised on an island, and the matter had caused an uproar. To protect the human rights of the trainees, the list had been kept confidential.
But the fact that Heiner himself had been one of those trainees was something she was learning for the first time.
“Training, drugs, beatings, confinement…… every method necessary for the raising was employed. Your father was pleased with me, the top graduate of that place, and brought me in personally.”
Old stories spilled from his lips.
Heiner had operated as a military spy and earned merit. In the process he had been tortured several times and come close to death, but such things were simply to be endured.
Annette’s father—Dietrich Rosenberg—had eliminated with his own hands any spies who threatened his person or risked exposure. They had been Heiner’s classmates and comrades as well.
In any case, most of the operations had succeeded. Dietrich’s rise to the rank of commander owed much to Heiner’s achievements. Heiner had ended his life as a spy and begun working openly in the light of the regime.
“……But because I hated Dietrich and the royal house, I helped the Revolutionary Army establish the present government. Approaching you was also part of the plan. That is all.”
Heiner’s words were less an explanation than a report. The letter crumpled slightly in Annette’s grip. With the smile gone from her face, she moved her lips.
“In that hatred of yours.”
“…….”
“Am I included as well?”
Their gazes locked in the air. Annette hoped he would answer no, even if it was a lie.
After all, everything from beginning to end had been a lie; one more falsehood would change nothing.
“Six years ago.”
A voice dry as waterless sand came from him.
“In the final operation I was sent on as a spy—the Vünchen operation—three of my comrades died, and the remaining two were eliminated by Dietrich. So I alone survived…… and was invited into the Rosenberg mansion.”
Annette remembered that day as well. The moment she had felt attraction toward the man smiling at her in the middle of the blooming rose garden remained vivid.
“In the rose garden of the mansion I saw you, dressed in jewels and a splendid gown, laughing. You mourned ‘those who gave their lives for the country’ as if bestowing some great charity. I thought something was wrong. You ask whether you are included among the objects of my hatred?”
A strange light flickered through Heiner’s grey eyes.
“Yes.”
The answer fell cleanly.
“I hate you.”
Ah. Annette opened her lips soundlessly and closed them again. The fog in her mind cleared away. She had certainly hoped he would say no, yet once she heard the truth she felt almost relieved.
“I see.”
Annette murmured, lowering her head.
“So that was it…….”
It was a simple story. Heiner Valdemar hated Annette Rosenberg. He had approached the object of his hatred solely for revenge. And without knowing that, she had loved him.
“Then this will be easy.”
Annette took a step back.
Crushed pride and a betrayed heart cried out in pain, but she forced herself to ignore them. Praying her voice would not tremble, she spoke clearly.
“Let’s divorce, Heiner.”
“I refuse.”
“You broke the trust of our marriage. That is sufficient grounds for divorce.”
“I said I refuse.”
“Do I still have any use left? My father and mother are dead, the monarchy has fallen, and I have nothing. Everything I have is only what I possess as the wife of Heiner Valdemar. Your revenge is finished……!”
Heiner slowly rose from his seat. His large body seemed to tower endlessly. Annette lifted her head to look up at him.
Standing with the light from the window at his back, his form was submerged in shadow. Annette felt an involuntary chill and tried to step farther back.
“Madam.”
Before she could move, his hand shot out and seized her chin.
“Where do you intend to go to be happy?”
“……There is nowhere I can be happy.”
“Then this will be easy.”
Repeating Annette’s words, Heiner stretched his lips into a smile. Deep dimples carved into both cheeks along with the cold smile.
“If that’s the case, then spend the rest of your life unhappy at my side.”
Behind him the crimson sunset glowed with eerie brilliance. Inside that blood-red light that looked like the entrance to hell, Annette suddenly understood.
Heiner’s revenge was not over.