Outlines of the World
Catherine, who until then had had no one to tell about that day, seemed to think at last that a listener had appeared. She related to Mikhail, in exhaustive detail, the story of the day the Count’s riding accident occurred—even down to the particular rock near which he had died.
“Still, it was fortunate that only Dalby died. Mother said we shouldn’t leave the stable hands alone either, but Edward actually shielded them and even sent them home with generous severance. After that, as you know, Edenhurst has no stables left, and the forest is forbidden, so no one goes there anymore.”
Having poured out words with lively enthusiasm for some time, Catherine lifted her head and looked at the wall.
“Originally Edward’s portrait hung here. Now it’s probably hanging in Mother’s room.”
“I remember seeing it the last time I came.”
“He looked so very much like an angel, didn’t he? I’m not saying that merely because he was my brother—he truly was like an angel. That’s why Mother still can’t forget Edward and finds it so hard.”
“What exactly do you mean by ‘like an angel’?”
“Exactly that. In his whole life he never once used rough language, never disobeyed our parents, and even the tutors praised him endlessly as truly perfect. Moreover…”
Catherine continued, watching Mikhail’s face carefully.
“Edward took such good care of Anastasia too.”
She had deliberately tossed out the name Anastasia, curious what reaction Mikhail would show. Yet even at Catherine’s words Mikhail displayed not the slightest change. He merely cast a gaze that seemed to invite her to go on with her story.
“Catherine.”
At that moment Elizabeth’s voice came from the entrance to the drawing room. She who had gone upstairs supporting the Countess had not returned to her own room but had come down again.
“It’s time you went up. Mr. Mikhail must be tired as well—don’t keep him too long.”
Under Elizabeth’s cold gaze Catherine rose from her seat. Ordinarily she might have protested, yet looking into her sister’s eyes she felt as though she had been caught trying to probe Mikhail with talk of Anastasia.
“Oh my, look how late it’s gotten. As you say, Sister, I should go up now.”
There was nothing to gain by remaining longer. Thinking that once she left Elizabeth would converse with Mikhail, Catherine headed for her room. But contrary to her expectation, Elizabeth followed her upstairs.
When the two of them reached the second floor and Catherine was about to step into her room, Elizabeth suddenly shoved her roughly inside and shut the door.
“Sister!”
Before she could even snap in irritation at the sudden treatment, Elizabeth seized Catherine’s wrist in a hard grip.
“You—what did you say downstairs.”
“W-why? What’s the matter?”
“Can’t you speak at once?”
At the flash in Elizabeth’s eyes Catherine swallowed dryly. Had her sister ever looked at her with eyes like these? This was not her usual composed sister. Confronted with a force that seemed ready to seize her by the collar and thrash her like some lowborn creature, Catherine was startled into tears.
“I-I didn’t say anything special. I was just so annoyed by that Anastasia…”
“Not Anastasia! The talk about Edward!”
“E-Edward’s story really wasn’t anything! Just that a different painting was hanging where his portrait used to be, and that he was truly a good boy…”
In truth she had spoken of their father’s accident, yet somehow if she admitted that… it felt as though Elizabeth would fling her out the window this very moment. Of course she would not, but feeling a terror akin to it, Catherine instinctively concealed what she had said.
“Really?”
“Really. Sister, why are you like this… I’m scared…”
When Catherine began to tear up, Elizabeth at last released her hand. Then in an instant she returned to her usual self—the calm, quiet woman of elegant bearing. Yet her eyes alone remained cold.
“Catherine. You heard Mr. Mikhail’s talk today, didn’t you? We are going to Sokolov. I will marry him. You will live a prosperous life there with Mother and be able to marry comfortably into the house of your choice. And…”
Elizabeth spoke with the certainty of one delivering a prophecy.
“…Anastasia will remain here at Edenhurst. So stop going about making useless remarks on this matter. Do you understand?”
Anastasia rose before dawn and wandered restlessly about her room. Strangely, time today seemed to crawl. Natasha would not be up for a long while yet, so Anastasia lit the lamp and sat at the table. Upon it lay a thick book bound in red. It was the flower catalogue Mikhail had handed her the previous day as they left the study.
Turning the pages one by one, Anastasia brought her face close and breathed in the scent. The dense smell of ink stung her nose and made her wrinkle it slightly, yet she soon rubbed her cheek against the rough paper.
“Pretty…”
The pictures, as though real flowers had been pasted onto the paper, were simply wondrous to her. When Anastasia could not tear her gaze from the book, Mikhail, as if he had expected it, closed the volume and held it out to her.
“Take this book.”
Anastasia could not even manage a polite refusal; she seized it with trembling hands. All the way back to her room she clutched it tightly to her breast, terrified someone might suddenly appear and snatch it away. The moment she returned she sat at the table, opened it, and looked through it from beginning to end in a fever. No—since she still could not read, it was more accurate to say she gazed at it.
The book held trees and flowers utterly strange to her: trees whose single leaves were broad enough to hide a person, trees whose branches hung long as ropes, flowers larger than a human face…
Even the slender veins on the undersides of leaves were drawn with perfect clarity. Mikhail had told her that such pictures were called botanical art in the language of Ils.
He had said they were plants of the primeval forests still remaining far away on the southern continent. To Anastasia the world outside Edenhurst had been nothing but the same unbroken darkness. Now distinctions began to form.
Outside Edenhurst lay the capital and Sokolov. And farther still, the southern continent. Awareness of the unknown was like light slowly entering a midnight sky where nothing could be seen, revealing the outlines of the world. When lines were drawn upon a world of nothing, Anastasia grew impatient. The unfamiliar language of Ils and the knowledge Mikhail taught her became a small lamp in her hands, lighting the darkness around her.
She now wondered what lay beyond that darkness.
I want to know more. If I look at other books, if I speak more with Mikhail, I can learn what things exist beyond paradise.
Anastasia gazed at the study’s bookshelves with aching longing. She wanted to become a giant insect and gnaw through every volume as though devouring leaves. Then the contents would remain forever inside her. Simply holding them was no longer enough.
He said he would teach me letters.
At last she would be able to read books. The thing she had longed for since childhood was finally coming true. Once she could read she would truly become a greedy insect, chewing and chewing the letters she held until they were completely her own. Endlessly.
Unable to contain the fullness in her chest, Anastasia carefully hugged the book.
“I love it so much…”
Her honest mouth simply spilled the feeling as it was. She thought that yesterday had been the most perfect day of her life—because it had been filled only with good things from beginning to end. The plentiful meal she could now eat without shame. The garden she had walked beneath the sunlight. The scent of books that filled the study. The book now cradled in her arms. And the one who had placed that book in her hands…
The distant rising morning light touched Anastasia’s face. Her cheeks were redder than the sunlight itself.
Mikhail summoned Yury first thing in the morning.
“What is it? I have to hurry.”
Yury was preparing a quick trip to Sokolov. Mikhail’s order to ready the Sokolov mansion was one reason, and he also needed to examine the documents that had arrived in the meantime and check the movements of the Dowager Empress’s side. Tensing in case another command was about to be issued, he was met instead with something completely unexpected.
“Buy some books.”
“Books? We filled the place thoroughly—was something lacking?”
Yury recalled the study at Edenhurst. Not content with merely furnishing the mansion, they had stocked a study as richly varied as the one in the Sokolov residence. Even proper noble houses would struggle to match the present selection at Edenhurst. There were books of Novgord, of course, but also of Ils, of Flanders—even ancient volumes from the old kingdom of Cleringia.
Though there’s hardly anyone who can read them.
The Cleringian tongue was a language few could read. Mikhail had shown no interest, remarking that a dead language from a thousand years ago that made no money was not worth learning, and Igor knew only a handful of terms related to the etymology of medicine names. Whenever Yury encountered strange characters he did not recognize, he simply assumed they were Cleringian.
Even so, they had placed Cleringian books in the Edenhurst study because without them a library was not considered a proper one. Having to treasure unread books merely so the study would be recognized—what a notion.
“I even put Cleringian books in there. What’s missing?”
Wondering if he was about to be ordered to procure cuneiform clay tablets from thousands of years ago, Yury tensed further—until Mikhail spoke.
“Novgord language primers.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you hear me? Buy Novgord language textbooks. As easy as possible, large letters, full of pictures. And children’s books as well.”
“Who… is going to use those?”
“Just hurry and go. Ah, and—”
After a moment’s thought, Mikhail continued.
“Among my racehorses there’s one called Vinya. That horse’s sire should be a horse named Dalby—there ought to be records or documents about him. If they aren’t at the mansion, go to the racing association if you must and bring every scrap of material on the horse called Dalby.”
“Are you building a racetrack here? What’s with the sudden talk of racehorses?”
“Enough. Just set out already.”
Mikhail seized Yury by the nape and practically lifted him and flung him into the corridor. Staring at the door that slammed shut in his face, Yury rubbed the back of his neck. Has the man truly gone mad?
Even so, he quickly set his feet in motion. When ordered, one simply had to obey.
“Haa…”
Stepping into the study, Anastasia drew a deep breath. The scent of wooden bookshelves and books flooding deep into her chest cleared her mind.
“Sit here.”
Anastasia hurried to the desk he indicated and settled into the chair he gently drew out for her. The ladylike manners Natasha had taught her had by now settled naturally into her body. Once she was seated, Mikhail set before her the things he had brought from the room.
“Wow…”
Anastasia parted her lips in wonder at the paper, pen, and ink bottle placed in front of her.
“May I touch them?”
“Of course.”
She reached for the pen. It was the simplest type—a long, gleaming silver nib meant to be dipped in ink. Mikhail set the ink bottle higher on the table as though inviting her to write at once, yet Anastasia hesitated, not knowing how to begin.
“Let me write first.”
Realizing she did not even know how to hold a pen, Mikhail took it back from her. He dipped the nib lightly into the ink, then scraped the tip against the bottle’s rim to shake off the excess.
“Then… shall we write a name?”
About to hand the pen over as it was, Mikhail decided it would be better to show her the proper angle as well, and wrote letters upon the paper.
Anastasia.
Watching how he held the pen and how he wrote, Anastasia gazed wonderingly at the writing on the sheet.
“What did you write?”
“Anastasia. I wrote your name. Is there any other writing you would like to see?”
At the question Anastasia answered at once, as though she had been waiting.
“Mikhail.”