The Fairy's Shoe

"What else would it be? A shoe. Don't you know what a shoe is?"

"Who would ask if they didn't know it was a shoe? I'm asking why you've brought such a wretched old woman's shoe, and only one of them at that."

Mikhail never showed the slightest interest in anything useless. More precisely, he felt no curiosity toward anything that failed to turn a profit.

And yet here was that same Mikhail, arriving with a single shoe that wasn't even a complete pair. Igor examined the shoe more carefully once more. Could this possibly be some important object he simply didn't recognize?

When Igor showed interest, Mikhail waved him off as if to say get lost, then asked a question of his own.

"Igor, have you ever heard that fairies live in the forest of Edenhurst?"

"Pardon?"

Igor frowned at Mikhail's words.

Fairies. In Novgord they were considered ominous beings. Only a few centuries ago Novgord had still been a land of savagery and primitivism, the domain of men who once boarded ships and drifted wherever the wind took them, slaughtering everything in their path. Of all the primitive beliefs those men had spread across this land, the one people still most firmly believed in was the fairy.

Small, ugly creatures that lived in forests or underground. Because they despised their own appearance they hid in the woods near villages and scavenged the things humans discarded, treating them as treasures. If they ever met a human who did not hate them and treated them kindly, they would bring that person gold and jewels from beneath the earth. But the moment they realized a human was using them, they would lay a curse and drive that person to ruin.

Everything about fairies was said to be hideous—except their eyes, which alone were beautiful.

Such legends were nothing more than the idle talk of the old and the young, yet Igor was still a man of Novgord, and he felt an instinctive revulsion. In every story, humans who became entangled with fairies ended up with their lives destroyed.

With a grave expression, Igor carefully asked Mikhail,

"You didn't by any chance eat some strange mushrooms for breakfast on the way here, did you?"

"Why not just ask me straight out if I've gone mad?"

"That would be far too insolent a thing for a secretary to say."

"You already know that and still say it?"

Mikhail clicked his tongue, scolding Igor, then looked down at the shoe in his hand.

It was worn, yet the leather, the ornamentation, and the shape all suggested it had once been quite expensive. Any woman in these parts who could wear such a shoe would have to be either a noble or a wealthy commoner. He examined the leather inside. As expected, letters had been branded with a hot iron.

C.R E

He knew perfectly well why craftsmen left such marks on their work: to establish ownership beyond doubt should any unfortunate incident like theft occur. So the C.R at the front marked the owner's name, and the letter written a little apart indicated which estate that person belonged to.

In that case the shoe's original owner would have been Catherine Lauderdale—of the Edenhurst estate.

Mikhail was certain because the initials had deliberately been left in the Ils script. Who else but a Lauderdale of Edenhurst, people who stubbornly insisted on Ils-style names to the very end, would bother marking a name in the Ils alphabet? What made those incompetent exiles who had crossed the sea so proud of their homeland that they clung to it so tightly?

At any rate, the woman who had possessed this shoe was not Catherine Lauderdale herself.

"Not a real fairy, of course."

Mikhail recalled the person he had seen in the forest that morning.

At first he had thought it might be a large wild animal. That was only natural—it had looked like a sizable mass moving inside the woods. But when he drew closer he realized it was a person.

Someone sitting on the fallen leaves, drying wet hands and feet in the sunlight that filtered through the branches. Mikhail did not approach at once; he simply watched.

The attire was thoroughly bizarre—something like the street beggars he occasionally saw in the capital. The clothes, clearly layered even though it was not midwinter, matched none of them. The only difference from actual beggars was that these garments at least appeared to have been washed at some point.

He had been about to ignore the figure and walk on—dealing with a half-mad person in the forest was nothing but a nuisance—when his eyes fell on the hands and feet the person had left exposed. They were as white as a winter snowfield, as though the owner had never known sunlight. And they were unmistakably a woman's: slender, fragile, delicate.

Those thin limbs looked even frailer against the thick layers of clothing.

Though spring had come, the woman seemed cold; she had not only wrapped herself in heavy garments but had also bound her hair tightly with a muffler. Looking at the woman who sat with her back to him, Mikhail found himself wanting to see her face.

If I wait, she might turn around at least once.

But contrary to his expectation, the woman put on the hat that had been lying beside her and rose to her feet. Realizing she was about to leave, Mikhail approached her without thinking.

Startled, the woman spun around. In that instant what filled Mikhail's eyes were deep green irises brimming with fear.

Just as he was studying her, she was studying him in return—a thorough, searching gaze. It was a look he knew well. Everyone he met examined him the same way, always hoping to extract something from him.

But in this woman's eyes there was only fear. Then a faint flicker of wonder passed through them and softened her expression, and only then did Mikhail recover his senses enough to speak.

"What are you?"

He already knew from the villagers that this forest was Edenhurst's hunting ground and that entry was forbidden. And yet here was a woman of such strange appearance wandering inside it.

Did she think he meant to interrogate her and hand her over to the manor? At his question she hung her head and began to tremble so pitifully that she looked ready to flee at any moment. The sight made Mikhail oddly impatient, and he spoke again.

"There's no need to be so afraid. I only want to ask which way Edenhurst Manor lies."

The woman laboriously raised a hand and pointed beyond the trees.

"The manor… the manor is…"

Even after he told her not to fear, she could not lift her head and could barely form a proper answer. Still, she seemed capable of speech, which was a relief. If he asked more questions he might get answers. Yet Mikhail felt strangely restless. His gaze settled on the hat she was wearing. If only that were gone, he might finally see her face properly.

Their eyes had met, yet he had never truly seen her face, and the regret gnawed at him. Knowing it was rude, he still followed his desire and reached out.

"Would you mind removing that hat for a moment?"

At that instant the woman screamed and fled. She clearly knew the forest well; she raced off the path at great speed. Mikhail tried to follow, but after only a few steps the thorny underbrush caught at his legs, as if forbidding him to pursue her.

In the end he abandoned the chase. Irritation boiled up. He had never once failed when he set out to obtain something. The taste of failure in this unfamiliar land carved a frown into his handsome face.

When he returned to the place where he had first seen the woman, something lying on the leaves caught his eye. It was a shoe—clearly one she had left behind.

Mikhail stroked his chin as he looked at it, then picked one up. A smile rose to his face.

"They say fairies always come back if you take their things."

Because they treated human objects as treasures, if someone took one they would inevitably return to reclaim it. Mikhail lifted the single shoe. Whether the woman was a fairy or a human, she would certainly come looking for this.

"My lord Mikhail, are you listening?"

"No. I wasn't. What did you say?"

"…I was saying that the Countess's reply has arrived."

Igor was looking at him with an expression that asked how anyone could be thinking of something else at a time like this. Mikhail casually tossed the shoe onto the floor and took the letter Igor held out. The letter was short.

The date written was one week later.

Even for a grand manor there was no need to spend an entire week cleaning. In other words, the Countess knew Mikhail was nearby and was deliberately keeping him waiting outside the estate.

"What on earth is the Countess relying on to act this way?"

"Indeed. Does she truly think we wouldn't notice a power play this crude?"

"She was born low and raised by the docks, so of course she assumes we don't understand a noble's insults."

Mikhail's casual remark drew a dry laugh from Igor. The words were not wrong. Yet no matter his birth or past, Mikhail was now Novgord's greatest merchant—a man even Empress Irina, who stood at the very peak of power, watched carefully and treated with caution.

In the first place, the Empress Dowager who had once been forgotten even by her own husband had risen to become the true power of Novgord solely because of Mikhail's cooperation.

"Anyway, let's move as the Countess wishes. We'll behave like the vulgar new-rich who don't even realize they've been insulted and simply feel honored by the invitation."

Mikhail tossed the letter into the lit fireplace as he spoke.

"After all, I must marry one of the daughters who carry the Lauderdale name."

Marriage.

Even as he said it, Mikhail found the word so absurd that a scornful smile curved his lips. Igor, standing nearby, seemed to share the feeling; he smiled bitterly as well. Mikhail Sokolov—married?

Anyone who knew him would find the idea utterly ridiculous. That arrogant, cold man, married? Judging by his nature, the only thing he would ever keep at his side was a sack of gold coins, not a woman.

There had been no shortage of women who wanted him. Who would refuse a young, handsome man who was also the richest in Novgord? Those who felt the allure of his wealth and longed to share it approached him especially aggressively, offering him their most beautiful smiles.

Thanks to them, Sokolov Harbor saw frequent visits from women of renown: the capital's most famous opera singer, the principal of the Imperial Ballet School, the madam of the grandest salon…

The women who sought him were not limited to those who merely wanted to share his fortune. In truth, just as many young ladies from houses of some standing had aimed for the place beside him.

Novgord was a country where the ranks of status were absolute. Commoners dared not raise their heads before nobles, and the people of an estate were treated as less than the dogs the nobles kept. Yet even that gulf of status became meaningless before Mikhail Sokolov.

He was the man who had built a city as wealthy as the capital—no, wealthier still—and put his own name upon it. In all of Novgord's history only one other person had achieved such a thing: the founding emperor, Yazinsky the Great. The story of how he had ordered five piers built when he founded the capital still appeared in every history book of the empire.

Yet under Mikhail's direction, Sokolov was about to begin construction of its seventh pier. And Mikhail was still only twenty-eight. He stood ready to surpass the achievements of the founding king himself.

If one could stand at such a man's side, one would share in his glory as well. That was why noble daughters had wanted him. Or rather—had wanted him.

"To leave behind all those women who were practically throwing themselves at me, only to come all the way to this countryside to propose—what a sight."

Mikhail clicked his tongue as he recalled the names of the nobles who had once waited eagerly for an audience with him.