Five Cups of Poison
Five small cups sat before Maeve and Selver respectively. What he had proposed was, astonishingly, a game. Though he called it a game, it was in truth little more than a gamble with their lives on the line.
The rules were simple. They would take turns asking questions and answering them. Fail to answer, or claim not to know, and you drank one cup.
What filled those cups was poison—exactly five doses, enough to kill. Maeve accepted the proposal without a moment’s hesitation. She could not win the game, yet the terms still favored her.
“Will you ask first? You must have many questions.”
Even while staking his life, the man’s expression barely shifted. Maeve hummed as though deep in thought.
She had already decided on her first question, but since her true aim was to buy time, she needed to slow the tempo as much as possible. After a suitable pause she opened her mouth.
“Why make such a proposal?”
Selver’s lips parted without the slightest hesitation.
“Did I not say I was testing your loyalty?”
“That isn’t what I meant. There must have been any number of ways to extract the crown prince’s whereabouts from me, or to test my loyalty by other means.”
Maeve was genuinely curious. From the duke’s position, the easiest method would have been torture. Risking his own life on this clumsy game was irrational in every respect.
“Wasting time is not to my taste.”
“Pardon…?”
“Your eyes.”
Selver answered while staring deep into Maeve’s.
“Torture someone for days on end, and those who carry that look in their eyes never break.”
“…”
Better to waste no time on pointless torture and simply determine at once whether she was someone who would keep her loyalty. He was right.
Besides, it was impossible for Maeve to rattle off five questions the duke could not answer, like some mind-reader, and kill him on the spot. Conversely, he already knew exactly which questions would kill her.
“…Ask your question.”
“Where did you spirit the crown prince away to?”
Exactly as she had expected. Maeve drank the first cup in silence. Selver leaned back against his chair as though he had anticipated it.
Maeve considered her next question. The questions she could safely ask were severely limited. It might be called a game, yet there was no telling when his mood might change. She had no desire to provoke the duke and end up strangled by his angry hands.
Asking something of moderate curiosity, at a moderate level of risk, was the wisest course.
“Why did you raise a rebellion?”
Selver pondered a moment before speaking.
“Revenge.”
That, too, she had expected. The emperor had been extremely wary of Duke Cardenas, a war hero of towering prestige.
While the emperor—already despised for the long war—made the worst possible move of starting yet another war to unite the empire’s factions, the duke had distinguished himself on the battlefield and solidified his own standing.
In the process the emperor made his second worst move. Forgetting that he himself had once coaxed the duke into war with every sweet word, the moment the man began to be hailed as a war hero the emperor tried even more blatantly to shut him out of noble society.
Under imperial orders the duke’s close retainers were sent to the front one after another and died; even his only adopted son was driven into a death trap and killed. Of course he would want revenge.
“…And atonement.”
Atonement? To whom?
“Did you take the crown prince outside the capital?”
Before Maeve could ask what he meant by atonement, the next question came flying. She lifted the cup and swallowed the poison. The second cup.
“Atonement for whom?”
The duke toyed with a poison cup. He seemed to deliberate, then withdrew his hand and spoke.
“Atonement for drowning in my own misfortune and failing to look around me.”
What was that supposed to mean? Maeve frowned. She stared hard at him, trying to decipher the riddle-like words. Yet from those empty-looking crimson eyes she could read nothing at all.
Presently he collected his gaze and looked at her again.
“In the third-floor study there were traces of the imperial palace’s secret passage having been opened.”
Maeve controlled her expression and deliberately leaned back against the chair, trying to look at ease.
“Did you escape the crown prince through there?”
Once more she tipped the medicine into her mouth. The third cup. The duke watched her in silence.
What should she ask next? Maeve met his eyes and thought slowly. Though it was still early evening, he pressed his fingertips hard around his eyes as though exhausted. Dark fatigue had settled beneath them.
“…Do you suffer from insomnia?”
Perhaps the question was unexpected. The duke lowered his hand from his eyes and regarded her without a word. Reading the answer in his reaction, Maeve added,
“I’ve never met anyone who dreams of revenge and atonement who doesn’t suffer from insomnia. When you can’t sleep, try chamomile. It worked reasonably well for me.”
He raised one eyebrow and spoke.
“So you, too, dreamed of revenge and atonement?”
“…If that counts as a question, I’ll answer.”
“Then answer.”
Maeve lifted the corner of her mouth slightly.
“Is there anyone left in this country who hasn’t lost family to the war? My younger siblings went to war in my place while I attended the Imperial Academy, and they died.”
Even now, whenever she closed her eyes she could still see the faces of her siblings smiling brightly and calling her “noona,” “unnie.” Happy memories she could never forget.
At the same time, every time those happy moments turned into pools of her siblings’ blood and then into funerals, she woke with a start. After that, falling asleep itself gradually became something she feared.
She had resented so much. Maeve had hated her father. What was so important about that academy that he had sent her siblings to war in her stead? He should have called for her instead.
After that she came to hate the emperor. Why keep repeating wars that had neither meaning nor justification, pushing her family off the edge of a cliff?
And last of all—
“Looking back now, I think I wanted revenge on myself.”
She had wanted to create a world where her siblings could live happily. That was why she had gone to the academy. That choice had made everyone miserable. She had hated herself so much she thought she might go mad. Yet she could not die either. It was a life her siblings had given her. A sharp ache rose in Maeve’s chest.
I’ll make sure you can live in a world without war.
She had lived to take responsibility for that single careless promise she had made to her siblings in her immature days. Therefore she could not give up until the crown prince had safely escaped.
Selver listened quietly to her story. He neither denied nor affirmed her words. Softly he murmured,
“It must have been hell.”
“It was hell.”
Maeve exhaled once and added,
“Anyway, I’m telling you not to ruin the country over insomnia. It would be troublesome if the country were too far gone by the time His Highness the Crown Prince eventually takes the throne.”
She meant it. When the crown prince returned, if the nation were a complete wreck it would be hard to carry out even a single proper reform. She did not want that.
“I see.”
The duke nodded readily. Even though she was speaking of the crown prince’s restoration, he seemed largely unconcerned.
“How long have you suffered from insomnia?”
“Who knows. Ever since that day… on rainy days, sleep simply would not come.”
An unexpected harvest. That Selver Cardenas, who seemed to fear nothing, was vulnerable to rain. Somewhat surprising. Of little use to someone about to die, of course.
“Did the crown prince… head south or west?”
Maeve lifted the fourth cup and drank. There was not the slightest fear of death in the gesture.
Both the south and the west were regions where newly risen nobles held more power than the traditional great houses. So the duke had allied with the old houses that could no longer bear the war taxes, Maeve concluded. Her throat was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable; she absently touched it once more.
The game would end soon. She had bought a fair amount of time. If Jack, who was outside the imperial capital, had managed to secure horses properly, the crown prince should by now be crossing the capital’s walls.
With a somewhat lighter heart, Maeve considered what would be the final question of this game.