The Legend of the Lake
Cesare cleared his throat, steadying the dryness that had taken hold of it.
"Ahem."
Delphina, for her part, pretended at composure by absently brushing the back of her own hand. Yet she could not still the trembling at her fingertips.
His gaze settled on the pale skin of her hand. Without a word spoken, they were each keenly aware of the other, and the air between them drew taut.
Desperate to ease the atmosphere, she found herself recalling a memory long neglected.
"Did you know? The lake we're heading to has an old legend attached to it."
"Is that so?"
Drawing on what her mother had once told her, she began to speak.
"Long ago, the lake served as a place of exile for a certain king."
"What crime did he commit to be banished there?"
"It wasn't because he had committed any crime."
Her explanation unfolded at length.
The king had been exiled through a web of false accusations. When everyone turned their backs on him, the one who approached was a woman who could not speak.
That woman tended to the king in his despair.
Yet the king, who had learned to distrust all, refused to believe her and suspected her without end.
Still, her devotion never wavered, and in time the king tried to place his trust in her.
In the end, I nearly fell for it again!
When he discovered that the woman had been in league with those who had betrayed him, the king flew into a rage. The mute woman tried desperately to explain herself, but he turned away from her.
In the end he could not bring himself to believe her, and that choice sealed both their fates.
I'm so tired of it all now.
Even when the man sent to kill him arrived, the king had lost all will to fight and was ready to accept death.
The mute woman seized the gleaming blade with both hands and tumbled into the lake together with the assassin.
The moon reflected on the water shattered, and the pitch-black lake greedily swallowed the two of them.
Only then did the king understand.
From the very beginning she had never known his true station. She had simply loved him as one human being loves another. In the moment he grasped the belated truth, he also realized the depth of his own feelings for her.
"In the end, the king returned to the palace, never married for the rest of his life, and became a wise and excellent ruler. Something like that."
She could not remember every fine detail, yet she was privately surprised that she still recalled enough of the tale to share it with another.
"A rather dull story."
Cesare's dry assessment made Delphina blink.
She had not expected that reaction.
"You don't find it sad?"
"Let's say he became a sage king and governed the realm so well that countless people were happy."
"Pardon?"
"In the end the woman died without ever knowing the king's true heart, or what became of him afterward."
"If I had been that king, I would have saved her when she fell into the lake."
"...It might have been a situation where saving her was impossible."
"If the king had felt the same as the woman, he would have regretted it. Mourning her wouldn't bring the dead woman back, after all."
She had thought the answer cold, yet the more she turned it over, the more fiercely passionate it seemed. Even knowing he would die with her, he would still have thrown himself in willingly.
"You're very tenderhearted."
"...That's the first time anyone has ever said that to me."
At the unexpected reply, the voice that had been so coolly measured trembled.
"It seems no one has ever truly known you, Mr. Appiano."
If a man this kind to someone who meant nothing to him could be so, what would he be like toward the one he loved?
The idle question brushed through her mind, but she quickly shook her head and cast the thought aside.
"We've arrived."
Fortunately the carriage came to a stop before long.
He alighted lightly and walked around to her side.
"Allow me to help you."
"Thank you."
Just as she reached for the hand he offered, one of the horses gave a soft whinny and shook itself, and the carriage lurched hard enough to throw her off balance.
"Ah—"
Losing her footing, Delphina squeezed her eyes shut.
I'm going to fall.
The thought of sprawling inelegantly on the ground made her face burn.
Yet instead of pain she felt a soft cushioning, and at the same time a familiar scent washed over her.
When she cautiously opened her eyes, she found her face buried against his chest.
"Are you all right?"
"...Thanks to you."
All her efforts throughout the ride to keep her distance now seemed faintly ridiculous.
He set her carefully down. It felt strangely new; the last time she had come here had been when her mother was still alive.
It was close enough that she could have visited whenever she wished, and precisely because she could have come at any time, she had never come at all.
Accepting death had seemed easier than facing the fact that she alone remained in the world to revisit those happy memories.
"It's truly beautiful here."
This was the only villa in the immediate vicinity; farther along the lakeshore a few more could be glimpsed in the distance.
"Isn't it?"
She was grateful simply that another person's presence offered comfort.
As they drew nearer she saw that the weeds around the house had been neatly cleared and the flower beds out front carefully tended.
"It appears someone has been looking after the place until quite recently."
"...So it does."
She had expected the grounds to be overgrown after her long absence.
The only person who would have done this was her father. She had assumed that once he took a new wife he would have forgotten, yet perhaps he, too, had missed the memories of those days.
When they opened the door, the interior appeared exactly as it lived in her recollection.
Instead of dust, the scent of wood filled the air.
"After Mother passed, the pain was so great that I almost never spoke of anything connected to her."
"........"
"I wish I had tried to talk about her even a little."
A belated sense of regret welled up. Would anything have been different if she had? She did not know.
Having regressed so many times, the living faces of her parents had grown steadily fainter, and that filled her with sorrow.
"You must have been deeply loved."
Venturing farther inside, they came upon a portrait hanging in the center of the corridor—three figures together. She stood beside him as he looked at it.
"...Yes."
She saw her own childish face from a time when she had not yet known death. The gulf between that girl and the woman she had become left her feeling strangely unsettled.
It was not only the house that had been kept clean.
The pantry held food so that anyone might arrive at any moment, and the rowboat had been carefully maintained as well.
The two of them decided to attend first to the reason they had come.
They launched the boat and sat side by side. As he worked the paddles, the craft glided smoothly forward, sending ripples spreading across the water.
"You know how to do so many things, Mr. Appiano."
"I learned whatever was necessary in order to survive."
With each stroke the veins stood out along the muscles of his forearms beneath the rolled-up sleeves. Caught by a desire that felt foreign even to herself, she clutched the fishbowl more tightly and turned her gaze outward.
"What a beautiful view."
Aquatic plants bloomed across the surface; the farther they went into deeper water, the more lovely the transparent lake and the distant forest became.
"Indeed."
Though he agreed, his eyes remained fixed not on the scenery but on her.
Sunlight glittered on the water's surface, shimmering with the soft breeze, and her hazel hair fluttered along with it.
Leaves that had been the tender green of spring were deepening into the rich verdure of summer under the bright light.
Again.
She had drunk water just before boarding the boat, yet her throat felt as if every drop had evaporated in an instant.
"Shall we release it?"
"...Gladly."
She parted her dry lips with difficulty. Delphina carefully lowered the fishbowl into the water.
As the bowl filled, the fish swam in uncertain circles for a time, as though lost.
Only for a moment, though. Then it turned toward the small opening and began to swim with fierce determination.
"There it goes."
"So it does."
Compared to its size, the lake was vast beyond measure. Inside the bowl the fish had looked large; in the open water it seemed impossibly small.
"Do you think it will survive?"
"It won't be as safe as the bowl, but if it does survive, it will grow without limit, just as you said—as large as it is meant to become."
With every powerful sweep of its fins the fish drew farther and farther away.
"I hope it lives with all its strength."
"It will."
"Thank you... for coming with me today."
Sunlight stretched long across the lake. Even without the paddles, a fair wind carried the boat along.
"The pleasure is mine."
He lowered his gaze and smiled. The cool, sharp lines of his face softened in an instant.
She looked at him afresh.
His naturally tousled dark-brown hair caught the light and shifted its sheen with every slight movement.
"Ah..."
When he raised his head, their eyes met—his deep blue gaze beneath dark brows.