The Second Suicide (6/7)

The brand seared into his back throbbed. The moment it had been burned into his flesh, the boy had known his ill-starred destiny was about to turn even more to shit. The brand was like a full stop at the end of a sentence. Giscard wished for his own death. Please, he begged, let the god of death come and take me.

His life had always been this way. No salvation had ever come for him, nor any mercy.

A warm hand, the steady comfort of being held—everything a child was owed had been denied him. There had been one who paid him a feverish, obsessive sort of attention, but that one was already dead, head severed from body.

Let this damned life just end. Fourteen-year-old Giscard meant it with everything he had.

"That boy—treat him."

A young girl's voice. Some argument or other broke out, but the words carried clearly.

"Do you really think there's anything you're allowed to do?"

It was unmistakably a child's voice, yet cold to the bone. Giscard opened his eyes. He wanted to see the owner of a voice that carried something like fury in it. But the figure he found when he opened them was impossibly small.

A little girl.

He remembered her. She was the girl of that godforsaken household, the one who had been staring at him when he was first brought here. Dressed in fine clothes, she was gazing at him now with clear, limpid eyes. For some reason, the sight of them sent rage surging hot up his throat.

The same as always. Looking down at me. Pitying me.

She meant to pity him with her half-baked morality. There had been plenty like her around him. But it never lasted. People reached out their hands only to soothe their own uneasy consciences.

And she was the young miss of the very house that had reduced him to this wretched state.

Killing intent welled up in him without warning. Was it only now, faced with a creature weaker than himself, that the humiliation truly hit him? Even he couldn't say. With the eyes of a beast, he glared at the girl. She watched him blankly for a moment—then the corner of her mouth lifted.

"Hey. You can't kill me."

The girl had recognized his killing intent in an instant. Seemingly innocent, and yet not innocent at all. When she pointed a finger at the restraint collar locked around his neck, damn it all, the thing suddenly felt suffocating.

It was a first meeting that left behind strangely warped feelings and lingering questions. The pale blue moonlight from the window fell between them, and in its glow the girl's curly blonde hair shimmered. And her moonlit eyes, for some reason, held none of that sickening pity.

And still, tears spilled from the girl's eyes.

Who here is the one who should be crying? But even as he thought it, Giscard closed his eyes and listened to the crying figure say one thing.

"I'm sorry."

Strangely enough, it was kinder than anything he had heard in all his life.

"My lady, what is the meaning of this?"

"Hm? What do you mean?"

Diana's eyes went wide. Mirva had swept in and was addressing her—someone must have run to tattle the moment she returned home. Mirva's gaze was fixed on Giscard, who lay sleeping with his wounds freshly treated.

"Bringing that slave in here—into your room, of all places!"

"I brought him because I felt sorry for him, Mirva. Is there a problem?"

"This is the estate, and the estate is under my care!"

"My room is under my care. And even if it gets dirty, isn't that what I pay the staff to deal with?"

At Diana's words, Mirva's face soured. She looked at Diana the way one looks at a particularly stubborn headache.

"A girl bringing a strange man into her room—have you no shame!"

"Then I'll give him the room next door."

"My lady!"

Truthfully, Diana knew that this time Mirva had a point. The rumors that swirled around a noblewoman and a male slave were filth of the ugliest kind.

But Diana was only twelve. Even imagining such a thing was obscene. And for a mere lady's maid to put it into words—Mirva truly did overstep herself. Still, she could not cast this woman out yet.

Mirva was a maid who enjoyed her father's powerful protection. Until Diana took charge of everything in this house, Mirva was as good as its mistress.

"By the way, Mirva—what does 'bringing in a strange man' mean?"

So Diana feigned innocence, her eyes bright with curiosity. Asked so guilelessly, Mirva smiled.

"Why, it means taking in a lowborn man of no standing, like that one."

"I thought slaves weren't people?"

"They are men all the same, my lady."

"I see. So it's men that are the problem."

Diana nodded. Seeing her so docile, a satisfied smile spread across Mirva's face. And then Diana said, beaming:

"So what you're worried about, Mirva, is a man and a woman coupling."

"What?! My lady—such talk!"

Diana briefly considered how to phrase it, then decided to say it outright.

"You're worried we'd take off our clothes and mix our bodies together? Worried a body meant to stay pure would be defiled?"

"M-My lady, where did you ever learn such things!"

"I'm twelve. How exactly would I mix bodies with that boy? Do I look like I'd do something like that? And yet you look at me and think such things...."

At the young lady's icy tone—she who should have been either naive or petulantly rebellious—Mirva's face warped.

Since Duchess Brien had died, Mirva had been the little master of this estate. Winning the children over should have been easy as eating cold porridge, and in truth it had been. But for the past few days the girl had suddenly started climbing. Diana looked down at her with an expression Mirva had never seen on her before. Brow furrowed, Mirva regarded a challenger to her authority.

If the chit dared hurl insolence at her, she would tell the Duke all about Diana's selfishness. And if the girl squawked to the Duke, it would be all the same. She would show the thing—barely twelve—exactly what happened when it climbed. That was how completely Diana eluded her reading.

"That's just hurtful."

Diana pouted and burrowed into Mirva's arms.

"I'm not that vulgar a person. Mother taught me to be a quiet, dignified lady."

…

"The poor thing. For my twelfth-birthday present, I'll ask for him. He's as good as mine already."

When Diana acted so sweetly yielding, Mirva's expression thawed. That look on Diana's face moments ago must have been her imagination. However composed the girl pretended to be in public, she was still a green, unripe child.

"Very well. I trust you too, my lady."

"Then will you call a proper physician for him?"

"Our young lady does have far too soft a heart for her own good."

"You're the best, Mirva."

Mirva smiled and stroked Diana's hair. She had no idea how glacial Diana's face was beneath her palm.

The only reason Diana had left Mirva alone all this time was that the woman's end, in the end, had been miserable enough.

Diana sat in a chair. Sleep would not come. She still half-believed that if she closed her eyes and woke, she would find herself a corpse that could not die, lying in the royal castle of Lodbrok.

She had returned to the past—and Giscard Lodbrok, lying there asleep, was the proof of it. Diana gazed at the monster she had never been able to bring herself to touch, the monster who had dragged her life down into an abyss.

I hate you.

I hate you for killing my family. I hate you for destroying my house.

You had every reason. You couldn't have done anything else.

And yet why, of all women, did you give a child to that bitch? To her—the one who erased my child. Your taste is truly twisted. Did you hate me that much?

Diana simply kept looking down at the sleeping Giscard. Seeing that young face made it real: she had come back to the past. This place was not heaven. It was only the past, repeating itself.

Fate could not be changed—but what lay inside it, she told herself, could change. If the alternative was to despair within it and do nothing, she would rather be dead. Having survived, she would make things change. Looking at Giscard, covered head to toe in wounds, Diana thought:

First, protect Giscard from being tormented.

This was a country where slavery existed. Commoners looked down on and abused slaves—a class beneath even their own—as though it were only natural. The household kept almost no slaves, and so Giscard, its one and only, stood at the very bottom of the estate's hierarchy.

Someone anyone was free to treat as they pleased. His body was never without bruises. Young as I was, I had believed this was something beyond my power to stop, and had only ever treated his wounds afterward. But the abuse should never have been allowed to happen at all.

Diana forced herself to think. There was so little she could do. First she had to win her father's recognition, and make every soul in this household move like her own hands and feet.

And then she would ask her father to free the slave.

To do that, she had to protect this boy first. She could not shield him from every wound. But first, she had to make certain he never came to resent her—or this place.

So—I will protect this child.

Looking at him—the slave boy she had once pitied, the husband with whom she had once shared a bed, the hateful deceiver, the monster who had cast her into hell—Diana sneered at her own thoughts.

She had hated him that much, and now here she was, trying to protect him. How absurd.

And yet some part of her affirmed that this resolve was right. Before the chain of vengeance could begin, it was better to remove its cause. She could do this.

Just then, Giscard stirred. He let out several deep, heavy breaths, then shuddered violently and sat up. When his eyes opened, there again were those clear violet eyes. Diana expected them to turn beast-like at any moment. She thought he might glare at her with loathing—even attack her. His eyes swam with that much killing intent.

Still seated, Diana said, gently:

"Hello."

For an instant, his eyes wavered—because the word was the last thing he expected. Giscard rose from where he lay.

"You slept a full day. It's night again."

…

"Did people keep you from sleeping?"

Giscard looked up at Diana without a word. She paid it no mind. Instead, she held out to him a set of clothes already prepared.

"Change into these."

They were clean clothes. Giscard stared at them blankly for a while, then said:

"Why... are you giving me this?"

It was the first words he had ever spoken to her. A voice like scraping iron, but it carried clearly. Perhaps because he had not yet been trained as a slave, his manner was anything but respectful. Their first meeting had been crooked from the very start—and now the situation had changed.

Oblivious to that miraculous turn, Diana answered.

"Because I feel sorry for you."

The only emotion that could explain her behavior was pity. And in truth, pity was the right word. To be precise, though, her plans lay underneath it.

Receiving my pity—will you tremble with humiliation?

But the boy, unexpectedly, accepted it and put the clothes on. She could not tell what he was thinking.

She had expected him to stare at her like a beast and bare his aggression, as he had at their first meeting, but Giscard did not. Diana looked at her monster. Under the pale blue moonlight that heralded dawn, the girl bowed her head as though donning a mask, and approached him.

His gaze as he looked up at her, face a wreck, was too clean, too calm. Diana reached out to the restraint collar on his emaciated neck. A slave's collar was a thing of magic, and only the head of a household held the key that could release it. For a long while, Diana fiddled with the little blue bell dangling from the collar.

A cruel magic, devised both for when a slave turned aggressive against its master and for when a master wished to punish a slave.

It was utterly horrifying. Both the young Diana of then and the Diana of now thought so. She wanted to unlock it this very moment, but alas, her father carried the key on his person at all times. The one time she had freed him in her past life, she had been truly lucky—he had left on a journey without it, the first time in years.

"It must have hurt so much."

My monster. Your revenge succeeded. Because I came to understand, just a little, what torments you endured. Because the collar taught me a misery deeper than any beating—the wretchedness of wearing a leash. That is why I pity you now, this much.

At those words, Giscard lifted his head and looked at Diana. The round-cheeked girl, eyes cast down, kept stroking the neck of the boy who towered over her.

"And what is it you think you know?"

After a long silence, that was what finally came out of Giscard.

"You're right. Even pretending to understand you would be a deception."

…

"And still—and yet—I want to walk the right path."

What is she saying? A cruel crack split across Giscard's face. A foolish girl—a perpetrator herself—spouting pretty platitudes. Surely that was all she was to him. But Diana had wanted to say these words, no matter what.

"Because right now, you've done nothing wrong."

…

"Just know that much."

At her words, Giscard's face remained puzzled. To him, it was a riddle.

Her father—Duke Brien—was a political animal of a noble, through and through.

Yet his life had not been smooth either, for generations of family heads had blundered the house to the very brink of bankruptcy. Because of that, he had swallowed the family's humiliation and married the daughter of a wealthy merchant—a house that had purchased a minor title of nobility—and only thus restored its fortunes. What remained was honor. Everything the Duke had done, he had done to win the trust of royalty. In the end, he became the political mentor to the King of Farnborough, and his house one of the kingdom's foremost duchies.

Though he had married the merchant's daughter to save the family from ruin, the union had produced three children. He was not a man for tender words, but he cherished what was his. When his wife fell ill, he floundered helplessly, bought up every fine medicine money could find, and laid them before her. He kept vigil at her side until her final breath.

Diana remembered the days when, gruff as he was, he would sometimes rest a hand on her head and tell her she had done well.

The only love he knew how to give his children was to grant them the best of everything. A luxurious mansion, the finest education, clothes sewn only from the finest cloth, a bed stuffed with the soft down of goslings—all of it.

But Duke Brien wanted his children to look as special as his resplendent house. Diana knew this. He had trained her ruthlessly, instructing her never to show her grief and to live as a noble ought.

She knew, too, that he had been so severe for fear she might be scorned as a merchant's daughter.

A man more aristocratic than anyone, yet at times frugal; a man who opposed slavery, yet took in the very slave who would bring his house to ruin.

Her father had always been a man of such contradictions.

"Diana. Are you listening to me?"

A father with that much tenderness in him—why did he bring Giscard home that day? Even if the King did bestow the slave, why in such a horrific state....

"Diana."

"Yes, Father."

Demure as her answer was, the Duke's brow remained creased.

"Playing the fool won't solve anything. Focus."

"I'm sorry."

"Did I not tell you to get rid of that slave? You said so with your own mouth."

…

"And now you've taken that slave into your room? It is only because you are young that I do not even wish to imagine what obscene rumors might spring from it."

"I'll instruct the household staff to hold their tongues."

"Diana. How dare you—!"

"Father, you always taught my brother: whatever you fear, you must face and trample underfoot. I am only trying to follow that lesson. I want to throw this uneasiness away."

Diana smiled with deliberately exaggerated brightness. When her face appeared to demand praise on the spot, Duke Brien seemed, for once, at a loss for words.

"You still haven't given me my twelfth-birthday present, Father."

…

"Give me that slave."

"I'm sorry, Diana, but that slave is meant for your brother's use. He was to serve as a whipping boy. He is not your toy."

She bowed her head low. Duke Brien's mind was made up. And a whipping boy, of all things. Brother Emil was hopeless enough at his lessons.... Diana shook her head.

"I'll do my best to fill Mother's place as well."

…

"So well that no one feels her absence."

…

"I have nothing that is mine."

"I was not aware the clothes on your back were not yours."

"Father!"

"Don't whine! And doing well in your mother's place is simply your duty."

"I will attend Her Highness the Princess's birthday party."

At that, the Duke's face turned puzzled. It was the look of a man asking how she could possibly know of it. Naturally—around this time in her first life, her father had proposed that she visit the palace once more over this very matter. And Diana, of course, had refused, for she had been laughed at by Her Majesty the Queen.

The Princess was ill at ease with men. To put it precisely, she feared them. She had once nearly lost her life to a male assassin. That was why her father, too, was at a loss—unable to present gifts to her himself, unable to hold a conversation with her.

"You... you will do it?"

"Yes."

"Well, I never...."

Confusion lit Duke Brien's face. And no wonder: his options were to take a noblewoman as his partner, or a trusted woman from among his vassals—and either choice would breed the scandal of 'remarriage.'

In the past, Mirva had gone with her father. Her family, too, had fallen to ruin, but she was a noblewoman all the same.

So that was how Mirva came to be trusted.

Diana let out a small sigh.

"Trust me, Father."

Diana's voice was earnest. Duke Brien studied her for a long, long moment, and then at last he smiled.

"Yes, yes."

Being twelve, being without any ability of her own—none of that meant she would sit idle. If she had no authority to free Giscard, then obtaining that authority as quickly as possible was what mattered.

She had to show her father, beyond any doubt, that she was no ordinary twelve-year-old. Only then could she take control of this estate.

"That raving lunatic!"

Mirva's face flushed crimson as she fumed. Glaring venomously at the maid who had brought the news, she hurled her teacup. Crash! The pristine white cup shattered to pieces.

"What are you standing around for? Clean it up!"

At her shrill words, the maid hastily ducked her head.

"That timid little miss is attending? Truly?!"

"Yes...."

The maid, still on her knees among the shards, nodded. At the sight, something murderous rose in Mirva's face. There was a dull crunch—and blood spattered.

"Agh—aaagh!"

The maid screamed. Mirva had stepped down on the hand clutching the shards of glass. The pain was so great the girl could say nothing—one wrong word and she would be dragged to the punishment room for a brutal whipping.

The expensive teacup, an asset of the ducal house, and the precious tea leaves within it—all of it was as good as Mirva's. In the Brien ducal residence, which had no proper mistress, the queen was Mirva. The true mistress, the young lady, was young and powerless still. And besides, Mirva was....

"To think she'd suddenly started getting in my way!"

She shrieked at the top of her lungs. No maid would ever dare challenge Mirva's absolute power. And even when the young lady grew up, Mirva had no intention of sitting quietly by.

Mirva ground her teeth. Diana Brien. A timid young lady with no backbone to speak of. Toying with one such girl should have been child's play. The child mourned her mother's absence, so Mirva had believed that a show of maternal warmth would make the girl follow her.

She lifted her foot off the maid's hand.

"Oh my. My apologies."

…

"Do wipe that blood off properly."

Watching the maid sob, she settled back into her seat. She knew all about the Princess's circumstances, too. She had assumed the palace visit would fall to her. It had been an opportunity.

But in the end, that girl had stolen it from her.

"Takes after her mother. Insufferable, the both of them."

Diana's mother, and Diana too—the two were so alike it made her sick. To think the chit would snatch away her opportunity without so much as blinking. What was His Grace the Duke thinking? She had told him to discipline the girl over that slave business, and instead he had handed her a chance to attend the party?

"Ah. I've just had a wonderful idea."

Mirva nodded to herself. The maid looked up at her with anxious eyes.

"Our young lady must go to the palace dressed as beautifully as she possibly can. And as for accessories—that one would be best."

She smiled, thin and cold.

"What's he doing these days?"

The maid attending her faltered at Diana's question. He could only mean that slave. She knew, because Diana had asked so often it was enough to make one sick of it.

"Th-the slave is working in the barn right now, I've heard."

"I see. Has anyone hit him?"

"I wouldn't know, my lady."

Until Duke Brien's permission came through, there was nothing Diana could do. All she could do was wish the days away.

Every time she heard news of him, it sometimes felt as though a corner of her heart caved in.

"My lady, why on earth does someone as precious as you trouble herself over that slave?"

…

"You should only look at good things, my lady. Precious things."

For an instant Diana wondered whether the girl was mocking her, and searched her face—but the maid seemed sincere. The other maids attending her nodded along. For some reason, their concern looked earnest. Diana's lips curled in a cold, mirthless smile.

It was a thought Diana herself had always carried.

If she simply helped Giscard, that would be the end of it. Whatever befell him, all she had to do from now on was save him. He had suffered unjust violence—but had she not suffered the same? The man who had killed her family and her siblings deserved to suffer far more. She could have abandoned herself to that sadistic thirst for vengeance, and no one could have blamed her for it.

But she knew she must not.

She had not suffered as Giscard had, but she had suffered enough. She could not possibly smile down at another's agony.

So that's why this hurts so much.

She could simply kill him and be done with it—yet here she was, going through all this tedious trouble. And so, without meaning to, Diana let the words slip out.

"Because... I just can't allow it."

…

"A person was dragged here like a dog. And beaten like a dog. I—hate that."

The maid stared at Diana, unblinking, for a long moment. Then something cracked across her face. Diana turned to the mirror. The pale sky-blue dress, tinged with violet, suited her beautifully. The maid who had been combing her hair gathered it up and tied it back. Seeing the maid take out a necklace, Diana asked:

"By the way—how did you hurt your hand?"

In the same instant, every maid's gaze converged. The hand holding the necklace froze.

"I cut it cleaning up the glass."

"Oh dear. I'll speak to the head maid myself—take two days' rest."

"N-no, there's no need!"

The maid shook her head desperately and fastened the necklace around her lady's neck. A milky-white pearl necklace. Diana studied it closely for a moment, then looked at the maid. The maid hesitated, meeting her eyes with the expression of someone who wanted to say something.

"Ah—would you pack my bag for me?"

"Pardon?"

Diana smiled.