Chapter 43: 43

Chapter 43

On one hand, the Duke had quite a high expectation regarding Isaiah’s actions. That boy could have lost his squire position if the Duke had not been involved. But even knowing that, it wouldn’t be easy for him to act to protect Melody.

“Thank you. Duke.” Melody quickly bowed her head.

“Right,” the Duke changed the subject when he remembered something, “You will need clothes if you want to meet that squire boy.”

But the way he spoke was somewhat awkward, unlike how he had been speaking so far – like a theater actor who hasn’t mastered acting. Melody felt that his speech and the contents of those words were somehow unnatural.

“I… already have a lot of dresses.”

“But you don’t have winter clothes. You might catch a cold if you don’t dress warmly when you meet that boy.”

Oh… is that so?

“Right?”

Melody nodded as the Duke seemed to eagerly sympathize with her.

“It seems so….”

“It’s just the perfect timing.”

He handed her a thick catalog, saying that it was brought by the mailman by ‘accident’.

“I don’t know what’s in it as I haven’t looked at anything, but they say that the things girls use in winter are organized by purpose and design.”

Contrary to what he said, ‘I don’t know what’s in it as I haven’t looked at anything,’ the catalogue showed traces that it had been read hard enough for the corners to have creases.

Well, looking at how enthusiastically he read the catalog, the Duke must have thought of buying winter clothes for Loretta without anyone’s knowledge. Thinking so, Melody hugged the catalog and smiled. If that’s the case, then Melody would help him as much as she can.

“Don’t worry. I’m supposed to pick out the best winter clothes for Lady Loretta and tell Butler Grandpa, right? Finding the clothes that suit Lady Loretta is what I do best!”

The Duke wanted to say, ‘Right, and yours too,’ but Melody knocked on her chest and answered, ‘Leave it to me!’

… In the end, he couldn’t tell her.

“… I think the Duke and Melody should also have a conversation.”

Smiling quietly as he was organizing the bookshelves in the corner, Butler Higgins figured out the situation instantly. The Duke couldn’t deny what Higgins said at all.

 

* * *

 

Melody came out of the Duke’s office and went down to the first floor, but she unfortunately met Claude by chance. There was a good reason why Melody thought that this encounter was an unfortunate mishap. It was because she saw the accumulated records behind him on a trolley. They were the exact ‘records’ he was always telling Melody about.

“Thank you, Miss Melody.”

“… I didn’t say anything though?”

“I thought you said you’d help me.”

Melody was going to say, ‘What absurd thing are you talking about?’ until he adds these words,

“Do you still remember how I helped you during the day? It wasn’t a big deal.”

He was talking about him accompanying her to the prison. Is he pressuring me to repay the favor?

“Uh.”

When Melody couldn’t refute him with anything, he had the servant pushing the trolley leave.

“I will really only help you to transport them.”

Melody sighed softly before grabbing the trolley’s handle and started pushing it.

“Thanks. You are very kind.”

Despite forcing her to work, he said thanks with a brazenly soft smile.

‘Spiteful Young Master.’

Melody turned her head and looked at the trolley with the records. She thought that it was quite a lot of small record books at a glance, but when she started counting them while she was pushing the trolley, there seemed to be over 30 books. They were all very thick as well. Why is he taking these with him late at night?

“Are you still researching something for the academy?”

“No, I just started it out of personal interest.”

They arrived in front of his room at that moment. He pushed the half-open door with his shoulder and the two put the records they had transported on one side of his wide desk. The record books all looked as good as new as if they were maintained with magic. Despite their new looking exteriors, when Melody looked at the date written at the back of one of the books, it was quite an old record.

Melody opened the book on the very top out of curiosity. From the weather to what happened in a certain place, it was all detailed. It wasn’t very different from what Melody had transcribed so far.

“Is there a story in this record that might interest you?”

“As I said before, records are important. A few clues can help you find what you’re looking for.”

“What do you want?”

He didn’t immediately answer when Melody asked that question and he smiled a little strangely. Melody’s eyes grew widely for a moment. Then it came to her.

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“It was spring, when the heavy snow was falling from the sky!”

Melody shouted as she remembered her mother’s words. She didn’t know why she was listening back then. She had seen the records when it had suddenly snowed hard as she had transcribed so far. If you were a traveler, you would always write down the peculiarity of the day when thick, hard snow falls.

Melody rushed back and forth to the table, feeling like she caught something, and thought of a word that could be another clue.

“And, and… the soldiers that came outside were terrifying. I think she was probably running away from them. Why did she do that?”

Her mother was an expectant mother during that. She was also in a pitiful situation where she had no place to go. So if the soldier had found her, they would have tried to help her somehow.

“That’s probably because it was right after she had done something shady.”

“Do you mean to say that the purpose of the soldiers was to find my mother?”

“No.”

Claude shook his head slightly.

“It would have been on the record, and she would have been held accountable for her crime. But there was no such thing. Maybe it was natural that she was scared by their presence and tried to escape from them.”

“Then why did the soldiers walk around the village? Even on a day when it was heavily snowing?”

Melody was no longer agonizing by herself and she told Claude everything she heard from her mother. There may be minor clues she had missed, so she told him as much detail as possible.

Listening to her, Claude fiddled with his chin for a moment.

“Besides, it’s a little strange that no one opened their door when a pregnant woman came to knock in that weather.”

Even in the religions people commonly believe in, they teach people that they need to open their doors to people in need and treat them like guests. There is no ‘person in much more trouble’ than a pregnant woman who is about to give birth to a child.

“Maybe….”

He swept the surface of the high pile of records.

“There must have been an order – to not let strangers into their houses.”

“So the soldiers were roaming around the village?”

“Yes. To be exact, it was what the knights above them decided.”

(T/N: Knights are higher than soldiers in the past because of their valuable lineage that differentiate them from commoner knights and soldiers.)

In fact, it was rare for such an extreme order to be issued.

“That is, at the very least, an order issued when a member of the Imperial Family passes through a village. I have read it on record a few times.”

A very long time ago.

There was a case when an assassin stayed disguised as a guest in a villager’s house on the road where the Imperial Family was set to pass to try and assassinate them. The plan failed and was unsuccessful in the end, and he was arrested after injuring the landlord to keep his mouth shut. From then on, whenever a member of the Imperial Family goes on a trip far away, the village (or villages) on the road have been ordered to ‘prevent strange guests’. Of course, members of the Imperial Family rarely leave the capital, so it’s uncommon for such an order to be issued.

“And this order was given around the time Miss Melody was born, it was when His Majesty’ brother personally went down to Grimes County.”

Claude knocked down the high-stacked pile of records and picked up the ones with the Imperial Family’s pattern. Melody curiously looked at it as it was her first time seeing it, then he explained, ‘I borrowed it for a little bit.’

‘… Can the Imperial Family records be borrowed?’

Melody had such doubts for a moment. But it seems like exceptions are possible since it was Duke Valdwin who would be requesting them.

“Don’t look at me like that. I haven’t crossed the line that much.”

Melody shouted in surprise.

“In the end, it still means you have crossed the line!”

“Well. To put it bluntly, it’s only by the tips of my toes.”

He picked one of the royal records and handed it to Melody.

“Don’t you think you have permission to look at it if you put the tip of your toes on the line to see it?”

The words he said with a smile were rather surprising, so Melody couldn’t even bring herself to accept the record he was handing her.

“I, I don’t think so….”

What is forbidden is forbidden. Perhaps even the Duke, a principled ideologist, would think so.

“But, what is really important when dealing with the imperial family is that no matter how far you cross the line, if they can’t see it they can’t punish you. Therefore,” he held out the book to Melody again, “That line was easy to cross just for the pleasure of sneaking around. Here, take it.”

“You want me to be your accomplice, don’t you?”

Melody looked a little vexed. Claude might be forgiven due to the name of his family if this is discovered, but Melody had no such thing. She could be decapitated even before the Duke could use his power – because she is the child of a commoner, the child of a sinner, who stole the imperial records.

“No way. I never thought you’d be my accomplice from now on.” He said so in a gentle tone, with a very smug grin.

It looked like an obviously vicious smile to Melody, but if others saw it, they would have described it as a smile that looked sweet like cotton candy.

“Miss Melody is already an accomplice.”

“…!”

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