The Serpent of Paradise - Chapter 42

“I’m dead….”

Yuri rubbed his neck as he watched the Edenhurst mansion draw closer. His original schedule called for ten days to finish his business in the capital, collect the new work, and return to Edenhurst. But now, Yuri was facing the Edenhurst mansion again after three weeks.

“How was I supposed to know everything would start blowing up like that?”

Had they done it because they knew Mikhail was absent? From the pier construction to the Imperial Palace picking fights with them, urgent matters that Yuri had to handle in Mikhail’s place kept arising while he was away. By the time he sorted everything out, ten days had passed since his intended return date.

As Yuri’s carriage approached the mansion, Mikhail himself, not the underbutler, was waiting at the entrance with his arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe. The moment the carriage stopped, Yuri practically tumbled out and stood before Mikhail.

“Wait! This isn’t my fault!”

“I know.”

“…Pardon?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t investigate when you were ten days late? I’ve only heard the general outline of what happened in the capital, so hurry inside. I want a detailed report.”

With that, Mikhail went inside. Yuri had expected Mikhail to grab him by the collar and shake him the moment he arrived, so he awkwardly ordered the servants to unload his luggage before following him in.

***

Mikhail sat in the drawing room and listened to Yuri’s report. In truth, the incidents in Sokolov weren’t so much serious as troublesome. None caused significant damage, but they all needed to be dealt with quickly on the spot.

As he assessed the situation and checked how Yuri responded, Mikhail flipped through the documents.

“Good. Those matters are settled now… I’ve wanted to ask this for a while. What is that stack of papers beside you? It doesn’t seem related to work.”

“How could it be unrelated? It’s what you ordered me to investigate.”

“I did?”

When Mikhail looked uncertain, unable to remember ordering that many documents separately, Yuri lifted the entire stack and dropped it heavily in front of him.

“That Dalby or whatever its name was. These are the records about that horse. There was an enormous amount of material. Hiring copyists cost quite a bit too.”

Mikhail looked at the tall stack of papers, then turned his gaze to Yuri.

“So, to summarize?”

“Pardon?”

“You must have read through them at least once on the way here. Was there anything unusual about this horse called Dalby?”

Yuri had read them, but for some reason, it felt as though all the effort he put into studying them on the journey was being compressed into nothing. But what could he do? This was part of his job too.

“Honestly, his record was impressive. Count Lauderdale apparently paid a great deal of money for him after he was injured and forced to retire. Since he was male, he was highly valuable as a breeding stallion. But apparently, the count rarely used him for breeding and mainly rode him himself. As for anything unusual, they say he was incredibly intelligent. He controlled all the other horses in the stable, and whenever one of them became unruly, he would approach and calm it down himself. The records say both the trainers and jockeys had an easier time while Dalby was there.”

“What else?”

“Well… judging by the anecdotes, he was practically human. Whenever the trainer tried to find which horse had chewed through all the tack, Dalby would grab the trainer’s clothes in his teeth and lead him to the guilty horse. He was also rather timid, so if a person or horse was injured and bleeding, he refused to go near them. And he was apparently sensitive about the freshness of his feed. If the fodder was even slightly spoiled, he would never touch it again.”

“….”

The more Yuri spoke, the stranger it seemed to Mikhail. Dalby was clearly an exceptionally intelligent horse, just as Catherine said. Yet a horse like that threw its owner?

Mikhail recalled the forest where he saw Anastasia when he first came here. Although it was called a forest, it was originally a hunting ground. Riding accidents might be common, but hunting grounds attached to noble estates were usually maintained over several generations and cleared of hazards.

Yet in such a place, an intelligent horse threw the count, and by sheer bad luck, the count struck his head against a broad rock on the ground and died.

‘I should go and see it for myself.’

He couldn’t ask the countess or her two daughters where the count died.

“Yuri, find some people who used to work at Edenhurst and bring them here.”

“Pardon? What sort of people?”

“I heard the stable hands and gamekeepers were all dismissed for failing to manage things properly when the count died. Find them and bring them here.”

When Mikhail’s expression turned serious, Yuri’s face stiffened as well.

“…Do you suspect something?”

“Miss Catherine said something strange. When the horse that threw Count Lauderdale was caught in the forest and brought back, it went wild trying to escape.”

“Wasn’t that because it knew it had done something wrong? If the horse was that intelligent, it may even have understood what death was.”

“No. When it returned, it approached Miss Catherine without hesitation.”

“Then who was it trying to escape from?”

“Edward.”

“The son who died in the war?”

“Yes. She said the horse tried to flee when he came out carrying a gun.”

Since it accompanied the count through the hunting grounds, it would have understood what a gun was. It must have seen animals stop moving after someone aimed one and it made a loud noise. It would also have smelled the blood.

“So?”

“Was that horse truly afraid of the gun?”

At Mikhail’s words, Yuri involuntarily let out a sharp gasp. If the horse had been afraid of something other than the gun….

“Wait. Then, surely….”

“Yes. I think it may have been afraid of Edward.”

Most of the servants had left Edenhurst, and the only people who remained were the Lauderdale mother and daughters and their loyal servants. Because of that, Mikhail had no one he could ask about the count’s death.

He considered asking Anastasia, but she didn’t seem to have been treated well by the count, so he decided against needlessly making her recall the past. Besides, since she had lived practically confined, she was unlikely to know much about it anyway.

Then a village carpenter came to repair the storehouse. Pretending to be a servant, Mikhail approached him, offered him some decent vodka, and asked about Edenhurst. The carpenter seemed somewhat wary at first, but after a few glasses of vodka, he began talking freely.

“When the count died? Don’t get me started. The undertaker from our village said he fell so hard that the back of his head was completely crushed.”

“Would falling onto a rock do that to someone’s head?”

“How would I know? He fell from a horse, so perhaps a hoof kicked him. Anyway, I heard he was covered in blood and his face was so badly mangled that they couldn’t show it before burying him.”

After that, the carpenter merely rambled on about useless things, so Mikhail brought the conversation to a suitable end and returned.

“But… why would the son kill his father? He was the only son in this family. It wasn’t as though there was an inheritance dispute…. And don’t you remember when we first met the countess? She boasted about her dead son throughout the entire dinner. Anyone listening would have thought he was the archangel reborn.”

That was true. Hadn’t Catherine done nothing but praise her younger brother as well?

“When I saw his portrait before, he certainly looked like an angel…. No. Come to think of it, appearance and personality aren’t proportional.”

“Why are you looking at me?”

Because you’re living proof of that…. Yuri didn’t have the courage to say it aloud. He pressed a hand to his forehead. More work the moment he returned. As he rubbed a hand down his face, Yuri remembered that he had one more thing to report.

A short while later, Mikhail glared at Yuri in the library. “Are you dissatisfied with me?”

“Of course not. I merely did as you ordered.”

Avoiding Mikhail’s glare, Yuri whistled. In truth, he did feel slightly guilty. The books he bought indiscriminately filled three wooden crates.

Mikhail clicked his tongue briefly and pulled a book from one of the crates. Just how many Novgod language primers had Yuri bought? He rapidly flipped through one book after another. Then he found an easy book intended for tutors and placed it on the desk.

“I bought a great many because I wasn’t sure one or two would be enough. This one should be suitable for Miss Anastasia to begin learning from….”

“I don’t need it.”

“Pardon?”

“I said I don’t need it.”

“What do you mean?”

He no longer needed them? After thinking for a moment, Yuri nodded as though he understood.

“Learning isn’t easy. Still, I didn’t expect her to give up in less than three weeks….”

“They’re too easy.”

“…Pardon?”

“The books are too easy for Anastasia to read. She has already started reading novels.”

“Whaaat?”

Yuri found Mikhail’s words difficult to believe. Novgod was a highly irregular language. Even the same letter could be pronounced entirely differently depending on where it appeared. Moreover, individual words were longer than those in Ils or Flanre.

It was considered one of the most difficult languages for beginners, yet she had improved enough to read novels in three weeks?

“Does that even make sense? It took me six months to learn to read.”

“You were surprisingly stupid.”

“I was normal!”

Yuri jumped in protest, but Mikhail paid him no attention. Mikhail bent down and continued examining the books left inside the crates. They contained not only Novgod language primers but also a great many children’s stories.

‘She finished books like these by the fourth day.’

Over the past three weeks, Anastasia absorbed everything he taught her at a terrifying speed, like a dry cloth soaking up water. He never needed to teach her anything twice, so the lessons progressed quickly. In truth, it was difficult even to call them lessons. Whenever Mikhail read something aloud, Anastasia memorized the entire thing.

According to Natasha, except for the time she spent with him, Anastasia stayed shut in her room all day until bedtime, reading the books she brought from the library. Apparently, she also asked Natasha questions without pause.

‘Though most of the questions she asks Natasha are closer to common knowledge.’

Anastasia indiscriminately read through the books in the library. Her favorites were history books containing maps and travelogues about other countries. In particular, she gathered every book about Ils from the very first day and kept them in her room.

But there was one problem.

‘There are too many words whose meanings she doesn’t know.’

Being able to read wasn’t enough. Whenever Anastasia encountered a difficult word, she struggled because she didn’t know what it meant. So Mikhail brought over the enormous dictionary from the library and taught her how to use it. But the dictionary Yuri furnished was also designed more for display, with needlessly elaborate and complicated definitions.

As a result, Anastasia often began by looking up the meaning of one word and ended up having to search for the meanings of fifty more.

At that moment, Mikhail’s eyes lit up as he rummaged through the crate.

“This is….”