Winter Bud - Chapter 80

The first time he saw Nanna was on a spring day when he hadn’t yet even reached adulthood. He was abandoned in Everhardt’s territory like a wounded beast. Aldermort was a place quite far from his hometown. Of course, there had once been a time when his family ruled parts of the eastern regions, but that was before the Old Empire even came into being.

Orestes was seventeen that year. Even wearing armor, the stab wound to his abdomen was severe. Unable to pull out the blade lodged beneath his solar plexus, he wandered aimlessly on horseback. He didn’t know how far he’d strayed from the encampment.

He was effectively at death’s door. It was difficult for him to think clearly. Even if he was about a handspan larger than the average man, he was still only seventeen. His mother would always say he was as big as a house, click her tongue, and wonder how he’d grown so large when she hadn’t even fed him much milk, but thinking back now, he was nothing more than a child at that age.

Maybe it was because of his rash youth. Even after making foolish choices again and again, he never came to his senses. At the time, he was fighting a war in the eastern border regions together with the attendant knights who usually served him.

Around then, Enroy had to suppress forces trying to split the empire, acting as the shield of the former emperor. From the age of thirteen, when he first entered the war as a page, up until now, he’d naturally killed the enemies of the former emperor. That was everyday life back then.

So he judged that the ones who attacked the encampment must’ve been enemies of the former emperor as well. He knew there were forces within Enroy that wanted him gone. More precisely, Baroness Giyos, his father’s mistress, wanted to make her own son the heir.

Even so, he hadn’t thought that woman would be so bold. He saw the burned encampment and the soldiers slaughtered without resistance. The attendant knights who’d stayed by his side to protect him were also scattered about, dead.

He thought he’d barely escaped with his life, but with wounds this deep, he didn’t think he’d survive anyway. That was even more so in a boundless field like this. Covered in blood, he kept bleeding. The horse was also extremely exhausted. If he let go of the reins, it felt like the horse would stop walking.

Orestes gasped for breath as he felt his vision covered as if by heat haze. Unrefined breaths slipped out between his parched lips. He tried to close his eyes and open them again, but couldn’t reopen them. Just like that, he lost consciousness and toppled into a field thick with flowers and grass.

“A-are you awake?”

When he opened his eyes again, what filled his vision was a high ceiling. A soft voice reached his ears. The quiet voice tickling his ears belonged to a young girl. He turned his gaze and looked at her. Sky-blue eyes were set clear and bright like round glass marbles. When their eyes met, she flinched as if frightened, but even so, she didn’t retreat easily.

Orestes saw thick, bushy silver hair. A face like white pebbles buried in wavy hair was a rare beauty. It was strange, because it was the first time he’d ever had such an impression of a woman. So this was how foolish men were by nature. Even after barely surviving the brink of death, what lingered in his mind was the thought that the girl before him was beautiful.

He blinked his heavy eyes at the girl, like a legendary beauty from a tale left by an ancient painter. The girl who’d been furtively staring at him got up and brought water.

“D-drink some water.”

“…Where are you going?”

His dry voice caught the girl. The girl hesitated, then said, ‘I’ll go call the young lady.’ Only then did Orestes look around. The room he was in was small, but it looked like a guest room that the servants’ hands had diligently tended. The wide bed was soft, and the wall, without a single cobweb to be seen, was clean.

There were no especially luxurious extravagances in sight, but the table that occupied one corner of the room and the still-life painting hanging on the wall were enough to make it feel like a space meant for a guest’s rest. He turned his gaze. The girl, blinking, lowered her eyes and neatly clasped her hands.

From the looks of it, the girl in front of him was a servant of this house. Since she wasn’t wearing a maid uniform, it wasn’t easy to grasp her identity at a glance, but from what she said about ‘calling the young lady,’ it meant she had a separate mistress she served. He lowered his gaze slightly and examined her closely.

The girl, who’d tied her fluffy, cloudlike hair with a sky-blue ribbon, was wearing a linen chemise dress. The modestly cut décolletage had fine lace attached, and the sleeves cut like waves also had lace in the same way. Rather than any maid, she seemed like a personal maid who served her mistress.

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“…No,” Orestes answered.

The girl hesitated, then opened the door and left. Orestes turned his head again. He wondered when the girl would appear again. As he stared up at the ceiling and passed the time, it felt like he was waiting for her, and he didn’t like that. Because he’d never waited for anyone like this in his life.

Had about half an hour passed? Before long, he heard a knock. He listened. The voice he’d heard earlier said she was going to open the door and come in. He didn’t bother to answer. He only lifted his heavy body wrapped all over in bandages.

“Nanna said it’d be hard for you to get up. But I guess you can get up, at least?”

Orestes flicked his gaze at the name ‘Nanna.’ The girl who’d said she’d call the young lady was standing behind a girl dressed splendidly, like a shadow, with her hands neatly clasped. He glanced at the girl with her gaze lowered, then moved his gaze to the girl with long braided hair. The girl, who’d stuck star-like ornaments crafted from gold forget-me-nots into her tightly braided hair, was dressed in a light green satin dress.

Warm wheat-colored skin, delicate features. She was a girl with striking, bright green eyes and braided blonde hair. Anyone could tell the difference in rank between mistress and maid, but his eyes went to her maid. Orestes looked at the lively-looking girl, unlike his own introverted maid.

“Where is this?”

“Where do you think?”

“One of the territories ruled by an eastern house.”

“That’s right.”

She smiled brightly. She introduced herself as Stateira. With confidence, she said that if he knew even a little about the great houses of the east, it was a name he would’ve heard before. Indeed, Orestes knew her. When he studied geography and history, he learned about the great houses that ruled the East. Just as his Enroy was the Grand Marshal of the North, from the early days of the Old Empire’s founding, the house appointed as governor of the east and made the administrator of Aldermort was Everhardt.

And Stateira was the duke of Everhardt’s only daughter, his sole child.

Orestes watched the girl smiling mischievously, then, without realizing it, felt his gaze drift behind her, and he bit down hard on his lip.

The Duke of Everhardt said he would willingly protect the Young Duke of the North. Since he recognized Orestes’s considerable military merit, he also saw through the ominous schism rising in the empire and the strife within the north.

He likely lived on the battlefield for half his life, but maybe because his standing was high, he was as clear on reason as he was on politics. Among people used to murder and arson, it was rare to find someone with such pragmatism and greed. No. There were quite a few such people, but there weren’t many who turned their head like a wolf the way the Duke of Everhardt did.

Orestes stayed wary of him, and yet he didn’t refuse the duke’s generous hospitality. As the duke said, Baroness Giyos, believing she had eliminated Orestes, killed his father to seize hegemony in the north. Outwardly, it was called a sudden death of unclear cause, but there was no one who didn’t think that sudden death was caused by poison.

So his father was assassinated by his mistress.

Orestes’s expression didn’t change even when the duke’s attendant knight brought news of his father’s death. He was the byproduct of a political marriage, born of the high houses’ political aims and their entanglement of interests. To his father, he was less a child than a piece of evidence of that relationship.

His father never showed him special affection or interest as he grew. Rather, he often said it was bothersome for him to stand out and ordered that he be raised outside the main castle of Tristain. The one who pushed back was his mother. Watching his father dote on Baroness Giyos and her son, she erupted in rage.

She also had a lover, and she didn’t need special affection from her husband, but she couldn’t stand by and watch him openly slight the son she bore, and try to drive him out beyond the main castle. She too was the daughter of a powerful family, a cherished only daughter who grew up receiving her parents’ devoted love. So there was no way she would quietly watch a husband who fought a battle of wills with her every time and scratched at her pride.