novelraw Chapter 188: Shadow Peace - Winter of Aquitaine (1)
Chapter 188: Shadow Peace - Winter of Aquitaine (1)
Episode 188. Shadow Peace - Aquitaine's Winter (1)
“Congratulations on coming of age, Louis.”
Christine smiled and offered her glass, and Louis returned the smile, raising his own glass for a toast.
Louis tasted the wine in his glass and looked a little surprised.
The drinks he sometimes had with the soldiers on the battlefield, so as not to seem like a pampered noble, were just bitter.
“This is delicious, isn't it? It's sweet…”
Christine replied with a slight smile.
“I tried to pick something you'd like. It seems I chose well.”
Louis felt as if he was still a child and subtly avoided her gaze.
Still, it tastes good.A different kind of luxury from the cocoa Giselle Davi used to make…
…But that cocoa was delicious, too.
“What are you thinking about?”
Hah, what was he thinking in front of his sister.
Louis cleared his throat and answered.
“Ah, it’s nothing. Just a fleeting, useless thought…”
“Really? For a useless thought, your expression seemed to soften.”
Louis’s face flushed.
“N-No, it’s really nothing.”
Instead of pressing further and adding to his embarrassment, Christine simply smiled lightly, savored her wine, and waited.
Relieved, Louis wiped his face.
His sister hadn't said much, yet he felt as if his feelings were completely exposed, and the heat on his face wouldn't subside.
In the end, it was just his one-sided emotion.
From Giselle Davi's perspective, Louis d'Aquitaine was, at best, a subordinate or a little brother to be looked after.
Worse, if one were to be precise, Louis d'Aquitaine was even involved in the death of her sister.
Nevertheless, until the moment they parted at the disbanding ceremony in the Capital City, Giselle treated him without change.
…As a subordinate to be considered, and a little brother to be cared for.
Not a real brother or anything of the sort, in fact one could say their relationship was one of favor and debt, and yet she was someone who had shown him kindness.
Louis took another sip of wine.
Sweet and smooth, it was much weaker than the soldiers' drink, but it was still alcohol, and the buzz was definitely setting in.
There was another such person right in front of him.
His half-sister.
Not his full-blooded sister.
Rather, he was the son of an enemy, the son of the mother who tried to kill her sister to pass the countship and the merchant guild to him.
A being who should be hated, not cared for; there was no reason to look after him.
Most of the Aquitaine vassals who had been favorable to Louis were implicated in his mother's rebellion and summarily executed.
There were survivors, but they distanced themselves from him, as if they had never catered to his mother or doted on him.
After his mother's death, Louis was a stain in Aquitaine.
A being that should have been erased, but was saved by his master's incomprehensible mercy.
He knew that the Aquitaine vassals had advised his sister to eliminate him.
In fact, he couldn't have not known, as they'd let such talk slip as if for him to hear.
He understood with his head.
He was, after all, the child of the mother who had done such things.
The turn of former favor into neglect, the hostility toward a being who could be a threat to their lord—it was all a perfectly natural consequence.
But even if he understood it intellectually, it was impossible for it not to be painful.
Because he was struggling, he didn't even want to be interested in the affairs of the Aquitaine merchant guild his sister desired.
It was true he was interested in magic, but in reality, wanting to study abroad in the Magic Kingdom was closer to wanting to be free from Aquitaine.
He thinks his sister must have known. Nevertheless, she sent Louis to the Magic Tower.
To do that, she must have spent a considerable amount of money and braved the countless objections from her vassals.
Louis felt the unique bitterness of alcohol hidden within the sweet, smooth taste and aroma.
Come to think of it, he should have done it long ago.
Perhaps he should have said it on the very day he survived.
It might be too late, but…
Louis bowed his head to Christine, who was still looking at him with a smile, and said the words he had to say.
“Thank you, sister.”
“Hm?”
“...For protecting me until I came of age. And for indulging my childish wish to escape from Aquitaine. ...And for everything else.”
Louis kept his head bowed, and when his sister said nothing, he slowly raised it.
Christine was frozen, her eyes wide.
Seeing his sister literally frozen, having lost her usual natural smile, Louis was the one who became flustered.
…Had he ever seen his sister this shocked?
It seemed like the kind of expression one would only see when Marquis Lafayette was on the brink of death.
Finding it absurd that he could recall it so easily because it had already happened several times, Louis let out a small laugh.
“Now, I should probably repay the favor, right? So…”
He had made this decision a long time ago.
He had been waiting a long time for the day to say this, but he never expected to do it while his sister wore such an expression.
The situation felt awkward, so Louis scratched his head and spoke.
“Um… If there’s anything you want from me, sister, please tell me. I’ll do my best to grant anything within my power.”
Christine remained frozen and silent.
Just as Louis was starting to lose confidence, wondering if he had done something wrong, Christine finally spoke again.
“…A favor?”
“Yes?”
Is that where the problem starts?
As Louis grew bewildered, Christine uttered something even more shocking in a slightly trembling voice.
“You don’t resent me?”
At his sister's absurd question, Louis’s mouth fell open.
This sister of his truly possessed an extraordinary mind, but perhaps because of that, she sometimes had an incomprehensible way of thinking about strange things.
“Resent, resent…”
Resentment.
It would be a lie to say he didn't feel any at all.
Even if she had every reason to do it, an 8-year-old boy who watched his mother get killed before his eyes couldn't not think such thoughts.
But, was the favor he received not too great to resent her for that alone?
Louis said with a face that looked quite wronged.
“It seems the sister I know saw me as such a selfish and ungrateful brother.”
“I… your mother…”
“I know. And yet, you acted as if you were living on because you couldn't die, and still protected me to the very end.”
As his sister was being frustrating, Louis, who had snapped at her without realizing it, caught himself— and shut his mouth.
This wasn't the atmosphere he was trying to create.
But Christine, rather than being angry at Louis's reaction, was flustered.
“I, when you came of age…”
“When I came of age?”
“…I was going to give Aquitaine back to you.”
“What!?”
This time, Louis couldn't hide his shock.
When she suspiciously showed him all of Aquitaine's affairs and subtly taught him the work, he thought Christine intended for him to help with the merchant guild's business when he grew up.
But, give what back?
Louis downed the rest of the wine in his glass in one gulp.
Forget sweet, smooth, high-class wine; the liquid that burned its way down his throat was no different from the cheap hard liquor the soldiers drank.
And it filled Louis with just as much heat and courage—no, recklessness.
“Sister, are you crazy?”
“I am not crazy.”
“Then how could you think of such a thing?”
Christine fell silent for a moment, then spoke.
“Because father, intended to pass it down to you.”
Louis was dumbfounded.
“You’re the one who saved the merchant guild when that father was holed up in a back room, sister, aren't you? You’re the one who grew it to the point where it now sways the economy of Francia, aren't you? No, before that, if I, who just came from messing around at the Magic Tower, suddenly took over the family and the merchant guild, do you think the vassals would say, 'Yes, of course!'?”
“…I was going to help you. If it was truly difficult, you could even hire me as the merchant guild’s manager.”
This wouldn't do; he couldn't understand what was going on in his sister's head.
Louis sighed deeply and shook his head.
“I won’t do it. And I shouldn’t. In the first place, I’m the son of a sinner, and you’re just a victim. This, this is strange no matter who looks at it.”
After a long silence.
Christine took a shallow breath and opened her mouth.
“…I knew your mother was going to poison father. Knowing everything, I pretended not to know and left for Lafayette. That's how I was able to secure the ledgers of your mother's dealings with Abyss Corporation in advance, and I intended to turn the trap she set to frame me back on her.”
Christine’s way of speaking was completely different from her usual elegant and gentle tone.
“So, Louis. From the beginning, I was no innocent victim. I knew your mother was targeting me, that father had abandoned me, and I induced the best possible situation to seize control of the family with the vassals' support while avoiding the stigma of a kinslayer.”
In a desperate tone, as if spitting out a confession, his sister confessed.
“I am also a sinner. An accomplice who abetted—no, condoned—even father’s death because I didn’t want to be betrayed and killed by my family, because I didn't want to bear the stigma. …The enemy who took everything from you. So, I have no right.”
After she finished speaking, Christine bowed her head to Louis and did not raise it.
Louis was silent for a moment.
Only then did the outline of what his sister had been thinking all this time become clear.
Christine Aquitaine didn’t protect him out of simple, pure goodwill.
To his sister, he was a kind of minimum line of conscience she had to protect.
Because his sister thought of herself as a sinner, she came up with the idea of saving her innocent younger brother—who had only seen blood between their mother and her—and restoring the rights he should have originally had.
Louis took a slow, deep breath and spoke.
“Sister, I didn't see you that way.”
Louis truly couldn't hide his extreme disappointment.
“You’re more foolish than I thought.”
“…What?”
Christine, who had raised her head unknowingly, wore a blank expression.
His sister was a monstrous being, beyond the norm, even in his eyes, who was recognized for his talent at the Magic Tower.
She had probably never heard someone call her foolish in her entire life.
So Louis spoke with the utmost force.
“It’s a waste of the years you’ve spent under such a foolish misunderstanding, sister.”
Louis looked at Christine, who was reeling from his verbal abuse, and asked emphatically.
“Do you really believe that I was completely oblivious to everything?”
Louis hadn't grasped the details of his mother's plot to assassinate Christine, or to poison their father and frame Christine for it.
Yvonne was not careless enough to leak such plans to a young child who was ignorant of the world and simply adored his sister.
However, Louis had definitely sensed the omens, at the very least.
There was the mother who told him to get along with his sister and smiled contentedly watching Christine care for Louis.
And there was the mother who, after Christine left, would shower Louis with affection while whispering to never trust his sister; both existed.
The power struggles and friction between the vassals loyal to Christine and those loyal to his mother and Louis were visible even if he didn't want to see them.
Thinking back now, it wasn’t that he knew nothing from the start. He couldn't have not known. Louis d'Aquitaine had been brilliant enough since childhood.
Even though it was plainly visible, even though he could feel the unsettling air on his skin.
With the selfishness of a child who, receiving the favor given by his mother and sister, wished for the hollow happiness on the brink of ruin to continue, he ignored and turned away from it all.
He didn't try to think, and he didn't try to see.
The result was the tragedy at the Aquitaine estate, in the winter when he was eight.
At the very least, if he had made even a small effort to understand the situation, it might not have come to that.
At the very least, if he had tried to persuade his mother that he didn't want his sister to die.
If he had, Louis could at least have stood proudly before his sister, claiming his innocence.
Perhaps, his sister would not have had to suffer from guilt for so many long years.
Louis d'Aquitaine's time is bound to that winter's day.
The sight of his mother and the vassals who cherished him being massacred before his eyes is a burden he must carry forever, one he can never forget.
But the emotion that winter scene planted in Louis was not resentment for his sister, but a deep, dark regret for himself, for being intoxicated by overt kindness and ignoring the turmoil lurking beneath.
Louis looked into Christine’s wavering eyes.
A monstrous genius, the heartless Black Witch of Aquitaine.
How vicious the world's judgment is.
Their judgment is viciously similar to his past self, who only saw the outward appearance of his sister and mother giving him favor as if nothing was wrong.
His sister is certainly a genius who has far surpassed ordinary humans, but she couldn't become a heartless monster.
If she had, perhaps Christine Aquitaine as an individual would have been a little happier.
His sister is nothing more than a common, selfish human found anywhere, endlessly soft to those precious to her, and capable of being cruel to others for their sake.
Her tragedy was simply that, despite having such ordinary emotions, she possessed a monster-like brain capable of ideas and actions others couldn't even conceive.
Having ordinary emotions and the awareness that she is committing a clear evil act, she thinks of herself as evil.
Thinking herself evil, she considered Louis innocent, took all the responsibility upon herself, and has lived steeped in guilt.
Did Marquis Lafayette know of his sister’s thoughts?
Probably, he thinks he did.
The reason he didn't stop or dissuade her was because he, too, was his sister's accomplice that winter.
As an accomplice, he couldn't lift the burden from his sister's heart.
“I’m also a sinner who could have prevented that tragedy, but didn't try to know and didn't stop it. In the first place, there was no innocent person in that blood-soaked winter.”
If that was the case, then lifting this heavy burden from his sister's heart was something only he could do.
Louis recalled the tragedy that occurred in Aquitaine ten years ago, that gruesome scene.
His sister ordering executions in a blood-stained dress, and the snowfield stained with the blood of his mother and vassals.
Just as his was, his sister's time is also trapped in that moment.
To his sister, still steeped in that guilt, wandering in an eternal winter.
“We were all at fault. So, I will forgive you, sister.”
He asked, hoping that Aquitaine's endless winter would finally end.
“Sister, will you please also forgive me, and my mother?”