MB Chapter 17

Kolave Peroto, relieved of the last of his work for the evening, departed in high spirits, leaving behind him only the small, private regret that he had not managed to set Entzi's face alight with embarrassment before he went.

Entzi watched the spot where Kolave had disappeared with a cool expression, though the moment Goiyo called to him, his usual smile returned as naturally as breathing.

The bedroom was on the fourth floor, the topmost of the mansion. It was connected to the central staircase carpet on the first floor by a portal.

Only a handful of registered individuals could use it, Entzi explained, and proceeded to register Goiyo with it then and there.

A portal. Inside a mansion. However grand a mansion might be.

'Marrying a mage isn't so bad,' Goiyo thought.

At the far end of the fourth-floor corridor, two doors of nearly identical design faced each other across the hall. As with everything else in the mansion, both were carved with intricate patterns of exquisite refinement—though by now Goiyo had ceased to find such things remarkable.

"This is your bedroom."

"Ah—my bedroom. Is that door across the hall Annie's room, then?"

"Pardon?"

"Pardon?"

Both of them tilted their heads. They stared at each other with identically bewildered expressions.

"I thought I knew a reasonable amount about things, having spent a year in Runabern. But—do married couples in the capital keep separate bedrooms?"

"Ah. No. That's not quite the standard arrangement."

"Then are you expressing a preference—to sleep apart from me?"

"Mm. Not particularly, either..."

A brief silence fell between them. Goiyo's lips trembled, almost imperceptibly. The back of her neck grew faintly warm, and she was quietly grateful that her hair was long enough to conceal it.

She had grown so accustomed to separate rooms during her marriage to Therio that she had simply assumed the same arrangement would apply here. It was only upon seeing Entzi's baffled expression that she understood he had no such intention—and the realization brought a rush of mild embarrassment, her fingers curling involuntarily at her sides.

Entzi's gaze grazed briefly over the faint flush rising at Goiyo's neck. He looked away at once, pretending he had seen nothing, and smiled.

"Then sharing a bedroom would be perfectly acceptable?"

"Oh—yes, of course."

"I am honored, my lady."

Goiyo found it a thoroughly peculiar conversation.

Whatever he had arranged for all those servants, Entzi opened the door himself. Come to think of it, since they had first arrived at the mansion, she had received greetings from the staff but had been guided by none of them—it was Entzi Bethelgius who had shown her everything.

He was not a man with idle hours to spare, and he was even less likely to have developed a sudden desire to tour his own home. He was simply behaving as the mask required.

An exquisitely crafted mask of warmth. Bitter enough to taste.

"There's only one bed."

"It is a married couple's bedroom. Are you embarrassed?"

"Pardon?"

"Now that I look at you, it seems you embarrass rather easily."

Ah—so that's where the separate rooms remark came from. Leaning his shoulder against the wall beside the door, Entzi smiled that particular smile—the kind whose purpose was entirely transparent.

Why would someone so wholly innocent in these matters go to the trouble of teasing me about this specific subject? Regrettably, Goiyo Bethelgius was not an innocent person.

"It seems rather more overwhelming for Entzi than for me."

"For me? Even if the bed is rather grand, I've seen that sort of thing any number of times—"

"No. Not the bed. We'll be sharing a bed. And more than that?"

She had meant it as a tease, but the effect surpassed all expectation.

Entzi attempted to appear unaffected and failed entirely—he choked, bringing his hand to his face to cough dryly into his fist. The spectacle of a grown man in such obvious discomfiture was really something to witness.

'I've won.'

Since the subject had presented itself of its own accord, Goiyo resolved to raise the matter she had been putting off. It was a conversation she could no longer delay now that the wedding was behind them.

This had been a marriage of mutual convenience from the start. And even before her return to the past, there had been no child between Entzi and Melishi—she did not imagine he wished for one now.

What he did not know was that she was already aware of this.

It seemed more natural for her to be the one to ask. Goiyo said it plainly.

"Do you need a child?"

"...Pardon?"

"We are married, so it's a natural enough question. I have no intention of avoiding the duties of marriage. But the matter of children requires some care, I think, and I'd like to know your thoughts."

Entzi found himself briefly without words. Even a marriage of convenience was still a marriage, and he had not failed to give the matter of intimacy some consideration.

If he was being precise about it, the thought had crossed his mind as something unremarkable—everyone does it; there's nothing particularly significant about it, I suppose—and he had moved on. He did not regard it lightly. Not exactly.

Growing up, he had witnessed more than a few people who gave themselves easily and without thought. He had never wished to be like them.

He did not mean to disparage their values. But Entzi Bethelgius had always believed that such acts required a measure of responsibility.

In truth—if one were honest with oneself—it was less responsibility than something closer to fear.

He was fairly certain he had been born of a mistake.

The late Emperor had loved Entzi's mother, but he had almost certainly not wished for an illegitimate son. And yet Entzi had been born anyway, and then—

Entzi Bethelgius had married Goiyo Rubiette. With him holding the title, she had transferred her registry from Rubiette to Bethelgius, and changed her name with it.

There was no longer anything remarkable, in the eyes of any observer, about them having relations. He had lost the excuse of responsibility he had always hidden behind.

He had no intention of having a child. A vague, formless dread—an aversion he could not quite name—had long kept him at arm's length from intimacy, and from something even more unsettling: the possibility of loving someone.

But he had magic. A method of contraception approaching perfection.

Using magic for such purposes was uncommon. But he had felt the need, and had intended to do exactly that.

This marriage would not last indefinitely in any case. I'll say it's too soon—she'll understand. Or, if Goiyo said she wanted a child, he need only ensure one did not arrive.

He could be responsible for Goiyo Rubiette's life. He could not be responsible for Goiyo Bethelgius's.

For that reason, not having a child was the wisest course.

He had reached this conclusion without consulting her opinion. Taken purely as a matter of logic, Entzi still believed he was not wrong.

The position he occupied now could not have been reached through consideration for others. He had cut the throats of countless people and climbed up over their bodies.

If he had possessed a generous heart, Entzi would have abandoned his ambitions long ago—or found himself buried in the pile of corpses rather than standing atop them.

And from a purely practical standpoint, it was the better option for Goiyo as well. Raising a child alone, without someone to share the weight of it, was an extraordinarily difficult thing.

Besides—there was nothing of feeling between them. Nothing at all.

The probability that Goiyo Bethelgius would say she wanted a child was vanishingly small. Even if she did, it would be obligation speaking, nothing more.

And yet. Why should that small thought trouble him? In all his life, not once had emotion interfered with his work. That tiny, gnawing irritation was utterly foreign to him.

The name of the irritation was Goiyo Bethelgius—and for one strange moment, the syllables felt unfamiliar on his tongue in a way he could not account for.

He broke the silence, which had stretched a beat longer than it should have. Even he would not have been able to say whether the smile on his face looked quite right.

"No—I think it's... a little early for that."

"In that case, I'll take a contraceptive. There's one I'd like to obtain. Should I pass the request to Lukurue?"

"No—wait. Goiyo. I think there may have been a misunderstanding. When I said early, I meant to include that aspect of things as well. That is to say—"

"The marriage bed?"

"...Yes. That."

If they did not have relations, there was no need to discuss children at all. Their time together was not infinite to begin with—this is what he told himself, though even as the reasoning formed, it sat in him uncomfortably, like an excuse that knew what it was.

"Even a marriage of convenience is still quite new—I think it would be difficult, for both of us, at this stage."

"Yes. There's no urgency."

Goiyo agreed with easy grace. Entzi felt the knot in his chest loosen.

He hesitated. Then added, almost to himself:

"I would prefer you not take contraceptives, if possible. They aren't good for you."

Though they slept in the same bed that night, they lay back to back in the dark, strangers to one another still.

Their fingertips did not come close to touching. Goiyo lay in a tension she only half-acknowledged, until exhaustion pressed her under.

Long after she slept, in the deepest part of the night, Entzi's eyes opened quietly.

He glanced once at Goiyo's sleeping form. Then, with careful steps, he slipped out of the bed.

The bedroom door closed behind him.

"This way."

Ekser, having completed his guidance, pulled open the iron door. It turned on its hinges with a heavy, grinding protest, and Entzi stepped through into what lay beyond.

A storage room of some kind. Rust had taken hold wherever the eye could find purchase—no human hand had touched this place in a long time. The small window was sealed over with iron plating; nothing of the outside world came through.

Until the door opened, the room had held only impenetrable darkness and the smell of damp. Moonlight crept inside now, casting a pale wash over the interior, and long shadows stretched behind the several figures who followed him in.

Thud. Ekser swung the iron door shut. At the same moment, Entzi snapped his fingers.

From the center of the lightless room, a soft point of illumination gathered itself—barely enough to make out faces—and rose like a lamp into being.

Three or four men stood with straight backs. Ekser and Entzi, freshly entered. The object of their collective attention was a middle-aged man, bound and kneeling on the stone floor.

"It has been a while."

"Ngh... who—who's there..."

The man, grimacing against the unaccustomed light and turning his head by slow degrees, managed at last to open his eyes. A strangled sound of horror escaped him.

"Count Eliom, I presume? You seem to recognize my face, which is a relief."

"...Prince Anzik...?"

"Come now—'prince' is a poor title for a bastard. It seems you don't know my name. Allow me to introduce myself: Entzi Bethelgius."

Entzi bent at the knee, lowering himself to the count's level—yet even so, the man he regarded remained beneath him. A mild smile rested on his face; the eyes above it were another matter entirely.

The count's eyes split wide. He's the Marquess?!

"Yes—that Marquess. A commoner who rose to Marquess in a single leap through extraordinary military merit. Rather the stuff of heroic legend, isn't it? I genuinely didn't think you'd fail to recognize me. It seems you've been hiding very carefully all this time—that once-formidable Count Eliom..."

"Don't talk nonsense...! You're mocking me! I had you sold to a slave trader—how are you—?!"

"Regrettably, the one who bought me was Balverdi."

What a buyer does with a slave is the buyer's business, after all.

Even without grasping every detail, the count had pieced together enough of the situation. His eyes darted wildly in every direction.

Then, in a voice that trembled so violently it was barely intelligible:

"Why—why did you abduct me. I know nothing. Everything was Rubiette... it was all the doing of House Rubiette!"

"Indeed. You would know nothing. Everything must have been Rubiette's doing."

Including the business of whispering word of a bastard's existence to the Empress—all of that was the Duke of Rubiette's work, of course.

The words landed. The count, horrified, opened his mouth to protest—

His face was kicked.

A retching, choked sound. The count was flung against the floor, spitting blood. Unable to bear the pain spreading across his face, he scrabbled against the stone.

Entzi stepped forward until he stood directly before the count and looked down at him with cool, untroubled patience.

"My patience is short. Let's not be difficult, shall we."