MB Chapter 33

The two of them arrived at the outer gates of the Bethelgius estate. At a gesture from Lukurue, the great iron doors parted with a greeeeak.

Entzi had turned toward the carriage waiting to take him to the imperial palace when a familiar voice halted him.

A knight with long black hair and an androgynous bearing: Razine Eliom.

"My Lady Bethelgius! Oh—and the marquess is here as well. It has been far too long."

"Dame Eliom...?"

"My, how unfortunate. In the time we haven't seen each other, I seem to have been demoted from Dame Razine all the way down to Dame Eliom. A sad affair—but I've been busy, so I suppose I'll simply have to endure it."

Razine smiled and extended a flower. A cluster of small, pale lavender blooms—not showy, but with a quiet accumulated loveliness.

"Happy birthday, my lady."

Goiyo accepted the bouquet with a somewhat dazed expression.

"Sweet alyssum—your birth flower. Its meaning is said to be exceptional beauty, which makes it rather perfectly suited to you!"

"Oh, thank you. But how did you know?"

"I asked the estate's butler. I remembered that the Rubiette household held a birthday party sometime in winter, but I couldn't recall the exact date, so I thought to inquire."

Goiyo smiled, a touch ambiguously. The birthday parties held at Rubiette were usually in February — Melishi's birthday.

She had never enjoyed drawing attention to herself, and formal celebrations had never held much appeal. She hadn't held a party since she was ten. It wasn't worth explaining at length, though, so she added nothing.

Razine immediately began pressing items from her arms into Goiyo's—one by one.

Gifts.

"This is a whale plushie by the designer Bruja. The color didn't come out quite as luminously as Wortien's, but it caught my eye and I had to have it.

This is a perfume I purchased in Albressa. It's said to be a luck perfume—you should wear it for the hunting competition.

And this is a cake—made by Theyl Vie! The reservation wait is absolutely interminable, so timing was quite tight, but fortunately my turn came just before your birthday—"

Razine's words came flooding in like a tide, and Goiyo's expression grew gradually, subtly complicated. Having received no word from Razine for so long and said nothing herself, she now found herself in an embarrassing predicament.

She had reason to turn the visit away—she'd heard as much from Entzi—and yet delivering such a message to someone who had come expressly to celebrate her birthday was a deeply uncomfortable prospect.

The gifts Razine pressed into her arms bore clear marks of care and thought, each one. Even knowing there might be some other intention behind the visit, Goiyo found it impossible to feel nothing.

It can't be helped. I'll say something once she finishes. Goiyo moistened her lips.

Whatever lay beneath, Goiyo Bethelgius was skilled at managing her expression. The discomfort she carried did not register obviously on her white face.

If her expression differed from usual at all, it was by a very small margin—but it was a margin large enough for Entzi to notice.

He swallowed a brief sigh. Perceptiveness had its inconveniences.

'Can't be helped.'

"Dame Eliom." He cut across Razine's words before Goiyo could open her mouth. "If you would be so kind as to wait in the drawing room — I have a few words to exchange with my wife."

Their walk to see him off had come to nothing; both of them re-entered the estate. Leaving a guest standing outside the door was not an option, and Razine had been shown to the drawing room first.

"I apologize. There had been no word for so long that you intended to come, so I had no occasion to send word turning the visit away."

"Not at all. It would hardly be appropriate to tell someone not to come when they hadn't said they were coming."

She had given advance notice last time, so Goiyo had assumed the same courtesy would precede any future visit. That Razine had wanted the birthday to be a surprise was not entirely incomprehensible—but even so.

'...I cannot say so with certainty, but there are certain complications.'

'Then I'll proceed accordingly.'

The memory of her own easy agreement rose to Goiyo's fingertips with a small, distinct embarrassment. Noticing this, Entzi opened his mouth to shift the atmosphere.

"Thinking it over, my lady—if we suddenly turn the visit away, it may put her on guard instead."

"I beg your pardon?"

"If she has some other purpose behind this, wouldn't it serve us better to play ignorant and lay a trap? And if she doesn't, that approach would be easier to recover from as well."

He wasn't, in any case, entirely certain of anything. He shrugged. Goiyo blinked at him slowly, not immediately following.

"What you mean is—"

"If you feel it's too much of an imposition, you may decline. But if you're willing—could you spend time with her as though you were friends?"

Entzi's consideration had a way of becoming familiar and then, at unexpected intervals, threading through to somewhere much deeper. This was one of those moments.

A warmth moved through the inside of her chest. Goiyo's brow shifted, barely.

'He noticed I was struggling.'

"Only if that suits you, of course."

"Thank you, my lady. I'll arrange discreet protection within the estate as well, so there will be nothing to worry about should anything arise. I ask only one thing of you, however."

"Anything."

"You must not give your heart."

Entzi held her gaze, his colorless eyes steady, and said it directly.

It was plainly directed at Razine Eliom. And yet—Goiyo found herself thinking, unaccountably, that it sounded like a warning about Entzi.

"Because we don't yet know what sort of person she is."

"...Yes. I'll keep that in mind."

The warmth that had moved through her went cold in an instant. The temperature had shifted so abruptly—rising and falling in that brief span—that Goiyo felt she had somehow become as changeable as her husband.

She lifted the corners of her mouth with some effort. But the curve was too natural for even Entzi to see what lay within it.

"Thank you, Entzi."

"I—thank you for cooperating with something difficult, my lady."

She watched his clean, composed smile and felt, in some way she could not quite account for, out of sorts.

The Theyl Vie cake Razine had brought was promptly installed on the drawing room table.

Goiyo was not particularly fond of cake. Razine, on the other hand, could not seem to tear her eyes from the cake box.

When Goiyo invited her to share it, the brightness that came into Razine's eyes was, in terms of sheer intensity, not entirely unlike the first time she had laid eyes on Wortien.

As if that thought had prompted it, Razine brought up the whale.

"Is Wortien getting on well?"

"Well enough. Shall I show you?"

"I could hardly refuse."

It came easily now. Goiyo called forth the water-colored whale.

Wortien had grown again—to the point that it filled her arms entirely and then rather exceeded them. Growing as it did from one day to the next, its sense of self had developed considerably as well; it could think at roughly the level of a three-year-old child.

"My goodness, it's enormous! Rather like watching a puppy grow into a full-sized dog—though incomparably lovelier than any puppy, of course!"

"You have a dog?"

"A platinum-coated Labrador—sweet and clever. You're welcome to come and see her sometime."

"At the Eliom estate?"

"I don't know what training you've been doing, but practicing on a live animal might serve you well. Wouldn't training with my dog be useful?"

"I'm afraid that wouldn't work. That would be... water torture."

"I beg your pardon...?"

Whatever methods could she possibly be using? Razine looked puzzled. Goiyo hesitated slightly before answering.

"I haven't yet managed the ankle sweep, so I have to cut off her breathing. It isn't fatal, but it's painful. She isn't prey to be hunted. I couldn't."

"Mm—perhaps you could try a different part of her body rather than her face?"

Oh.

A small sound escaped Goiyo's mouth. Her lips pressed together and flinched with embarrassment at her own shortsightedness.

"As it happens, Jessie has been complaining that she simply cannot get the dog bathed and her coat has gotten quite grimy. Perhaps you could bathe her while you're there, my lady."

Razine smiled warmly, graciously overlooking Goiyo's flustered expression.

There was a consideration to it that felt oddly familiar. Goiyo said she would think it over.

"You'll feel cooped up if you stay in the estate—you're welcome to go."

Goiyo had intended to decline Razine's invitation if Entzi disapproved, but he showed no objection, which was unexpected.

And so, for the first time since the tea party, Goiyo stepped outside the Bethelgius estate. Accompanied, of course, by five discreetly invisible guards.

The Eliom estate lay somewhat further toward the outer reaches of the capital than the Bethelgius mansion. The three-story white house was modest in scale, but it had a traditional elegance.

Following Razine's lead, Goiyo had barely crossed the well-kept garden when she encountered the large dog.

Elise—as the dog was called—had the rough, slightly dingy coat her description had suggested, and yet when she saw an unfamiliar guest, her tail wagged with evident sociability. It was only after Wortien dampened her fur in attempting to catch her that Elise fixed Goiyo with a reproachful stare.

Wortien had been the one to apply the water, and yet Elise glared at Goiyo. In that respect, Razine's description of her as clever was entirely accurate.

Elise fled the water for as long as she could, and surrendered only once soaked through entirely—departing at last into Jessie's hands to be bathed.

Eight months since her last bath, and any attempt to force one had been met with such convincing performances of death that they'd genuinely begun to worry about her health—Jessie reported this with an expression of considerable triumph.

As a result, Elise recovered her soft and handsome coat. Goiyo acquired a measure of self-disgust. She recalled herself straining to direct Wortien at a dog, and felt the absurdity settle over her with fresh mortification. What, exactly, had all of that been for.

"Elise is terribly quick—even I struggle to catch her sometimes—but Wortien has gotten remarkably fast. The hunting competition will be no trouble at all!"

"I can only hope so."

Because if she went to all this trouble and still failed to catch a single rabbit, she thought she might regret the first ambition she had ever actually allowed herself to show.

"Ah—Dame Eliom."

The mention of the hunting competition had brought something to mind. Goiyo called to Razine.

"When cheering for someone entering a hunting competition, one generally prepares a handkerchief, doesn't one?"

"Yes, that's right. Is there someone entering separately from yourself, my lady? Someone you'd like to cheer for?"

"Entzi—that is, the marquess—has registered for the competition as well."

'I should prepare a handkerchief.'

She hadn't known Entzi would enter. But setting that aside—having accepted a handmade handkerchief from him, she could hardly pretend not to notice. She owed him one in return.

"As it happens, I know of an atelier that carries very fine handkerchiefs. Shall I help?"

"No—I think I need to make one myself."

Oh? Razine tilted her head.

"When I said I would be entering, he offered to prepare a handkerchief for me—by hand, he said, though I don't know what that will actually come to. Even so, simply doing nothing on my end seems a little wrong. I might not be able to make the whole thing, but if I could at least embroider it myself, I thought that would be enough. Would you happen to know a designer I could consult about that sort of work?"

"Mm... most designers worth knowing are occupied with the hunting competition and the ball that follows."

"Of course. That can't be helped, given the timing."

"But I think I might be able to assist."

The smile that accompanied this made Goiyo's eyes widen slightly.

"You know embroidery?"

"Not only do I know it—I have, you may find this surprising, a respectable degree of skill! Although, truthfully... Iell is rather better at it. I've never once bested him at anything requiring delicate handiwork."

"Iell?"

"The young lord of House Eliom. My older brother."

Razine led Goiyo down the central corridor.

On the wall hung a portrait of a young man—a handsome figure with light brown hair that suited him exceptionally well, gentle in his features. His was an androgynous quality different in kind from Razine's—softer, less blade-like—and yet the shape of his eyes and the line of his mouth were unmistakably the same.

"Handsome, isn't he?"

"Yes, very."

"More so than the marquess?"

"That he is not."

Goiyo Bethelgius shook her head without hesitation.