RAMHM Chapter 19

Poor Adrienne Pirreta

A few alleys from the Capital Central Plaza stood Ristorante Gendica. The small, antique restaurant was less a place for nobility and more a haunt for wealthy merchants—those with coin enough to appreciate good food without needing a title to prove it.

Near the entrance, guarding a carriage, stood two men in deliberately ordinary clothes: Vincento and Neil, direct aides to Second Prince Rhodness. They'd dressed down to avoid notice. The restaurant's exterior revealed nothing of its interior, so Neil stood there, one leg bouncing restlessly, scrutinizing every patron who entered or left.

"What in blazes is wrong with His Imperial Highness's head?"

"......"

"Vincento, you've served him longer. Does this make any sense to you?"

"Orders are orders. What choice do we have?"

"He's past marriageable age—overflowing past it—and only now he develops an interest in women?"

Neil crossed his arms, half-convinced of his own theory. Nothing else could explain it. The Prince who'd shown women nothing but soulless courtesy or bone-chilling rudeness—that Prince—couldn't possibly be doing this without some fundamental shift in his nature.

"He's just reached marriageable age. Barely became an adult."

"Still! A married woman, though?"

"Why not? She's a noblewoman, sure, but they're the same age. Light courtship—this country doesn't even call that adultery."

"That's not my point. I mean His Highness acting so un-Highness-like, paying this much attention to—"

"He must have his reasons."

Compared to Vincento's relative calm, Neil glared at the door with barely restrained agitation. Their unease had one source: their lord, returned to the capital after two years, had been ignoring the Emperor's desperate summons ever since the victory ceremony.

Instead, he'd been meeting with some noblewoman once or twice a week. These weren't brief encounters, either. The pattern had continued for two full weeks now.

Their personality-disordered prince, maintaining consistent, diligent social contact! The man who only killed or maimed living things, now dressing properly and acting courteous with a woman. A beautiful noblewoman, no less.

If the gossip rags caught wind of this, it'd be front-page material immediately. Of course, contrary to their speculation, the meetings were entirely wholesome and thoroughly official in nature—but the fact that she was already married nagged at them endlessly.

'To deceive me like that...'

Neil especially ground his teeth. That maid "Marge," beautiful enough to stand out even in the capital teeming with beauties, enough to make his heart flutter slightly—turned out to be Countess Bliea Acacia.

"What if His Highness, swayed by her beauty, falls victim to some deception—"

"Does His Highness seem like that kind of man to you?"

Vincento's expression clearly said: You might be that stupid, but he's not, you idiot. Neil reluctantly nodded, recalling the procession of women who'd clung to Rhodness's coattails over the years. How many beauties had their supremely arrogant lord not even glanced at? Still...

"Even so, there must be some connection to the late Grand Duchess Trovika. His Highness still gets drunk every night as if he were her widowed husband, and—"

There's even sobbing. Neil pressed his lips together, trapping the last words inside.

Fortunately, Vincento asked nothing more. Silence swept between them for a while. He'd thought returning to the capital meant preparing for marriage, recounting war exploits, receiving admiration, being happy—instead...

Though Rhodness lived like there was no tomorrow, mad as a wild horse, on the battlefield he was more reliable than anyone, the "Demon of War." When not fighting, he became the "Demon of the Training Grounds," driving men to thoughts of suicide. But after the Grand Duchess died, that mountain-like, dependable man's expression darkened drastically, and every moment not spent with that noblewoman felt like dead time.

"Fine, then. Maybe forbidden love is better for His Imperial Highness than staying holed up in that smoke-filled bedroom."

After Grand Duchess Trovika's death, Rhodness's insides were clearly rotting with something serious. She must have been an acquaintance he'd regarded as family. After all, Grand Duke Novian was Rhodness's uncle, even if only half. Vincento's lips, which had started to part, suddenly closed.

"Your Highness!"

"Then I'll take my leave."

"Thank you again today, Your Highness. I'll expect our next meeting at this time next week."

Rhodness and Countess Acacia emerged from the restaurant together. The noblewoman, face flushed as she bowed graciously to Rhodness, gave his aides a slight nod before boarding her waiting carriage, arms full of books pressed against her chest, and disappeared smoothly down the street.

And Neil saw it clearly—

Rhodness's subtle gaze lingering on the carriage's retreating form, holding there for a long moment.

Several days had passed since that meeting with Rhodness. Just as many days since receiving his murderous assignments. With another appointment scheduled for this afternoon, I was absorbed in finishing the work he'd given me—the tasks, the problems, the endless studying.

My brother Gregory's claim that people good at studying couldn't necessarily teach well was wrong. The lessons with Rhodness had already progressed through multiple sessions.

My studies had advanced enough to resurrect memories from my Academy days. Better yet, after days of review, classroom lessons from back then were surfacing from the depths of memory—a good sign. If I took an exam now, maybe not an A+, but at least a C+? Excited, I tackled the problems—and couldn't control my strength. The quill pen snapped clean through. Crack.

Initially startled, I'd grown accustomed to Bliea's sturdy body. I called for Marge.

"Marge. Where's the quill I've been using?"

"What? I threw it away."

"...What?"

The quill I'd been carefully breaking in—Marge had thrown it out entirely. After all that effort to finally study properly, the insolent maid had discarded her mistress's belongings without permission. I closed my mouth briefly to maintain dignity. Marge didn't even look apologetic—instead she stared at me like I was the strange one, then continued speaking.

"You always said 'new things are best' and told me to throw away anything you'd used."

"Does that make sense?"

Pens write more smoothly the more the owner breaks them in. New isn't always better!

"Ye-es. I thought it made no sense either, but you always got angry when you saw something you'd used a few times or anything someone else had used."

"I did?"

"Yes, my lady."

Another turd Bliea had left behind. I told her not to throw anything away without my permission anymore and silently accepted the new quill Yona had found.

"Honestly, when you've always been like that, your fickleness really is the Empire's finest."

"Marge, I can hear you very clearly."

Marge had been openly badmouthing me to Yona while organizing the console, and flinched when I responded.

Even after growing closer and taking better care of me, her nature hadn't changed. Now I didn't even think of her as insolent—just found myself smirking. She might talk like that, but she was remarkably good at looking after my meals, so I couldn't dislike her.

Once the maids—who'd been watching my studying with worried eyes—left the drawing room, I quietly moved to the bedroom and locked the door.

Bliea's pink diary rested in the safe meant for jewelry. Among the jewels I'd taken—brought—from the Grand Ducal Estate, that worn pink diary sat like a foreign object. The mistress's diary that had nagged at me like a fishbone stuck in my throat.

Tension made me wet my lips with my tongue as I retrieved the problematic diary.

In my other hand, I held a thick Ellaconian dictionary. As Rhodness had said, Ellaconian grammar was simple—if I just remembered the basic vocabulary he'd pointed out, I could quickly interpret a diary recording daily life. I'd already read through more than half of Introductory Ellaconian, which I'd only skimmed the beginning of during my Academy days.

When I opened the thick diary again—the one I hadn't touched since that day—most of it was doodles and drawings. Searching through date-marked sections to find important parts, I discovered one passage pressed down hard, the pen digging deep.

Bliea had terrible handwriting, so I traced the letters with my finger, struggling to decipher them. And finally—I translated the diary's first line. Not knowing all the words meant consulting the dictionary repeatedly, which took considerable time.

That first sentence was, incredibly:

『Poor Adrienne Pirreta.』

"Ha!"

My blood ran ice-cold. An involuntary laugh escaped me—hollow, bitter. How absurd. I wasn't even her friend. Yet she'd brazenly, carelessly written my name, Novian's wife's name, like this... And more than that—

"...Poor?"

Yes, I suppose I would be pitiable. My heart, growing cold, began trembling as I tried to translate the next sentence, tracing the diary again. Cold sweat broke out on the hand gripping the quill pen. I had to clench and unclench my fist several times to calm the tension.

"Novian... finally... obtained..."

As if possessed, I tore at the diary's blank spaces, quill flying across the paper. I, who always wrote neatly, scrawled sentences in handwriting as messy as Bliea's own. I frantically searched the dictionary for the meanings of words in those barely legible sentences. And finally, I translated the next line.

『Novian Trovika has finally obtained the medicine.』

"What..."

An unremarkable sentence. He'd always obtained and sent medicine for me. Without those expensive medicines, I wouldn't have endured situations difficult enough to steal my breath.

I took a deep breath, gradually releasing tension, and calmly continued translating the following sentences. The translation was difficult—I had to piece together words found in the dictionary. More time passed.

『Adrienne won't live long anyway. Signs of death are already showing—very, very many. There's no time.』

Signs of my approaching death that even I hadn't known... How did this Bliea Acacia, who'd never met me even once, know to write this?

『Poor Adrienne Trovika. In the end, she probably doesn't even know it's not her illness killing her, but...』

As my story began appearing directly, I trembled again with tension—and at the last line, finally burst into tears.

『...that her husband has been killing her all along.』