212 - Side Story: Leonardo's Perspective - The Old Hero's Search for Lost Belongings 1
As I descended the carriage steps, light poured onto the ground. It should have been an unexpectedly late return home, but Bart must have come out to greet us upon hearing the carriage. Thinking that, I looked up, and there beyond the door was Alf. When the door opened fully, a black dog slipped out from between his feet.
...Why is Oscar here?
Oscar should have returned to the territory along with Bertrand in the fall of last year. There is no way he would be in the city of Grenore.
Tina, who had gotten off the carriage, was surprised by the black dog that came to greet her, then welcomed him. She occasionally patted the black dog's head as she watched the souvenirs and shopping being unloaded from the carriage.
"...What happened?"
"Bertrand-dono came to the fortress again around noon."
I lowered my voice so Tina would not hear and asked about the purpose of the welcome, but Tina's head moved slightly. She was pretending to watch Bart and the others unloading the luggage while actually eavesdropping on us. Basically, she is a good girl who follows orders, but the truth is, Tina is curious and you never know what she will do. Her actions are simple, but her thought process is surprisingly complex, and it is better to treat her as a little older than her actual age.
This time too, I should not think of her as a ten-year-old child eavesdropping out of curiosity, but treat her as a child old enough to have discretion.
"Tina, go back to your room and get some rest now."
When I grabbed her shoulders and pushed her toward the entrance hall, Tina showed a little resistance. I thought she was eavesdropping from the movement of her head, but it seemed she really was eavesdropping in earnest. I left Tina to Salisa and sent her to her room, and the black dog followed Tina into the residence.
...Oscar looks like he has completely become Tina's dog now.
He is supposed to be Bertrand's dog, but as long as he is in the city of Grenore, he sticks to Tina. There is no doubt about it. He must realize that Tina is Bertrand's blood relative.
I moved to my private room and listened to Alf's report. The charge Bertrand used to capture Jean-Jacques was the same one Alf had used before to arrest Tina's former tutor, that he had stolen a noble's personal property. This is the easiest charge a noble can prepare to arrest a commoner.
"Jean-Jacques did not steal any ring."
"Regardless of the process, the result is the same. Leaving aside how he came to possess it, Jean-Jacques had a ring that Bertrand-dono had apparently been searching for, his son's ring, and he sold it."
If we just list the essential points, the fact remains that Jean-Jacques possessed and sold a noble's personal property. And the charge Bertrand prepared to capture Jean-Jacques was that he had stolen a noble's personal property. Whether he stole it or found it does not matter in this case. The problem is that Jean-Jacques possessed a ring that was a noble's personal property.
"There was a clear charge, and Jean-Jacques also admitted to it. So even though the fortress was without its master, I had no choice but to authorize the use of a solitary cell."
It might be fortunate that they were at least using a solitary cell. What happens inside a solitary cell leaks to the other Black Knights and gets reported upward as information. If he had been taken to the Vice Commander's residence in Alf's absence, or even to a room at an inn in the city, we would have had no way of knowing how Jean-Jacques was faring. Bertrand, believing that justice was on his side, probably had no need to hide.
"Initially Jean-Jacques was dissatisfied with being captured by Bertrand-dono, but when he was confronted with the reason for his capture, he apparently quietly admitted his wrongdoing."
He said he did not know it was a noble's possession, but that he was the one who sold the ring. Jean-Jacques, arrested for selling a ring he had found, apparently went quietly into the solitary cell. After that, he kept insisting in his defense that he had found the ring, not stolen it.
"Bertrand-dono knew that Jean-Jacques had once tried to buy the ring back after the Worth Disease had subsided. So he set aside the question of theft versus finding, and asked why he tried to buy it back."
"What did Jean-Jacques answer?"
"He did not mention Tina. He just said that his recovery from Worth Disease must have been guided by the death god Uaksu for his good deeds."
The graves of those who died of Worth Disease had been dug up by stray dogs. He said he had reburied them and found the ring, so he took it as the death god Uaksu giving him a tip for his good deed. Apparently Jean-Jacques claims that he caught Worth Disease because he sold that ring, and the disease healed when he reformed his ways. As proof of his reformation, he said he wanted to buy back the ring and return it to the owner of the grave.
I could tell more than half of it was a lie because I knew that Jean-Jacques knew the owner of that ring was Tina's father. Jean-Jacques was able to recover thanks to Tina's efforts as a trigger. Though he does not show it much, he probably feels a bit of gratitude toward Tina. Back when I still did not know the ring had been taken from the grave, Jean-Jacques honestly brought up the ring matter himself. He said he wanted to buy back the ring, so please hold off on seizing his assets for a while. He wanted permission to go out.
"I hear that when Bertrand-dono asked about the location of the grave, Jean-Jacques stopped answering entirely."
And despite it being a late-night return, it seemed the torture had started, enough that Alf came rushing out of the residence. If they were just using the solitary cell normally, it should have ended with me just granting permission, but it was torture severe enough that the Black Knight on duty judged a report necessary.
"It was surprising that Jean-Jacques kept his mouth shut."
"Not really. Jean-Jacques may be frivolous in some ways, but he is a man who follows his principles. He must have judged from Bertrand-dono's attitude that it was better for Tina if he did not talk."
If all it took was him showing signs of thinking about how to answer Bertrand's questions before the interrogation was switched to torture, even unwillingly he would pick up on the strange atmosphere. Types like Jean-Jacques are sensitive to the atmosphere around them. Normally he would just brush things off and get through, but this time his opponent was bad. As a result, he is resisting by keeping his mouth shut.
"I wish he had at least waited to lay hands on him until I got back."
I am the master of this fortress. This is a theft incident caused by a Black Knight under my management. Regardless of the capture itself, I wish they had waited for me, the master, to return before starting interrogation or torture.
"Bertrand-dono had already waited a great deal last year. He must have reached his limit on waiting."
Basically, he is the same type as me, someone who would rather use his body than his head. Bertrand came to the city of Grenore at the end of last spring, I made him wait over half a year, and then ended up sending him back to his territory. Telling him to 'wait' any longer might indeed be unreasonable.
"...Well, for now, I suppose I will go separate Bertrand-dono from Jean-Jacques."
I cannot let him talk about Tina, but I am also worried about Jean-Jacques's life. Bertrand is the same as me, he has more than enough physical strength. If he misjudges his strength even a little, killing someone would be easy.
I stood up to head to the fortress first, and at the door, a presence stirred. For a moment I thought Tina might be eavesdropping, but the owner of the presence seemed to have just been waiting for the conversation to end. Sensing that the discussion inside was over, they moved and announced their presence.
"...I thought I ordered you to put Tina to bed."
"By the young lady's orders, sir. She instructed me to gather information."
She may have stopped coming to eavesdrop herself, but now it seemed she had learned to use her servants. It is a lady-like method of gathering information, but I could not say anything other than that this was clearly wrong.
...Is she imitating Alf? Or is this Ms. Hartmann's instruction?
Either way, I would need to give her a warning about this.
"Tell Tina only Jean-Jacques's charges tomorrow morning."
If she knows there was at least a clear charge and that is why he was arrested, she should accept it. After giving that brief instruction, Salisa bowed and withdrew.
Leaving the residence's security to Alf, I passed through the back gate and headed to the fortress. I had already been told which solitary cell was being used, so I could proceed without hesitation.
As I walked down the corridor leading to the solitary cells, I could hear the occasional crack of a whip and Jean-Jacques's groans. It was a little strange that I could not hear Bertrand's voice at all.
"Could you stop that now, Bertrand-dono."
I stopped Bertrand, who was just about to bring his whip down on Jean-Jacques. It seemed Bertrand had already stopped asking questions to Jean-Jacques, who maintained his silence no matter what was asked. The Black Knight on duty whispered to me that it had been hours now of nothing but whipping.
"I have reviewed the charges against Jean-Jacques, but torture is not permitted."
"This is not torture. It is merely interrogation."
"Interrogation involving physical violence is called torture in this country."
Regardless of how strictly it is enforced, it is a prohibited act even against enemy prisoners. Of course, it is not acceptable against a knight of one's own country.
"He will not answer my questions, so I have no choice."
"I have already received reports that Jean-Jacques sold a ring he found. I am the one who gave Jean-Jacques permission to go out when he said he wanted to buy that ring back after recovering from Worth Disease."
You do not need to swing a whip to get information of this level, you could hear it from anywhere, I pointed out. There are any number of people who know, those who associated with Jean-Jacques, those who wrote reports about Worth Disease, and many others.
"He will not tell me where he got the ring he claims to have found."
"The report said he found it in a grave, did it not?"
From the story I had heard earlier, that he apparently found it in a grave of Worth Disease victims, I extracted only the parts not related to Tina and relayed them to Bertrand. If it is just about the grave, as Tina said before, there is no need to hide it.
"Then why will he not say that plainly?"
"Because this old bastard's attitude pisses me off!"
Jean-Jacques stuck out his tongue like a child and said he did not like Bertrand's high-and-mighty attitude, finally speaking up. With the return of Tina's guardian, he seemed to have stopped enduring in silence.
"I will not permit torture within my fortress."
Bertrand readily took the bait of Jean-Jacques's cheap provocation when he stuck out his tongue. As the whip came down again, I grabbed Bertrand's arm and forcibly stopped him.
"...You know where the grave is, do you not?"
"I was the one who gave orders to clean up the villages destroyed by the disease. Naturally I know which village Jean-Jacques was assigned to."
Glaring at Jean-Jacques with annoyance, Bertrand shook off my arm and spat out the demand "Then take me there." To be honest, I wanted to refuse, but the reasons for refusing were weak.
"It is just an empty plot of land now with nothing left."
"Whether there is nothing left or not, we will not know until we check."
Saying he would take that man as a guide, Bertrand called the Black Knight on duty. Have him treated enough to be able to move, I was told, and when I pushed Jean-Jacques's back, I realized his dominant arm seemed to be broken.
...He broke a knight's dominant arm.
Bertrand may be retired, but he was originally a Black Knight. Yet he does not seem to understand what it means to break a Black Knight's arm. And Jean-Jacques had his dominant arm broken, the one he uses to hold a sword.
...So this is why Saromon-sama left home.
And this is probably why, even on his deathbed, he did not let Tina know she had a grandfather. He was a family member who was so certain it would be better to entrust her to someone else he met years ago that his name did not even come up as a candidate for entrusting his beloved daughter. As I thought, it is better if Tina's existence is not known to him.
Time is up. I could not write as far as I had planned.
Typos and omissions again another day. Fixed any typos and omissions I found.