310 - A Troubling Rumor
As a cold-hearted person, I could not align with Giselle's feelings. Since I understood that, this time I tried making a suggestion in words befitting a noble. Even if Giselle's family was of the Flower Peerage, they must have supported the lives of their people for generations, I said. The fact that her brothers and uncle were involved in a crime could not be undone now, but the people of her domain still had their lives ahead of them. The crimes of her relatives and the fact that Giselle was a noble entrusted with the care of her people had to be considered separately. If the face of the lord they looked up to as master suddenly changed, the people would surely be confused, I said.
I persuaded her to leave the punishment room for the sake of her people. Giselle had no skill as a knight and was more than a little unreliable as a guard, but she firmly held onto her pride as a noble. When her people were brought up, the light of determination began to shine in her face, which had looked like the end of the world.
"...I apologize for causing you concern. I will leave the punishment room. Please allow me to continue my confinement at my home for a while longer."
To Giselle, who said she wanted to serve again once she had sorted out her feelings, I simply answered, "I'll be waiting." For now, the priority was to drag Giselle out of the punishment room, even if I had to pull her. Staying in a place like that only made her trapped by unnecessary guilt. Giselle bore no guilt whatsoever for this incident.
It seemed Giselle sorted out her feelings in about ten days. Or rather, it appeared her parents had knocked some sense into Giselle while she was moping in the residence. They told her that while it was lamentable that criminals had come from among her family, what would she accomplish by being dragged down by them? And that if she was going to lock herself in her room mistaking her relatives' shame for her own, she ought to act to clear that shame instead.
...Well, it seems that father was also in a state where he might have taken his own life over what his brother and sons had done.
This was something Ulrika had looked into. It seemed Giselle wasn't the only one shocked by the shame of her relatives, but the father managed to recover on his own for the sake of his depressed daughter. If he fell into despair too, the family would truly die out, he said.
...At any rate, even if only on the surface, I was glad Giselle had recovered.
And as a bonus, it was good news that the suspicious individuals around me seemed to have been swept away. The revival of the secret arts was progressing steadily, if slowly, and Bertrand had been keeping a low profile lately. Things were going well. I wanted to look away from the fact that spring, when Leonardo would leave the capital again, was approaching, but things were largely peaceful. They had been peaceful. Except for the strange rumors that had started circulating.
"I've never heard the theory about Leonyaldo Big Brother having a twin before. Where did you hear that story?"
"The kitchen maid at the knights' quarters and the laundry maid at the main castle both testified that they had seen Leonardo-sama."
If they'd merely seen Leonardo, there'd be no reason for a twin rumor to arise. In fact, no twin rumor about Leonardo was circulating outside the detached palace. It only became a twin rumor when the story was brought into the detached palace. There should only be one Leonardo in the detached palace, yet there were people outside the detached palace who claimed to have seen him.
Ever since returning to the capital, Leonardo had been at my side as my guard, just like before. There were times he would leave for work as a knight, but aside from that, we were almost always together. Leonardo had never been away from my side at the times and places where the maids claimed to have seen him.
Leonardo had many unbelievable rumors about him, like splitting enemy soldiers and their armor vertically in half on the battlefield, or throwing a boulder into the enemy camp in place of a broken catapult, but I thought this was really the first time I'd heard a twin rumor. It was usual for Ulrika to bring in rumors, but this rumor had a different tendency from the others.
"Does Leonyaldo Big Brother have a twin brother?"
"Aside from you, Tina, my siblings are a sister one year younger and a brother about eight years younger. I don't have a twin brother anywhere near my age."
Leonardo himself tilted his head wondering where the rumor came from, but I had a vague idea who was behind it. The ghost that tried to intrude into the detached palace had a voice similar to Leonardo's. I couldn't see it, but I wondered if that ghost might have a face similar to Leonardo's. Somehow, I had that feeling.
"...Huh? Leonardo-sama, have you already returned to the detached palace?"
Solana, who should have been out as a messenger to Alfred's residence, blinked when she saw Leonardo's face upon returning. She said it must be because his legs were faster and longer, and dropped her shoulders, but that was comparing the wrong person. Leonardo was tall even among men, while Solana was short even among women.
"Solana, where did you see Leonyaldo Big Brother?"
"Yes? Um... near the city gate leading to the noble district. There were several silver-white knights with him, so I thought it was work and didn't call out to him, but..."
Solana's voice gradually grew quieter at the atmosphere in the room. We had just been talking about that very Leonardo lookalike.
"Leonyaldo Big Brother has been with me all day, but Solana saw him today, right...?"
"Yes. Rather than today, it was just a short while ago, really. I saw him when I was returning from Alfred-sama's residence."
"So it wasn't when you were leaving, but just now, correct."
This was getting stranger and stranger. Solana had encountered the Leonardo lookalike during her errand, but during the time from when Solana was sent on her errand to when she returned, Leonardo had been listening to Hermine's lecture with me. At the time Solana claimed to have seen Leonardo outside the detached palace, he was definitely with me.
"...Solana, why didn't you catch the Leonyaldo Big Brother lookalike and bring him here?"
"Ehh!? Was he someone who needed to be caught?"
The silver-white knights' attitude toward the Leonardo impersonator was apparently deferential. Seeing that, Solana thought that Leonardo had finally been persuaded by Christoph and decided to become his adopted son. If he were royalty, even if he himself was a silver-white knight, he would have silver-white knights assigned as his guards.
"Would the truth become clear if we asked Timon-sama or Siegwald-sama?"
"Since it's about the silver-white knights, wouldn't it be faster to ask Leonardo-sama?"
"Come to think of it, Leonyaldo Big Brother did win first place in last year's martial arts tournament."
If he won the martial arts tournament, in our country which was meritocratic apart from the White Knights, that would make him the commander of a knight order. If the silver-white knights were moving, it should reach Leonardo's ears too.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I have no intention of becoming the commander of the silver-white knights, so I can't use my authority to just ask anything I want."
"Is that so?"
"I can't completely leave the Lugmilama Fortress now, and if I returned to the silver-white knights, my post would be the capital. All the fortresses I look after would be handed over to a new commander, and Tina would end up living in the capital, but..."
"Please stay as the commander of the Grenore Fortress, Leonyaldo Big Brother."
Leonardo returning to the silver-white knights would mean we could no longer return to the city of Grenore. I already thought of the Grenore residence as my home, and considered Tabitha and Bart as family. I could tolerate being away for a short time, but I didn't want the Grenore residence to no longer be a place I could return to.
...Huh? But if Leonyaldo-san settled in the capital as a silver-white knight, the winter move would be gone? For Leonyaldo-san... that might be easier... right?
Thinking about it that way, it didn't seem all bad, but weighing Leonardo's winter move against the Grenore residence, I chose the Grenore residence. Leonardo's move was at most three months to endure, but if we moved to the capital, there would be no winter move but we'd have to rebuild our social circle from scratch. That would be hard for me, someone whose basic stance was being a shut-in who was shy around strangers. Too hard. And incidentally, the physical distance from Bertrand would also be closer. I wanted to stay as far away from Bertrand as possible, so moving to the capital was not a welcome plan.
"For now, if you find a lookalike of Leonyaldo Big Brother outside next time, please catch him."
"What!? That's impossible! He's being guarded by silver-white knights, you know? There's no way I could outwit two or more silver-white knights, even if just one might be different."
I swallowed the retort of "so you could outwit one, then?" Solana, who looked younger than her actual age, was small in build and cute. I didn't want to see silver-white knights, who were supposed to be the elite of the elite, being taken down by someone like Solana, and if she could actually do it, I wouldn't be able to casually hug her anymore either.
...I see. So she could take down one. She was a maid for Alfred-sama, after all. She must have been given that kind of unreasonable orders before.
While secretly sympathizing with Solana, I recalled Alfred's face. Felicia, who was a princess, was staying at the detached palace, and Prince Alfred also showed his face frequently. If I was really curious, I could just ask them.
...A lookalike of Leonyaldo-san, huh.
If Leonardo's brother was eight years younger, then it couldn't be his brother. Since it looked like Leonardo, who would turn twenty-five at the end of spring, the lookalike's age should be around there too. That ruled out the possibility of it being his father. The next possibility would be an uncle or cousin, but Leonardo apparently had no idea. Rather, Leonardo's blood family seemed to have been a nuclear family. He apparently didn't even know if his parents had siblings, let alone grandparents, and once the house his parents lived in was sold off, he couldn't investigate any further.
...Even if his one-year-younger sister could be considered an adult now, wasn't he curious about his eight-years-younger brother?
If he was alive, he would be a fifteen or sixteen-year-old boy. If he was a boy as physically blessed as his older brother Leonardo, he might be aiming to become a Black Knight by now. If so, he might reunite with Leonardo somewhere along the way.
...But that rules out the direct relative line for Leonyaldo-san, right?
Considering that Ethelbert and Christoph occasionally looked at Leonardo's face with nostalgia, it could be a chance resemblance to someone else. Leonardo resembled someone that royalty knew. And I thought that someone had been spotted and mistaken for Leonardo.
...Was it really Lord Rannvald, who supposedly died of illness? The Leonardo lookalike, formerly known as the ghost.
If he was similar enough for everyone to mistake him, I felt like I'd like to see him at least once.
Short, but this is a good place to stop.
Solana > Kalisa >>> Giselle I wonder where Hermine is. I feel like she's stronger than Giselle, at least to the level of a lady's accomplishments.
Will fix typos and errors at a later date.