417 - Leonardo's Perspective - The Imperial Capital, the Attendant, and the Doll Princess 2
Even if it was difficult to immediately take her away, if she was nearby, I at least wanted to confirm her with my own eyes. That wish of mine was soon granted. According to Carlotta, there was an acquaintance's mansion in a convenient position for peering into the Edgar residence. I decided to visit that acquaintance's mansion as a courtesy call upon arriving in the imperial capital. For this outing, I would accompany her as her attendant, Jin.
... The pedestrian traffic feels like winter in Grenore, I suppose.
The current season is summer, but the pedestrian traffic in the imperial capital Tralbach, seen from inside the carriage, is closer to winter in the Kingdom of Ivizia. There are people walking outside well enough, but it is so sparse you would not think it was summer daytime traffic. The imperial capital Tralbach apparently has too many problems with its location, and during winter, everyone tends to avoid going out except for truly necessary errands. I wonder if they would just spend the season in a territory with less snow, but there seems to be a strange trend where a noble who has the wealth to spend the winter in the imperial capital even at the cost of firewood is considered a fine and proper noble. The sensibilities here are so different from the Kingdom of Ivizia that it feels a little strange. If I were staying for sightseeing rather than the dangerous reason of coming to retrieve my kidnapped little sister, I could probably enjoy exploring these differences.
"Well then, I will go enjoy a leisurely chat with the lady of the house, so you go enjoy the paintings displayed in the corridor."
Was it really alright for Carlotta to be giving such arbitrary instructions about moving around someone else's mansion? That is what I thought, but this was Carlotta's goodwill, meaning "I will keep the household occupied, so go peek at the Edgar residence." Even if the household did not understand, I did. Still, I hesitated, thinking it would be problematic to move around without the household's permission, but the steward kindly offered to guide me. He said that ladies' tea parties tend to run long, so it would be better for an attendant to wait in another room.
"This mansion's corridor is just like an art gallery, you see. The master of the house is a great collector, gathering paintings by skilled artists from all over. Thanks to that, the paintings are like wallpaper..."
The steward's words about paintings being lined up like wallpaper were not an exaggeration. This was probably why the household did not make a displeased face when Carlotta, regarding me her attendant, said "go look at the corridor" while ignoring them. It was nothing special. Carlotta knew that the master of this house was proud of his corridor, so she told me to go see it. It was a convenient arrangement for me, and for the household, they could show off their prized corridor, a good proposal for both sides.
... Well, not that I know anything about what makes a good painting or a bad one.
I felt bad for the household that collected the paintings and the steward who was explaining them, but I walked through the corridor half-listening to the explanations. When I eventually found a balcony with large windows, I stopped and pretended to be captivated by a nearby painting. I deliberately gave vague responses to the steward's words, keeping my gaze fixed on the painting. My performance as someone so entranced by the paintings that I could not pay attention to anything else was modeled after Pearl in front of Kalisa.
The steward, seeing me frozen before a single painting, gave a wry smile and then said "Take your time" before leaving. Normally, getting so absorbed in a painting that you stop listening to conversation would be an inexcusable blunder, but it seemed to be the correct reaction for a household proud of their paintings and the steward serving them. He left without seeming offended, and a male servant appeared from the direction the steward had gone, carrying a chair.
... I felt a little bad, though.
Since I was not genuinely captivated by the paintings, I felt bad about the chair prepared so I could enjoy them at my leisure. I felt bad, but I gratefully accepted it and pretended to stare at the painting. After confirming that the servant who saw me sit down had turned the corner of the corridor, I took out the opera glasses I had borrowed from Carlotta from my pocket. I confirmed no one was around and approached the window leading to the balcony. Since stepping out onto a snow-covered balcony even in summer seemed like it would make me stand out, I conducted my reconnaissance from inside the corridor.
... Tina was supposed to be inside the sunroom, right?
Finding the sunroom at the Edgar residence was easy. The first-floor sunroom was built on the south side facing the sun to let in as much light as possible. With the naked eye, all I could see was the glass of the sunroom and a murky color suggesting something beyond it, but with the opera glasses, I could clearly see through the glass.
The murky color I saw beyond the glass was a golden iron grille. This must be the birdcage Jean-Jacques investigated. It was clearly made for confining a person, with iron bars spaced at intervals that a cat could probably slip through.
... There she was. Tina.
Beyond the golden grille, a small lounge chair was set up. At the sight of the figure sitting on its edge, my stomach turned cold. At the abnormality in Tina that was obvious at a single glance, my throat became terribly parched.
... What? Why has not she changed at all?
Tina's black hair had been found in the burned ruins of the warehouse. Naturally, I had expected her hair to be cut short. But that was not what surprised me.
Tina's hair, which had been black, was now silver, as if she was wearing a wig. She seemed to be treated decently even at her kidnapping destination, wearing a dress that used fabric lavishly. As reported by Jean-Jacques, her legs visible from beneath the skirt hem were thin, her muscle strength seemingly completely deteriorated, but I already knew that from the reports. Even if the colors Tina wore had changed, it was not something that would surprise me now. And yet, I was surprised.
The Tina I had finally found looked exactly the same as when she was taken.
Her hair color and the dress she wore were completely different, but Tina, who should have turned fifteen this year, had hardly grown in height at all. Despite being in her growth period, she looked exactly as she did when she was kidnapped a year and a half ago. Tina had always been short enough that she did not look thirteen, but no one who saw her now would believe she was fifteen. At a single glance, I understood that something abnormal was happening to Tina's body.
... It is not just that sitting makes her look shorter.
I held onto that hope for a moment, but no. Whether sitting or standing, Tina's height had not grown.
... There is Oscar.
While I was shocked by Tina's unchanging appearance, I spotted the Black Dog (Oscar) sneaking into the Edgar residence's garden. I had the Black Dog carry a letter for Giselle. Giselle, who was in the sunroom, did not seem to notice the Black Dog's intrusion, but that clever Black Dog would surely manage to deliver the letter to Giselle without being seen by anyone.
... Jasper is there.
As I confirmed Giselle's presence in the sunroom, I noticed a familiar hair color near the door. His hairstyle was different, probably as a disguise, but the hair color and face were the same as the Jasper I knew well.
... So Jasper betrayed Tina.
Until I read Giselle's letter, I could not rule out the possibility that he was kidnapped along with her to manage her health, but it seemed this kidnapping was orchestrated by Jasper, something I did not want to believe. Jasper made contact with Edgar and arranged the steps to take Tina away. The goal was apparently still to have her read Japanese, but if that was the case, Jasper's motive became even more unclear. According to Carlotta, it would not be strange if some research materials left by the reincarnator Camilo from two hundred years ago remained in the Uhlenfurt territory. If Edgar kidnapped Tina because he wanted to read those, that would make sense. As someone whose little sister was kidnapped, I would be angry, but the logic would hold together.
But if this kidnapping was led by Jasper, then Jasper's objective was not clear. Even if he wanted Japanese read, Jasper had already earned Tina's trust well enough. If he said he had Japanese he wanted read, Tina would have gladly read it. Jasper should not have needed to involve others and kidnap Tina from the start.
... Perhaps the goal was to have Japanese read, but doing so required bringing Tina herself out.
Just as I started thinking about what Jasper intended to have Tina read, a servant came. It seemed Carlotta's tea party had ended and it was time to leave the mansion. I thanked the steward for the chair while offering some impressions of the paintings. If I did that, it would be conveyed to the master later, and he would be in a good mood about letting me walk through the corridor again if there was another opportunity.
When I returned to Carlotta's residence, the Black Dog came back, hidden in the darkness of night. The letter hidden in his collar was gone, so it seemed he had successfully delivered it to Giselle. A few days later, a report came from the subordinates I had watching the Edgar residence that Giselle's frequency of looking outside had decreased.
When I gave the opera glasses owned by Carlotta to the subordinates watching the Edgar residence, I was able to learn a little more detail about Tina's condition. Tina's life consisted of either sitting on the lounge chair sunbathing or working on bobbin lace at a desk. When sunbathing, she appeared to be dozing off, but apparently she very rarely opened her eyes. She would not open her eyes when someone was nearby, but she would open them and look outside when the people around her moved away. According to Giselle's letter, Tina had lost her heart, but from these reports, it felt a little suspicious. If Tina found some decisive opening, I was afraid she might attempt to escape on her own.
... The holder of the birdcage key changes each day, huh. If I could at least figure out where it was stored...
If I could get the key, I could take Tina out when the master of the house was away. Still, even with the key, sneaking in at night rather than during the day would be far more advantageous for escape and flight, so it just broadened the possibilities. When the preparations to reclaim Tina were finally in order, the execution would still likely be at night, when Tina was taken out of the birdcage.
... Giselle seems to have completely calmed down.
Perhaps thanks to the letter I had the Black Dog carry, saying that since Tina's pickup was close at hand, she should not look outside too much and arouse suspicion, Giselle seemed to have stopped unnecessarily looking out the window. Instead, she seemed to be struggling to get Tina to walk even a little and build up her muscle strength. Her attempts to catch Tina's attention had been witnessed, but Tina, absorbed in her bobbin lace, seemed to continue ignoring her.
"It looks like we should plan on carrying Tina the whole way."
When Tina got absorbed in something, she immediately holed up in her room. Alfred had said that when she was immersing herself in the research materials and reports of the saint Yuuta Hiraga in the capital, he had to order her to take two walks a day as an obligation. In the sense that she was not the type to actively go out, she was lady-like, but in Tina's case, she was simply too absorbed in what she was into to care about her own health. No matter how Giselle tried to guide her, there was no way the current Tina would actively work on building up her strength.
"No matter how small she is, carrying her the whole way is impossible, y'know."
"No, at Tina's size, it should be doable."
I had once carried Tina in my arms all day long during the Spring Flower Festival. She had grown a little since then, but considering her muscle strength had deteriorated, there probably would not be that much difference in weight. I felt like I could keep carrying Tina even for an entire day.
"... Boss's arm strength is abnormal."
"You could do it too."
"No no no. No way. Impossible. A normal person carrying a kid that size around all day is unthinkable."
Well, if it came down to it we could take turns carrying her, Jean-Jacques seemed to concede, but I was not convinced at all. There was no way Jean-Jacques could not carry a small child like Tina.
... Come to think of it, Tina was also surprised, was not she?
Looking back on it now, that was probably Tina's way of refusing to go out, saying "I do not want to go out," but she once told me to "carry me the whole time we are out." I said that was easy enough and carried Tina in my arms all over the streets of Grenore, but by the time we returned to the residence, Tina kept tilting her head in puzzlement, worried about my arms. She said it was not normal for me to actually walk around town carrying her the whole time.
Was it really that strange? I wondered, as my thoughts started to drift down that tangent, Carlotta began saying she wanted to meet Tina too.
"What if I just storm the Edgar mansion?"
"Is that possible?"
"We are not exactly unrelated, distantly related you might say... so it is possible."
Showing up uninvited was possible, but in that case, they would just be entertained and it would end there, Carlotta said. Naturally, Carlotta was not supposed to know about Tina's existence, so even if she showed up, there was no way Edgar would introduce Tina to Carlotta. It would be too unnatural for Carlotta to demand that Edgar introduce Tina to her.
"If we are gonna make it so it ain't weird for the boss lady to know the Tina kid... maybe we spread some rumors. Like there is a super gorgeous girl being kept at the Edgar residence."
"What good would spreading rumors about Tina do..."
"Nah, I think it is a good idea. The Tina kid is displayed in a room visible from outside, and the nobles in the imperial capital are bored stuck at home. If we spread rumors that a beautiful girl is being kept there, I bet the bored nobles will come flocking."
We could show up at the Edgar residence as one of those flocking bored nobles. There were enough bandits to spread the rumor using a human-wave tactic. If I wanted to spread rumors in the imperial capital, it was easy for me now.
"... Come to think of it, Tina was the type to inspire love at first sight."
When Tina was in costume for the Recollection Festival in the capital, she was glimpsed from somewhere and captured the hearts of several nobles, and the next day, gifts came pouring in one after another. Tina had looked annoyed, but I could understand to some extent the feeling of being drawn to that face. Tina was still just a cute little girl, but her face promised she would grow into a beauty. It would not be strange if someone fell in love at first sight.
"Only her looks are top-notch, y'know. Only her looks."
"Tina is cute on the inside too."
Remembering that I had a similar conversation with Alfred before, I corrected Jean-Jacques's words. Tina was not just cute in the face, she was cute on the inside too.
"With that face and that personality, most guys will have their dreams shattered and will not be able to dream about women for a while."
"Oh my, I am looking forward to meeting what kind of girl she is."
As Jean-Jacques passionately explained to Carlotta how inconsistent Tina's appearance and personality were, Carlotta simply laughed merrily. She seemed to fully accept Jean-Jacques's words, thinking that a girl Aurelia, who was not one to be easily figured out, would take a liking to could not possibly have a personality that matched her cute appearance. I wanted to deny Jean-Jacques's words for Tina's honor, but the problem was that everything Jean-Jacques said was true. The way she immediately kicked my leg, the way she danced with joy because she loved honey, the way she gave her dog a name like "Rich and mellow flavor" as a taste description, all of those were things Tina had actually done. To me, Tina was my endlessly cute little sister, but when described by someone else's words, she might indeed be a somewhat tomboyish, weird beautiful girl with bad foot habits.
Carlotta-sama has begun preparations for the raid.
Will fix typos and errors at a later date.