Wilfried’s Actions
Rihyarda sped out of the room. Even she looked sick and pale; there was no doubting that Wilfried had done something absolutely unthinkable. A heavy silence fell over the room, and everyone stared at the floor with furrowed brows.
It was Wilfried himself, still pinned to the floor by Angelica, who eventually spoke. “Lamprecht! Are you not my guard knight?!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing?! Save me!”
Lamprecht gritted his teeth in frustration, then slowly shook his head. “Ever since autumn last year, you have ceased running away, and you have taken both your studies and training seriously. I was truly proud to see you dedicating yourself, becoming someone worthy enough to be the next archduke. And yet... why? Why would you do this?” he asked, speaking for all those who served Wilfried. They looked sad, frustrated, and filled with unbearable regret.
“Why and when did you do this? We cannot release you until we know.”
“Wha?! Lamprecht, is me meeting with Grandmother truly that serious?” Wilfried asked, his eyes wide with disbelief. His gaze ran along his retainers as he remained pressed against the floor, and they all nodded with pained looks on their faces.
“...Yes.”
Rihyarda soon returned with Sylvester, Karstedt, Ferdinand, and Eckhart, all of whom were wearing flat expressions that conveyed no emotion whatsoever. Sylvester looked between the still-restrained Wilfried and his ghostly pale retainers, then over at Charlotte and me, our tea party having been brought to an abrupt end.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” he said. “Apologies, Rozemyne, but we’re going to be using this room. Oswald, call all of Wilfried’s retainers. Eckhart... take Rozemyne’s and Charlotte’s attendants to Wilfried’s room and keep them there until this discussion is over. You stay though, Rihyarda.”
Under Eckhart’s directions, our attendants silently filed out of the room. Only my guard knights were allowed to stay, tasked with keeping watch. Damuel and Brigitte stood outside, while Cornelius remained inside with Angelica, who still had Wilfried pinned.
With her attendants gone and Sylvester looking so intense, Charlotte seemed incredibly scared. I gestured her over, and she gave a small nod before sidling up next to me. Meanwhile, Rihyarda was rushing around, making the necessary preparations for everyone to sit down and talk. I sighed as I watched our tea party turn into a meeting area for a serious discussion.
What a waste of a good tea party.
“Excuse me.”
Just as Rihyarda was finishing her preparations, Florencia arrived, having probably been busy with some other work. She silently looked at Wilfried on the floor, then at Sylvester.
“Rozemyne, milady, here is your seat. Lady Charlotte, here is yours,” Rihyarda said, guiding us to our chairs around the round table.
Ferdinand, Sylvester, and Florencia sat in that order, with me being on Ferdinand’s left and Charlotte on Florencia’s right. There was another seat between Charlotte and me, a bit farther apart than the others were. It was probably for Wilfried, but he was still restrained.
“We have arrived at Oswald’s urgent summons. This is the place, correct?” Wilfried’s other retainers asked as they all entered the room. Their eyes widened at the sight of their master being pinned to the ground, and they promptly moved to kneel by the table, swallowing hard at how serious the archducal couple looked. I could feel the tension in the air getting heavier with each new person who arrived.
Once Oswald had confirmed that everyone was present, Sylvester, having been carefully staring at Wilfried this entire time, turned his gaze to me. “Rozemyne, could you have Wilfried released? I need to speak to him.”
As requested, I ordered Angelica to let him go. She obliged with a small nod, then moved to the door to continue her guard duty.
“Wilfried, sit,” Sylvester commanded.
Wilfried stood up slowly, nodded, and then sat in the chair Rihyarda had pulled out for him. He looked annoyed.
For a few seconds, silence once again dominated the room, accompanied by a prickling sense of unease. I clenched my fists tightly on my lap, and that was when Ferdinand spoke.
“All those involved in an event see things from their own unique perspectives. One must make these perspectives clear before coming to a judgment. Know that stating falsehoods is a sin.”
Sylvester leisurely scanned Wilfried’s lined-up attendants and guard knights. His eyes stopped at the end of the line, where the head attendant Oswald was kneeling.
“Oswald, it has been quite some time since I last received a report about Wilfried running away to avoid his duties. When did you lose sight of him?”
“Not once have we lost sight of Lord Wilfried while on duty. For the past year, he has dedicated himself to his work with admirable diligence. Our reports were all true,” Oswald replied, raising his head to look Sylvester in the eyes while his fellow attendants all nodded in agreement. “In fact, I am the one who is truly curious here. Just how did Lord Wilfried deceive us?”
“I didn’t deceive anyone!” Wilfried yelled angrily, prompting Sylvester to look at him with furrowed brows.
“If you have deceived no one and done no wrong, Wilfried, then you can answer honestly regarding your actions. When did you meet with your grandmother?”
“During the hunting tournament, Father,” Wilfried replied eagerly.
Everyone’s expressions changed in an instant, but I wasn’t following. Why was that so shocking?
“Um, what’s the hunting tournament?” I asked. “I’m unfamiliar with it.”
“You are likely unaware since you spend that time traveling the duchy for the Harvest Festival,” Ferdinand began. “As the name implies, nobles gather to hunt in the castle’s forest. It is a large-scale tournament held before winter socializing. The hunted prey become food for the winter, and awards are given to those who hunt the most, so it is the most important time of the year for knights in the Noble’s Quarter who wish to distinguish themselves.”
It was an event held at the same time as the Harvest Festival, functioning as a way for the castle to restock its food reserves before winter. Knights, scholars, and attendants could all join in, with those who participated competing to hunt the most feybeasts. In the meantime, women (excluding the female knights) and children would provide their support while enjoying a calm, graceful tea party.
This was probably the hunting that Sylvester had said was “way too boring” back when he had disguised himself as a blue priest.
“Were you not with Florencia during the hunting tournament?” Sylvester asked.
“I was, but some of my friends from the winter playroom came over halfway through, so we went off to play.”
“I believe you were with Oswald then. I instructed him not to let you out of his sight,” Florencia said, eyeing the attendant carefully.
“Nothing abnormal happened while I was there,” Oswald responded, “and I stayed with him until Linhardt came to relieve me.”
Linhardt had desperately run around trying to keep up with Wilfried and his friends, but at one point, he tripped over and fell hard enough to hurt his legs. While Linhardt was being treated, Wilfried was looked after by his friends’ attendants.
“We played hide-and-seek while Linhardt was being healed, sneaking out of the tea party’s plaza and hiding under tables so the adults wouldn’t find us. While we were passing under one, we heard nobles talking about things. They said that Grandmother and Great Uncle had been arrested because of Rozemyne and Ferdinand.”
“Who said that?”
“Everyone there. The men, the women—everyone.”
Ferdinand, who was briskly taking note of everything mentioned at the meeting, muttered to himself. “It seems the children brought him there deliberately, rather than them simply happening upon a gathering of former Veronica faction nobles...”
I lowered my eyes, recalling the time Rihyarda had warned me about parents acting through their children. It was unbelievable that kids were expected to be mindful of political plots even when playing tag or hide-and-seek with their friends. In fact, I was certain that I would have fallen for the same trick myself had I been in Wilfried’s position. Never would it have occurred to me that all the adults there might be part of the same former faction, and I probably would have believed what they were saying, if only because so many of them were saying it.
In another world, I’d be the one sitting where Wilfried is right now...
The only reason I hadn’t made a mistake like this yet was because I spent most of my time in the temple and seldom engaged with castle affairs. Had I needed to learn serious noble relations like Wilfried, I certainly would have messed up too.
“Wilfried, despite my order that no nobles from other duchies be allowed into the city, your great uncle spurred your grandmother into using my official seal without my permission to grant one such noble entry. She was punished for forging official documents and disobeying my direct orders. I explained this to you before. Were you not listening to me?” Sylvester asked with a frown. He was checking whether Wilfried had trusted other nobles over his own father, but Wilfried shook his head hard in response.
“I jumped out from under the table and told them what you told me, but... they said that while it was true Grandmother had committed the crime, it was Rozemyne’s fault it had happened in the first place. Then they said that Ferdinand was pulling the strings from the shadows. They told me Rozemyne and Ferdinand were trying to take over Ehrenfest...”
With so many unfamiliar nobles crowding him, I could understand why Wilfried might have been nervous. He probably would have protested if they had called Sylvester a liar, but instead, they agreed with him, simply seeming to provide more information on the situation. Their words had no doubt slid straight into his mind without him ever considering whether or not they were true.
To complicate matters further, not everything those nobles said was untrue. It was fair to say I was the reason Veronica had broken the law, since her specific intention had been to sell me to Count Bindewald, and an argument certainly could have been made that Ferdinand was pulling the strings from the shadows, since he had long been working to remove the High Bishop. From Bezewanst’s perspective, he had set out to commit one simple crime, only to have Ferdinand dump a huge list of violations onto him—violations so small that even Bezewanst himself had forgotten about them. It would be harder to think Ferdinand hadn’t lured him into a trap.
“Then one of them said that I could just speak to Grandmother myself and ask her who’s right,” Wilfried continued.
Sylvester squeezed his eyes shut. The plot was fairly devious, if you asked me: Wilfried had essentially been raised by his grandmother since birth, so it only made sense that he would love her more and consider her more trustworthy than his actual mother, who had only recently been given the opportunity to regularly interact with him. Veronica had his unconditional trust, and it stood to reason that he would welcome her guidance in a situation like this.
“One of the men said Grandmother was imprisoned in the Ivory Tower, and when I asked where that was, a woman gave us directions and suggested we go see it for ourselves. We only went to scout it out.”
Wilfried had followed the directions with his friends, saying over and over again that he was just checking to see if the tower was really there. And in the end, they actually found it.
A man standing at the entrance had informed them that only the archduke and his children could open the door to go inside. Everyone else tried and failed, then looked over at Wilfried with hopeful eyes. He eventually opened it, just out of curiosity.
“Nobody else could open the door, but I could. It opened for me the second I touched it.”
“Not surprising. So, did you enter the tower? Did anyone else go in with you?” Sylvester asked lifelessly, drained of energy. He was simply asking for the record: everyone knew that Wilfried had gone inside, otherwise he wouldn’t have been saying that his grandmother had told him things.
“I went in alone; they said that nobody else could enter, in the same way that nobody else could open the door. Grandmother really was in the tower. She told me everything. The truth,” Wilfried said, glaring at Ferdinand and me. “Grandmother is locked in the tower, suffering, all because of Rozemyne and Ferdinand.”
Florencia tightly closed her eyes, a pained look on her face.
“Father, please,” Wilfried continued. “You have to save Grandmo—”
“Silence! Do not finish that sentence!” Sylvester shouted, slamming a fist against the table. “Protesting my decision is nothing less than treason against the archduke!”
Wilfried’s eyes widened at how violently he had been interrupted. “Father...?”
“I am the one who discovered your grandmother’s crimes and sentenced her to be imprisoned. Not Rozemyne. Not Ferdinand. Me. Aub Ehrenfest.”
Wilfried recoiled in shock, having already spent so much time echoing his grandmother by accusing Ferdinand and me. It looked entirely as though he had known she had been imprisoned for committing a crime, but not that his father had sentenced her himself. He probably thought that Ferdinand and I had done it ourselves, given that she kept blaming us.
“Do you wish to join the rebel faction, opposing both me and your mother Florencia?” Sylvester asked with a stern expression.
Wilfried hurriedly shook his head, his expression overcome with anxiety. “I’m not trying to oppose either of you!”
“But that is how it comes across when you defend your grandmother and speak against my decisions. You must watch what you say. How many times have I told you to think before you speak...?”
“But...” Wilfried trailed off, glaring at Ferdinand and me while frustratedly biting his lip.
It was at this point that Florencia rose from her chair and walked over to Wilfried, stroking his cheek with a sad smile. “You were told what your grandmother Lady Veronica believes to be true, but there is no singular truth in this world. As Ferdinand said, everyone has their own perspective. The truth I know is that Rozemyne was a victim in all this—it was not her, but Lady Veronica who laid out plots and brought chaos to the duchy.”
“What are you saying, Mother?!” Wilfried shouted in disbelief, shaking his head as if to push her words from his mind.
Florencia embraced him, her voice trembling. “Lady Veronica stole you away from me right after you were born. I was not permitted to touch or even hug you. And now, not even satisfied by that, she has guided you into committing such a grave crime. That is the truth from my perspective.”
Wilfried froze, blinking in surprise as he looked up at Florencia, who was on the verge of tears. “I committed a crime...?” he asked.
“You did,” Sylvester answered. “That is a tower for imprisoning members of the archducal family who have committed unforgivable crimes. Those who enter it without my permission as aub are considered traitors, either plotting rebellion or attempting to free the prisoners within.”
“What...? Nobody there said anything like that...” Wilfried said weakly, paling as he realized how grave his situation really was. The blood drained from my face as well; I hadn’t realized that Veronica was imprisoned somewhere so important. I had assumed she was merely stuck in some mansion or another, and that speaking to her wouldn’t be that serious of a crime.
“This was the plot of those who brought you to the tower, but you are still the one who committed the crime,” Florencia explained. “Simply passing around rumors and telling you the location of the tower are not things that nobles can be truly charged for.”
All they had done was gossip at a tea party.
All they had done was answer the questions they were asked.
All they had done was play with Wilfried, harmlessly joining him on an adventure.
And when they had discovered that the tower really was there, all they had done was ask him to open the door. None of this would have happened had Wilfried not gone inside. The others hadn’t forced him in, nor had they entered themselves.
“Out of all those involved, only you can be charged with a crime, Wilfried. And if you are found guilty of abetting the escape of a major criminal imprisoned by the archduke, you will not only be disinherited... you will once again be taken away from me, even though we are finally together...” Florencia whispered, tears dripping from her eyes.
I looked over at Sylvester. It was clear that he was desperately trying to think of a way to help, but Wilfried had admitted to his own wrongdoing. With his crimes already this set in stone, it would not be easy to protect him.
“Good grief... What a pain. Is this not why I said to disinherit him ahead of time?” Ferdinand said dryly.
Wilfried flinched at the remark. “But, but... Rozemyne plotted everything...”
Ferdinand ceased writing and looked up. “There are as many truths as there are people. Rozemyne, tell Wilfried your truth. You lost a great deal because of his grandmother, did you not?”
He gasped and looked my way. “Rozemyne’s truth? No... No, Rozemyne plotted everything...”
“That is not how I experienced things, Wilfried.”
Though I wasn’t really sure what Ferdinand was thinking here, I went ahead and told Wilfried my fake backstory. I explained that I was secretly raised in the temple; that the former High Bishop had mistaken me for a commoner and spread false rumors among the nobility; that he had asked his older sister Veronica to sneak a foreign noble into Ehrenfest with the intention of selling me; that my guard knights and attendants had gotten hurt while protecting me; and, finally, that I had been adopted by Sylvester to keep me safe from the foreign nobles who were after my mana.
Wilfried was visibly shocked. He knew that his grandmother had committed a crime, but he hadn’t truly known how I was involved with it all. “S-So, what did you lose then, Rozemyne?” he stammered.
My family, I answered silently, lowering my gaze.
“I lost my freedom, Wilfried. Before then, I was making books with people in the lower city. But now I cannot visit the lower city, and I cannot speak freely with commoners. I also have to undergo a strict upbringing so that I do not bring shame to the archducal family. I was thrust into the position of High Bishop immediately after my baptism to make up for a mana shortage. You understand how draining of a job that is, yes?”
“But... that’s not what Grandmother said at all...” Wilfried murmured, biting his lip and looking down at the floor. He was an honest and sincere person at heart. He really was. Despite him having said over and over again that I was an evil plotter, he was actually listening to me and trying to understand the situation.
Florencia watched on sadly, tenderly stroking her son’s hair. “Rozemyne has suffered much because of the crime Lady Veronica committed. Even now, would you say that your grandmother is not at fault? Rozemyne did all she could to help you when you were at risk of being disinherited, did she not? Is that not your truth?”
Wilfried gasped again, gazing back at me. “Forgive me, Rozemyne. I, er... I’m an idiot. You did so much for me, and I just...” His face was reddening with shame before my very eyes.
“It’s quite alright. I am not particularly fond of Lady Veronica, given the crime she committed at Bezewanst’s request, but I have never met her before—in fact, it was only recently that I even learned her name. But to you, she is a precious family member. It is only natural that you would trust her more than you do me.”
Had I needed to decide between trusting Wilfried or Tuuli, I would have picked Tuuli without a second thought. I would have stubbornly supported my family no matter what anyone said, refusing to listen to others or reconsider my beliefs as Wilfried was doing right now. His sincerity was genuinely impressive.
“And yet, you believed your grandmother, scorned Rozemyne, and entered the forbidden tower,” Ferdinand interjected dismissively. “I would hope you are prepared to receive your punishment.”
“Punishment...”
“A fitting punishment would be disinheriting you and sending you to the temple, or alternatively, locking you in the tower alongside your grandmother.”
Florencia had said basically the same thing, but while she spoke as a mother concerned for her son’s future, Ferdinand’s voice was cold and lacking emotion.
“Sylvester, is Wilfried going to be charged with a crime?” I asked. “He was blatantly tricked into doing this, and while he did enter the tower, he didn’t do anything bad while he was inside.”
Sylvester didn’t answer, instead glancing over at Ferdinand. While he personally didn’t want to charge his son with a crime, he wouldn’t have a choice if pressured from the outside. He needed to convince Ferdinand before doing anything else, and I was willing to do what I could to help.
“Wilfried was a victim of entrapment,” I continued. “Had I been in Wilfried’s position, I may have done the very same thing. Because, I mean... Lady Veronica is his precious grandmother. His family...”
I knew that “I might have done the same thing” was a dumb defense that wouldn’t hold much water, but I didn’t think it was right to persecute him over this. My feelings for my own family made me vulnerable in exactly the same way.
Ferdinand gave a thoroughly displeased grimace. “You truly are soft,” he muttered, his brows drawn together, before looking over at Wilfried. “You have now learned three separate truths: one from your Grandmother, the former first wife; one from your father, Aub Ehrenfest; and one from Rozemyne. I wish to know what you think and feel with this knowledge in mind.”
Wilfried lowered his eyes a little, resting a hand on his chin as he organized his thoughts beneath Ferdinand’s gaze. Then, after thinking for a bit, he slowly raised his head and looked at Ferdinand head-on.
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