1. Voclang and the Girl

“You little rat!”

The boiling July sun had wrung every last drop of moisture from the world. The scorched, reddish earth let out shimmering heat like a scream. Throats stuck together. Eyes swam. Every breath came up short.

A boy crouching in the middle of three or four large men reached up and fumbled at the sticky glob of spit clinging to his black hair. A laugh slipped out between his teeth.

“Think that’s funny? Have you lost your mind, you thieving little b*stard!”

Another kick came flying. The boy’s knees buckled instantly. His handsome forehead slammed into the ground and was ground into it mercilessly. Blood ran freely from the backs of his hands where he’d reflexively thrown them over his head.

“Hey, Georges. Please, enough. For my sake, won’t you?”

Someone who could no longer bear to watch the blood dripping from the boy’s split temple stepped forward, but before they could, a gaunt old man came rushing over from a distance, pushing through the crowd and pleading. The hand that had been slapping the boy’s cheek stopped abruptly.

“There isn’t even any proof he did it.”

The boy spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground, loud enough for everyone to hear. At that, Georges, who had reluctantly unclenched his fist, turned and glared at the old man with a vicious look.

“Simon, old man, who do you think you are, telling me what to do?”

Georges, the kitchen hand, squealed like a rutting boar and shoved the old man hard in the chest. Simon stumbled and fell on his backside, his face darkening.

“A washed-up painter with no idea when he’ll be tossed out has no business poking his nose in. If you’re old, act like it. Stop causing trouble and stay quietly in your room.”

“Georges, even so, you……”

“Is a painter who can’t paint even a painter? Does everyone here not know he’s only kept his place this long thanks to the late Madame?”

Georges swept his gaze around. Those who had gathered each looked away into the distance and held their tongues.

“Keep sticking your nose into everything and the master will have you thrown out. D*mn it, what rotten luck!”

At that, the boy seized the raging man’s wrist.

“Don’t run your mouth at the old man.”

The grip clamped onto that thick arm was considerable. Those two eyes, red as flames, stared straight at him, and Georges was suddenly struck by a dull, unsettling feeling. He had always hated that look.

Even so, the boy’s hand steadily tightened around his wrist. Watching the skin turn white where the blood couldn’t flow, Georges barely managed to swallow the undignified groan that nearly escaped him.

“Set foot in that kitchen one more time and I’ll gouge your eyes out!”

Thud, thud. The heavy footsteps rattled the ground as they receded. The maids and servants who had been watching the midday beating as idle entertainment slipped back to their posts one by one.

“Then why do you step in when you can’t say a single word that matters?”

The boy brushed the dirt from his clothes and spoke bluntly. He bent without thinking to help the old man up, and his side throbbed. By tomorrow, there would likely be deep bruises scattered all over his body.

“You……”

Simon’s face turned bitter. He reached out with bony fingers and smoothed the dusty black hair from the boy’s face.

“That wasn’t your doing. Why didn’t you say so?”

“What would it change?”

“At the very least, if you’d said it was that Bertrand who’d been sneaking into the kitchen, this whole mess wouldn’t have happened. You’ve been wrongly accused. Doesn’t that feel unjust?”

“Forget it.”

The boy replied flatly. As he did, he recalled Bertrand’s pale face, hovering nearby and fidgeting anxiously while the boy had been taking the beating.

Should’ve been less obvious about it. Stupid idiot, Bertrand Duret.

Bertrand’s mother had been gravely ill for years, hovering between life and death. In that household, with children trailing one after another, Bertrand Duret was the only one bringing in money. His daily wages as a gardener’s assistant were barely enough to put food in seven mouths.

Food was something this villa had in abundance. The boy didn’t think it was such a great crime to take what the nobles had chewed up and thrown away. It had originally been things they tossed to the servants just before discarding them anyway.

But for the past few years, Bertrand Duret hadn’t managed to take home so much as a scrap of leftover sausage. The kitchen hand Georges was to blame. He only passed the leftovers to the underlings who were loyal to him. The better pieces he’d secretly pocket and take to the grocery in the village to resell.

“All this fuss over a few moldy bread rolls and some overripe peaches. B*stard.”

The old man only watched the boy fume in silence. He had no real argument against what the boy said.

“So, are you going to keep taking beatings in Bertrand’s place?”

“What else do I have besides a body that can take a hit? At least I’m sturdy.”

The boy snorted, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth. Simon took him in with his eyes. It was true that since last year the boy had shot up noticeably in height, broadened in the shoulders, and sharpened along the jaw.

And above all, those red irises. A rare eye color that was virtually unheard of in this country, Gallia. He had the eyes of children born here and there in certain regions of northern Prosen.

Simon remembered vividly the day his son, Damian, had brought up wanting to marry the boy’s mother. The baby the woman had been holding was not Damian’s child. And the child’s eyes were, truly, hideous beyond measure.

According to stories passed down across the continent since ancient times, those with such eyes were said to be descendants of the demon who had tempted Adam and Eve. The hellfire burning in the depths of the underworld had leapt and spread into those red pupils, or so the story went.

As human affairs tend to go, people had built upon that story and added to it, creating superstition. Over long years, the belief had naturally taken root that merely meeting their gaze would bring minor misfortune, and drawing close to them would invite great calamity.

He had driven his son away and refused to look back for a long time. Then, eight years ago, he had heard that Damian, who had settled in Schwaben near the Prosen border, was living like a broken man after losing his wife, and Simon had hurriedly boarded a train.

There, he had come face to face with the child who had grown up under Damian’s neglect. The sight of the little thing begging here and there, trying to look after a father soaked in drink, drew a sigh out of him. The color of the boy’s eyes, which he had so despised, no longer held any meaning for Simon. Superstition and old wives’ tales could not outweigh the compassion and guilt he felt for a fragile child.

Nor could superstition and old wives’ tales outweigh the affection one feels for an appealing person. At some point, every bit of rosy kindness from the young maids working at this estate had come to land on that boy. The particular cruelty the male servants showed toward him was no doubt partly due to looks that stood out so sharply. Alicia, who coolly accepted the expensive ingredients Georges pilfered, was also among the women who passed the boy with a secret smile.

“Either way, that kitchen hand just wants to take his frustrations out on someone, and the easiest target around here is me. You know as well as I do that arguing back won’t change anything. I’d only end up beaten worse.”

“Then at the very least, if I spoke to the Count……”

“Old man.”

The boy cut him off, unable to hide the irritation rising in his face.

“Stop poking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Unless it’s the late Madame, who by now is probably rotting comfortably in her coffin, there’s no one left who’ll bother listening to your ramblings. What, now that you’ve got one foot in the grave, you’re hoping to ascend to heaven, are you?”

He turned away from the old man’s knowing eyes, trapped in a wince of hurt. It was always like this. The boy didn’t know how to speak kindly.

“But……”

“From now on, don’t take my side. Just pretend you didn’t see anything. That madman Georges is the type to beat an old man too if he’s in the mood.”

“……”

Even so, the sincerity wrapped inside those harsh words was still soft. Simon knew that well. That was why it pained him.

“I’ll come to your room this evening.”

“What for?”

The old man’s carefully offered concern pulled at the back of his neck. The boy had been cracking his stiff neck this way and that, and he looked back with genuine annoyance.