Chapter 9. Suspicion

The sound of quiet knocking reached her ears.

Flora’s eyelids flew open. The surroundings were still dark as the sun had not yet risen.

About to call out asking who it was, Flora quickly changed her mind. Thinking it might be Claude like yesterday, she left the bed and hurried to the door, carefully turning the doorknob.

However, Deverik stood beyond the opened door.

“Butler?”

“……You’re awake.”

The butler handed her neatly folded clothes with a slightly apologetic expression.

“Change into these and come to the entrance. The master is waiting.”

“Has the master returned?”

“Yes…… Get dressed and come out.”

The butler left after saying only that.

The clothes she received were a light top and pants suitable for activity. Perhaps he wants to spar again. Various questions arose, but Flora changed into the clothes first.

Before leaving the room, Flora hesitated briefly and returned to the bed. She took out the dagger hidden deep under the pillow and properly inserted it into the sheath on her calf above her boots.

When Flora arrived at the entrance, she was greeted by Claude sitting on a black horse with a luxuriant dark mane. The already tall duke appeared even taller on horseback, his gaze elevated considerably.

Claude briefly gestured toward a white horse standing without a rider beside him.

“Mount up. We have somewhere to go.”

Flora looked around in confusion. There was no sign of adjutants, let alone other knights.

As she hesitated, the white horse approached and nudged her with its muzzle as if sniffing her scent. Its beautiful white mane swayed gently.

“It will be your horse from now on.”

“……Mine?”

“Name it as you wish.”

Even more puzzled, Flora stroked the horse’s mane once before mounting the white horse as he instructed.

Having not ridden a horse for over a year, the elevated view felt strange. Just then, a small package was placed in her hand.

The butler, seeing them off, said with a kind face.

“Something to eat on the way.”

Flora finally realized she was going somewhere with the duke. She turned her head and asked Claude.

“Are we going somewhere far?”

“We have a place to go.”

Claude, who had been staring at Flora dressed in white pants, threw a dark blue robe over her head, almost dropping it on her.

“Wear this. I’d prefer we don’t attract attention.”

After struggling with the robe that suddenly covered her vision, Flora properly put it on and fastened the ties carefully. The early autumn morning air was cool, but thanks to the robe, her body felt much warmer.

“I plan to return quickly, so we’ll ride without stopping.”

“……Yes. No problem.”

Flora nodded as she gripped the reins. She was accustomed to horseback riding, and somehow the prospect of going somewhere just the two of them made her feel warm inside.

“Return safely.”

The butler bowed respectfully.

Before dawn broke, two horses carrying the pair left the duke’s residence.

* * *

It was an unexpected forced march. They galloped for a long time without a moment to settle in their saddles.

Flora roughly gauged their direction by the stars in the sky.

‘We’re heading south.’

After passing through the gates leaving the capital, they continued riding south without rest.

Watching the duke’s sturdy back beyond his fluttering cape, Flora savored the freedom she hadn’t felt in a long time.

However, that feeling was short-lived. As the morning sun brightened, a landscape quite different from the capital unfolded. As they reached the outskirts, they passed through several slums.

The ordinary villages they passed afterward were not much different from the slums. Throughout their journey through villages populated by farmers who had lost their lands, Claude’s expression gradually hardened severely.

Those who returned to their hometowns after the war were greeted by ruins and the debris of collapsed houses. Though well aware of such war damage, the aftermath seemed greater than expected.

As post-war recovery was not yet complete, the scene naturally contrasted with the lavish banquets at the imperial palace.

At some point, houses disappeared, and only vast fields continued to stretch before them.

Beyond the scene of wild grasses and reeds swaying gently, the sun that had risen was now hanging over the ridge of the mountain opposite.

The destination of their continued forced march was an unfamiliar land piled with heaps of stones.

“This is……”

Following Claude as he dismounted, Flora stood on the ground and slowly looked around at the desolate surroundings that were little more than a barren field.

Looking carefully through the dust blown by the wind, she saw it was a collapsed stone fortress. The place, where one could imagine fierce battles had taken place, was surrounded only by a bleak atmosphere.

“Curious about where this is?”

“……Yes.”

Claude sighed and trudged up the stones. He murmured quietly.

“The place where those who died because of me are buried.”

“……!”

Flora’s eyes widened slightly at his scornful words.

Sitting on the heap of stones that once formed the castle’s roof, Claude painfully uttered a sentence.

“Have you heard of the Battle of Pezantium?”

“……I have heard of it. But it was clearly reported as a victory……”

Flora, sitting beside him, answered quickly with a puzzled expression.

It was the name of a battle in another region that she had heard about from the west.

The story was that a perilous situation had been overcome by the strategy of the southern front commander at the time, Duke Heinst—Claude’s father.

“You call that a success? Both our forces and the enemy were buried under this castle.”

Claude gave a bitter smile. His eyes, which held memories of that once beautiful castle, lowered heavily.

“My father, that man, completely demolished the castle to stop the enemies. And I stood by and watched……”

Beyond the vast plain, the yellow sun was gradually taking on a reddish hue as it sank. His gray eyes, focused on nothing in particular, stared into empty space.

That day, they had struggled considerably against the enemy’s momentum, being pushed back to this region for the first time.

When the castle’s fall seemed certain during the fierce battle, the previous duke, judging that it could not be surrendered, issued a cruel order.

He ordered the castle to be demolished despite thousands of allied soldiers still inside.

Claude plucked a wild grass growing between broken bricks and muttered.

“When I ran to try to save them somehow, the roof was already collapsing.”

The duke ordered killing without distinguishing between friend and foe. Disobeying orders was among the most severe military offenses, and in a group built on the chain of command, Claude’s right of refusal was completely useless.

As he tried to rush out, the previous duke blocked him as if he had anticipated it. Though he screamed frantically while being restrained by knights, it was futile.

Rumble, crash!

A sound like the world splitting apart shook heaven and earth. When the noise that seemed to tear eardrums finally stopped, the situation was already over.

The scene he faced was horrific.

The bodies strewn everywhere were so mangled that it was impossible to distinguish between ally and enemy. Though he dug through the pile of stones to save even one more person, he only confirmed terrible sights.

Before his subordinates crushed under the collapsed debris, Claude fell to his knees in despair. He howled like a beast, but no one responded.

His knights were killed like that.

“Isn’t the commonly known…… truth about the Battle of Pezantium laughable?”

Flora, overcome with a feeling that she couldn’t speak, looked at the brick debris and castle ruins.

The fortress was barely recognizable as having existed there, with no trace of its previous form.

Flora realized he was telling the story that the butler had once mentioned.

His inability to bear losing his people must be because the memory of that day was such a shock to Claude. He was consumed by extreme guilt.

“Do you feel responsible for that?”

“Isn’t it obvious? They died following me.”

Claude uttered self-reproachful words calmly. His eyes appeared blurry beneath his hair that slightly covered his fine features.

That day, his world collapsed.

While his subordinates who had taken up swords to fight for the country died without knowing why, he could do nothing.

Like the young knights he couldn’t protect, deaths he could have prevented were in vain and disappeared.

“That’s when it started. When those guys’ screams wouldn’t leave my ears.”

Flora recalled the sight of him that she had witnessed several times while guarding his nights.

Even in the beginning, he suffered beyond mere sleeplessness. His reluctance to try to sleep now made a bit more sense.

“……So that’s why you can’t sleep.”

“……They followed me with trust, so they must resent me even in death.”

Claude knew exactly the cause of his insomnia.

It was partly due to enemies who might invade unexpectedly, but when examined closely, it had started from that day. After witnessing the deaths of his subordinates, guilt tormented him.

Having just participated in the war for less than a year, he was in fact a boy who hadn’t even come of age.

Though outwardly solid, the psychological shock he received transformed into occasional nightmares that visited him every night.

When he closed his eyes, he heard the resentful voices of soldiers, and hellish afterimages no different from pandemonium tormented him.

Flora bit her lip and looked up at Claude. It pained her to see his smooth brow, consistently expressionless, contort as if in agony.

“That was…… unavoidable.”

Flora expressed her opinion at least that much.

In war, minimizing allied casualties is more difficult than neutralizing enemies. The moment you try to protect someone, greater damage might occur.

Claude laughed cynically at Flora’s cautious response.

“I’d like to ask my father, who died in the next battle. Was it honorable?”

‘He died for the country, so it was an honorable death.’

The previous duke, his father, had dismissed the fact with that short sentence.

Honorable death? Bullshit. He didn’t agree.

That battle became a turning point that shook his entire life.