Chapter 6
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06. Punishment of the Lamb
...
Marian pursed her lips and glared at Josef.
His handsome face was so expressionless it could have been a helmet, and his strong body was a weapon.
Human butcher. A creature of the Ascania that made Aviles reek of rotting flesh.
Standing tall, Josef's eyes lit up, and he strode abruptly to the door.
"Your Highness, please distribute the medicines and cures, this will really hurt the princess."
Marian pleaded with him, but he didn't even pretend to listen and left the room.
As Marian stood there in the eerie silence, she couldn't help but laugh.
He was a human butcher. What did she expect.
Marian shook her head and pulled a rosary from her tattered apron.
She walked over to Reina and knelt down beside the bed.
The familiar rolling of the rosary beads did not bring the usual calm.
"My heavenly Father, in Thee, Almighty, I put my trust; have mercy on Thy Lamb, the Shepherd..................."
Marian recited the prayer over and over again.
It was the only thing she could do for Reina.
+++
Josef left the castle in Kian's care and disappeared for four days.
Just as Kian decided he had to unleash the soldiers to find him, he appeared out of nowhere.
"Where in the world have you been? The soldiers were agitated, and Prince of Aviles is following me around, asking about your whereabouts.”
Kian had spent the last ten years serving the Grand Duke on the battlefield, and had never had a single day of peace of mind.
Still, he hadn't expected to worry about his whereabouts once the war was over, but he was wrong.
"And the Princess of Aviles? Is she alive?"
Josef asked as he dismounted.
A sack of luggage hung loosely from the sleek black horse's back. Kian approached the horse and gathered his pack.
"She may still be breathing, but I've accepted that it’s her fate, and what is this?"
"I'll listen to your nagging later, but for now, give this to the princess's maid."
Kian stuck his nose into the sack. A shiver of foreboding ran down his spine as he caught a whiff of herbs.
"Have you been to the Meuse River?"
On the new moon of every month, Flemish merchants gather around the Meuse River and sail south in boats loaded with goods.
Josef, who knew the geography and situation of the western part of the kingdom of Naparoa, as well as the Aviles estate, like the back of his hand, was well aware of this fact.
"Yes. I asked them to come here first before traveling south on the Meuse River, now that the blockade of Aviles has been lifted."
Kian narrowed his eyes and looked at Josef.
It was only natural that the victorious Grand Duke of Ascania would lift the blockade, and the news would naturally spread.
Merchants would be traveling to this place in droves even if we stayed put, so why bother to tell them?
“Are those the medicines and cures for Princess of Aviles that I'm carrying?"
"That's right."
Kian's mouth dropped open at the realization that Josef had run off like a madman to get medicine for Reina.
Josef had feigned recognition by keeping the brother ans sister alive.
He needed to reconcile his reputation after the brutal slaughter of his people over the past two years.
But this? Kian's throat tightened.
"Not that it's any of my business, but did you spend the night with the Princess of Aviles when she came to our camp?"
Kian asked, hoping for God's sake he didn’t. Josef remained silent and looked at Kian coldly. Sweat broke out on Kian's brow. Regret washed over him for asking the wrong thing.
"Do I look so pathetic to you?”
"I slipped up. Forgive me."
Josef withdrew his gaze.
"Put the useless thoughts aside. Right now, we need to keep the Princess of Aviles alive."
+++
Reina had been chilled to the bone, but soon after drinking the potion, she felt a fever that threatened to burn her body. What remained of her life waged war against her departing body.
A full day passed. Reina pushed up her heavy eyelids. The room was dark and out of focus.
Only her thirst was clear in the vague sensation of being submerged in a swamp.
"Uh...."
Reina spoke hoarsely, and Marian dozed beside her, her head snapping up.
Blue, clear eyes opened, and Marian grasped Reina's hand with an expression she couldn't tell if she was laughing or crying.
"You're awake, thank you, Lord."
Marian drew a holy symbol through her tears.
Reina squinted, her eyes still out of focus.
But she had no trouble recognizing that Marian was different.
Her freckled cheeks were fleshier than before, and she was wearing a gray dress that looked like it came from somewhere.
A strangely warm aura hovered in the room.
The empty fireplace crackled with crimson flames and made the familiar sound of crackling wood.
Reina glanced down at her body in surprise.
A thick, soft woolen blanket covered her.
She was wearing an immaculate nightgown with delicately woven lace sleeves.
"Do you mind if I open the curtains? I haven't opened them because it's the middle of the day and you haven't woken up."
"Curtains?"
The windows were drawn with thick crimson curtains.
Reina's room was cozy and lavishly decorated, as if it were back before the war.
Suddenly, Reina smiled a ghostly smile. A morbid glint shone in her blue eyes.
"Father, I must go see him."
She had a terrible nightmare.
Dreams of the Ten Years' War and her father's death, painful to recall.
She dreamed that she had bowed to the Grand Duke of Ascania and retrieved her father’s corpse.
She dreamed of being abused in the spire, her body crushed.
Reina kicked off the blankets and jumped down the bed.
The next moment, a terrible pain pierced her from heel to crown, and she let out a yelp of agony as she hit the floor.
Reina stifled a groan and tried to ignore the shuddering pain.
I can't be hurt, it's a dream!
Marianne rushed over to her, startled.
"The Duke of Aviles died in the war, and your heel hasn't healed yet, just wait a minute while I put some medicine on it."
"But...... that can't be, if my father is dead, if he was..."
Reina blurted out the words like a child just learning to speak.
Then she looked around the room once more and stared at Marian.
If this wasn't a dream, how was she supposed to make sense of this?
Marian looked at Reina in confusion as she sat on the floor and looked around the room.
The Flemish merchants that Josef had summoned had arrived, and Josef had generously purchased food and other supplies for the castle.
It was so unexpected and unbelievable. How to explain this?
"Grand Duke of Ascania has taken care of you, so you can rest more, and I'll get you something to eat and................."
Reina turned pale at the mention of the Grand Duke of Ascania.
The nightmare had come true, grabbing her by the ankles and starting her fall back down.
"No!! No!!!!"
Marian tried to calm Reina, who was as confused as a lost child, but to no avail.
Reina covered her ears and curled up in a ball, screaming.
"Please don't do this, please..................."
Marian hugged her and sobbed thick tears.
In the end, Reina cursed the gods for not taking her, for sending her back to life.
It would have been enough for her to have gone to battle with her father and died.
But the gods had deprived her of that opportunity by sending her into the world as his daughter.
The two women's sobs gradually died down.
Reina forced herself to stay calm. This couldn’t be happening.
"First, we must meet with the Grand Duke of Ascania. We must ask him what he plans to do with Aviles... and.........."
Reina hiccupped, tired of crying, but still thinking of things to do.
Marian started to say no, but stopped herself.
Angulem was, and still is, incapable of running and being in charge of Aviles.
Someone must negotiate with Josef if they were to protect the manor, which had lost the war and lost the Duke of Aviles.
"He mostly stays in his study."
At the word study, Reina's hiccups stopped of their own accord.
Her chest rattled.
Her father had said it out loud. His greatest asset, aside from his lands, were his books.
And among them was a pagan book that must never fall into the wrong hands.
+++
"You asked to see me?"
Josef met Angulem with Kian in the Duke of Aviles' study.
The moment he saw him in his father's chair, Angulem felt unpleasant beyond description.
The man was strikingly similar to his father, with his high-pressure demeanor, his tone of voice, and his contemptuous glare.
"Yes, I have something urgent to tell you. There is something the Grand Duke must know."
"I had something to ask you, too. How fortuitous."
"Indeed, you may begin."
“Before, I respected the Sabelli royal family that ruled the Kingdom of Naparoa, so I sent Princess of Aviles back with grace.”
Josef's eyes fell heavy.
The whole Reina was already precariously balanced on the edge of collapse when she came to claim her father's body.
On such a situation, she had bravely borne the duty her brother had abandoned, endured the humiliation, and spoken so brazenly.
She had begged him to let her go, even though she had never been captured, so he did.
She was only going to get this far, and then fell apart in the end.
"For that, I am very grateful."
Angulem smirked lightly. Kian was puzzled by the disrespect.
It wasn't as if he'd suddenly gone off his medication, so why was he acting like this?
"Princess of Aviles was fine when I sent her back, but became a mess after being punished as a butcher's lamb in the spire."
Kian's eyes widened as he listened to Josef.
"Hey, you crazy XX..................."
Kian swore and jumped to his feet.
The punishment of the lamb was a brutal form of torture in which the victim was suspended in the air and beaten with a salt-soaked stick.
The victim, whose wounds had come into contact with the salt water, cried out in pain even when she was not being beaten.
Later, their throats would become hoarse and they would make only gurgling sounds, like a sheep being slaughtered.
If you can't make a sound, you're on the threshold of death, and that was what Josef saw in Reina's condition from the spire.
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