Chapter 102

Ten days earlier.

Five days before boarding the train to Arnmolt.

"Did your mother make it down all right?"

"Not my problem."

Grisha said it bluntly.

"If nothing came up, she'll arrive this afternoon. If there's a problem, I'll hear about it."

"She isn't running late because of me, is she?"

Harold asked, apologetic.

Harold had been waiting for the Barbosa family's letter. Claudia had meant to go back to the Reichnek domain with him, but in the end decided to go on ahead.

"Don't worry about it. Mother had things of her own to handle in the capital anyway. That's what dragged out her stay — not you."

"Still, isn't your sister down there alone?"

"Grandfather and Grandmother are there. Adelheid's probably thrilled to have Mother gone."

Grisha said it dryly. Fond as he was of his sister, Grisha had no illusions about Adelheid.

Ever since the day he'd cracked a rib catching his little sister as she came running at him, Grisha had accepted that his sister was stronger than he was.

Harold had only ever heard about Adelheid, but even he couldn't argue with that.

"She can't ride as much when Mother's around."

"Your mother doesn't like it?"

"Adelheid likes horses too much. Grandfather goes through the motions of stopping her, but really he's egging her on."

There was a reason people said Adelheid took strongly after the Reichnek line. Of course, it wasn't only Reichnek. Blood tells for a reason. What Adelheid had inherited from her father wasn't just her hair color.

Adelheid would do well when the Lambert duchy passed to her. Grisha had no doubt about it, and Harold — who had never met her — trusted his friend's judgment.

"Anyway. When are you heading down?"

"In five days."

"You said you'd break up the journey with stops?"

"Right."

Harold nodded as he answered.

He had wondered whether their first trip together as a family should be to somewhere so far. But given the other circumstances, putting distance between them and the capital seemed like the better call.

"Being stuck on a train the whole way would drive them stir-crazy, and they haven't been able to get out and around lately. Your mother said as long as they'd stay wary of strangers rather than being frightened of them, we might as well make it feel more like a proper trip."

"Linda's going down with you?"

"Your mother arranged it. Some people from House Reichnek will come along too."

"Should I send Intelligence with you?"

"No."

Harold refused flatly. Grisha hadn't expected Harold to take him up on it, and clearly hadn't been serious about the offer either — he watched Harold and laughed teasingly.

Harold shot his friend a sidelong look and sighed.

"I'd like to get the Barbosa family's letter before I go, but if I wait any longer I'll have to stay in the capital through Founding Day."

"And it'll take longer since you're stopping on the way. Yeah, it's time you went."

Just getting the boys down to the Reichnek domain didn't finish the job. Helping them settle in was also an uncle's work.

Thankfully, Edgar and Edwin were looking forward to the trip enough to complain to their uncle about the delays. But that didn't guarantee they'd love the Reichnek domain either. Especially if Harold had to come back to the capital for Founding Day.

The time the boys would have to spend at the Reichnek domain without Harold, assuming everything went well, was a week. Including travel between the capital and the Reichnek domain, over ten days.

He'd left his nephews to go out before, but never for a whole night. However late he ran, he always made it back before sunrise, so he could see with his own eyes that the boys were safe.

"If a letter comes while I'm gone... you can go ahead and handle it. If it's that urgent."

"If it's something you need to know, I'll pass it along right away."

"I'll be back in the capital anyway."

Grisha smiled faintly. When he wasn't scrunching up his face because he couldn't see properly, Grisha bore a startling resemblance to the young man in a certain portrait in the King's Woods.

The moment Claudia left the capital, Grisha stopped wearing his glasses again. Everyone who mattered already knew, so being this stubborn about it was both funny and a little frustrating.

Harold thought about nagging him on Claudia's behalf, then let it go. He could do that a bit later.

"The letter isn't something we can do anything about right now, so..."

Harold gestured at the documents spread out in front of Grisha.

"Well? Did I read it right?"

"Yeah."

Grisha nodded quietly.

"He spent his money... very honestly. And meticulously. If the tax office ran an audit, this would be their model case."

"I'm not saying my brother was evading taxes, but..."

"Too honest. Almost helpful about it."

Grisha looked at an entry with last winter's date on it. One Harold had marked separately. When Grisha lifted the sheet, the supporting document Harold had pulled came with it.

He was right. It was too helpful.

Not so obvious you'd catch it at a glance. But detailed enough that if you sat down and worked through it, you could follow the whole thing.

Which meant.

"If you're looking for something, you'll find it without much trouble."

Albrecht had given Rosemarie Doak money.

Of course, Rosemarie Doak's name appeared nowhere in the records. If you asked Mattheus about Rosemarie Doak, he'd say, "You mean that poor reporter who wanted to write an article about the count's research?"

But ask instead about the "postage" his brother had paid last winter, and Mattheus's answer would be different.

Sending letters or parcels across the continent wasn't easy, but it wasn't impossible either. It just wasn't as fast or secure as moving mail within the kingdom. So anyone who had to send mail abroad usually hired a courier they could trust.

If a reporter who'd interviewed you a few times mentioned she was headed to a city where you had business, asking her to carry some light mail wasn't out of the question. For the reporter, earning travel expenses just by delivering a few letters was a good deal. No one would suspect a man of Count Albrecht Bertholdt's standing of asking for anything shady.

That was what Mattheus had said too. Since Leibran had ties to Cecilia as well, his brother sending letters there was nothing unusual. Even setting Cecilia aside, there was Leibran University. The university had consulted his brother from time to time, and though Albrecht had scaled back his research since joining Intelligence, he'd kept up his academic exchanges.

Right. Everything lined up neatly.

His brother had drawn guide lines to make it easy to follow.

"You know the butler had access to these records too, right?"

Harold had asked Mattheus, and Mattheus had handed him a copy of the courier contract. That copy was fluttering in Grisha's hand now.

The contract bore Albrecht Bertholdt's near-calligraphic signature and a simple "R.D."

"Access, or the butler might have prepared the contract himself. That's a butler's job."

"My brother obviously knew Adrien Renard was from Leibran. He might well have asked him whether he knew someone he could hire as a courier before he asked Rosemarie Doak."

Which meant the question came back to one thing.

"Why?"

Harold couldn't make sense of his brother. It was the thought that had been haunting him the entire time he'd been going through the papers the bank had sent.

He knew the answer, really. Grisha, far sharper than Harold, would have found it long before.

He just couldn't say it in front of Harold. Because he was the cause. Harold said it for him.

"He used himself as bait?"

Grisha's face twisted.

Harold looked at him. Grisha, slowly crumbling under Harold's gaze, finally lost his usual composure.

"I'm sorry, Harold. I never asked him to do that. Really."

Grisha didn't want to be king. Harold had hoped Grisha wouldn't become king.

Unlike Harold, Grisha had felt the weight of responsibility from a young age. Harold worried that responsibility would crush Grisha to death. That was why he'd asked whether he wanted to run away.

"I don't even want that."

Whether he became king or not, Grisha was afraid of decisions of his where people's lives hung in the balance.

Harold, who had known his brother well, guessed that was exactly what his brother had liked about Grisha. A king who took his own decisions lightly was useless, he would have said.

He didn't believe Grisha would be a perfect king. But he'd be the closest to a perfect king his brother could have chosen from the options available.

"I know. I know better than anyone that my brother wasn't the kind of man to just take orders from you."

Harold spoke to Grisha from the heart.

"He did this on his own."

When had Grisha figured this out? Was that why he kept telling Harold to take the boys and leave?

Harold shook his head.

"My brother didn't mean to gamble his life."

"..."

"You can't know how things will go, so he must have made preparations in case. This was Albrecht Bertholdt. He was thorough about being prepared."

Harold tried a light note, but Grisha kept looking at him with eyes that seemed about to fill.

"But he didn't intend to die. I think, honestly..."

"..."

"The butler, or someone, moved faster than my brother expected. My brother was too smart..."

Harold gave a bitter smile.

"Sometimes he couldn't quite gauge how far a desperate person might go."

"Harold. You..."

"Adrien Renard was the first suspect all along. He'd been abusing my nephews from the start, and his movements the month after my brother's death were off."

"..."

"He had debts, too."

"...Adrien Renard killed Albrecht?"

"Nothing changes, Grisha."

Harold said it flatly.

"Adding one more reason a man who needs to die needs to die doesn't change how I feel about him."

"But—"

"Grisha."

"..."

"My brother did it because he thought it was necessary. You've known him long enough to know that too. Do you really think he'd have done something pointless?"

Grisha's mouth opened reflexively, but no words came. When Harold raised an eyebrow, Grisha finally muttered under his breath.

"No..."

"He was never going to listen anyway. You—"

Don't need to feel guilty.

Harold cut himself off before finishing the sentence. It was what Grisha probably wanted to hear, but it wasn't what his brother would have said.

And it wasn't a thing that would help Grisha going forward, either.

"...You just need to remember."

Harold changed course. He had a nephew who was the image of his brother. The boy had asked whether his father had really died in a carriage accident.

Whether Adrien Renard had actually killed Albrecht Bertholdt wasn't the point. Even if he hadn't, Harold was going to catch him and kill him. For daring to lay a hand on Harold's nephews.

"And find everyone connected to him."

Revenge?

No. This wasn't some cheap justice.

Harold's eyes flashed coldly. Grisha didn't look away. The color of their eyes was different, but the resolve in them was pointed the same way.

"Make them pay what they owe."

This would be the king's will.