Chapter 59

"Hm..."

Harold scratched his chin.

He didn't get into philosophical questions about what constituted an ordinary child, or anything to do with stages of child development. Harold knew what Linda was asking.

He didn't know much about small children. In his mercenary days he'd sometimes gotten friendly with the kids in the village near camp, or played with them, or gone out on relief runs — but seeing them in passing was different from raising them. Even so, inexperienced as he was, he wasn't quite that clueless.

But.

But still.

"They're my brother's kids, aren't they?"

Never mind a century — his brother had been called a genius unlike any other in the kingdom's history. And that genius hadn't just shaken the Kingdom of Alharn — it had shaken the whole continent.

"And their mother... you can guess a lot from the fact that she married a man like that."

Cecilia Barbosa was the same.

Harold hadn't believed there was a person alive who could keep up a conversation with his brother without hitting a wall.

Cecilia had done it.

"So how could those two people's children... be ordinary?"

To Harold it was self-evident.

And Linda agreed.

"That's right. Of course, you can't say every child inherits a parent's intelligence. But those two..."

"Even if Edgar and Edwin were ordinary, I'd have loved them. So would my brother and his wife."

"The Count and Countess Bertholdt I knew, they would have."

For better or worse, the boys took after their parents. If it had only been looks and temperament — but they'd inherited that razor-sharp intelligence too.

Harold felt sorry about that.

If his brother had lived, he'd have found the best path for the boys. He'd have encouraged their learning and guided them toward finding what they wanted to do. That intelligence they'd taken from him and his wife — he'd have found the path where it would shine brightest, and pushed them along it himself.

Harold couldn't do that.

"Sir Harold."

"I suppose I ought to look into education after all?"

"That... isn't a bad idea. But I think it's better to watch them a while longer."

"Because of Grisha?"

Linda had been on the verge of moving into the house, but she'd gone back to commuting. There was no other convenient way to stay in touch with Grisha without drawing unwanted attention.

Harold didn't know how Grisha had explained it, but Linda hadn't said much to him about it.

There was no telling how things would go from here.

But contrary to Harold's expectation, Linda shook her head.

"No. Those two young masters..."

Linda hesitated.

Not as if she were reluctant to say something unpleasant — she seemed to be simply working out how to explain it.

He'd known Linda a long time, but he'd rarely seen her weighing her words like this.

And it wasn't as if Harold hadn't had his own guesses.

"Watching them at home the last few days, there's still that thing where they get anxious if they can't see each other."

"Did you know the young masters act especially childishly around you, Sir Harold?"

"...Even so, seeing them today, when Edwin was running around and they were apart, Edgar wasn't as anxious about it as he used to be."

Harold stopped.

Then asked again.

"What did you say?"

Linda held back a sigh.

"When you leave the room, Sir Harold, they never behave that way in front of me."

"...Isn't it because Linda's still a bit unfamiliar to them?"

"That would be part of it, yes. But even setting that aside."

It had been the same a little earlier, when Harold had gone up on the roof to help Edwin. The boy who'd clutched his teddy bear and smiled sweetly in front of his uncle had, the moment his uncle was out of sight, gone flat, as though the feeling had switched off.

And what about when his uncle and Edwin had come back? Seeing that bright smile had given her plenty to think about.

"I understand why you borrowed this house from our young master, Sir Harold. I still think it was a wise decision. But..."

"But?"

"Even if it's difficult in the short term, I do think we should be finding new things to stimulate them. What they can do here is limited."

"I'd already been thinking about a tutor... or if the boys had any subject they were interested in, finding someone who could teach them in that direction."

"That would be the quickest way. If you need one, I can recommend someone trustworthy."

But Linda immediately corrected herself.

"Whether we can find someone at those two young masters' level, I don't know."

"...It's that much?"

"Have you not seen the books they brought back from the Bertholdt estate? Master Edgar's been buried in them lately."

Harold raised his eyebrows. Of course he'd noticed the book always tucked under Edgar's arm.

"Isn't he just going through the motions?"

"What are you talking about? He understands them well enough to discuss them with me."

"..."

Harold was surprised, but he didn't panic.

"He is his father's son."

"He really is Count Bertholdt's son."

Linda cleared her throat, a little sheepish.

"In any case, in front of you, Sir Harold, they don't let it show. That's the part that worries me."

"Let it show, as in..."

"Acting like little children."

"Well, they are little children..."

"That's what I mean!"

Linda's frustration got the better of her for a moment and her voice went up, but she quickly composed herself.

It wasn't Harold's fault. If Linda's guess was right, the cause lay elsewhere.

"Ahem. In front of you, Sir Harold... I'm not sure how to put it. They try not to show how bright they are. Truthfully, it's the same with me too."

"Hm..."

"But since I'm not family, the young masters don't guard themselves as much."

"...In front of me they pretend to be small children — or do you mean...?"

"They deliberately act younger than they are."

"..."

"They also do things now and then that don't match their age. They're both mature, so they probably don't know how most children their age actually behave. Too young for it, or too grown-up..."

Harold thought back over Edgar and Edwin's behavior. Linda's eye would be sharper than his own, given that raising a child was new to him.

And the boys' situation was still not normal. Harold rubbed his chin.

"The reason they do it is...?"

"I couldn't say. But I don't think it's a good one."

Harold's brow tightened.

"I can't imagine Count Bertholdt raised his sons in a way that suppressed their gifts. And you're family, Sir Harold, but... in effect, you were meeting them for the first time, weren't you?"

Not something he wanted to admit, but true.

"I've seen children who behaved... similarly. When I was young."

Of course, the children Linda had seen were different from these two.

But however bright Edgar and Edwin were, they were still children. There weren't many reasons for children who had been raised on plenty of love to decide to hide anything from the family closest to them.

And Edgar and Edwin had a period no adult hand had reached. Whatever that man had said to them during the month locked up under Adrien Renard... what those memories had done to the way the boys behaved now...

"..."

Of course, Linda knew what had happened with Adrien Renard. Neither Harold nor Grisha had told her the details, but she wasn't blind.

Adrien Renard had already slipped their grasp; she didn't want to bring Harold any more news that would enrage him. But not talking about the boys wasn't an option either.

"It's only a guess."

Linda added it almost as a caveat.

"I've never met this Adrien Renard. But wretched men driven by their own appetites — I've seen more of those than I can count."

Past a certain point of anger, the mind went cold.

If anything, it was a good thing Adrien Renard hadn't been arrested. If he'd been in custody, he'd have been somewhere in the capital, and Harold would have gotten past the security easily.

Right now Adrien Renard was living comfortably out in the countryside somewhere. Fine. Let him live for now. Keeping him alive long enough to regret it wouldn't be hard.

"...There were no signs of physical violence on the boys."

But violence didn't only leave physical marks.

Edwin had said so — that Edgar didn't remember his time locked up very well.

Whatever kind of abuse Adrien Renard had heaped on them, the boys — Edgar especially — had learned to watch their conduct in front of their uncle. That small a child.

Seeing Harold's face, Linda said nothing and only gripped his arm firmly. Strong for an older woman.

"Edwin is probably..."

His voice cracked. Harold swallowed hard and went on.

"He's probably going along with Edgar's behavior."

"He is."

Linda, who'd watched the twins as closely as anyone besides Harold, nodded.

"He's a more mature child than he looks."

Harold smiled faintly.

"Thank you, Linda. Where the boys are concerned, I can't afford to miss anything."

"Only doing what needs to be done."

"With the boys..."

Harold frowned. Even so, telling them they could be as smart as they liked in front of their uncle didn't seem quite right either.

"...I'll just talk about my brother a lot more."

"About Count Bertholdt?"

"You think that brother of mine was ever a well-behaved child? My own childhood was quite a show too."

"You weren't an ordinary child either, Sir Harold."

Harold gave a hearty laugh.

"Not on my brother's level, though."

He couldn't picture his brother talking about his own childhood much.

If he told the boys what kind of childhood Albrecht Bertholdt — their father — had had, would they gradually let their guard down? A simple thought, but it was all Harold could come up with right now.

"...The boys will be up soon."

Harold took Linda's hand.

"I'm... going to be away from the house on and off going forward."

"I know, Sir Harold."

"The boys..."

The faint rustle of blankets reached his ears. A soft pat of feet on the floor followed.

Pat, pat, pat. Bare feet down the corridor. A pause as one of the boys looked into a room for a familiar face, then went on.

"Protect them, Linda."

"Of course, Sir Harold. I didn't come here on a light-hearted whim."

As Linda finished, the door opened.

"Uncle?"

Rubbing sleepy eyes, one of the boys was looking for his uncle.

Blue eyes half-closed with sleep took in Harold and Linda, tilted a little in question, then broke into a wide smile.

It was only for an instant. The flash of something cool in eyes that had opened as bright as a flower. If Linda hadn't said what she had, Harold would still have let it pass without a second thought.

"Edwin. Did you sleep well?"

"Yes..."

Edwin stumbled over to Harold and reached up. Harold lifted him in a familiar motion.

Compared to holding him in that cold room in winter, he was warmer now, and heavier — but to Harold he was still light as a feather.

"Where's Edgar?"

"Still sleeping."

"He'll won't be able to sleep tonight if he sleeps too much."

"Don't wake him."

"Why?"

"Because you have to sleep a lot to grow a lot."

"Is that right? But you're awake, Edwin."

Edwin gave a soft smile and rubbed his cheek against Harold's shoulder.

"I'm already all grown up, so it's fine."