According to the doctor who’d examined Lord Heinreid last night, it was just as Karl had predicted—the cause of the illness was mental fatigue. It was a relief to know that he didn’t have some grave disease, but at the same time, the lack of any concrete cause or treatment left me racking my brain for answers. If Lord Heinreid was suffering from stress, then the best thing for him would be a change of pace, but I definitely couldn’t take him anywhere outside.
I needed something within my power to do that would soothe Lord Heinreid’s spirits... Well, as simplistic as it was, there was really only one answer.
Now, I knew exactly what my get-well gift would be. Not long after sunrise that morning, for the first time in a while, I made my way out into the city.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Excuse me, Lord Heinreid.”
“Huh?”
When I returned from the city, steeled my courage, and headed into the tower, I found that Lord Heinreid wasn’t in his bed. He was sitting with his elbows resting on his desk, staring out in a daze. But the moment he caught sight of me—or rather, of the gift I was carrying—he let out a stupefied noise and blinked in surprise. For a few moments, he just stared agape at my hands, but eventually, his mouth slowly curled into a smile, and he burst into laughter like a dam breaking.
“Pff, gh—! Ha ha ha ha ha! You— You brought flowers!” he exclaimed in disbelief. “They... They don’t suit you at— No, wait, I guess they do, huh?! A golden-haired knight carrying red roses! But you’re bringing them to me! Ah ha, ha ha ha ha ha!”
He pounded his fist on his desk, overcome by paroxysms of laughter. Unable even to tell him off, I simply stared down at him. I fully understood that the gift was uncharacteristic of me, but was it truly that comical? In fact, I’d brought in single roses several times before, knowing his fondness for them. Why did the shift from flower to bouquet have this much of an impact?
“Are you finished?” I asked once his laughter had finally subsided.
“Haah... Yeah, that was hilarious. You’re the best.” He seemed completely unperturbed by my sharp glare.
Still chuckling, he wiped away the tears in the corners of his eyes. I grabbed his arm and led him over to the bed. I just wanted him to lie down for a bit, but he stubbornly resisted, saying that if he spent any longer in bed, he’d have a hard time getting back up. The most I could get him to do was sit on the edge of the mattress. Wasting our time arguing would be a bad plan, so I reluctantly withdrew for now. I pulled up the chair he’d just been using and sat down facing him.
“So...” I started. “How are you feeling?”
“You can see me, can’t you? I’m doing fine, no problems. Oh—sorry for freaking everyone out and making you call in the doctor and stuff.”
“There’s no need for you to apologize for that.”
He wore an awkward expression as he gave his misdirected apology, but I couldn’t sense any exhaustion on his face or in his voice. Just as he’d said, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him... In other words, even now, he was still hiding his illness from me.
“Am I a burden to you?” I asked.
He’d presumably heard his diagnosis from the doctor as well. Unable to hold myself back any longer, I questioned him about it directly. Karl’s snide remarks last night had started the thought forming in my mind—but as soon as I put voice to it, it gained an air of reality, and I became terrified of what the answer might be. If Lord Heinreid said yes...would I have to separate myself from him?
A heavy, oppressive silence started to fall on us, but before it could drag on for too long, his exasperated voice drove it off.
“What’re you talking about? Did Karl tell you that? That guy’s got one hell of a personality, seriously...”
“Lord Heinreid.”
“C’mon, don’t give me that look. What are you, an abandoned puppy? You’re not a burden... But you don’t believe me, do you?”
I’d at least heard him deny it, but just as he surmised, I was having trouble accepting his words. There was undeniably something amiss; if I wasn’t the cause, then I wanted him to tell me what was.
“If not me, then is Karl Anker at fault?”
“Look, it’s not anyone’s fault, okay? I just... Sometimes I’ll take a nap and have a bad dream, or I’ll get a little depressed because the weather’s bad—little things like those just added up, that’s all.”
“Do you mean to tell me you’ve grown so weak that you vomited just from that?”
That was even harder to believe. It seemed far too light of a cause for those symptoms. His words sounded like nothing but an excuse. Even as my suspicion grew, though, Lord Heinreid casually continued, not making any retraction.
“Yup, that’s right. Stupid, isn’t it? That’s why I kept quiet about it. It’s just a temporary thing, and I really was getting better—I guess I just let my guard down a little too much. I didn’t think I’d throw up either.”
He insisted that it really was that trivial. I still wasn’t fully convinced, of course, but if that were true, then I could at least somewhat understand why he would want to hide it. If I were in the same condition, and I’d concluded that the cause was just a trifling issue, I would probably claim that nothing was wrong—all the more so if I were showing signs of recovery. There wouldn’t be any reason to worry others needlessly.
Obviously, from my position, I wasn’t pleased about having the truth concealed from me... But I expected he’d be more open about it in the future if I asked him to be, and it would be easy enough to resolve.
Still, I had an unpleasant feeling about it all. I felt like I was being misled, like he was dodging the question, like there was something left unaddressed.
“I thought you’d just get upset with me, and I’d end up being a burden to you,” he muttered as I tried to figure out the something still bothering me. “That’s why I didn’t want to talk about it. If anything, you’re making it easier—when the gloom and depression are weighing on me, you help take my mind off it all.”
Part of me was just purely happy to hear those words, but I caught a hint of sweetness mixed into his voice toward the end, and I felt a heat reflexively rising within me. I’d heard that tone more and more lately—that was how he sounded when he was extending an invitation.
I nearly reached out to touch him, but I gritted my teeth and held myself back. He needed to stop thoughtlessly provoking me when he hadn’t even recovered from his illness yet.
“Not today,” I said.
“Oh? All right, suit yourself. I’ll have these to comfort me today.”
He sounded a bit put out by my flat refusal, but he leaned over to look at the bouquet of roses—I picked them up from my lap and held them out to him. As the scent drifted through the air, his composed expression melted and softened before my eyes. Seeing him happy made me feel slightly relieved; he’d teased me about them earlier, but the flowers’ effect on him was the same as always.
“You really do love roses, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Like I said a while ago, they bring up memories for me.”
“You mentioned... What sorts of memories are they, anyway?”
I’d meant it as nothing more than an idle question. Knowing that this man was that Heinreid, digging into his past could easily mean stirring up a hornet’s nest, but the roses didn’t seem likely to be tied to any blood-soaked atrocity.
However, the reply he gave instantly destroyed whatever calm was beginning to settle over the room.
“Oh... They’ve got the same scent as the perfume my first lover wore.”
What?
I lost my voice for a moment, unable to comprehend the meaning of his words.
Did... Did he just admit what I think he did?
The blood drained from my face; my mind fell into disarray. A lover? There had been no signs of anyone like that around him after he’d awoken from his evil ways. He couldn’t possibly be talking about any of the women he’d raped and murdered in the old days... Was it his former fiancée, Lady Angelica? No, that wouldn’t make sense either. He’d seemed to have an attachment to roses even before his first time meeting her. Just who on earth was he talking about?