Chapter 51 - When I Find You All (2)
A convent on a cold winter day.
The red-haired girl, who had managed to reach this place with the help of an old blacksmith, found a miserable sight before it.
“Mother Superior! Please open the door!”
A woman was knocking on the convent gate, which was locked as firmly as the cold winter day itself.
“It’s me, Marcella! Please, open the door!”
Marcella’s voice was cracking as badly as her disheveled black hair.
And behind her were girls trembling with cold and fear.
They were young prostitutes who, like Zemina, had been awaiting their debuts.
“... Marcella?”
The door, which had seemed as if it would stay firmly shut forever, opened.
An old nun was staring with displeased eyes at the unwelcome guest who had come so late at night.
“What brings you here at this hour...”
“Ah! Mother Superior!”
As if she had found light in the darkness, Marcella grabbed hold of the old nun.
“Please take care of these children.”
They are poor, pitiful children.
“What is this...”
The Mother Superior frowned at Marcella, who had not only shown up suddenly but was asking her to take in children as well.
This was more than a breach of etiquette; it had gone too far.
“I wondered what you had to say.”
“Go back!”
So something must have happened in the back alleys.
Otherwise, a woman who always smiled with easy composure would not be crying out in desperation like this.
“Mother Superior! Please!”
“This is not a place just anyone may enter!”
The Mother Superior showed her displeasure as she looked at the children standing behind Marcella.
They were children brought by a prostitute, so they were surely girls who belonged to some filthy place.
This was one of the places closest to God.
She could not house such filthy children here.
“No!”
There was a thigh that urgently wedged itself into the crack of the door as it tried to close in haste.
“These children are virgins.”
“They are children the bishop had been watching over!”
“...”
Virgin prostitutes.
Contradictory beings born because of the Bishop of Soara, who abhorred pedophilia.
The Mother Superior also knew those children well.
“Even so, I cannot take them in so suddenly...”
“Why not!”
“How much money do you think I’ve donated here all this time!”
A shrill voice rang out in front of the quiet convent in the dead of night.
The Mother Superior was startled at the sight of Marcella, who had looked pitiful only moments ago and had suddenly changed.
“That money alone would feed the children here for ten years and still leave plenty!”
“Is what I’m asking really that hard?”
The Mother Superior was briefly overwhelmed as Marcella’s gaze changed into that of a lioness trying to protect her cubs.
“Move!”
At her desperate yet resolute shout, the Mother Superior stepped aside, and Marcella threw the convent door wide open before speaking to the girls behind her.
“Get inside!”
“Madam.”
“What about you, Madam?”
“Worry about yourselves.”
Looking at the girls who were hesitating and sobbing, Marcella firmly seized their shoulders and pushed them into the convent.
“Let’s call this your overdue wages.”
One by one.
Children entered God’s embrace through the hands of a prostitute.
“Marcella...”
“Yeah.”
“You did well.”
Marcella smiled as she cupped Zemina’s face, frozen stiff by the cold wind, in both hands.
“You and I both did what we had to do.”
“Men were never any good at finishing things.”
Once she had even sent the hesitating Zemina inside the convent, the Mother Superior blocked the way as if this much, at least, she could not concede.
“You cannot come in.”
God’s embrace was wide, but reaching it required qualification.
Marcella, a wanton prostitute, was a woman who had no right to enter God’s embrace.
“... I never wanted that anyway.”
Before rules set not by God but by humans, Marcella came to a stop.
But she had succeeded in safely sending the children who had been in her embrace to another nest, so Marcella had fulfilled her responsibility to the end.
“Please take good care of them.”
“They are all good workers.”
“...”
The pitiful woman was left alone in the darkness with no way around it.
In the end, someone’s greedy hands had stretched even this far.
Through the crack of the slowly closing door, Marcella could be seen being dragged away.
By her hair, into the darkness of a cold winter day.
“Marcel...la.”
That was the last sight Zemina saw of the outside world.
* * *
“Today, you will pray here together with our children.”
“... The chapel is large.”
“That is good to see.”
Following the Mother Superior’s guidance as he looked around the convent, Vlad kept glancing this way and that.
He knew it was rude, but he wondered if there might be a familiar head of red hair among the novice nuns passing him by.
“And there are people waiting to pray with you, Sir Knight.”
“Would it be all right for you to pray together with them?”
“Grace multiplies the more it is shared.”
However, the girl he was looking for was nowhere to be seen, and only unwelcome guests were waiting for Vlad.
'... So this was why.'
No wonder they had been delaying the schedule for his visit to the convent all this time.
It seemed this had been their intention.
In the true world of nobles and knights, Vlad was still only an insignificant existence, but to those looking upward from the very bottom, he was attractive enough.
They had probably worked on the Mother Superior in order to form a connection with Bayezid.
“... Let’s do that.”
“It would be an honor.”
“Thank you for your consideration.”
He did not like the fact that they seemed to be using him, but for now Vlad had no choice but to follow the Mother Superior.
'That bastard Got.'
Thinking of Got, Vlad let out a sigh inwardly.
Got had boasted that he had arranged the visit, but he had not said that Vlad was planning to take Zemina out.
'In the end, I have to do everything myself.'
That was why Vlad now had no choice but to make as favorable an impression on the Mother Superior as possible.
If he was going to suddenly ask for something that was not scheduled, he needed to show her even the slightest positive side of himself.
“...”
As he listened to the Mother Superior explain the history of the convent, Vlad needlessly touched the unadorned sword hanging at his waist.
For the sake of the girl who had given him this sword, this much inconvenience was something he could endure.
After all, this sword that had stayed with him all this time was as good as bought with the girl’s tears.
* * *
The convent morning was busier than usual.
It was not like any other day, but as Zemina watched a scene she had seen from time to time, she silently put her hands into the dishwashing tub.
'Looks like someone is coming today too.'
There were days like this from time to time.
Days when they prayed together with people from outside.
“It’s amazing!”
“He’s insanely handsome!”
“He has blond hair and blue eyes!”
“You’d think he was some noble!”
Because news from outside did not travel easily into the convent, the rumors about the man who had supposedly visited today were clearly stimulating the girls’ imaginations.
“...”
But to Zemina, such stories had nothing to do with her.
Having grown up in the back alleys, she knew cruel reality better than anyone here.
She did not want to waste time on fairy-tale things the girls dreamed of.
“Why are you all still dragging your feet?”
“Everyone, get ready to go to the chapel!”
At the shout of the disciplinarian nun who entered the kitchen, the novice nuns quickly finished the dishes.
But where Zemina had been assigned, dishes were still piled high.
It was the result of no one helping her and, instead, quietly shoving more work onto her.
“...”
At the disciplinarian nun’s shout, the girls who had come with Marcella along with Zemina looked around nervously.
But just as Zemina was gritting her teeth and enduring, those children too were doing their best to survive in an unfamiliar place.
Even if that meant ignoring Zemina.
“You can come after you finish all that.”
“... Yes.”
Even as everyone left according to the disciplinarian nun’s instruction, Zemina stood alone before the dishwashing tub.
In the empty kitchen, the only sound was the splashing of water.
Here, Zemina was terribly alone.
“... There’s no one left to complain about getting eczema now.”
In the quiet kitchen with no one around, the girl quietly remembered someone.
If there was any strength that allowed the girl to endure each day, it was the sight of Marcella, who had sacrificed herself for them back then, and the promise the boy had left behind at the end.
* * *
Everyone had gathered in the chapel except for one person.
In this place filled with bright afternoon sunlight, the girls were expressing their pounding hearts in whispers.
The knight of the rumors.
The promising prospect Bayezid had its eye on.
A person who had every element girls of that age would be interested in was coming here.
“Today, we have a special guest.”
“He comes from the Bayezid Family, and he is also someone vouched for by Priest Andreas.”
The girls murmured as they repeated the name spoken by the Mother Superior.
Anyone living in the North, and in Bayezid County at that, could not fail to know the name Andreas.
No matter how many merits he had earned, the status of a squire alone could never have created a situation like this.
The girls nodded to one another, saying that there was indeed a reason for it.
The man coming here now was someone who had excellent pillars standing behind his back.
“Let us pray.”
With the Mother Superior leading, everyone here bowed their heads.
At the sight of the blond man bowing his head in prayer, the girls once again let out silent screams.
Because his posture in prayer looked so natural.
One could tell how devout someone was just by looking at their posture.
At the sight of someone who, at the very least, did not seem to be an uncultured man who lived only in pursuit of the sword, the girls’ hearts began to race.
'... Hurry up and get in line!'
'I’m sorry.'
Zemina, who had only just finished the dishes that remained, quickly took a place in the corner while enduring the glares of the nuns.
'... Phew.'
Fortunately, she was not too late.
If she was too late or absent from something like this, severe reprimands would be waiting for her, so Zemina let out a sigh of relief.
But the girl would not have known.
That the blond man above, who had only been pretending to pray, had been looking for her all this time.
And that he had confirmed the red hair that entered this place last.
The prayer ended.
Polite greetings and laughter passed by.
When all that remained was building connections with people under the guise of lunch.
'Hm?'
Zemina, who had finished praying and only now raised her head, felt as if her eyes had met those of the blond man standing before the altar.
“...?”
And from the moment she felt their eyes had met, Zemina could not take her eyes off the man.
His dazzling hair color was enough to draw people’s gazes on its own, but that was not why Zemina stared at the blond man.
It was because he resembled someone she knew.
“... Tsk.”
Vlad, who had been descending from the altar in step with the Mother Superior and the guests she had invited, began to frown as if he had discovered something displeasing.
“Is something the matter?”
When Vlad clicked his tongue and showed his discomfort, the Mother Superior asked with a smile.
“... She’s too thin.”
“Are you feeding the children properly?”
“Pardon?”
At the tone that sounded as if he were scolding her, the Mother Superior was briefly startled.
“Huh?”
“No...”
After spitting out that single sentence, Vlad strode down the altar alone.
At the man’s suddenly discourteous behavior, unlike moments ago, the distinguished guests who had come here and the girls were flustered.
Zemina was the same.
Though the feeling of her confusion was a little different.
'H-Huh?'
The blond man was coming closer and closer.
The clearer her vision became, the more flustered Zemina was by the feeling that someone from her memories was approaching her.
He was someone who should not be here and could not possibly be here.
“...”
Vlad stood before the girl with a deep frown on his face.
The gazes of everyone here gathered on him, but the boy did not care.
What did it matter who watched?
He had come all this way for this very moment.
“... Hey.”
Even at Vlad’s curt call, Zemina only blinked her large eyes and did not move an inch.
She stood there as if she could not possibly accept the situation.
'It’s Vlad.'
Those words kept ringing through the girl’s mind, but her heart could not accept them.
'Is it Vlad?'
Zemina did not know what to do as a man who was Vlad yet did not seem like Vlad stared hard at her.
A glossy black cloak, expensive-looking ash-gray leather armor.
And his glossy blond hair and healthy, filled-out face were clearly different from the skinny boy she had known.
'I don’t think it is.'
But there was another fundamental reason Zemina could not recognize Vlad.
The Vlad in Zemina’s mind was a boy, but the Vlad before her eyes now had become a man.
Broader shoulders, taller height.
And those blue eyes looking down at her...
“Do they not feed you properly here or let you wash your clothes?”
“Huh?”
Zemina was startled as she looked at the boy who had suddenly disappeared from before her eyes.
“... Ha.”
“Fuck.”
Vlad made a sound that made it hard to tell whether he was angry or upset, then dropped to one knee and began wiping away the filth on the front of Zemina’s clothes.
It was a stain from dirty water that Zemina had not managed to wipe off.
“... What is this?”
“They knew each other?”
Everyone here was shocked at the sight of the promising knight whom Bayezid had its eye on kneeling before a shabby-looking girl.
In particular, the girls who had tormented Zemina all this time were so shocked they could not even breathe.
“What is this, looking like an idiot?”
“Hey, aren’t you going to answer me?”
“... Yeah!”
Only after she felt the boy’s warm touch did Zemina realize who the person before her was.
“Sob!”
“Hic!”
Looking at the girl whose large eyes were filled with tears, Vlad slightly pressed his lips together.
“... To hell with procedure.”
“We’re leaving today.”
Zemina tried stroking Vlad’s head as he knelt before her.
It was not something she did consciously, but she felt she had to.
Because she had to feel it.
The sensation at her fingertips.
It was glossier, but it was the same sensation as the boy from back then.
“Let’s go home now.”
“----!”
Though she tried hard to hold it in, Vlad’s final words struck the girl’s heart violently.
“Waaah!”
In front of everyone.
The red-haired girl had no choice but to spill tears that would not stop no matter how much she tried.
Let’s go home.
They were words the girl, who had no home, had never heard even once.
For the back-alley vagrants who had no home, no parents, and no food, one another had been home and parents.
Remembering that winter day when they had wrapped one another in a single blanket, the girl ended up shedding tears.
In the chapel where everyone had fallen silent, only the girl’s crying rang out.
However.
No matter how noisy the sound.
Just for today, even God would have no choice but to listen to the girl’s crying.
Because the girl was thanking God at the top of her lungs more than any priest in this world.
The boy who had fallen along with a heap of trash had kept the promise from back then.
The promise that he would definitely return.
