The Sixth Plan. To Know Thy Enemy. (5)
“The owner of the carriage was a Baron and he had bestowed on the maid’s family a fairly generous amount for the funeral. My aides also reported that it was actually a great amount of consolation money from nobles to simple commoners.”
‘The flow of money could always turn doubt into certainty’. My father was good at numbers, but Betri was the one who did the Count’s accounting ledgers. Nevertheless, my third brother was actually very good at this. What my brother had proudly remarked before stuck in my mind all of a sudden.
“Who is the Baron?”
“Bie, what was it, Biette? I guess it was something like that…”
“Is it not Viette?”
My heart skipped a beat when I heard the name that Gellerhard just recalled while frowning slightly.
“Oh, right! Baron Viette! Do you know who it is?”
“I do know him, then.”
My father, Viscount Bentta, was one of Count Petrika’s vassals. At the same time, Baron Viette was my father’s colleague as well as another vassal of Count Petrika’s. He had a son who was five or six years older than me and at one time, Baron Viette actually tried to match me up with him. Above all else, as a childhood friend of Merilyn’s, I would often run into Baron Viette from time to time during the moments when I was still with her.
‘Miss Merilyn is beautiful as always and my Lady Amanda is very cute as well.’
As he had no daughters, he used to pet my head—his colleague’s youngest daughter. He was Count Petrika’s right-hand man who was mainly in charge of managing his dirty work.
* * *
Charlotte must have been so sick that the head maid had to take care of her. A hot bath was given to her after those hours of exhaustion back in the dungeon. I heard her saying that Charlotte’s bath had been over and when I entered the room, I found Charlotte was already standing in front of the fireplace. Her face as she watched the roaring flames ahead was as calm as usual.
“Charlotte.”
I took a small breath and called out her name as she turned to me while tucking her wavy hair behind her ear. Along with her hair all down and a black shawl draping over an unadorned white dress, she came running towards me as her eyebrows flinched. Her shawl slipped from her shoulders and fluttered onto the floor, but Charlotte proceeded to grab my hand instead—seemingly unconcerned about it.
“Amanda! I heard that my innocence has finally been revealed. How could such a terrible misunderstanding have spread that I am actually the culprit of harming both your child and Young Master Carlos?”
Her pitiful face was simply astounding. The soft hand that had caught mine all of a sudden gave me goosebumps and I reflexively flung it away.
“That is not a misunderstanding at any cost. Since Mother was the one who found evidence that you were the culprit, she decided to execute you publicly right away.”
The poison that was used by Charlotte had caused a fatal fever to the child. It was a special poisonous herb that was light green, odorless and did not even react to a silver spoon. On top of that, it would only increase one’s body temperature slightly when it were to be consumed by an adult. For this reason, it was widely used in secret for when a child had to be assassinated and some powerful men had already found a way to identify this poisonous weed in order to protect their young heir as well as a way to catch the culprit who wrote this poisonous concoction at the same time.
Those who touched this poisonous plant would have their hands glowed in red when exposed to the light that was created by the sorcerers. For a very long time, it had been utterly red like the innocent blood of a young life that the culprit was trying to collect.
Charlotte’s hands were clearly glowing red, so the Duchess Dowager decided to execute her right away. If it was any other evidence, the Duchess Dowager would have tried to find some more accurate evidence instead. Similar to my father who said that he definitely needed to investigate even more after seeing the trail left by his colleague, Baron Viette.
“I brought you out of the dungeon in order to ask you if you—alone—had planned all this.”
I suppressed my emotions as much as I could while facing Charlotte’s countenance. Charlotte, who gathered her hands in front of her chest as her shoulders shrugged, lowered her head as if she couldn’t even dare to look at me. Even her fluttering brown hair had seemed to be very sad.
“I can’t hide it any longer. That’s right, I never planned all of this on my own. Count Petrika told me… it was him who told me to do it.”
The expected person’s name finally came out. It was an anticipated answer, but it seemed that her hair got dyed white in an instant.
“Why would you even do that…”
Her lips and voice started to tremble terribly.
“The Count thought that the newly born child would eventually threaten Young Master Carlos. A Young Lady had been born this time, but a Young Master could be born for the next. And he became concerned that Amanda’s attitude would soon go through a change once you had a son.”
Such obvious predictions on top of such obvious anxiety. The very trope of a stepmother who would abuse her step son once she had children of her own was what Charlotte recited on which Count Petrika had thought of.
“As Amanda already knows, I am somebody who lives under the goodwill of his former wife… I was always worried whenever the Duchess Dowager’s health deteriorated since I never knew the exact moment I would be evicted. The Count then told me… he said that he would eventually let me have the position of the Duchess. If you were to take that medicine, your child would only get a stomach ache… Then, the Count would protest that you did not take good care of the children and you would eventually have to step down as the Duchess. I am… I’m so sorry, Amanda.”
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