Chapter 174: Chapter 173

Five days passed. Roshan finally had its rainy season at the end of June.

The funeral of Duke Hubble proceeded without any accident. On a rainy day, many nobles watched his coffin being moved to the Hubble Castle.

Marianne was there, too. Though her condolences were not 100% pure without any private feelings, she still prayed for his rest as best she could, believing that the price he didn’t pay fully for his crimes when he was alive would be repaid in purgatory’s flames.

Ober went to see Eckhart on the day when Duke Hubble’s coffin was moved out of the capital. And as expected, he reported to the emperor that the witnesses went missing. In the meantime, Ober was as arrogant as before, suggesting that many more nobles supported him where they hadn’t before.

<I’ve ordered a reinvestigation about the missing witnesses. I will report back as soon as I have updates.>

His words didn’t show anything that asked the emperor to punish him for his failure to bring the witnesses to the capital safely or shift the responsibility for the failure on him.

<I earnestly ask you to approve Elias’s succession of his late father’s title within the next few days. I think it is most effective for you to show some mercy in order to silence the rumors on the streets.>

What he showed now was only his unfettered greed.

<Got it. The trial will be postponed indefinitely until you find the witnesses. In your investigation report, I don’t see anything that is presumed to be Grand Duke Christopher’s crime. So, I don’t have to keep the post of the chief of the imperial knights vacant. I have reinstated him as of today. If you need to cooperate with the Central Knights Group about the investigation, consult with the Grand Duke.>

Eckhart did not rebuke Ober. Instead, he just made a deal with Ober. On the day that Grand Duke Christopher was ordered to return to the headquarters of the Eluang Knights, Elias received an imperial certificate acknowledging that he formally succeeded Duke Hubble’s title.

The Elior Mansion was busy earlier on that day.

Marianne put a puzzle together with Roxanne who visited the mansion and drank tea.

Mrs. Renault, who cleared the air after hearing from Jed about the situation, visited Duke Kling on the day he came back home early and had dinner with him. On the day the Grand Duke returned to the Knights, Rane brought a big cake to commemorate his uncle’s innocence.

Of course, she ate about three-quarters of the cake.

The person Ober promised to send to Marianne sooner or later came three days after he made the promise. It was Arnette, Mrs. Chester’s maid. She visited the mansion, making excuses of delivering Mrs. Chester’s gift. Pretending to serve Marianne with Cordelli, she pointed out Ober’s moles planted in the mansion directly. There were a total of eight moles hiding in the mansion, including the garden maid, Eve. In the afternoon, she entered the Lucio Palace and met seven hidden moles.

“Are there only seven moles in the Imperial Palace?”

“No, there are many more, but you don’t have to memorize all of their names and know their faces. It’s probably enough to know only those who are placed in the spaces you usually visit.”

Marianne could read faint disbelief in her answer but did not express it.

Annette said that the informant was called Roeth, and the assassin was called Kiara among them. And she gave Marianne a token to use when she wanted to order them. The ring made of clean silver had a snake-shaped decoration carved from obsidian.

Marianne wore the ring on her little finger. Although she never mentioned the width of her little finger, it fit perfectly. She felt goosebumps.

While Marianne was meeting several people, the clouds over Roshan’s sky grew thicker.

The drizzle everywhere brought together thunder and lightning in the distant lands.

The rain clouds covering the sun for several days gathered throughout the capital.

The weather was cloudy on the day when Marianne visited Eckart.

“If you really want to start rehabilitation, please do so. Your arm can become stiffened if you don’t use it for too long. ”

In the parlour located inside his residence there were candles here and there, even though it was broad daylight. Outside the dim window, the ever-increasing rain struck the window panes.

“But you must not flex your arm when you lift heavy stuff. You shouldn’t ride a horse or practice swordsmanship. Of course, writing for a long time isn’t good for your arm. You should eat with your left hand for the time being and keep the splint on your right arm except when you do rehab. The wounds on your back are not fully healed, so you have to be careful about moving your arm violently,” Oustaschu, the director of the Imperial Medical Bureau, gave detailed instruction, while disinfecting the wounds on Eckart’s back.

Eckart clicked his tongue, touching his right arm without the splint for a while, while the doctor was replacing the bandage.

“Just tell me not to do anything. If you say, ‘I shouldn’t do this or that,’ it’s like asking me to count the numbers with my fingers like a child, right? ”

“This is a very good rehabilitation exercise. Slowly repeat it and control of your muscles will come back. ”

“…Haha, I was joking. ”

“What Sir Jed told me was right.”

“What did he say?”

“He told me that Your Majesty had no talent for cracking jokes at all…”

As soon as the doctor replied with a sigh, Marianne burst into laughter from the other side.

“… Oh, sorry. I couldn’t help it because Sir Oustaschu spoke in such a funny way.”

Marianne, even though they looked at her in embarrassment, kept giggling.

Strange to say, she found it interesting to see the emperor having a quarrel with somebody.

“I am very much honored if I have pleased you, Lady Marianne.”

Spreading a sticky ointment on top of the wounds where granulation tissue was formed, he continued, “I wish the emperor gave me the same pleasure, but he just keeps doing what I ask him not to do…”

Marianne cleared her throat, while hearing the doctor’s grumbling, “Doesn’t the emperor listen to you? He told me he was following your medical prescription well. ”

“Really? Even if he is not good at joking, he seems to be excellent at lying. ”

In embarrassment, Oustaschu rubbed his hand stained with ointment onto the handkerchief. And then he made a determined look, as if he wanted to report it to the imperial general counsel.

“Did he say he was following my medical prescription? No way. Even if I asked him to take a few days to rest, he never listened to me. I also asked him to show me the wounds on his back, but he told me the wound wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, and now he insists that it can be valuable evidence.”

“Sir Oustaschu!”

“It was the most ridiculous sophistry I have ever heard from patients. As expected, there is a big scar left on his back. I could have made it less ugly if he had followed my prescription.”

“Sir Oustaschu, please stop it…” Eckart signalled to him and cut him off, but to no avail.

Marianne’s look already changed like that of a hunter who found a beast caught in a trap.

“Oh, I see. I guess you have been distressed a lot because of the emperor’s stubbornness.”

“I appreciate your sharing my feelings very much.”

“But it doesn’t look like sophistry when he said the back wound could be valuable evidence.”

“Really?”

Oustaschu, who was in high spirits like a fox on a tiger’s back with her praise, became embarrassed as if he had his head hit by somebody. Eckart put his hand on his forehead with a deep sigh.

“Sir Oustachu, if you’re done, get out of here right now.”

His order was firm, but there was a strange heat rather than a threatening tone in his order.

Ostaschu alternately looked at Eckart and Mariane once, then put down a clean new bandage on the table. Then he grabbed the rest of the medical equipment and said goodbye.

“Your Majesty. You should never overwork yourself. Never, ever! ”

Repeating his medical advice to the end, he quickly left before the emperor showed anger.

Thump!

When the doctor left, Marianne rose from her seat and went to the couch where Eckhart sat. The abundant fabric of her skirt swelled up and covered his knees.

Eckart straightened his back to instinctively step back as she got closer to him.

But she dared to grab his arm first. She quickly glanced at his back.

The wound was healed well, compared with when she put the hemostatic paste on it.

Given that he overworked himself everyday, the wound on his back was healing well without getting infected. However, the wound was scarring a distinctly different form of scar from the smooth skin around it. It wasn’t very ugly, but it didn’t look good. She didn’t feel the scar was gross, but she rather felt sorry for him whenever she saw it.

“Oh, you remembered it! You once told me that this wound was a valuable proof of how stupid he was to save a hostage. ”

“…Sure, I remember it. ”

“Then, don’t you remember what I told you right before you said that? I told you that others might not care about this, but I would care about it.”