Third Arc: Twenty-Seventh Chapter

"A-anyway, it's late, so please go home. A person of your standing shouldn't be wandering about at this hour of the night."

By the look of him, he didn't seem to be in any disguise. Was he still in his party clothes? He had few ornaments on, so maybe he had taken those off before coming.

"You're right. I've seen your face, so I'll head back to the castle and rest. ...I think I'll have good dreams. Ha ha!"

"What are you saying... hey, now... huh?"

"Ghk...?!"

For a moment I didn't understand what had happened. Just as I was about to answer Michael's banter, his body suddenly tipped toward me. Meaning to scold Michael for a joke gone too far as he buried his face in my shoulder, I grabbed his shoulder, and my hand met a slick, wet sensation.

"M-Michael! Michael?!"

"Ghh... uh. An, an arrow... sorry, I've soiled your dress..."

"That doesn't matter at all! S-somebody! Somebody, come, please!"

At the edge of my vision I caught a black shadow vanishing, but too shaken to look closely, I couldn't make it out. And right away Sissi, who had heard my scream, came running in, and after that it was pandemonium.

In the back of Michael, who slumped against me where I sat down on the balcony, a single arrow was buried deep, and the red blood flowing out stained his back a dark, ugly color. In a panic, we somehow carried Michael to the bed, and while I held back the people trying to pull the arrow out, a physician was quickly sent from the royal palace, and Michael was carried away.

I was asked some questions by the soldiers, but from the fact that the weapon was an arrow and from the position of the wound, I was ruled out as the culprit and left behind at the inn. The place Michael had been taken to was the royal palace. I couldn't simply follow.

The last I saw of Michael's face, it was drained of blood and ghostly pale, and only his lashes moved, trembling now and then as if remembering to.

"Michael..."

"Milady... you must change your clothes."

Would Michael be all right? Crushed almost flat by anxiety, I followed Sissi's gentle urging and, still dazed, headed off to bathe.

---

"Cosette... are you all right?"

"I'm all right. More to the point, how is Michael..."

"Ah, my brother's condition has settled, for now. But the arrowhead may have had poison on it, so they are in the middle of checking that. So far no dramatic symptoms from poison have shown, but we can't let our guard down."

A little while after I finished bathing and returned to my room, Lady Remie and Elliot, worried about me, had come to visit. Lady Julia and Anje, who were at the same inn, and Georg and Remias too, had been in the room until a moment ago, but it had grown late into the night, so each had gone back.

"You don't know whether it was poisoned?"

"No. Strong poisons are easy to trace when you go looking to buy them, so they often aren't used for assassinations. That is why people sometimes deliberately use poisons whose symptoms are slow to surface. So even without symptoms, they're checking carefully."

"I see..."

"It must have been so frightening. You poor thing. But I'm relieved that at least you are safe, Cosette. I do hope King Michael recovers safely too."

At Lady Remie's kind words, tears nearly spilled over. It was the first time anyone had collapsed right before my eyes, and the shock and anxiety and worry were unbearable.

"Lady Cosette, I imagine you've already told it, but I would like to hear the circumstances of the incident..."

"Yes, of course. Though even so, I couldn't see very well in the dark..."

I took a sip of the tea Sissi had set out and began to describe what had happened. But there was not much I could say. All I knew was that Michael had been shot in the back with an arrow by someone, and had collapsed, bleeding.

"Who could the culprit be... to try to assassinate King Michael..."

Assassination. The word, which I had only ever heard on the news, made me shudder. Who was the culprit who would do such a terrible thing? It was reasonable to think, after all, that one of Michael's political enemies had done it. When Lady Remie and I, unfamiliar with Lumelica's affairs, turned our eyes to Elliot, he was deep in thought with a grave look on his face.