Ch#163
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Joel surveyed the two individuals whose lives he was tasked with preserving. To be perfectly honest, they were the very last people on earth he felt like saving. However, because they had to remain breathing to face a judge, he performed the bare minimum of his duties and nothing more.
The celebration within the Oak Forest had devolved into a total catastrophe. While the Duke bore the brunt of the blame, he was also the man who had brought the chaos to an end. Despite the horrors Lev Zid had committed, his violence had been focused on specific targets; those who had been hurt in the frantic scramble to escape couldn’t exactly demand that the Duke pay for their injuries.
Then, there was the matter of Adrina.
The weight of her situation was heavy, yet there was a strange sense of calm surrounding her.
She was being detained on a charge of high treason. In this land, any strike against the Crown, the royal bloodline, or the high nobility was classified as such a crime. Adrina Dean, holding only a basic knighthood, had tried to take the life of Lev Zid, a man of noble birth. Regardless of her intent to safeguard her master, the law viewed it as treason. While it was almost certain the charges would vanish once the trial began, the royal guard still had a formal obligation to take her into custody.
However, because the Knights of Pallesa were handling her detention instead of the capital’s own guards from Ionad, Adrina’s confinement was surprisingly relaxed.
Part of this was due to Roy Gallardo. Having come from Pallesa himself, he felt a protective instinct toward Adi.
“…You,” she managed, looking at him.
“Long time no see,” he replied. “Remind me of your name again?”
Adi’s only memory of him was the lowly page she had nearly emasculated in a fight. She was actually happy to see that the former servant had managed to earn his spurs and find his way here. Roy might not have felt the same warmth, but he certainly knew exactly who she was.
“So, you were a girl this whole time?”
They shared the same face, after all; there was no way he could have mistaken her identity.
“You’re alive, and you’re a woman?”
“I had my reasons for the deception,” she said simply.
It seemed a bit flippant to dismiss faking one’s gender and death as just having reasons. Yet, hadn’t the Count engaged in the same level of trickery? Roy’s mind raced with questions. Why was Adrian—or rather, Adrina—even living on the Duke’s lands? What had transpired in the time they were apart?
Regardless, if she was actually a Grimaldi by birth rather than a Dean by name, the treason charges would likely be invalid. From a legal standpoint, she would be innocent, provided she could actually prove her history.
If her status as a child of the Grimaldi line was confirmed, she would walk free. Whether that proof would be easy to produce was another matter entirely. While plenty of people could testify to her resemblance to the family, the real question was whether the Count would ever admit it.
To acknowledge her was to confess to his own past crimes. But if he chose to disown her? Then the Duke would effectively lose his child for a second time. High treason was the most serious of offenses, carrying a mandatory sentence of death.
Whether the method was the noose, the blade, or being pulled apart by horses, the end result was the same. Would the Duke truly stand by and let her be executed?
The politics of the situation were a tangled mess.
The Knights of Pallesa were also struggling with their own complicated emotions.
The realization that Adrian Grimaldi, the so-called dog of Pallesa, was female hit them hard.
They had been utterly humiliated and physically broken by a woman. Some of them had been forced to crawl between her boots in disgrace, while others had been beaten so badly they couldn’t leave their beds for days. Roy, the man she had nearly castrated, was standing right there as a living reminder.
It made sense now—the lack of mercy, the way she fought like a demon. They wondered if her brutality was a result of her gender. A man might have shown another man some shred of restraint, but she had crushed them without a second thought.
As the Pallesa knights wallowed in their bruised pride, Roy Gallardo stepped into the room. He looked every bit the Woodpecker Watchman, his iconic red cape trailing behind him.
“Can we get her some decent food from town?” he asked.
The other knights stared at him in silence. They were all thinking the same thing: that traitor definitely knew the truth all along.
“Oh, Roy. It’s been a while. Look at you, a full knight already,” one of them remarked.
The initial suspicion turned into a sense of being left behind. Roy looked healthy and prosperous, a clear sign that life in the South treated him well. He had always talked about coming back to his home region, so his success wasn’t a shock, but it still stung.
“How do you like it here? The food is incredible, isn’t it?” Roy asked.
“…I haven’t had a chance to eat yet,” the knight replied.
“Really? I can grab you something late tonight. I’ll just slip some outside food in while I’m at it.”
“Roy, look around,” Adi interrupted. “This isn’t exactly a dungeon. Why are you talking about smuggling food?”
It was true. Adi was being held in her own private quarters. It was almost absurd to keep a prisoner in such luxury, but since everyone expected her to be exonerated, no one raised an objection.
Had the Ionad knights been in charge, they would have been outraged by the leniency. The Pallesa men, however, didn’t have the energy to care. They just wanted the mess to be over so they could go home.
“Besides,” Adi added, “I’ve got more than enough to eat.”
When the Duke was told she needed to be confined, he had his head servant escort her here personally. Immediately after, a parade of servants had arrived with staggering amounts of food. Even when told it was inappropriate for a prisoner, they simply brought more, suggesting she share it if she couldn’t finish it all. It was an embarrassing amount of hospitality.
Roy looked over the spread of delicacies, sweets, and fresh fruit with an envious eye.
“I always dreamed of being the guy who brought a meal to a friend in the clink, though,” Roy joked.
“That is a remarkably strange thing to dream about,” Adi shot back.
Watching them, the other knights assumed they were close friends since they had served as the Duke’s personal detail together. They hadn’t realized their rapport was quite this blunt.
Roy made himself at home, dropping into an empty seat and snatching a green apple. He rubbed it clean on his sleeve and took a loud, juicy bite. After declaring Southern fruit to be the finest in the world, he shifted the conversation to their next moves.
“What’s the plan for you, Adi? Are we heading to Pallesa or straight to the capital?”
“Pallesa first,” she answered. “The King is expected to travel there shortly.”
“Wait, isn’t the King’s travel schedule supposed to be a secret? Should you be saying that out loud?” Roy asked.
“It’s a formal, scheduled event. Weren’t you stationed in Pallesa? How do you not know the royal itinerary?”
“I wasn’t exactly invited to high-level briefings,” Roy shrugged. “I just stood around and escorted nobles. How would I know where the King goes?”
He spoke with a casual disregard that seemed out of place for a former palace guard, but that was Roy. He was one of those handsome knights whose rough edges and blunt speech seemed permitted simply because of his looks. They often acted as though the rules didn’t apply to them.
“So,” Roy said, changing the subject. “Did you all know?”
“Know what?”
“That Adrian Grimaldi was actually a woman.”
“…I didn’t find out until much later myself,” Roy admitted.
Even during their escape, when she was dressed as a man, the thought had never crossed his mind. It was only after spending significant time in Woodpecker that the truth came out. Given her aggressive personality, it wasn’t exactly obvious.
Looking back, however, the signs were there. She had always been remarkably attractive; it was just her terrifying temper that had blinded everyone to her beauty.
“If I’d known,” one of the knights muttered, “I would have behaved differently.”
At the very least, they wouldn’t have walked around the barracks completely naked. Several men in the room shared that specific, mortifying memory. During the sweltering heat of summer drills, they used to strip off every stitch of clothing and dive into the water to cool down.
The sudden, vivid mental image of their past immodesty sent a collective shudder through the group. They scrambled to find a new topic, desperate to bury the memory.
“I guess the Duke doesn’t prefer men after all,” someone joked.
“Yeah, that rumor was everywhere, wasn’t it?”
They all fell into an awkward silence.
“I can’t even wrap my head around everything that’s happened,” another knight sighed.
“And now they’re saying Count Grimaldi is going to be put on trial too.”
To Adi, the room didn’t feel like a place of detention or legal handover. It felt like—
“People like us shouldn’t poke our noses into high-level politics if we want to keep our heads. Just look the other way,” a knight cautioned.
—it felt like a simple reunion of old comrades from Pallesa.
*
Above, the chandelier cast a gentle radiance throughout the chamber. The dark wood paneling and thick rugs gave the space an air of quiet prestige. Through the expansive windows, the orange glow of torches moved through the night.
The Duke’s personal guards and soldiers were maintaining a visible presence, marching back and forth as if the estate were under siege. It was a performance.
They were putting on a show of security for the nobles who had fled the forest. In truth, the guards likely didn’t feel any real urgency regarding the safety of their guests.
Claude stood before the fireplace, his eyes fixed on the portrait of the previous Duke Woodpecker. The man in the painting bore little resemblance to Yuls, save perhaps for the shape of his eyes. Claude realized he didn’t actually have many memories of the man; Yuls was the only Woodpecker he had ever truly known.
But a cold doubt was beginning to settle in. Did he know Yuls at all?
Claude sat back in his chair, keeping his expression neutral as he watched Yuls. His fingers were gripped tight against the wood of the armrests. He was trying to look composed, but his chest was tight with tension.
“When did you find out?” Claude finally asked.
“Find out what?”
“That I was the one who sent Lev to Macauliffe.”
Yuls offered a thin smile.
“I knew from the very start.”