20. Saving the Empress
Riwes picked up the brush with a serious look. The maid standing beside the little boy fidgeted anxiously and muttered under her breath. “Lord Riwes, you really shouldn’t be here…” And she was right.
This was a secluded storage room in the Kalinos Mansion. To be precise, it was the storeroom where Duke Kalinos had gathered most of Marquis Berto’s paintings. They were just about to destroy Marquis Berto’s paintings by tearing them up, but first, they were doing a final inspection. But it was no coincidence that Riwes, who had been playing hide-and-seek with Ivanka, ended up sneaking into that storeroom.
Riwes squared his shoulders and declared, “But the prince has a duty to make a crying princess smile!”
At the completely out-of-the-blue remark, the maid’s expression turned puzzled. Meanwhile, Ivanka, the little maid, was nodding with a beaming smile.
“Lord Riwes thinks that painting, <The Weeping Woman>, was modeled after Madam Giselle. Riwes wants to turn <The Weeping Woman> into <The Smiling Woman>.”
“Huh? Ivanka, how did you know that?”
“Ivanka just knows these things!”
Even as Ivanka and the maid chatted, Riwes kept busily moving his brush, painting over the canvas.
“Um, you knowww. This painting, will Sister like it?”
“Of course. She’ll love it ve~ry much.”
On the vivid green canvas of <The Weeping Woman>, the clumsy brushstrokes of the boy began to bloom. And then…
“Hee, it’s done!” Riwes set down the brush, declaring everything finished.
The maid, who had been watching, looked at the painting indifferently. “Lo-Lord Riwes…” But then, her eyes grew wide with shock.
At that moment, the storeroom door creaked open.
* * *
After the laughably fake tea party was finally over, I went looking for little Riwes and baby hamster Ivanka to unwind. I heard they were in the storeroom, so I rushed over.
I hesitated for a moment in front of the old storeroom door. Inside, there would be nothing but those shabby paintings depicting my miserable self. Just thinking about it made me sigh, and I found myself reluctant to even grab the handle. But when I opened the door, what awaited me inside wasn’t the damned paintings by Marquis Berto.
“…Huh?”
Orange, yellow, and bright pink spring colors filled my vision. The <The Weeping Woman> series that Marquis Berto painted when I was at my most miserable, crying my eyes out. But the painting that had captured the lowest point of my life was no longer an abstract painting of me crying. Though a bit clumsy, it had been transformed into a smiling woman adorned with beautiful flowers.
“Y-You’re not mad, that I ruined, the pa-painting, right…?”
The grotesquely twisted expression of the abstract had been changed into a crooked, smiling face. The lines, awkward and crooked in a way only a child could manage, made the painting look rather shabby. But the woman in the picture, arms full of bright pink spring flowers, looked truly happy.
“Y-You know! Riwes’ll show you before they tear it up and get rid of it! Riwes made it!”
As I stared at the painting, now overlaid with vibrant colors, a thought struck me. So that’s how it is. In the end, that painting really was nothing at all.
All those years I’d spent with my head bowed in misery over a worthless painting, the time I’d been trapped by a few strokes of Marquis Berto’s brush, only now did I realize how truly pitiful that was. There was a time when I thought I’d been completely destroyed and ruined by him. But that’s not true. No matter how much they hurt me, I wasn’t broken. And even if I had been broken, it wouldn’t matter. Just like Riwes did, you can always paint over a ruined picture and make it beautiful again.
Feeling lighter than I had in ages, I patted Riwes on the head and beamed. “Yeah. It’s really beautiful. Riwes, you could be a painter someday.”
“Hee…” As if embarrassed, Riwes nestled into my arms, his little hands stained green.
I tilted my head, watching the boy as he caught his breath, but then I suddenly froze. All I’d done was take a deep breath while looking at the green-tinted painting that filled the room, but for some reason, I too felt short of breath. Has someone noticed that I was breathing strangely?
Ivanka, who had been standing nearby, suddenly grabbed my sleeve and muttered urgently. “Mada Giselle! Lord Riwes, we need to get out of here, quickly.”
“…Just a moment.” I squeezed Riwes’s little hand, now stained green.
Ivanka spoke cautiously. “Actually, they say it’s not good to stay in this storeroom for too long!”
“…Why?”
At that, Riwes’s maid answered. “Ah, if you stay here for a while, you start to feel a bit dizzy. Even the maids who clean here sometimes complain about getting lightheaded.”
“Lightheaded, you say?”
“Yes. Among the maids, they call it Marquis Berto’s curse. I think that’s about right. That b*stard!”
I fixed my trembling gaze on the maid. Marquis Berto’s curse, huh…
I raised my hand and touched Riwes’s green-stained hand, then gently touched another of Marquis Berto’s paintings. Glaring at the green pigment now staining my fingertips, I raised my eyebrows. “No, I don’t think it’s a curse.”
It’s not a curse, but rather… Poison. Yes, it seemed there was poison in this paint.
Just as I was staring intently at the green pigment on my fingers, convinced of my suspicion, the storeroom door creaked open once more. Riwes, Ivanka, and I all turned our eyes toward the light spilling in.
“There you are, Wife. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“Oh, Your Grace.”
“Uncwle..!”
“I get anxious when you’re not around, Wife. But what are you doing here? And you, Riwes?” The duke, who had just casually said something shocking, approached with a displeased expression. “You were looking at this painting, I see.”
“Yes…”
“I meant to retrieve all of them, but there’s still one piece I haven’t managed to recover.”
If my guess was right, I knew where that last one was. I looked at him, my gaze trembling. “I have a question.”
“Yes.”
“Where is that remaining painting?”
If my guess was right…
“It’s in the empress’s palace. In fact, I tried to retrieve the one Her Majesty has as well, but I haven’t been able to get in touch with the empress’s palace directly, so it’s been delayed.”
“…”
“As you know, Her Majesty is especially fond of this color. At one point, the Berto family even presented her with pigments so she could paint pictures herself.”
“Then…”
“But please, don’t worry too much. As soon as we can make contact, we’ll definitely take it back.”
“You said you haven’t been able to reach Her Majesty. Is… is she unwell?”
“Yes. The empress’s health isn’t good.”
Catching onto the hints layered in his words, my eyes lit up. Why hadn’t I thought of it until now? There was a time when bright green pigments were known to cause arsenic poisoning! The empress must have been poisoned by the pigment. But just as I reached that conclusion… Then what about the others who were exposed to the painting? Wait… Riwes?
My eyes flew open as I grabbed hold of Riwes. The child’s lips had turned slightly bluish. “Riwes!”
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