Winter Field Chapter 16

As befits someone now carrying a secret, hiding his appearance set his mind at ease. In front of Rensley, who was taking a deep breath, Madam Samrit waved her hand.

“How is it, Rensley? No trouble seeing ahead, I hope?”

“Yes.”

The raised voice felt awkward, so he answered briefly. Madam Samrit nodded and took his hand.

“Now, let us go out. His Highness the Grand Duke will be waiting.”

It wasn’t to the point where he couldn’t see ahead, but having something obstructing his vision was cumbersome, and the hem of the garment catching on his feet was uncomfortable. When his steps faltered, Madam Samrit called for the other ladies-in-waiting. Only after several ladies-in-waiting approached and lifted the cloak and the train of the dress was Rensley able to move his steps properly.

Descending the spiral staircase one step at a time, he finally arrived at the central hall, which was already brimming with people.

The hall, lit more brightly than usual—amid the bustling crowd, the man in the black cloak caught the eye at once, without any need to search.

In Oldenland, it seemed the sovereign had his wedding attire made in black as well. Though there were splendid decorations near the collar and shoulders, the black cloak and the silver embroidery adorning its center were the same as the attire he always wore. The hair that usually covered his forehead had been slicked back, tidied as if with perfumed oil, making him look somewhat more aristocratic than usual. He was conversing with the people surrounding him with an indifferent expression utterly devoid of anything like the flutter of anticipation before a wedding ceremony.

Even without an announcement that the bride had arrived, the crowd’s gazes converged the moment Rensley entered alone. The Grand Duke’s eyes, too, naturally turned toward Rensley. From behind the veil, Rensley watched the sight of him dismissing the people around him and walking over.

He extended his hand. Gazing vacantly down at the hand held out toward him, Rensley recalled the finger-written conversations they no longer shared. The Grand Duke had been quite kind to Princess Yvette when she had first arrived at the castle.

Though there was no particularly noticeable change, since he had been a quiet man from the start, the subtle warmth he had once shown when facing his fiancée was no longer to be glimpsed in him when he stood before Rensley Malosen. It was nothing to feel hurt over, but perhaps because of the circumstances of having come from a distant foreign land, his mood was needlessly lonely.

“Your hand, Princess Yvette.”

At those words, Rensley pulled himself together and hastily placed his hand upon his. Contrary to his chilly expression, the Grand Duke’s hand was warm.

“This way.”

The Grand Duke helped Rensley’s steps along as he moved. The eyes of the guests followed the movements of the two who were soon to become a married couple without missing a beat. The choir standing along one wall began to sing a slow-tempoed hymn. In the center of the hall, surrounded by people, a priest in formal vestments stood equipped with a ceremonial podium.

Gisel Siebendad and Rensley Malosen, hands clasped together side by side, slowly advanced forward. The priest lifted a metal rod and struck an empty cup, likewise made of metal, that rested on the podium. Ding——. A resonance that stung the ears spread throughout the hall like ripples.

The Grand Duke grasped Rensley’s hand with a bit more strength, drawing it downward as he bowed his body. Rensley too hurriedly followed him and knelt before the podium.

The wedding ceremony had begun.

Before the wave-like spreading sound had subsided, the priest struck the cup a few more times. Strangely, as he listened to that resonance, akin to a bell, his restless heart gradually calmed.

As if having read Rensley’s inner thoughts, the priest at last opened his mouth.

“Gisel Siebendad, protector of Oldenland.”

The Grand Duke remained silently with his head bowed. Though he was meant to move as one body with him, Rensley, captivated by the unfamiliar ceremony of a foreign land, slightly lifted his head and stole glimpses at the priest, who wore vestments of a different style than those in Cornia.

“You who rule the black forest and the silver river and submit to the sacred duty of dominion. Do you consent to the union of souls to be realized this day?”

“I consent.”

As the Grand Duke answered, the priest turned his head toward Rensley. He seemed as if he could see right through his true identity, so Rensley quickly lowered his eyes. The calling of the name continued.

“Yvette Elvanes, companion of Loudkhen, you who tend the ice mountain and the hard earth and walk together on the path the protector takes. Do you consent to the union of souls to be realized this day?”

“I consent.”

He blinked, finding even his own voice constructing sentences curious, when he felt a gaze upon him. Turning his head slightly, he saw that Grand Duke Siebendad was looking back at him.

‘That’s right, the voice is funny, isn’t it?’

Rensley grinned awkwardly through the veil. The Grand Duke’s gaze lingered briefly, then turned away.

As Larkov had forewarned, several more ritual questions followed thereafter. A question asking whether he swore to speak only the truth in this rite, a question asking whether he swore to devote himself to Oldenland until body and mind were spent—roughly such predictable inquiries.

It was a ludicrous matter that he had to lie starting from the question of whether he would speak only the truth, but Rensley meekly answered only, “Yes.”

Then the deacons came walking out in a crowd and began to pray, as if chanting incantations, in a language Rensley could not understand. Though it was a position that demanded he be on high alert, the tedium of having to merely listen for a long time to unintelligible incantations was unavoidable, and he nearly dozed off.

“Yvette Elvanes, rise from your place.”

“Yes!”

Rensley sprang up as if caught daydreaming vacantly in class and called out by the teacher. Perhaps it was because he had risen too vigorously. A particularly conspicuous silence flowed through the assembly.

Yvette Elvanes was supposed to be sickly from birth and, going forward, to confine herself to her bedchamber—and here he was making such a blunder. Rensley quickly bowed his head modestly. The priest, as if sensing nothing particularly amiss, continued with what he had to say.

“If you are an innocent one who has truly spoken only the truth until now, you shall be able to pass through the ordeal.”

An ordeal? While he was bewildered, not knowing what it meant, four deacons brought in a large jar with legs. Looking closely, the jar was a brazier with no fire lit. Unlike ordinary braziers, however, delicate patterns were carved upon its outer surface.

When the priest stood before it, chanting an incantation and drawing a magic circle, yellow fire suddenly blazed up from the empty brazier. Even through the veil, the light was momentarily dazzling, and Rensley closed his eyes.

There was no smoke, but it was unmistakably fire. At the priest’s continued words, his closed eyes flew wide open.

“Yvette Elvanes, immerse both your hands in the chaste fire and prove your truth.”

‘…Immerse what in what?’

Rensley looked back and forth between the blazing fire and the priest, then turned to look at Gisel Siebendad, who was still kneeling before the podium. His cruel husband, as if asking what the problem might be, merely gazed at him with an expressionless face like that of a complete stranger.

His mouth went dry. Could everything have been a trap? From the proposal that they hold the wedding as decided, to Madam Samrit and old man Larkov, who had tended to him this morning—perhaps all of them. In truth, they had resolved to burn the sinner at the stake, and the people gathered here were also about to raise a toast as they watched him burn…

There was no spectacle so popular as a public execution. In Cornia, on days of public executions, especially burnings at the stake, the day’s tasks would even be finished by the forenoon for the sake of those who wished to watch.

Particularly, that cruel crown prince had so delighted in coaxing condemned criminals as if he would spare them, making them harbor hope, only to sentence them to death at the very end. It seemed as though that wretch’s bone-chilling laughter, chortling as he watched the prisoners fall into despair and betrayal at the moment of death, was reviving inside his ears.

“Yvette Elvanes, undergo the proof of the chaste fire at once.”

Even if, by any chance, it truly was a mysterious fire that proved truth as the priest claimed, he, who had done nothing but spew a string of lies, could not ‘prove’ anything. The fire would instantly catch onto his clothes and body, and this place would become the scene of a merry burning-at-the-stake festival.

While Rensley stood rigid, people began to murmur heavily, and finally, the Grand Duke rose to his feet. He came and stood behind Rensley, bowed his head, and whispered.

“Place your hands into the brazier.”

“…But it is blazing…”

Rensley glanced sideways at him and whispered back. He could no longer trust the Grand Duke unquestioningly either. A faint puzzlement permeated the end of the Grand Duke’s words.

“Did you not receive an explanation beforehand? I instructed Larkov to inform you of the ceremony procedures in advance.”