Red Tape

The duke and his guests are only interested in shooting, not dead animals. To them, the forest creatures are nothing more than moving targets.

When Liam, who had escorted them back to the mansion after the hunt, handed them a bag of game, the duke looked at him as if saw something strange, then waved him away as if chasing bugs.

So Liam returned to the cabin with the game in his bag.

He felt a little sorry for the animals that had been killed without any purpose or value and only for someone’s amusement.

Late in the afternoon, after much thought, Liam squatted down in the front yard of the cabin and grabbed his pocket knife. In front of him are a few rabbits and pheasants that he had taken from the bag.

Liam cut the pheasant’s neck with the knife in his hand, thinking to drain some of the blood and take it to the servant’s kitchen.

The blood that had gathered in the bag spilled out onto the dirt floor. While cleaning the second pheasant, he heard footsteps.

When he turns around, an unimaginable person is standing there.

“Master…?”

Erwin, who has removed his hunting clothes and returned to his normal appearance, is standing at the end of the path.

Erwin’s expressionless gaze moved down from Liam’s face to his hands. One hand holds a blood-stained knife, while the other a pheasant with its head cut off.

Erwin’s face, which had seemed to have regained its vitality, turned pale again.

“… barbaric.”

Erwin speaks in a sigh-like voice, turns around, and walks down the same path.

“It’s really barbaric.”

Erwin’s voice seemed to echo in his ears. Liam looked down at his blood-stained hands with resentful eyes.

Why do I always get caught like this? Only in a messy, dirty, and shabby situation.

All of this. Liam’s shoulders slumped as he lost strength.

Liam tilted his head as he finished his prey with a dejected face.

A question suddenly arose.

But why did the young master come here again?

***

The pheasant that Liam brought became the servants’ dinner ingredient. Mrs. Wellesley, the cook, praised him for preparing it neatly, but his mood did not improve.

At the servants’ hall table, where food is abundantly prepared, many stories are told. There are many stories about work, but most of them are rumors that circulated throughout the neighborhood and among the nobles.

Liam, who lived far from the capital, is not particularly interested in stories about nobles or royalty. After all, they are things from another world, far away from him.

The only thing that stops him, who is so absorbed in eating, is the name of one person.

“Still, Master Erwin is better.”

They were in the middle of a heated conversation about who would be the best groom in the empire.

“But, she’s the crown princess?”

“From what I saw at the last dinner, our master looked much better. And his dancing, well, that goes without saying.

Liam put down his fork and joined the conversation.

“Dancing?”

Margaret, the maid, spoke excitedly.

“Our master is probably the most beautiful waltzer in the Freita Empire. No matter how beautiful the young lady dances, only our young master can be seen.”

“That’s right.”

Liam had seen people dancing at the village festival in Fervick. A couple holding hands, dancing and spinning to the music of the musicians. Was that called a waltz? How would the young master dance?

I wanted to see the ball when it was held. The young master danced beautifully in a waltz.

“But if it were me, I would choose the crown princess. The duchess is nice, but the crown princess is better.”

While everyone was lost in their own fantasies, a loud noise echoed throughout the ceiling. Liam jumped up and looked for the source of the dull sound that sounded like thunder.

“What are you looking at?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

The atmosphere among the servants becomes gloomy, which Liam is unaware of. However, that was only for a moment, and the people resumed their conversation with indifferent expressions.

When Liam finished his meal and left, it was late evening, and the gas lights hanging on either side of the mansion’s entrance quietly illuminated the surrounding area.

As always, Liam planned to walk around the mansion a couple of times and then return to the cabin.

When he sees the master’s room window closed and about to turn around feeling empty, someone stumbles out of the hallway.

He can tell who it is just by looking at the hair shining in the gas light. It is Erwin.

Liam quickly approached and supported Erwin, who seemed about to collapse at any moment.

At first glance, his face appears to be a mess. The corners of his lips are split and one side of his cheek is red. There is also a scratch from under his eye to his temple.

Liam, who had lived on the streets for a long time, recognized this at a glance. That is a wound from being hit.

But who on Earth could lay a hand on the Duke of Caliwell’s sole successor?

“You Master…? Who on earth… .”

Erwin, who had been leaning against Liam, finally turned his head. His delicate brows furrowed as his cold blue eyes met Liam’s face.

“Let go. Where you are touching. Dirty.”

Erwin slapped Liam’s hand around his waist. However, the reaction made him lose his balance and stumble. Liam reached out again, but Erwin slapped his palm and showed a firm refusal.

Liam couldn’t take his eyes off Erwin’s fragile back until it disappeared into the eastern wing.

No matter how lowly I am, he is more willing to fall than letting me hold him. Is it because I am dirtier than the dust floor?

A sense of unworthiness washed over him.

Liam returns to his cabin and takes off his clothes that smell of gunpowder.

As he took off his vest, something fluttered and fell to the ground. It is a handkerchief that Erwin used and then discarded in the forest.

Liam stares at it as if it is Erwin.

“Something like this… .”

Liam lifted his foot as if to step on the handkerchief. However, his foot, which had been suspended in midair for a long time, returned to its original position.

Liam bent down and carefully picked up the handkerchief, then went to the bathroom to gently wash the delicate fabric.

The handkerchief, which was neatly hung not too close to the fireplace, had a bluish tinge as if it had never fallen to the floor and become dirty. Just like his noble master.

***

Liam heard the shocking news about a week after his hunting trip, while he was helping to remove weeds around the pond.

“Master Erwin? Today?”

That exotic name has a magical power that makes Liam stop whatever he is doing, whether it is eating, chopping firewood, or pulling weeds.

“To Grantaire?”

“I heard the master is going to Saint-Bernoulli Academy.”

“He is suddenly going abroad to study.”

“Jeffrey has been busy running around here and there, so the Lord must have suddenly given an order.”

Granter is a neighboring country to the west of the Freita Empire. There was a border war, Aberda, but the Freita Empire emerged victorious. However, conflicts still occur occasionally.

“It’s mean, We will not see him for a couple of years.”

“I guess so.”

Suddenly, the surrounding noises vanished one by one, until there was no sound at all. As if I have been hit in the head with a blunt object and dazed.

I could not figure out what this sense of deprivation meant. It feels as if I am losing or being robbed of something I never had.

I don’t know what I was thinking when I finished my work. On his way past the stables, Liam noticed the grooms using a harness to tie a carriage with golden daffodils to the horses. It seems that the carriage is preparing for a master ride.

Liam lowers his head as if he is ignoring and heads to his cabin.

Yes. On the contrary, it is a good thing. If the master disappeared, I would no longer feel this strange tickling sensation or the shabbiness that I could not bear. So it is a good thing.

Liam’s steps, which had been ruminating on such thoughts as he entered the cabin, suddenly stopped.

Something felt strange about the now-familiar scenery inside the cabin. I can feel it.

Liam’s gaze, which had been scanning the small space, stopped on the table.

A hat is placed on the table.

It is a hunting hat similar to the one he had bought before, but it is incomparably more luxurious. Liam picked up the hat with a bewildered expression.

The thick fabric is so soft that it seems to melt the moment it touches his hand, and it is decorated with shiny silver buttons.

“No way… .”

Erwin’s cold face, looking down at him as he frantically tried to pull his hat out of the carriage wheel, came to mind.

Liam left his cabin and started running.

He could see the master’s carriage pulling out into the mansion’s driveway.

Liam runs like crazy to catch up with the carriage. Little by little, the back of the carriage gets closer, and soon he catches up enough to see the window.

Erwin, who is staring into space with cold eyes, turns his head as if he has discovered something that is bothering his vision.

Our eyes met, and I could see the shape of his mouth ordering the coachman.

“Stop.”

The carriage came to a stop, and the door opened. Erwin gets out of his carriage and approaches Liam.

Liam put his hands on his knees, bent down, and tried to catch his breath. His heart and lungs feel like they are going to burst.

“Huff…pant… .”

“What?”

A cold voice comes from above from his lower head.

“Hat… Huff… Thank you.”

Erwin did not deny Liam’s words. He simply narrowed his brows slightly. Thinking that he had stopped his carriage just to say that.

Liam raises his head and looks at Erwin standing in front of him. He has completely forgotten that a servant should not look straight at his master’s face.

Fortunately, all of the scars on his face had faded, and the scratches had not left scars, Liam thought to himself.

Liam, who had finally caught his breath, urged him in a very careful voice.

“Health. Health. Stay healthy again.”

“Haha… .”

Erwin laughed for the first time. Liam’s face went blank in the face of that laughter.

Erwin’s eyes narrowed and he felt as if the surroundings were brightening as he laughed.

“What kind of toasts do you hear from grandpas?”

It is true. That was the toast Liam often heard when he followed the adults to their drinking parties. And it is also a sincere remark.

Liam only hoped Erwin would always be healthy, not hurt or sick. Until the day they met again.

“If someone heard you, they would think I am going to a battlefield instead of school.”

“Still… I’m worried… I shouldn’t be… … ….”

Erwin turned around as if he had nothing more to say and walked toward the carriage. Erwin paused for a moment before putting one foot on the carriage.

“If you’re that worried.”

Erwin slowly turned his head. His blue eyes, like the calm sea, looked at Liam.

“Write a letter to me.”

Liam nodded vigorously as if his head would fall off.

Erwin looked away from Liam without regret as he entered the carriage and shut the door.

Liam remembered only after his master’s carriage completely disappeared from his sight that he couldn’t even read, let alone write a letter.