CH 42

06. Denial, Denial, Denial

“You’re not going to shoot me, too, are you? Thanks to you, I’m the only one who has to be saddled with so much work.”

From behind, Borwen grabbed Carynne’s arm and took the pistol from her grasp. Then, he put on a pair of gloves and looked at Deere’s body, which was sprawled out.

Far from even feeling panicked, he touched the corpse without a hint of surprise. How many people knew about Carynne’s madness? How many people knew what she had done?

“I’ll take care of things over here. Larry brought the carriage out front, so please go out and wait there.”

“Just what are you doing.”

Borwen pushed up his glasses and sighed.

“Let me work through this first, and then we’ll talk later.”

“Do you need help?”

“…No. No need.”

Borwen said so, already tired of hearing Carynne’s words. Ah, that’s not the answer. Borwen had such incredulity in his expression. Carynne regretted saying that. Still, she wasn’t exactly sure how to behave naturally.

Her practiced, simulated kindness was not appropriate for this situation. Fortunately, Borwen didn’t seem to care about the hesitant Carynne.

He pushed Carynne out the door, and so she trudged back to the carriage. Larry was the coachman for the carriage that the fief lord used for official business. Even though Carynne’s skirt was splattered with blood, the middle-aged man simply opened the door of the carriage for her. Donna was nowhere to be found.

“…From when.”

She was tired. Carynne closed her eyes. She was all worn out from fatigue. Her clothes were stained with blood. As she sat down, she could see the sunset. Her surroundings looked so warm and lively compared to the bloody room she had just gotten out of. She could hear the noisy crowd of the festival around.

“Hey, Tom.”

The boy handed over a thin blanket to cover her clothes.

“I think I’ve gone crazy.”

“……”

Panicked, Tom almost dropped the blanket. As he was looking at her, Carynne glanced down helplessly. She did all that just to confirm if she really was crazy… Was it all for naught?

She had stopped smiling and shot a bullet right through that woman’s face, but the truth was, it’s difficult to refute everything that Deere had said. Wasn’t that what madness was all about? Something that was difficult to prove all by herself.

If her entire life was, indeed, a product of her own psychosis and if her actions were merely driven by madness,

Empty. Futile. Then, the experiment was in vain. Then, all that effort was useless. Everything that she had done and all her efforts were just boiled down to the word ‘madness’, and allegedly, it could all be conveniently solved through some form of brainwashing. All logic and rationality in this world had gone up to smoke yesterday evening.

She covered her face with one hand. She felt sick to her stomach.

“Then now, after having shackles on both wrists, after having confessed my sins to Dullan and after having tied a piece of rope around my neck, will I be able to see Nancy?”

…That didn’t sound so bad.

Carynne felt laughter bubbling at her throat. If that were to happen, then all this torture inside her head would finally be over, and rest would finally visit her. That’s fine. That’s not such a bad ending. No, if she really could die, then wouldn’t that be a happy ending?

At least, it was the appropriate ending for one such lunatic.

However, she delayed her acceptance. This was still just a possibility. As she had told Deere, she had far too many memories—a hundred years’ worth of memories piled up so high. She knew everything there was to know about what would happen in the coming year, about other people’s sleeping habits even. From this point on, she would need to think of any way to prove that she was not crazy.

Well, she didn’t care if she was crazy. She was either going to be executed or she was going to be shipped off to a loony bin. That much determination had ended last night.

There’s no need to panic.

“I’ll just die.”

“His Lordship went through all that trouble, so why don’t you show some more tenacity, will you?”

“Hello there, Mister Villainous Assistant.”

As Carynne giggled, Borwen sighed and loaded two large bags into the carriage. Missus Deere’s body was quite bulky. Borwen excused himself.

“The maid’s still upstairs.”

“Do you have to kill her?”

“…Is that something you can say, Milady? Please move your legs. This isn’t a freight carriage, so it’s a bit cramped.”

“And Donna?”

“Just in case, I deliberately urged her to go to a theater.”

“Okay.”

“Do you feel sorry?”

“Huh?”

“Do you feel sorry that you couldn’t kill Donna?”

“Who knows.”

As she stretched her legs over the bags containing the corpse, she felt both tired and relieved. Her shoes made her feet feel uncomfortable. That in itself was grounding her to reality. As Carynne popped the joints on her knuckles, she looked down over to Borwen.

“You have nothing else to say to me besides that? Right now, I’m ready to divulge the secrets of birth, the twists of life, so on and so forth. I leave all the questions to you, the who, when, where, what, how and why.”

Borwen only had a curious look on his face.

“Even if you say it like that so suddenly, well. I’m in this position because of money, but… Milady, you’re quite off your rocker, aren’t you?”

“Were you the one who chopped up Nancy?”

“So suddenly.”

“It’s you, right?”

Frowning, Borwen replied reluctantly.

“…Yes.”

“Why’d you chop her up?”

“There’s too many people around. I urgently needed to bring it somewhere else to take care of it.”

“What have you taken care of?”

At the sudden interruption, Carynne almost let out a curse. Out of pure shock.

Raymond was peering into the carriage from outside the window. Borwen gasped as he saw the knight standing right there.

“Sir Raymond, what brings you here?”

“I saw a familiar carriage, so I was going to ask if you could join me.”

“As you can see, I’ve indulged in enough luxury.”

Raymond smiled like a fox as he looked down at the large bags inside the carriage. Carynne looked over to Borwen with a smile as well. Fortunately, he hardened his expression and backed down, resuming his role as an ordinary attendant.

“You… have, haven’t you?”

“Right?”

“So what was it that you had to take care of?”

“Oh my… Lord Raymond, you can’t just ask like that.”

Carynne glanced at him with the same smile still on her lips. She couldn’t expect Borwen to be able to handle answering that. It’s up to her now. Borwen was naturally pushed out from the conversation.

“A matter kept between a man and a woman could be considered disgraceful, but it’s just something that concerns the household. There’s no need for you to pry, Sir.”

“I won’t tell anyone, so can’t you share this dreadful secret with me?”

The smile on Carynne’s lips seemed to twitch. It would be nice if you could kindly piss off. Even better if you get lost permanently. Oh, how great would be if there’s a way to shut you up just like how Missus Deere had been silenced with a shot.

“Alright, this is a secret, okay? Nancy and Borwen have been seeing each other. Did you notice?”

“I had no idea.”

“And this time, Nancy actually disappeared so that she could give birth safely, that’s why she went away. She suddenly broke up with him and ran away like that.”

“How dreadful to hear.”

“Right?”

Borwen’s face got all wrinkled up. Still, Carynne continued speaking without a pause. If he spoke up now, then they’d both be in a bind. There’s no gun here right now. Even if there was, there’s no assurance that the bullet would hit its mark.

“If you’re here, what about Miss Evans?”

“Miss Evans seemed to be in pain because of her feet, so she intended to go back to the carriage. I happened to see a familiar coat of arms on this carriage, so.”

She recalled Isella bustling about while wearing those high heels that were too high. Seeing Raymond be so shameless and smile like that, Carynne felt cold sweat trickling down. At this moment, she wasn’t just a suspicious woman talking gibberish anymore, but a murderer sitting right in front of a knight.

“Is that so.”

“The festival is still in full swing. Are you going back already?”

“Right now, I’m about to go and uncover a dreadful truth.”

“Murder, rape, robbery, larceny, fraud or a dine and dash?”

Carynne gave a serious answer in return.

“It’s not to that degree, but nonetheless still very dreadful.”

“Truly?”

“It’s the secret of birth.”