Chapter 5…
Suspicion
Timeo had already approached the bedside and picked up the large pillow beside Marcel. He pressed it gently against Marcel’s face. Any doctor would have been horrified by such an act. Yet Marcel’s stubborn vitality did not wane easily; through the pillow, Timeo could faintly make out the contours of Marcel’s face as he used a small amount of strength. This irritated Timeo almost immediately. After a short while, Phyllis intervened, and Timeo lifted the pillow again, staring at Marcel’s pitiful, grotesque face as if mocking him.
“Ugh… this one is really resilient.”
“I… if I… die… you plan to marry this guy? Swap partners… You… you’re the kind of woman who would jump at someone just because he’s from the Volreuvan line…”
A silence fell over the bedroom. Phyllis was already well accustomed to hearing such insults directed at Marcel. Besides, Marcel was a naturally severe mental case. Yet hearing these words in front of Timeo, whom she hadn’t seen in years, made her feel almost guilty on his behalf.
“If you weren’t a patient, I’d tear your mouth apart. Stop playing the pitiful act in front of the doctors. Today, I might just toy with the hope that you might actually die.”
“You… you’ll… marry the lowest man in Compère. A commoner who is insignificant, poor, and even uneducated. Me… who has received only the highest regard in Volreuvan’s beds… I can’t even imagine it…”
Phyllis’s gaze softened as she looked down at Marcel. Despite being a patient, he clearly and intentionally mocked his fiancée with fervor. Slowly, Phyllis raised her hand to cover Marcel’s face—fingers shielding his eyes, palm covering his nose and mouth. Would this kill him? At this moment, she sincerely wished for Marcel’s death.
Marcel, exhaling with effort, mockingly licked her palm with his diseased tongue, as if to show that her murderous intent was trivial. The feeling was indescribably disgusting.
“Phyllis… I… I… lost! I suppose I must admit it… not long… left… now…”
“Remarkable progress.”
“Instead… it… will be born as your child…”
Marcel, feverish and shivering, was no longer in his right mind. Phyllis, obsessively rubbing her soiled palm, would have spat on his face if Timeo weren’t there. Being alone in the same space with Marcel always meant enduring such vile words.
“Imagine… your child, the one you bore and fed for ten months… thinking of me as… someone so terribly hated. Fun, isn’t it? Your son will tear your new husband to pieces with his own skin…!”
The bedroom door opened. It seemed the attending physician had summoned all the Volreuvan duke’s relatives. Phyllis moved away from the bed with an unshaken face. Marcel’s vile giggling had long since turned into hollow coughing.
The elderly servant who had cared for the Volreuvan brothers alternated between Marcel and Timeo, shedding tears. In contrast, the duke said not a word to Timeo. However, the relatives, being human, kept glancing at the visibly grown second son of the Volreuvans while still attending to Marcel. He stood out, even in his priestly robes.
“Why are you here?”
The duke murmured, looking at Timeo without glancing at the dying eldest son. Timeo stood with his hands behind his back, staring at the countless portraits of Phyllis hung in Marcel’s room. Phyllis spoke.
“A priest is needed to offer prayers. He is the most competent priest in Aljaz.”
“So it was your doing. Is he really that capable to be summoned from so far?”
“Well… what prayers could a devil child possibly need?”
The renowned attending physician and the relatives, who had cared for the Volreuvans for generations, surrounded Marcel’s bedside and were already praying. Each time they recited the prayer, Marcel’s face twitched. Frowning at a prayer… as Timeo had said, Marcel was undoubtedly a devil child. Phyllis, careful not to provoke him, stayed a few steps away from the bed and quietly observed the three Volreuvans. This was the first time in nearly ten years that the three had gathered in one place. Five years ago, Timeo had been urgently summoned to the house, but the duke did not let him in and left him standing in the rain. Unlike the time of the telegram, Marcel’s condition was not yet critical. In the meantime, the duke had aged, and Marcel’s illness had worsened. Marcel’s bloodied breathing gradually slowed.
His end was approaching.
The duke looked at Phyllis. She tried to erase the uneasy expression on her face and moved a hand closer to Marcel. Marcel’s pale, wan face seemed calm, unlike when he was causing trouble.
Marcel briefly opened his eyes. His empty blue eyes stared at some point on the ceiling, then precisely at Phyllis, who was hiding behind the duke’s large frame. If no one else were in the room, Phyllis might have stabbed Marcel’s eyes with a candlestick. Though Marcel could barely control his limbs without the servant’s help, his desires were clear. Phyllis wanted to erase his gaze from her mind.
Summoning an unknown strength, Marcel lifted his stick-like fingers and pointed directly at Phyllis. His dry, stripped fingers flexed repeatedly, as if to grasp her face. “If I die…” Marcel exhaled heavily and issued his final words.
“If I die, bury it with me.”
Marcel’s eyes were bloodshot from burst capillaries. His last words were not a note of gratitude for those who had cared for him, nor a wish for the prosperity of the Volreuvans as the eldest son. It was a curse aimed solely at complicating his fiancée’s future. The duke, the physician, and the close relatives remained silent. As Marcel drew his last breath, Mattie, the servant who had cared for the brothers, fainted. Marcel was loved by all, but Phyllis always wondered if anyone truly followed him. Thanks to one frail old woman, even the death of a wretched man like Marcel could be disguised as noble and tragic.
Timeo, who had been staring at Phyllis’s portraits, turned his gaze after a moment. He coldly looked at his late brother’s face through the chaos of the relatives. Timeo’s large, strong hands forcibly tried to close Marcel’s grotesque eyes. Making the sign of the cross ceremoniously, he briefly appeared faithful. No one noticed that he had made the sign backward…
“To wish for the burial of one’s fiancée in a dying wish… I suppose anyone would go mad after lying in bed this long.”
“Watch your words.”
“Because of your brother’s illness, Lady Menez’s marriage was delayed as well, I understand.”
“Yes, that’s right…”
“Then she becomes the responsibility of the Volreuvans.”
Phyllis was still reeling from the shock of the dying wish.
Ten years since the day they had sworn their engagement, Marcel had always caused her trouble with his selfish and foolish ways… Phyllis clenched her hands so tightly she couldn’t feel her nails piercing her palms. A rigid duke would certainly uphold his eldest son’s will and find some way to bind Phyllis beside Marcel. Not literally burying her, perhaps, but forcing her to frequent the damp crypt of the chapel or finding excuses to prevent her from returning to Banolère—using a strictly noble and authoritative tone… Clearly, Marcel had lived too long. Having spent so many years with the family as if it were her own, Phyllis felt helpless in moments like this.
The relatives around Marcel seemed to mourn him, but they were also carefully observing everything that would happen in the bedroom. Phyllis couldn’t rely on anyone. She didn’t know whether to clutch Marcel’s body and fake a sob, or collapse gracefully like Mattie.
The duke stood upright, gazing down at his son as if waiting for him to awaken. The Volreuvan men had always maintained sharp, refined appearances. But the duke looked closer to a hunter than an aristocrat. Perhaps he survived by eating deer instead of proper meals. His powerful physique looked like a descendant of mythical giants. A thick neck contrasted his sharp jawline, and his facial features, like those of his sons, seemed divinely crafted. Still a full head of hair… truly a man born of Volreuvan minerals.
The duke and Timeo had a confrontation.
“When Marcel’s death is forgotten, I was planning to provide a suitable marriage. You need not concern yourself.”
“You pretend to provide a suitable marriage, yet intend to bind an innocent woman here.”
“Timeo…!”
“I… I saw everything…!”
The attending physician’s voice trembled. Everyone in the bedroom, even those moving the body to avoid the humid air, looked at the aging Volreuvan physician.
“Confess what you saw.”
“Well…”
The physician trailed off, glancing at the duke.
“I… I saw… Lady Menez brutally pressing Marcel’s face with her palm…”
“Do you have evidence?”
“Witnessing alone is no proof… But after Lady Menez passed through, a disease was found in the young master’s bedroom.”
“Can you explain the nature of this disease clearly and all at once?”
Someone impatiently urged the physician. Timeo, who had been observing the duke, now stood in front of Phyllis. The duke shook his head as if the idea were absurd.
“After suffering such a serious illness, it’s not unusual to be constantly on painkillers.”
“But… this… this was a medicine with no records of dispensing or preparation… and its ingredients only come from the sea…”
“If it’s that medicine, surely…”
Murmurs filled the bedroom and didn’t subside for a while. Timeo looked at Phyllis, who lowered her head. Still staring at her, Timeo spoke casually.
“I’m curious which insane lady would deliberately try to harm her fiancé.”
At this moment, Timeo recalled the narrow confessional. Many who came to the monastery confessed they wished to harm their lover or fiancé.
‘Before arriving… I wish he were already dead.’
Feeling a sense of déjà vu, Timeo suddenly grabbed Phyllis’s shoulder. She trembled. Given the circumstances…
“Seems the Volreuvans will honor Marcel’s dying wish.”
“That’s beside the point, Timeo. Marcel was intoxicated by death, and we have no intention of carrying out such a barbaric funeral.”
Her uncle suddenly interjected.
“If that’s not the case, I simply cannot understand how you so easily slander a grieving woman, uncle.”
“Child, we lost the heir suddenly, so we must suspect every possibility. Then came this testimony…”
Timeo approached the physician and took the small vial from his grasp—a transparent bottle, thumb-sized, containing a few drops of dark red liquid. Phyllis lifted her head to watch. The moment felt exceedingly long to Timeo. Staring at Phyllis, he emptied the contents of the vial into his mouth.
“Timeo…!”
He raised a hand to stop her, licking his lips. Phyllis’s face turned pale.
“How lethal is it?”
“Well… it’s a medicine that must be taken repeatedly over time…”
Timeo crushed the tiny bottle in his grip, shards scattering onto his sleeve. Their eyes met. Could it be… you killed Marcel?
Timeo spoke calmly. Everyone in Marcel’s bedroom looked at each other in shock.
