Chapter 60
Catching the bewildered stares, Erna finally realized just how far outside common sense they had strayed. She had known it already, but this was an oddity to an absurd degree.
Going to meet one’s maternal grandmother for the first time while dragging along a friend and a half-sister was certainly not normal.
Ranje wore the same sullen, puzzled expression to the very end. It wasn’t clear whether she really failed to see the problem, or simply thought it wasn’t something worth bothering over.
Günne pressed her fingers against her brow for a moment, then shook her head as if to cast off a headache.
“…Very well. Then let us depart together.”
Her reluctance was all too plain.
Günne would have much preferred to seat Heine beside the coachman, but she had no choice but to accept the extra passenger. Otherwise, dressed as she was, the girl might well have arrived as a block of ice instead of a person.
Still, she refrained from pointing it out.
“Young lady, surely you did not also share the same compartment on the train?”
Ranje did not immediately realize that Günne was addressing her.
I asked her to call me by name.
She nodded a beat late, and Günne’s expression grew even more severe. Only after glancing around at her companions did Ranje realize what the woman had meant to criticize.
It wasn’t about crowded coaches or third-class cars with shared seating—traveling alone with an unrelated man was in itself improper. Even if he were only a servant, the situation would be problematic.
With a guardian present, exceptions could be made depending on purpose, but for someone of Günne’s age such conduct looked nothing but reckless.
Ranje, however, had little connection to such notions of propriety.
“Ordinarily, yes. But I wasn’t raised delicately, and I’m a soldier, you know.”
At last Günne understood. Someone inclined to follow custom would never have defied her family head to enter the military academy, nor insisted on using another surname.
Meanwhile, Ranje recalled an older journey. Back then, no matter how much she wandered with Lenart, no one had ever raised this sort of objection.
It wasn’t because the people they met had been younger or more open-minded than Günne.
As with Countess Swanhild, any rule could be set aside when circumstances and necessity demanded.
Calling that flexibility was laughable. This blunt scolding was at least easier to grasp.
As Ranje drifted off into idle thoughts, Erna and Heine studied Günne’s face instead.
Yet Günne seemed to accept Ranje’s answer, for she did not bring the subject up again.
The carriage fell into heavy silence until they reached the marquisate.
Ranje and Günne both sank into their own reflections despite the stifling atmosphere, while Erna and Heine only prayed desperately for arrival.
But the horses did not quicken. They were not a fast breed to begin with, and though the snow had been cleared, the road was still poor.
At their sluggish pace, one might almost prefer to run on foot. Only around midnight did the carriage finally halt.
It was so late that they were shown straight to their rooms.
Though Ranje had omitted a headcount in her letter, even Heine was granted a chamber. As uninvited as she was, it would not do to throw her out and lose face.
The meeting with the marquis was postponed until the following day.
Only after soaking in hot water and crawling into bed did Ranje mull over that decision.
Most of the manor still blazed with light. Even with guests expected, the heart of a household was its master. For it to be so bright meant the marquis had not yet retired.
Yet she chose not to receive them—whether out of consideration, or reluctance to face them, Ranje could not tell.
She folded her hands beneath her head and let out a long yawn.
I’ll know when I meet her tomorrow.
Brooding in advance over something she could not know was pointless.
The next day, Ranje slept in until ten, skipping breakfast, then wandered out into the garden.
She hadn’t seen clearly the night before, but the walls struck her now: the fence was unusually high.
The manor’s walls wrapped tightly around the grounds, built not merely for security but with combat in mind.
It’s practically a fortress.
By contrast, the garden was unimpressive. Whether because of the harsh climate or a distaste for outdoor cultivation, the ground was paved with stone and dotted with only a few trees, leaving a bleak impression.
In the rear, however, stood several sizable greenhouses, though they raised not flowers but vegetables and fruit.
After an hour’s inspection of the exterior, Ranje rubbed her chin and reached a conclusion.
Bleak.
Put kindly, it was practical and without frills.
She looked ahead to today’s meeting with a mixture of expectation and wariness.
Even Ranje knew the outlines of Morigen’s history.
Like the other prince-electors, their founder had been a loyal retainer of the First Emperor. For centuries they had fought against tribes in their barren land, only gaining wealth through resource extraction relatively recently in the empire’s thousand-year span.
And in a few years’ time, those very resources would plunge them into civil strife.
Even without that future, it was obvious: Morigen’s traditions likely diverged greatly from those of ordinary nobles—perhaps even from ordinary people.
The promptness of their invitation had never suggested kindness.
Comparing it with the emperor’s indulgent half-hearted affection, Countess Swanhild’s tepid love, and Petra Simone’s fiery sibling devotion, Ranje could already guess.
She was no fool, whatever her habits, and so she entered the luncheon hall wearing a detached expression.
At once she bowed to the elder seated at the head of the table.
“Hello, Marquis. I’m Ranje Baer.”
Had Erna, uninvited to this gathering, heard it, her heart might well have burst.
Her cousin, seated beside the marquis with a face slightly tanned, turned ashen.
Even Günne, waiting nearby as an attendant, was visibly shaken.
She had thought Ranje odd but at least minimally sensible. After all, the girl had asked not to be called “Lady Swanhild,” but by her name instead.
Stories of Ludia Baer were well-known even in Morigen. News of Ranje’s runaway, her insistence on that surname, and her refusal to return to Swanhild had all been heard.
Thus Günne had assumed Ranje’s earlier manner of greeting was a deliberate choice. But now, before the one most sensitive to the issue, she had shown such a blatant attitude that Günne’s assessment collapsed.
Either she was a fool, or scheming, or possessed of some bafflingly unencumbered way of thinking.
For that matter, the Marquis of Morigen herself was no ordinary woman.
She fixed her eyes on the granddaughter who had seated herself so freely, staring with the same impassive look that Günne had long striven to imitate.
Sixteen years had passed since she had last seen the child, yet the girl’s discourteous greeting stirred no shock. If anything, it piqued her interest.
“To parade that surname before me—what is your game? Had it been Morigen instead, at least it could be excused as cheek.”
“It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just the name I use now. I enrolled under it, and it’s on all my papers.”
“An absurd reason… And how does it feel?”
“Feel?”
“To carry the name of the woman who abducted you, to trail about with the half-sister who unjustly enjoyed your rights—I wish to hear your feelings on that.”
“That’s a boring question for me.”
Only after she spoke did Ranje wonder if she had been too blunt.
But the marquis was smiling now.
Günne and the cousin held their tongues, whether from hesitation or failure to find an opening.
Ranje tilted her head, gazing at the air above.
Then it struck her.
No one here expected her to act like a well-bred, delicately raised lady.
And even if they did, she had no obligation to comply.
So she abandoned hesitation and replied.
“Why should I have such feelings? All those so-called rights I might have had were things handed over without effort. Why should I go out of my way to resent it?”
At her retort, the marquis’s smile deepened. She leaned back in her chair.
“When your grandfather first told me the news, I was too dumbfounded for words.”
For sixteen years, the children had been swapped, and both of them had since run away. A situation better suited to a jest. After that, she had no wish ever to speak with Count Swanhild again.
“Seeing you now, it wasn’t merely impulse that drove you to leave Swanhild. Perhaps it was temperament—or, unlikely as it sounds, reasoned judgment.”
An insult, or praise—it was hard to tell. Ranje tilted her head.
The marquis moved on, to the real purpose of today’s meeting.
“You show no interest in my daughter’s inheritance. That is disappointing.”
“If what I have depends on whose child I am, then I’ve no reason to crave it. In the end, the decision lies with you.”
“Then, since you have no greed, I need not pass it down at all.”
“I like money, too. But if you won’t give it, there’s nothing I can do.”
“That attitude is the problem. If it’s hopeless anyway, why trouble yourself to come all this way, dragging along an uninvited guest? You could have explained your thoughts in writing. Surely it wasn’t my face you wished to see.”
Ranje considered asking who had truly sent the invitation, but her cousin’s nervous expression stopped her. Judging by that, it seemed less the marquis’s will than the cousin’s.
Resting a hand on the back of her neck, Ranje chose her words.
“As you say… I did have another purpose.”
She straightened, adjusting her tone.
“I have a request.”
