Chapter 45
Jamil’s lips, stiff and barely able to move, managed to form words.
“The Kennis family suffered great losses and ultimately fell into ruin during Leopold’s reign. We’ve lived in poverty ever since, but my father spent a lot to help me study and allowed me to take the priesthood exam. And to repay that kindness, I passed the exam and became a priest.”
When he tried to confess, fear of the punishment that would follow tightened Jamil’s chest, so he thought fast and began to spin a plausible lie.
It was true that the Kennis family had collapsed during Leopold’s time, but the reality was different. He’d heard that in those hard years they tried to prey on the commoners and were conned instead, losing everything. They were ruined because they couldn’t get the money back.
At the time, everyone’s attention was on Leopold and the dark wizards who kept attacking without pause, so no one cared if one mediocre family collapsed. The Kennises weren’t the only ruined household.
“A priest is supposed to live under God’s protection, helping people,” Jamil continued, “but I had a father to support. So I kept sending money and staying in touch. Then I received one letter: news that my brother, who had left home, had returned. My brother was a gambler—someone who enjoyed luxury and pleasure and wasted the family fortune.”
Jamil concluded that the only way he could survive was to play the victim and paint his brother as a scoundrel.
He had taken his father’s hand—but he was not someone you could really rely on. If Jamil had confessed, he would have tried to portray himself as less blameworthy by casting his brother as the libertine, Jamil thought.
But even if he had committed the crime, he believed his carefully built image and status as a priest would still count for something, and that people would be more likely to believe him… He was deceiving himself.
“My kind father was overjoyed that my brother had found a good match and finally come to his senses. He said now that he’d become the head of the family he would lead it well, and he handed over the title. At the end of the letter, he said he would leave for a quiet place and live out his days peacefully, and that he’d keep writing. That was the last letter. After that, what came to me were extortion letters from my brother.”
Unaware that Silvert had already completed a full investigation into the Kennis family in a short time, Jamil continued.
Jamil’s father had been poor but scraped together whatever he had to put his son through schooling and make him a priest. It was like a miracle. But as soon as Jamil became a priest he cut off contact and stopped sending money. In the end, his father starved to death within the mansion. It was Jamil’s brother who had arranged to recover the body. Perhaps because he didn’t want the scandal of filial impiety to spread, he quietly held the funeral.
Everyone frowned at Jamil’s lie that he had sold his dead father, but Jamil didn’t notice. He was frantic to appear like a victim.
“If I didn’t give him the money he threatened to dump my father somewhere no one would know. He even threatened to hire mercenaries to kill him! I had no choice but to follow my brother’s wishes. I secretly left the temple to find father, but all I could hear was that my brother had taken him.”
It was all a lie, but there was no evidence to prove otherwise. Letters and correspondence that would reveal embezzlement and bookkeeping manipulation had already been burned. His brother would never have left any such proof. It was his brother who told him to burn anything received immediately; Jamil said he had kept some just in case, but when he fled he had thrown everything into the flames.
“My brother used our father as leverage to have me, two years ago, start donating expensive items that are easy to convert into gold coins, saying I should immediately siphon them off for him.”
“Why go to such lengths?”
“To gain reputation and ease suspicion. He said it himself—everything, even his direct participation in charitable work and relief efforts, was for that purpose.”
The Kennis couple were spoken of as having good character in society, though they were sometimes criticized as unbecoming of nobility. Still, within the temple they were treated fairly well. There were other nobles who personally took part in relief work, but they rarely continued for three full days.
So when the Kennis couple’s gold ingots were reported stolen, the confusion deepened—only to hear now that it was all for profit. No one could bring themselves to speak up. Some must have wanted to clamp a hand over Jamil’s mouth. Even Duke Linda was trying to catch Silvert’s eye at that moment.
“I interrogated him myself.”
‘This is bad.’
Marquis Blanche muttered quietly. Silvert was currently the High Priest, but in his youth he had been a blood-soaked paladin—people used to say he would be hard to distinguish from a monster when he fought.
Fortunately, after becoming High Priest time had made him far gentler in temperament, but this matter was serious enough that even silence might not contain his wrath. The marquis hurriedly signaled to Theodore: stop him if he’s about to explode.
“From what I heard, Priest Jamil—you led the whole thing.” Silvert said.
“What? No, that’s not true!”
At Silvert’s one remark, Jamil hurried to deny it, adding ten more words in haste. Even as he lied, he seethed inside with resentment and hatred toward his brother.
‘That damned trash! He was the one who suggested it first!’
“And yet he claimed he bore no guilt.”
Silvert had planted a small untruth meant to probe whether there were further crimes the Kennis couple might have committed—Jamil had no way of knowing that. Silvert placed a hand on Jamil’s shoulder and let his gentle voice flow like honey.
“But hearing everything… I think the Kennis couple might have lied. You may have committed a crime, but haven’t you been a model to many priests until now? Isn’t that right, Duke Linda?”
“That’s right. I thought it strange. I couldn’t believe someone like Priest Jamil would do something like this.” Duke Linda replied, accepting the cue as naturally as possible.
“You ran away because you were ashamed before God. You could no longer set foot in the temple. Am I right?”
“!”
“Then tell us. Exactly what did the Kennis couple do?”
Silvert wore his characteristic mild expression to lower Jamil’s guard. But to Marquis Blanche’s ears it sounded like: tell us and your punishment will not change; you will pay dearly for your crimes. To Jamil it must have seemed like a last chance, an act of mercy that might save his life.
Jamil thought hard. The determination to seize this opportunity glittered in his eyes. He chose the vilest acts he could attribute to the Kennis couple to bury them completely.
“My brother and sister-in-law—those people were truly wicked!”
He decided to report something that, though it involved his brother, made everyone flinch with instinctive disgust—something one would instinctively try to stop if told.
“Besides embezzlement, they took money from slave traders and sold parentless children to them for profit.”
“…What?”
At that moment, the faces of Marquis Blanche and everyone else hardened. Even the marquis, unprepared for such a vicious accusation, could not immediately counter.
“They joined this Lebrelain Archipelago expedition for that reason.”
Jamil, thrilled at the thought of returning to the priesthood and shaking off his hateful brother and sister-in-law, spoke of the cruel acts as if they were nothing.
“Because the expedition visits slums where people rarely go, they’d memorize the locations while pretending to volunteer, then after returning sell the slum locations to slave traders. Aren’t they like demons?”
If it had been only embezzlement it might have been better, someone sighed. More than one person’s mouth gaped open. Who could have known? Embezzlement was nothing compared with this. No one suspected that slave traders were involved.
All eyes slowly turned toward Silvert. His long hair fell over his shoulders, obscuring his face, but Jamil’s expression made it clear things were reaching a limit.
Marquis Blanche rose from his seat. He was the only one who could reasonably restrain Silvert.
“High Priest,” he said. “Why weren’t they arrested then?”
The marquis’s steps toward Silvert came to a sudden stop.
“Jamil, tell us. If the Kennis couple were slave traffickers, why weren’t they caught at the time?”
“I—strictly speaking, they were go-betweens. They didn’t hand over children directly for money, but told slave dealers where orphans and slum children lived so the traders had less trouble…”
“…”
“So, since the slave dealers were driven out two years ago, even orphanages and relief houses have become wary of strangers. That’s why the slave traders used the Kennis couple… The Kennises could approach without suspicion by doing charity work and relief activities.”
“So they scouted children who would be missed less if they suddenly disappeared and handed them over to slave traders?”
“Yes, yes.”
“All the donations and good deeds up to now were a kind of groundwork to sell innocent children.”
To avoid suspicion they preferred to blend into groups rather than act alone. And joining organized relief work takes more than desire—it takes contacts. Donations were the easiest way to build trust. But because they didn’t actually want to part with the donations, they had Jamil siphon them off.
“If you’d managed to pilfer the gold ingots, what would you have done next?”
“Well, the original plan was for me to abandon the priesthood and flee. I didn’t want to be involved in crime anymore…”
“Don’t spout nonsense.”
“Y—yes…?”
Jamil was taken aback by Silvert’s rough tone—language he’d never heard from the High Priest before—and for the first time he sensed that something was off.
“If the Kennis couple recovered the gold, what then? Would they sell more children?”
“No, no. It’s not that, truly… they said they would stop. The last time I met them they said they’d disposed of all their possessions and were going to move to another country…”
“Sir Arbelche.”
The moment Silvert signaled that there was no need to hear more, Theodore seized Jamil’s head with terrifying force and slammed it down onto the floor.
