The Abandoned Duchess Seems to Want a Peaceful Life - Chapter 40

Chapter 40: Refugees

How much time had passed in that unstable position? At last the horse stopped galloping.

Slung over like luggage during the hard ride, she was thoroughly carsick, and with the tension besides, a few more minutes of the same would have made her vomit.

She was relieved that it had stopped for now, but then she was tucked under an arm like a sack of vegetables and carried off again.

The sound of pushing through grass went on, and by the time she was finally set on the ground she could not even stand on her own feet. She sank limply to the spot, and, unable to hold her body up even so, collapsed there.

――I can feel grass, and smell earth.

Unlike the manor or the village, the air held moisture, so it was probably a forest near water.

She sensed a great many people around her.

"Hey, is she all right? She looks awfully weak."

"Come on, let's take the sack off."

She heard a woman's voice, and a girl's, no, an even younger child's. She sensed no hostility toward her, only a mixture of bewilderment, sympathy and fear in their voices.

After a while the sack that had covered her upper body was finally taken off. It was a coarse sackcloth so it hadn't hindered her breathing, but still the fresh air slipping into her lungs was a relief.

"...It's a girl! Weren't you supposed to bring back the lord?"

"The lord of Enkar is said to be still in her teens. Nobody lived in the manor besides servants except this girl, and she was the only teenager."

The man answered in a very sour mood. It seemed he was the one who had kidnapped Melfina.

"Even if she's the lord's wife, she'll be of use as a hostage."

"I hope so, but..."

The one who said it, troubled, was a woman in her mid-thirties. She wore a long-sleeved cotton shirt and a long skirt, with a worn apron thrown over them. The clothes were in the style common among farmers in these parts, but she was gaunt, the clothes hung loose, and the wrists showing were close to bone.

"...Who are you?"

As expected, it was a forest. Even though it was still daytime, the thickly growing trees blocked the light and it was dim.

They seemed to be using this as their base, and the ground was trampled flat into something like a small clearing.

Looking around, she saw about thirty people, adults and children together.

Small shelters woven of grass and branches, not even as good as shanties, had been built here and there.

Though snow had not yet fallen, it was a season when mornings and evenings turned bitterly cold. It surely couldn't be a place where one could live.

"My name is Danny. I was the village chief's son in a small village at the edge of Count Dantes's territory."

The man who had abducted Melfina said it in a low voice, suppressing his feelings.

"I want to take you hostage and demand enough food to last us for a while."

"A while, meaning enough food to get through the winter?"

"...Yes."

"How? Spring is about five months away, and just to feed the people here you would need about ten covered wagons of food."

It wasn't that she couldn't prepare that much food, but if it was a ransom, it meant nothing unless Melfina's person was handed over on the spot in exchange.

If they kept handing over food while holding her hostage, they would be tracked each time and eventually captured.

"Ten wagons can't help but be conspicuous. Even if you took the delivery and ran, you'd never escape pursuit by the knights."

"..."

"Would you untie the rope, please?"

Her hands were still bound behind her with coarse rope. It bit into her skin and hurt, and made her restless.

"I won't run away from here. I don't think I could outrun you on my own legs, and I don't want to be chased and beaten."

"We wouldn't do that."

The woman in the apron said so and undid the rope. Melfina rubbed her wrists, red from the chafing. There were some scrapes on the skin, but fortunately there was no blood.

"Thank you."

"No, um... you're welcome."

At last the trembling in her legs had stopped. She stood, brushed the leaves from her skirt, smoothed her surely badly disheveled hair, and then straightened her back.

The situation was nowhere near one to be optimistic about, but at times like this one should be all the more dignified.

"I am Melfina, lord of the Enkar region. I don't mind preparing food. But please let me hear just this one thing. Do you have houses to get through the winter, or a place to take shelter?"

"...There are caves in the forest. If we huddle together as families, we should manage."

"Those caves are very likely to be taken as dens by bears and wild animals for the winter. Bears before hibernation are extremely fierce and dangerous. A single bear has even wiped out a village. Can you fight such wild animals?"

Silence fell.

Everyone seemed to stand dazed before a future without hope and the weakness of starvation that would arrive by tomorrow.

Kidnapping was properly a grave crime. Serfs and subjects were the lord's property, and it was treated as laying hands on that property.

Its gravity was second only to counterfeiting coin and arson, and it was not uncommon for the whole household and blood relatives, along with the ringleader, to be executed by collective liability. And if the victim was a lord, then a village or a town could be burned down by unit rather than by blood and no one would object.

And yet they had gone ahead. They had probably staked a sliver of hope on a desperate resolve, knowing that if they stayed silent they would not survive anyway.

"――Did you dip into the wheat for taxes?"

The man who gave his name as Danny stiffened, then glared at her fiercely.

"We had no choice."

It was the woman in the apron who answered in his place.

"Before it came out that we had touched the taxes and the whole village was dropped to serfs, we fled the village together, carrying food. Even commoners had started to die of hunger. If we were reduced to serfs, it was plain that the old and the children, those who couldn't work, would be left to die."

A small girl was looking at her from behind the woman in the apron. Gray hair and dirty skin, but she had very beautiful green eyes.

The hand gripping the woman's skirt was small, like a withering twig.

"That food ran out long ago, and for about the last half month we've hidden in the forest gathering what we could to eat, but that is at its limit too. We heard there was a lord's manor nearby, and on the chance, if we could take a hostage and make them release the stores..."

Danny had said five months of food, but he probably knew from the start that this was unrealistic.

At least before dying, before being killed, to eat until their bellies were full.

That was probably about what they wanted.

"...Hey, will you tell me your name?"

At her call, the girl who had ducked behind the woman in the apron eventually peeked out timidly.

"Rii."

"Rii, I'm Melfina. Rii, are you hungry?"

"...Yes."

"Then I'll let you eat until you're full, so come to my home."

"Really...!?"

"Yes, I'll prepare a house too, and I'll let you sleep somewhere warm."

She was probably weak. Her half-closed eyelids flew open, and when Melfina couldn't help smiling at it, a sharp voice cried, "Liar!"

"That's how you'll lure us out and wipe us all out at once. Don't be fooled, you lot!"

The one she looked toward was a young, even childlike boy. He was also terribly thin, but something like anger and fighting spirit showed in his eyes.

"Do you know who I am?"

"The lord of Enkar."

"That's right. Since we're at it, I'll introduce myself properly. I am Melfina von Oldrand. I am the lord of the Enkar region and the lawful wife of the House of Duke Oldrand."

Though it was the neighboring territory, they seemed to know the name of the ruler of the north. Everyone there went pale at once.

"The wife of that Ice Duke..."

"No way..."

They seemed to have understood the meaning of those words.

Kidnapping the lord of a small region was a heavy crime on its own. The whole village would surely be made to answer for it.

But what if the victim was the wife of a ducal house, second only to royalty? Even Count Dantes would be suspected of involvement, and it would become a matter between territories.

It was well known that Alexis hated injustice and governed harshly. At worst it would turn into a territorial war, and in that case the Dantes house, weakened by the famine, would have no chance of winning.

The ringleaders would be hunted like beasts, driven out even if the mountain had to be burned to the ground, and the collective liability would trace back through every blood tie and every tie of land.

Whether Melfina and Alexis were on bad terms or not was hardly the issue.

It was a matter of face for those who ruled a territory.

The people who had been listening were all pale and trembling.

Even if the count's house itself was a distant presence beyond the clouds, most of those who lived in the Dantes territory were farmers and townspeople forced into hard lives. No one here could calmly accept the thought of those people being ground down for the sake of one night's supper.

"Why not bet on whether you'll be fooled? If it goes well, you may eat something delicious tonight and sleep somewhere warm, and that may go on for a long time."

Because you have no future anyway. She couldn't bring herself to say anything so cruel.

"――I'll go."

"Roana!"

"We'd only be chased even if we ran. If there's a chance to feed this child even one bowl of porridge, I'd rather bet on that. And if we're going to die anyway, I'd rather go in one stroke. You'd think the same, wouldn't you, Danny, if you're a father."

Danny had been silent as if in anguish, but when Roana called his name once more, he nodded.

It seemed Roana and Danny were husband and wife, and Rii was their daughter.

She could also tell somehow that Danny was henpecked.

"Then it's decided, so let's move right away. It gets terribly cold once the sun sets. If possible I'd like to go to Melto Village rather than Enkar Village."

"In that case, the village is on the other side of the highway."

From the lord's manor to Melto Village took about an hour by cart with a load.

Even on horseback, she seemed to have been taken much farther from the manor than she had thought.

"But why that village? Of course I have no objection..."

"Because Melto Village has larger food reserves, and because, I suspect, my bodyguard knight is searching for me in Enkar Village right about now..."

This was the Cedric who had once delivered a merciless kick to the young Rod just for touching Melfina.

If the person who had kidnapped Melfina were right in front of him, he might draw his sword on the spot.

"I'll persuade the knight. Please be careful not to provoke him, too. Depending on the situation, I may not be in time to stop him."

She meant this one in earnest, and everyone nodded with faces as if they had swallowed stones.

The strength of a trained knight was fearsome. If the opponents were commoners, he could easily cut down thirty or so on his own.

She would have to ask Melto Village to send word that she was safe and that they should stay calm.

His head would surely cool while they were on the move. She could only pray for that.