Chapter 9.1

Before Bertram left for patrol, Anna prepared a lunch that was piled as high as a mountain for him.

“Go ahead and eat this. I need to deliver food to the workers at the public farm, so…. Mr. Bertram? Are you okay? Can you see my hand?”

Anna waved her hand right in front of Bertram as he sat at the table. He seemed to be nodding normally, but something felt different. Perhaps, like a broken wind-up doll.

Anna would have gone to call on a doctor if Carla didn’t yell at her right then.

“Are you trying to starve the workers? Go get your butt to the farm already!”

“Ugh, fine! If Mr. Bertram says he needs more food, give him more for me, okay mom?”

“…..As if he’ll need more.”

Having made enough to feed a cow, Anna took up the lunch basket and ran out.

Only after the restaurant quieted did Carla silently watch Bertram as he shoved food into his mouth.

‘Anna, that kid, why’s she all worried about Bertram suddenly? Is there a problem? … Don’t tell me she’s falling for him.”

When you look at him with his mouth shut, he was indeed handsome. A formidable build, strong, and fast on the uptake—at least in terms of work. In this countryside, those were impossibly good conditions to make someone your son-in-law.

But only if the guy had no sketchy histories to speak of.

“Mr. Bertram. Let me ask you directly. What was your original job?”

“I was a soldier.”

“Why aren’t you returning to your home village?”

“I am in the middle of paying back all debts that I personally amassed during the war.”

“Oho. Because you feel guilty?”

“Yes.”

“…..Were you an officer?”

“Yes.”

She questioned him indirectly in case openly asking him if he was a noble gave herself away. After all, commoners couldn’t serve as military officers if they weren’t of a considerable household.

Carla decided to stop prying for this man’s information at this point.

And onto her last question.

“Did something happen? You know, since Anna was asking you if you were alright earlier.”

“….Nothing happened.”

The slight hesitation before his answer bothered her.

However, asking that far into it made her feel like she was interrogating him, so Carla sat a couple of seats away from him as a gesture to tell him she was done.

Bertram began his meal once more. It looked as if he was really planning to finish this mountain of food Anna had made for him.

‘He’s eating well, and nothing looks out of the ordinary, so why was Anna so worried… about…..?’

“Oi! Mr. Bertram, stop! What’s wrong with your spoon?”

“Excuse me? …Oh.”

The spoon Bertram held in his right hand was in tatters, crumpled like a crushed piece of paper. It seemed he had chewed on it quite a lot without thinking.

Bewildered, Carla cried out.

“Are you really okay? I’ve never seen you like this before! Well, not that we’ve seen each other for more than a few days, but.”

“I am…”

Bertram, too, was troubled in front of his spoon.

Why had he done something strange like this?

Had he been in a hurry, thinking he should eat all of what Anna had given him?

……..No, that was not the problem.

He needed to reach further back.

Last night, he had a nightmare. He dreamed that he had returned to when he was sixteen years old, that day when he had been cursed by the magician. The magician had caressed the dragon bone embedded into Bertram’s heart.

The Bertram in the dream, who knew what future was to come, commanded him to stop—pleaded—screamed—but the magician only smiled.

And so anguish, the last emotion he had felt at sixteen, at times, rose to the surface with the nightmares, like an old aching pain.

For a normal person, people would tell him to shake off the gloomy dream with something funny. They would recommend him to find a friend and cry, or go out and have fun.

It was all impossible for the current Bertram.

All he could do was wait for the remnants of this dirty emotion to sink back down to the bottom, but….

The words he’d heard from Anna earlier.

‘You looked adorable.’

That word he’d heard for the first time in his life made his heart pound with a thump.

‘Adorable’. Was it not a term used to refer to feeling sympathy and joy at the same time when looking at something small or young?

But what came with this question was a sensation: as if somebody was tickling his heart.

It was the same even now. When he remembered Anna’s voice, he felt lighter to the tips of his fingers. As if the air was bubbling up and blooming inside him.

Bertram put the spoon down and opened and closed his hand into a fist a few times, then looked up at Carla.

“I will straighten out the spoon for you later. And, I have something I would like to ask. I implore you to answer me honestly.”

“Why, what are you going to ask…..?”

“Am I adorable?”

Carla almost flipped the table.

If it wasn’t for the lunch that Anna had piled up on it, the table would have been flipped.

Seeing Carla’s arm muscles quivering mightily, Bertram realized he must have said something wrong.

‘If I had spoken wrong, then that would mean Miss Anna must have been wrong, too. Then does that mean we are both wrong?’

There was, of course, nobody who could answer him.

***