CH 29

Ilvalino was told to leave Cain alone while he was in confinement, so he busied himself with things like studying with Diana, helping Elise’s handmaiden, and helping the butlers of the manor. Since he was training to be a chamberlain, this was how Ilvalino received his education. 

He was learning things like how to pour tea, how to iron clothes, and how to help his master get dressed and undressed, smoothly. 

He also learned how to open and shut doors properly, how to remove stains instantly, and how to apply first aid to simple injuries. 

There were specialists for jobs like pouring tea and doing laundry, but there was never a guarantee that those specialists would be around when a master needed them. 

The butlers taught him that a chamberlain needs to always be ready to supply anything a master needs so that the master never feels inconvenienced. A chamberlain needed to be good at everything. 

“Oh, my. You can use healing magic, Ilvalino!” 

A butler got a paper cut from some documents, and as an impromptu lesson in first aid, he presented Ilvalino with his finger. 

Ilvalino put the disinfectant and gauze aside and healed the butler’s finger with his healing magic. 

The butler was surprised and commented on this. 

“I’m sorry. I know this was supposed to be an opportunity to practice, but… Um, well, I figured that since you were actually hurt and I knew how to heal it, I should just go ahead and do so…” said Ilvalino, apologetically. 

“No, no. If you can heal an injury, you should. You were right to do so. How much can you heal?” asked the butler. 

“I can only heal small wounds, and sometimes, if I’m not feeling well, I can’t heal anything at all. That’s why I’m very thankful for you teaching me how to apply first aid.”

“Hmm, I see.”

If Ilvalino could heal serious injuries, Cain wouldn’t have picked him up in the first place. 

At the orphanage, he never healed injured children right away, but instead, he healed them while they were napping or sleeping at night. He was careful to have people around him thinking, “Wow, it healed up in no time!” or “Children really do recover quickly.”

Back then, if someone found out that he could use healing magic, he might have been sold off to who knows where.

“Ilvalino. You’re currently studying with Diana, correct?” asked the butler. 

“Yes. I had been taking lessons with Cain, but I started out in the middle of his courses, and so I’m using this opportunity to catch up on the basics,” said Ilvalino. 

“Hmm,” said the butler, looking down at Ilvalino, with careful consideration.

Ilvalino simply stood there, waiting for directions on how to continue on to the next task.

The butler was actually thinking about something that would be established the next day, as Cain finished his confinement period. 

That night, around dinnertime, Ilvalino was standing in the shadow of a pillar, thinking he was being stealthy. Diana saw him standing there, immediately, and called him over. 

As he was wondering what she wanted, Diana gestured for him to lend her an ear, so he kneeled and turned his head so that she could whisper to him. 

“Ilu-kun, guess what? I found a flower that I’ve never seen before,” whispered Diana, revealing a single flower that she was holding in her hand behind her back. 

This was a flower that Ilvalino had seen countless times. It was actually a weed, and at the orphanage, they grew profusely in the back yard that didn’t get much sunshine. 

“Where did you find it?” asked Ilvalino. 

“It’s a secret!” whispered Diana, grinning and quietly laughing through her teeth. It was an unladylike way of laughing, but for a girl her age, it might be seen as cute. 

Though she had just said that it was a secret, she proceeded to quickly tell him that she had found it in the shadow of a pillar at the back gates. She was clearly itching to tell someone about it. 

“You’ve never seen one like this before, right? It’s probably a new flower. So I can name it myself, and decide what it represents,” said Diana. 

Ilvalino realized that Diana had really never seen this flower before, despite it being a weed that grew pretty much everywhere. 

Diana had only ever known the perfectly manicured gardens of the manor. 

The gardens of the manor were meticulously cared for, and were filled with beautifully blooming flowers with proper names. There were no weeds around, of course, because the gardeners and servants in charge of tidying the grounds made sure of it. 

The courtyard at the orphanage didn’t have many weeds either, since the children were running around on it all day, and the ground was packed dirt. When Diana had come to visit, she never went around the back of the orphanage, so she would have never seen this flower there, either. 

“What are you going to name it? And, what are you going to say it represents?” asked Ilvalino. 

Diana laughed softly to herself, as if she were holding back a huge revelation. Then, she announced it. 

“I’m going to name it Cain, and it’s going to represent loving your big brother,” said Diana. 

She’s just like her brother, thought Ilvalino, sighing. 

Diana then entrusted Ilvalino with the Cain. 

“They told me I can’t see Brother because he’s on confwinemints,” said Diana. She must have had the idea to try to cheer Cain up by giving him this flower as a present. 

Since Ilvalino was Cain’s chamberlain, he had been given a room adjacent to Cain’s. It was a small servant’s room, but it was connected to Cain’s room by a hidden door that could be used in case of emergency. 

For some reason, Diana knew about this, and she figured Ilvalino could get the present to him, discreetly. It was a secret, she said, so he couldn’t tell Mother or Father. She put her index finger up to her lips and said, “Shh!” in a loud voice, and left. [Read this novel and other amazing translated novels from the original source at the “Novel Multiverse dot com” website @ novelmultiverse.com]

Surely, Elise’s handmaiden, who was standing nearby, would leak this information to Diana’s mother, but even Ilvalino was not cruel enough to tell Diana that and dishearten her. 

Cain did not participate in dinner service, and so instead of waiting on the duke’s family dinner, he ate his meal at the dining room for servants. 

He asked the warehouseman for a vase that holds a single flower, filled it with water, put the flower in it, and returned to his room. 

“Master Cain,” Ilvalino said, entering Cain’s room through the secret door and calling to Cain, who was already in bed. 

Cain’s response was in a sleepy voice, but apparently, he was still awake. He had been in confinement for four days, and during that time, Cain had been doing nothing at all. Though he was ordered to leave Cain alone, Ilvalino was his chamberlain, and so he came to check up on his master from time to time. 

It was almost unbelievable to think that this Cain was the same person who had been so energetically upholding a full schedule, just a few days ago. 

“Master Cain. I’ve brought you a present, sent from Mistress Diana,” said Ilvalino. 

Ilvalino had thought that once he said that, Cain would bustle awake and leap out of bed, but instead, Cain turned around lazily and looked over at him with drowsy eyes. 

This was a strange reaction, considering Ilvalino had mentioned it was a present from Diana. Ilvalino was confused. He thought that Cain was simply depressed from not being able to see Diana. 

Ilvalino set the vase down on the bedside table, and lit a lamp so that he could get a better look. 

“It’s a weed,” said Cain. 

“Yes. If you go outside the manor, you can find it all over the place,” Ilvalino replied. 

“Diana sent me this?” asked Cain. 

As Cain vacantly gazed at the flower, Ilvalino started to get annoyed. 

You’re the one who so confidently dragged me into this manor, acting like you knew everything, thought Ilvalino. He wanted to say, Who are you to be acting like a lazy coward?

“Even though it grows everywhere?” asked Cain. 

“It doesn’t grow in the gardens of this manor. After all, the gardens are thoroughly manicured.”

“…Oh, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.”

“She said that since it’s a new flower, she could name it and decide what it represents.”

“I remember a conversation like that with Professor Yannis…” 

“As promised, Mistress Diana has named this flower Cain, and decided that it represents love for an older brother.”

“Diana…” said Cain, his eyes wavering and tearing up, slightly. 

There was joy, sadness, fatigue, and hopelessness mixed up in his gaze. Ilvalino had seen adults with this look in their eyes, a few times. It could often be seen in adults who realized that they were at death’s door, or those who raged against despair, only to realize that there was no escape from it.

“Mistress Diana told me that she found it in the shadow of a pillar at the back gates. She doesn’t usually go over there. She must have been desperate to find a new flower. She was walking around the grounds, all day.”

Diana had begged Professor Yannis that morning to allow them to have their lessons outside. Ilvalino was taking his lessons alongside Diana, so of course, he went with them, and had learned about the cross-fertilization of flowers. 

“She’s trying to say, ‘Get well soon, big brother!’ When in the hell are you gonna snap out of this gloom? You’ve got lots to do, even in confinement,” said Ilvalino. 

Ilvalino finally reverted back to his usually way of speaking to Cain when the two of them were alone, and voiced his displeasure. There was no spirited rivalry between them while Cain was acting like this. There was so much he wanted to talk about with Cain since he had returned from his trip home, but when he got back, Cain was already in this state. Ilvalino was sick of it. 

“You don’t care about Diana’s happiness anymore, then? You’ve cared about her up until now, and now you’re just gonna throw her aside?” asked Ilvalino. 

“How can you say that?” asked Cain, gazing at the vase with the single flower. After looking away, he held his face in his hands and started crying softly. 

“I just want to protect Diana. I just want to keep her safe. I don’t know how, though. I can’t be sure if my actions now will end up giving her a good future… I thought that I was setting her up to succeed, whichever way she went, but I might have been wrong all along…”

“I don’t know about all that, but at least you can see that Mistress Diana is happy right now.”

“I’m scared. If I miss even one red flag, everything will go wrong. I have to be completely vigilant.”

“…Are you thinking it might have been a mistake to take me in?”

“I don’t know. That should have gotten rid of one possible way that leads to Diana’s unhappiness… Probably… I can’t be sure.”

“Are you thinking it might have been a mistake to work so hard on learning embroidery and going to the embroidery meeting?”

“It could have been a mistake… I don’t know… I didn’t want Diana to meet that kid.”

“Are you thinking it might have been a mistake to adore Diana so much?”

“I don’t know. I’m telling you, I don’t know. I don’t know what to do anymore, and that makes me scared.”

“All of those things haven’t resulted in anything, yet. That means that you haven’t messed anything up, yet.”

“If I mess up, it’s over… I can’t mess up.”

“That’s just crazy.”

Ilvalino sat down on the edge of Cain’s bed and ruffled Cain’s hair. He had often done the same thing when comforting other children at the orphanage. 

“You took me in and because of that, I owe you so much. I haven’t been able to pay you back for that, yet. All right? Let me help you carry some of that weight. If you mess up, I’ll back you up and take care of it. That’s what I’m studying for. Diana’s taken to me, too, and I adore her, just like you. I can’t just let her fall into unhappiness. Tell me what you’re so worried about. Why the hell are you so depressed?”