Chapter 4. Wrath (3)
“Should we go arrest him right away?”
“I’d like to, but unfortunately there’s no address. There seem to be so many accusers that they can’t even write them all down, but whether they all just heard rumors, there aren’t even proper descriptions. Only nicknames.”
“That’s strange. For rumors to spread without any information… Could it be false testimony? A scheme to extract money.”
“That possibility isn’t entirely absent.”
Saying this, Lef approached Eckart, who stood as if hiding his body beneath dark shadows. He lifted up the list as if telling him to look at this.
“Com… No, Captain. They say there’s an angel among the prostitutes. What do you think?”
Eckart cast a meaningless glance and then withdrew it, saying.
“Adjutant. You shouldn’t have time to waste like that, should you? There are still countless sinners remaining on these streets. Have you forgotten the order to drag them all away before dawn breaks?”
“…Tch. I got it.”
Making a face as if finding it boring and turning around, Eckart warned Lef’s back.
“And I’ll say this once more. The order is only to bring the sinners. That means we’re not the ones to punish the sinners. You shouldn’t handle them too roughly.”
“Ah… Captain. You can say that even after seeing that?”
Where Lef pointed, there was a prostitute spitting at the men. Unlike Lef, who was thoroughly agitated as if he couldn’t stand such insulting behavior, their captain, Eckart, remained calm as always.
“Are you disobeying orders?”
“…No, well. It’s not like that.”
Lef answered in a disgruntled voice and then moved away to do his assigned work.
Eckart watched the prostitutes who were frightened and finally bursting into tears, and the guards who were yelling at them to be quiet.
The guards, composed of knight order members belonging to the Papal Court, were personally implementing justice under the Pope’s command. For those who had fought long wars to eliminate heretics who believed in other gods, a new justice had been established: bringing sinners to trial in order to purify the corrupt city.
Perhaps because where Eckart stood was so dark, his complexion too had darkened unusually. He pressed the hood of his robe deeper down to hide his face.
The guards who had hunted all night would drag the captured prostitutes away and lock them in prison when dawn began to break. Eckart was the same. Even after accepting the greetings of the guards who had finished their work and were returning, he paced around that place for a long time, scanning the faces of the sinners.
He had already checked each time the guards brought and dragged away prostitutes, but just in case, he found himself going over it again. And then he would feel relieved. Simply because Ronen, that woman, was not among the sinners.
And he was consumed by guilt because such a self was too ugly. He felt unbearably tormented, as if he were hiding a sinner before God. Yet he even had the contradiction of hoping she would never be caught. Even if she were lucky enough to flee far away and he could never see her again, he earnestly wished from the depths of his heart that they would absolutely never meet again.
It was when Eckart, having confirmed once more that she wasn’t there, was about to leave the prison.
“You’re going to hell!”
A fierce woman’s voice caught Eckart’s ankle. He turned his head toward where the voice came from.
There was a woman gripping the bars and glaring at him.
The inside of the prison was extremely narrow, and in order to cram many sinners in at once, everyone was barely managing to sit. Huddled together in that filthy place as if embracing each other, the sinners’ appearances were truly a mess, and those who had been beaten for resisting or had rolled on the ground while being dragged were in a pitiful state to behold – the woman who had cursed Eckart was in such a condition.
Looking at her tangled hair covering her face, her dirt-covered body, and her scraped hands, Eckart turned his head away. These were people whose lives had already been difficult. To think they were now imprisoned here because of acts they’d committed struggling to survive somehow – how must they feel?
Looking up at Eckart with eyes like dead fish seen in the market, he couldn’t bear to meet their gaze.
“Did God say that! To burn us alive, we who sold even our own bodies to make a living? Then what about those who devoured us to their heart’s content? Those who drove us to the streets? Those like you who eat their fill and live luxuriously wearing such expensive clothes? Is there truly anyone in this world who is not a sinner? If God truly commanded that sinners be punished with fire, then this place should rightfully become a hell of flames!”
Only anger blazed brightly over her dead pupils. Her voice, full of resentment, cracked as emotion overcame her.
The others imprisoned with her also joined in, glaring at Eckart as if they would tear him apart. He felt as if he were being swallowed by those gazes.
With difficulty, Eckart opened his mouth.
“…God will surely understand your hardships as well.”
He turned his body to face those imprisoned and made the sign of the cross.
“May He forgive your sins and gather your pitiful souls unto Him.”
The woman’s anger had nowhere to go in the face of Eckart’s action of not returning evil with evil. The woman seemed to lose strength and collapsed right there. She wept while hanging onto the iron bars.
Even after moving his heavy steps and leaving the prison, Eckart still felt as if he were trapped in that place. Their anger surrounded him and slowly tightened around his throat.
Breathing heavily, Eckart’s lips trembled.
“…Does my constant sprouting doubt about whether this path I walk is truly right… mean that my faith is lacking?”
He had never once doubted his path or questioned it. But now he couldn’t see ahead. All the candles that had guided him had been extinguished and swallowed by darkness, so he couldn’t see the end. It was as if he stood before a bottomless precipice. Even the candle he held flickered precariously.
How could he see the path? How could he be guided again? Eckart, who had been burying his face distorted by complexity in his palm, suddenly sensed a presence. When he turned his head, a pale face appeared smoothly from the dark alley.
Eckart, who had reflexively reached for his sword, realized it was a woman holding a lamp and slowly lowered his arm.
From her skin color and clothing, she seemed like a nomadic people who wandered without a fixed home. She looked around and then gestured toward Eckart. Making signs for him to follow with a very tense face, she disappeared back beyond the alley, so Eckart followed with a puzzled expression.
Only after going some distance did the woman stop walking and look around again. After confirming no one was there, she quickly continued speaking.
“I have someone to report.”
“If it’s a report, the law…”
“I’ll report to you. You, specifically.”
The woman pointed her finger at Eckart and quickly added.
“They said he’s trapped with broken wings. That his appearance is like an angel descended from heaven. Because he appeared before the dirty and poor, he was devoured completely without leaving anything, and now I heard he’s become a plaything for a noble person, stuffed alive and made into a spectacle.”
Though her voice and expression were passionate, Eckart, who was listening, couldn’t understand. This was the first time he’d encountered such an abstract and absurd report.
“What are you trying to say?”
At his words, the woman who had been chattering until now shut her mouth tightly. She kept glancing at Eckart as if she wanted something.
When Eckart, understanding her meaning, took out a coin and threw it to her, the woman quickly caught it and continued speaking again.
“It’s all rumors about one person. That high-class male prostitute who only serves very high-ranking people is shrouded only in rumors without substance, but he definitely exists.”
He was secretly relieved at the mention of a male prostitute. That woman he absolutely didn’t want to catch was also said to be a very famous prostitute, and rumors about her would be widespread, so he had been anxious that it might be praise for her beauty.
“Such nonsensical rumors alone are insufficient…”
“Of course! That would be so. Don’t worry, do you think I would have called you out like this just to tell you mere nonsensical rumors?”
“…Are you saying you know where he is?”
At Eckart’s question, the woman nodded with a grinning smile. She slyly held out her empty palm, having hidden the coin somewhere.
After pondering for a moment, Eckart threw her more coins. Then instead of answering, the woman turned around and began scrawling on the wall with a stone. Unknown patterns were carved as white scratches appeared, and the woman pointed to them and said.
“I’ll leave markings like this starting from here. Two days. Come back in two days and follow the markings.”
The woman who had held up two fingers threw the stone to the ground and suddenly ran away. Like when she had appeared, she vanished into the darkness in an instant, and Eckart started to follow briefly before stopping.
“…I was completely hooked.”
If Ardwino had known, he would have laughed heartily at this. As he turned to go back, the stone the woman had thrown hit his foot. For a moment, he thought it was just like his own pitiful situation.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
