---
Everything began from the fact that Cesare spent his precious time on some child.
Of course, the child was quite cute.
Especially her eyes, a mixture of green and gold, went beyond the limits of simply uniqueness and seemed truly mysterious.
Her chirping too was pleasant, like the singing of a lark.
But in the final count it was just a child.
Whatever kind of wet nurse's daughter she might be, Senón didn't understand the attention that Cesare devoted to her.
Especially considering she was an unremarkable young lady from an insignificant family, representing no benefit.
Cesare however was one who was to go only along a glorious path.
Senón began to worry if this child would not become his hindrance.
In such moments he was seized by a desire to pull this little one out like a weed and throw away.
Rotan and Diego, who also loved children, were of the same opinion.
They found Eileen cute, but agreed with Senón that Cesare devoted excessively much attention to her.
How then to remove this annoying child from Cesare's eyes?
Once, when he meditated on this...
"How many times have I said that you will in the end become a bargaining chip for the prince!" Father flung at Senón documents he was holding in hands.
Among flying sheets of paper father with an expression of despair struck himself in the chest.
"The throne will go to the other prince.
And you, fool, decided to become his knight."
As a second son, Senón couldn't inherit the title.
Cesare became for him an exit, a possibility to break through in life.
Since he had sworn loyalty to him and become a knight, Senón had not once regretted his choice.
The more he believed in him and followed him, the stronger became his confidence.
But parents fiercely condemned him.
They again and again were angry, saying he hadn't made a choice that would bring benefit to the family, but instead committed a folly.
And this time everything was just so.
Senón brought a report accurately composed in the hope that, having seen Cesare's huge victory, they would at least slightly change their opinion.
But it came out only worse.
Senón returned to the capital in a depressed mood.
When he entered the prince's residence in the Imperial Palace, his eyes suddenly filled with tears.
He threw back his head and ran into the garden so no one would notice.
Having reached the place where no one was, he flopped onto the ground.
Restrained tears gushed in a stream.
"Hyc... hyc... kkh..." He thought everything was in order, even if parents didn't understand him, that he could believe in his choice and go forward.
But, apparently, in him there still remained a childish part yearning for recognition and praise.
Several words of reproach—and tears were already flowing in a stream.
He felt aversion to his weakness, but didn't know how to restrain tears.
Senón huddled in a corner of the prince's residence garden and cried in solitude, pitifully sobbing.
He had already for quite a long time been pouring tears when...
A rustling—someone was spreading leaves.
He hastily wiped tears with the back of the palm and sharply turned.
Before him stood a little girl, widely having opened her eyes.
It looks like she’d just been rushing through the garden—her hair and clothes were in blades of grass.
Exactly this contrary little one had to catch him in tears.
Senón turned away, looking at the shining golden-green eyes lit by sun.
Good at least that it was not Cesare or other knights, but he was all the same tormented by the feeling that his weakness had been revealed.
He silently looked at the grass, hoping she at least wouldn't babble and would simply go away.
But he felt someone cautiously approaching.
Ignoring this, he suddenly saw how on his knees a white handkerchief softly dropped, like a butterfly.
On this everything also ended.
Eileen didn't say a word, simply laid the handkerchief and vanished in the bushes, easily shifting little legs.
Senón looked at the handkerchief at his knees.
Cheap fabric, coarse work, edges already worn.
Without a single embroidery it was rather a rag than a handkerchief.
However, though old, it was clean.
Senón stared at it, then, with an unhandsome sob, wiped tears.
Irritation forced him even to blow his nose into it.
That day Senón washed the child's handkerchief and bought a new one.
He also bought a box of cookies and beautifully packed it together with the handkerchief.
Several days later, when Eileen again came to the prince's residence, he gave her the new handkerchief and cookies.
In doing so he deliberately asked in a leaden tone:
"Why did you give me a handkerchief?"
Eileen only slightly opened her mouth and looked at Senón from below up.
Seeing the girl didn't understand, Senón irritably added: "I am asking why you gave me a handkerchief, knowing I don't love you.
Wanted to empathize?"
Eileen cried out from surprise.
Then, rotating eyes, she murmured: "I didn't know...
You were always so kind to me..."
Kind to her?
Senón remembered only his mockeries and sarcasm in her address and was very embarrassed.
He had so tried to be sarcastic, and Eileen, it turns out, hadn't even noticed.
Eileen, having embraced Senón's gifts, smiled.
"Means, now you love me?
You after all gave me so many gifts." In her harmless smile was pure sympathy for Senón.
For her the most special was not the rare coloring of her eyes.
It was pure kindness which he’d not met either in the Imperial Palace, or in high society, or on the field of battle, or anywhere else.
Senón, it seemed, a little understood why Cesare related to her specially.
And soon, when Eileen was again invited to the prince's residence, before meeting with Cesare, she first found Senón.
Having seen him in the corridor, she widely smiled and ran to him on her little legs.
Eileen waved something in her hand and shouted to him from afar:
"Senón!
These are flowers I dried...
Ai!" But before reaching him, she tripped and fell.
Senón immediately ran up and lifted her, but Eileen already was on the edge of tears.
Around her everywhere were scattered pieces of dried flowers.
In her little hand only a stem remained.
Eileen looked now at it, now at the scattered flowers, and in the end, upset, burst into tears.
"I... wanted to thank you... for the gifts... and now..." Holding in hands the bare stem, she pressed to him, all in tears.
Embracing her little body and comforting, Senón couldn't restrain a laugh.
He needed to calm the crying child, but he couldn't stop laughing.
He laughed so long that in him himself tears appeared.
One had to admit: the wall he’d erected around his heart to stay away from this girl had completely collapsed.
Since then he addressed Eileen respectfully, honoring her as a young lady from the nobility.
He waited for days when she visited the Imperial Palace and gave her gifts, making out that it was a trifle.
Each time he saw her smile, he felt as if he had the whole world.
By that moment when he realized how much she was dear to him, that even the heart ached, he was already up to ears in love.
Senón became the most devoted knight of Eileen, who loved and protected her.
***
"As if it were yesterday, when she was crying, holding in hands the bare stem." Plunged into memories, Senón looked at Rotan.
The latter, having already finished the cigarette and tidied after himself, weakly smiled and added:
"Now she is the Grand Duchess."
Senón, having extinguished the unfinished cigarette, shook ash from the sleeve and asked: "So, did you learn anything?"
"Where then find." Having exchanged short replicas, both knights bitterly smirked.
Lately the strange behavior of Cesare forced the knights to realize the seriousness of the situation.
They tried to sort out, but only dug in empty guesses, floundering in vain attempts.
Nonetheless they came to an unambiguous conclusion about the current situation.
However absurd it might sound, but, it looks like, Cesare...
It seemed he had other memories.
If someone else behaved so, they would have decided he’d gone out of mind and left it.
But they too well knew who Cesare was, and could be sure of that which would seem empty fantasy.
"This is definitely connected with Eileen." Senón for a moment shuddered.
Cesare's red eyes when he mentioned the execution and the tavern still brightly stood before his eyes.
A memory from which the back went cold each time it surfaced.
Trying to guess the reason of Cesare's change, they, naturally, considered also mystical aspects, such as sorcery.
But this was after all Cesare.
Because of his mother, who was fond of occultism, he deeply despised all unscientific.
He who didn't believe even in gods was unlikely to set about some pitiful sorcery.
Unless, of course, he’d lived through an event capable of turning over his life.