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Each had his own matters, therefore to gather all knights was not simple.
Eileen also didn't want forcibly to call them, therefore asked to come only one who had of all most free time.
So on the evening of that day Rotan came to Eileen.
*‘Pardon that I called you so suddenly’.*
Eileen looked at him with an expression of sincere gratitude and guilt.
Rotan frowned his thick brows, as if not understanding for what she was apologizing.
"To you, the Grand Duchess, it would have followed simply to order.
I am obliged to appear at the first call." He even chided her, having said that it was not worth apologizing for such things.
Eileen energetically nodded in response.
Then she for a long time was gathering spirit.
That which she wanted to say was not subject to set-out on paper.
Eileen's voice trembled when she whispered: "Cesare-nim... nearly killed me."
It seemed Rotan knew that Eileen had suffered from Cesare, but didn't set about going into details.
She again squeezed out of herself words, looking at the frozen knight with widely opened eyes: "And then before my eyes inflicted on himself injuries."
A clear crack ran over Rotan's face.
Eileen took a sip of warm tea to calm the painful throat and continued: "I fear that similar will be repeated...
If Cesare-nim is seriously wounded..."
She again took a sip.
Constantly moistening the throat with warm tea, she felt relief.
While Eileen was diligently treating the throat, Rotan heavily sighed.
"Eileen-nim." Having crumpled face so that the scars on it were distorted, he pronounced with noticeable suffering in voice: "Please, in the first turn think of own safety."
This little differed from the words of Cesare himself.
Eileen showed him the note: *‘I will try’*.
Rotan still looked dissatisfied, but said nothing more.
"If you know something... anything about the state of Cesare-nim... please, tell me." She asked if he had guesses why Cesare causes himself harm.
Although Eileen asked, overcoming pain in the throat, Rotan was silent.
Usually although stern, but always warm and kind in relation to Eileen the knight, who liked to start conversation and communicate with her, this time unusually for a long time was silent.
In his silence Eileen felt: Rotan knows something, but cannot to her say this.
*‘How stuffy it is.’* Although, undoubtedly, he had reasons not to speak immediately, the feeling of annoyance was unbearable.
Eileen bit her lip, then sluggishly traced a new pen letter: *‘What to me to do, if this is repeated?’*
"If similar were to be repeated..." Rotan, having stared at the careless letters, finally spoke.
However his answer turned out completely unexpected for Eileen.
"Thrust a knife into Cesare-nim."
Eileen's jaw dropped.
With an imperturbable look Rotan continued with a completely absurd logic: "Deliver a blow, ready to kill.
Only so will he come to senses." He even added that Cesare-nim, of course, would not die from her blow, therefore she could act without fears.
Eileen swung the pen with incredible speed.
*‘How can I so act?
Not for anything can I!
In me spirit won't be enough!’*
Having attentively studied the careless and with errors text, Rotan made a new suggestion.
"Not sure in yourself?
Then, maybe, practice?"
When he suggested to teach her to master the sword, Eileen shook her head.
The conversation had finally gone not there.
She stared at Rotan, from whom cold sweat was dripping.
On his face there was not a hint of a joke.
He spoke with pure sincerity.
Having discussed for some time the technique of striking with a knife at Cesare, he finally returned to the main theme.
"We so far cannot tell you more.
But here is what I can exactly state." With that same serious expression with which he advised to stab Cesare, he continued: "Cesare-nim under any circumstances doesn't desire that you suffer.
Never." Therefore, Rotan explained, he also advised to strike him with a knife.
However Eileen categorically didn't agree.
This was beyond her strength.
In the end the conversation so also didn't move further.
Eileen, who nearly arranged a lecture on fencing for a busy person, conducted Rotan to the entrance of the mansion.
Watching how his carriage was departing, she plunged into complex reflections.
In this moment to the sunken-into-thought Eileen Sogno approached and quietly reported: "His Highness has returned.
He is in the central courtyard.
Do you want to visit him?"
Usually Cesare, having returned to the residence of the Grand Duke, first of all found Eileen to greet.
But since Sogno notified her of his return, apparently, today Cesare didn't gather to seek her.
Most likely, he wouldn't even go into the bedroom.
*‘In the morning too we didn't see each other.’*
Looking back, Eileen understood: always Cesare was the first to come.
Even after she became Grand Duchess and they settled in one house.
Today she could have been the first to visit him.
Having thanked Sogno, Eileen headed to the inner courtyard where Cesare was.
By night the courtyard was lit by a multitude of lanterns, therefore didn't seem too dark.
Moonlight also was bright, lighting the surroundings.
Eileen quietly crossed the courtyard.
The residence of the Grand Duke was vast, and the inner courtyard too struck with sizes.
As a place most noticeable for guests entering the mansion, it was the most well-kept corner, for which the gardeners of the duke carefully watched.
Not a blade of grass, not a flower was planted here by chance.
Luxurious decorative plants grew everywhere, and usually Eileen began strolls exactly from the central courtyard.
The place always having gladdened the eye today didn't attract her attention.
Cesare stood under the orange tree.
He leaned on the trunk, smoking a cigarette with an impassive expression of face.
For the first time having seen Cesare with a cigarette, Eileen involuntarily stopped.
His red eyes stared at her.
It seemed he’d long ago felt her approach and didn't surprise, having noticed her.
A strange silence reigned.
Cesare lowered the cigarette, turned his head and exhaled smoke to the side.
Then quenched it against a decorative object nearby.
Only then Eileen understood that the "decorative object" sticking out under the orange tree was in actual fact an ashtray.
Having shaken off as-if-invisible dust from clothes, Cesare again looked at Eileen.
That one, hesitating, approached him.
Cesare simply stood and waited until she would approach.
Having stopped before him, she lifted to him a gaze and made a short inhale.
From Cesare smelled of tobacco.
For the first time she saw how he smokes, and for the first time felt this smell.
Before such an unfamiliar Cesare Eileen only several times blinked.
She couldn't conceive with what to begin conversation.
Although she’d gathered naturally to greet and lead conversation, before Cesare her lips tightly closed.
Possibly, because of his unusual today look.
She looked at him so for some time, until Cesare leaned forward.
"Why call others?" he quietly asked, bringing face close and stroking her cheek.
"Why not ask the husband?"
Eileen swallowed.
Thanks to tea and medicines drunk in the day, the throat nearly didn't ache.
The voice was still hoarse, but she didn't feel sharp pain during conversation.
Having tried to avoid hoarseness, she asked: "And if I ask, will you tell?"
Cesare, having attentively examined her neck, answered with habitual evasiveness: "Only that which I want."
Eileen, tensing, but having gathered spirit, asked: "Show the palm."
He without objections took off the glove and showed.
Traces of self-harm with the penknife had completely vanished.
Eileen silently examined the palm, then again looked at Cesare.
That one didn't move eyes.
It seemed to her that if one didn't ask now, the opportunity would be missed eternally.
Firmly holding him by the hand, she asked: "In the brick house... why did you so act?"
Wind blew.
Leaves of the orange tree rustled as waves.
Cesare, not blinking, intently looked at Eileen.
When she already decided that he wouldn't answer, he unexpectedly spoke.
His tone was dry, as if he were telling a stranger's story.
"Once I saw a dream how we lived with you in the brick house." He freed hand and unwound the bandage on her neck.
With one hand deftly untied the knot encircling the throat.
"Long was the dream.
I for a long time roamed in it, and to get out..." White bandage slid off, opening tracks hidden under it.
Looking at the red imprints of fingers, Cesare said: "It was necessary to kill you."
"..."
"But yesterday I for a short time ceased to distinguish dream from reality..." Uncharacteristically for him, he tripped up and weakly smiled.
Expression of face remained calm, but eyes were so empty and broken that even Eileen noticed this.
Looking into his damaged eyes, she felt as if she were squeezing in a fist shards of glass, and the heart ached from pain.
Suppressing pain in chest, she opened mouth: "But it was only a dream.
Not the real me." She wanted that he wouldn't suffer because of some ghost of hers.
Squeezing his hand with all forces, she whispered: "I am here, Cesare-nim."