-Have you seen it?
Roy looked shocked. Adi also had a hard time recovering from this shock. Perhaps the first appearance he saw shocked him more than the familiar face that appeared after the beard disappeared. A ragamuffin... With long nails, like a beast.
“Are the lycanthropes I’ve only heard about really looking like this?” Long claws, hair and a beard - although there are no ears, red lycanthropes do not exist in nature.
“Is this His Grace the Duke?” He's much taller than me! And he looks so young!
- If you think about his real age, he could be even taller.
— What does “even higher” mean? Do you even know how tall I am?
At Roy's words, Adi looked up at him.
In Pales, in the central lands, people were not very tall. There were many tall people among the Grimaldis. This must be because people from the Northern Continent settled there. And in the South, people tended to be short, so for a Southerner, Roy Gallardo was quite tall.
“You look about ten centimeters taller than me.”
- How tall are you?
- One hundred and seventy-five.
-...Eight centimeters.
- A lot.
- Your Grace, the Duke is taller than me. His legs... this is humiliation.
- What a humiliation. The period of growth.
— The period of growth has long passed. He's twenty-six.
Although the face, of course, looked about eighteen years old. Even if you look at it with a stretch - at a person who has just passed the rite of coming of age. However, the Duke had a pretty face, and Adi thought that when he grew up he would become handsome.
- Someone got the ducal title, and has the right to the throne, and is handsome, and is so tall, and even...
Roy fell silent mid-sentence. If he had continued, other pride would have suffered.
“You’re handsome too, Roy.”
- …Thank you. I myself know that he is handsome.
- Well, yes. Once in the Second Order of Knighthood.
Although he was taken there for his looks, even if Roy had not served in the Second Order of Knights, he was still confident in his attractiveness. In addition, men already have a tendency towards narcissism.
But Roy is not just narcissistic - from birth, from childhood, in his youth and during his squirehood, when he wandered around the houses of various relatives after the ruin of his family, even when he was an unremarkable knight, he was always praised at least for his appearance. He couldn't help but know this.
But Duke... There's no point in thinking about it. Roy asked, “Are you okay?” Adi looked up at him with some sympathy and said.
“I have no intention of competing with the Duke in beauty.”
- That’s not what we’re talking about...
Roy himself had no intention of competing. The Duke is a completely different type of handsome man. Of course, the thought that he was a little inferior flashed through, but still they stand in different worlds. Roy was curious about Adi's condition.
- You just woke up.
- The body is light.
That's what it looked like. But yesterday’s Adi kept popping up in my memory.
He had seen others cry many times. Both women's tears and men's. Among the squires there were many who shed tears of indignation at not getting into the coveted order of knighthood, and those who cried out of resentment or for various other reasons. Every time he looked at them, he thought: why is he behaving like this?
But in a strange way, those tears of Adi Grimaldi hurt his feelings.
-...Your little sister.
How dear his sister was to him.
Roy was also losing a brother, so he could understand.
-Were you close?
At such an unexpected question, Adi looked up at Roy. Looking at Adi, who did not answer or even ask again, Roy, as if making an excuse, said that it was just like that.
- You...
She looked so touching. When she cried, she said that she would protect her, that she would help her escape from there. And at the same time she showed weakness. In the way she asked not to leave, promising to protect her, Roy thought that Adi really shouldn’t be left alone.
But then Adi grabbed the Duke's hand. The Duke did not push her away.
He even knew that Adi called her deceased younger sister “Adi.” Roy never thought that Duke knew Adi so well.
- For you, Grimaldi is so...
- Roy.
Finally Adi spoke.
“I don’t want to talk about that time.”
-...
“You also have things in your life that you don’t want to talk about.”
Everyone has secrets. What you want to tell, but cannot be trusted with anyone, and you have to keep inside yourself. But there are also secrets that you want someone to know about. Roy had these too.
“This is exactly what this place is for me.”
Adi Grimaldi should have them too.
- Understood.
Roy will not become just an interlocutor to whom you can open up.
- Sorry.
If you think about it, it is true. What little sympathy Roy feels for Adi is simply based on the fact that he put in a good word for him. Although they seem to be on good terms, Roy is still in the position of being the one keeping an eye on Adi on Bert's orders. This is not to say that they are not comrades, but calling them friends is also somehow ambiguous.
- Let's go eat. I'm hungry, like I haven't eaten for days.
- So you haven’t eaten for several days.
-......
- Start with the soup. Otherwise your stomach will be upset.
— I have never been poisoned since birth.
-...Well, a truly heroic stomach.
Adi chuckled at Roy's words. Hearing that it had been like this since childhood, Roy thought about it. Adi Grimaldi was in poor health since childhood - how is it that he was never poisoned?
How did he become so strong?
So much so that after being poisoned he recovered within a few days.
—What do you have in Grimaldi?
- Yes, there’s nothing special.
- Any food?
- This is especially not the case. Actually, Palesa's food tastes much better to me.
- Let's go to the South later. You need to try real food. By the way, did you eat bear bile or something?
- Why are you suddenly talking about bears? There are no bears in Grimaldi. There are more bears in the South. Not on this side, but in the very west.
- Right. Then maybe you have ever eaten a mandrake?
- It's poison, Roy. Eat it and you die.
- ...Is it true?
Very strange. It’s strange, but it was difficult to explain exactly what and how strange it was.
-Have you ever survived poisoning?
Adi glanced briefly at Roy, who asked another question, and decided that it was better not to answer any more.
- Mushroom? Was it a mushroom? There are also a lot of mushrooms there. Mushroom potage, something like that?
-...
- Adi, do you like potage?
-...
- Are you really after consommé?
“...Please just stop talking and let’s go eat.”
Besides - potage, consommé, soup. Adi was going to eat meat first. Meat or bread. Anything to restore lost muscles.
* * *The knights' chemise was made from a material that absorbs sweat well. Therefore, it was quite heavy. The thickness was also taken into account, since armor was put on top. It looked good, but was not very comfortable to wear. Especially for Juls, who was accustomed to clothes made from expensive fabrics.
The servant took off Roy's chemiz. Then another servant brought the purchased clothes. Jules put on a new, snow-white chemise made of light fabric and dressed in a gray suit. The servant tied a cravat, also white, and attached a sapphire decoration to it.
The blue and red contrasted, and Jules thought it would look ridiculous, but, oddly enough, it went together well.
“Auntie will be surprised when she sees it.”
- She'll like it.
- Don't know. I don't think I'll like it that much.
Jules chuckled at Bert's words.
“That side liked it better when I stayed small.” It was easier to manipulate that way.
Although the person is the same, judgments change depending on appearance. And not only by appearance - they were also distinguished by clothing.
The servant began to style Yuls's hair. Jules said that they were in the way and ordered them to be cut, but Bert resisted. The servant combed his moderately cropped long hair back and was pleased with the result.
- It suits you very well.
Juls looked at his reflection in the mirror.
- Unusual.
And he smiled.
- But I like it.
Bert said he looked like the Duke of the previous generation. But Jules realized that his reflection in the mirror was the spitting image of his mother’s facial features. Rather, as a child he was more like a duke. Now only red eyes remain common.
“When I think how the Marchioness of Conolly won’t like it.”
Her face will probably turn to stone if she just sees it.
- I like this face all the more.
How long did the two of them torture that witch?
- What do you think will happen to the lady?
Bert smiled awkwardly at Yuls’s words.
— Will she shudder or pretend that she didn’t notice anything?
“It looks like she'll try to pretend like nothing happened.”
- Yes? Don't you want to argue?
“The Marchioness of Conolly will be unhappy.”
- Dissatisfied, so dissatisfied. What can she do? She needs me.
Jules said this calmly.
- She will bow her head and enter.
His low humming made Bert fear that the afternoon tea party would turn into complete chaos.