After parting ways with Zoe, I gazed out the window from the corridor as I walked.
The brilliantly shining moon hung high in the sky; it seemed there was still time to take care of a few more matters.
I considered heading back to my office to push through some more paperwork.
However, I stopped in my tracks.
Down in the garden, I caught sight of Audrey.
Ever since coming to Enlil Province regarding the matter of Albert's orphan, Genuine Albertson, she had remained here rather than returning to the imperial capital.
I was reminded of my earlier exchanges with Mother and Lilith.
Thinking I would spare a little time for Audrey and the others, I took a detour and stepped out into the garden.
Once outside, I saw Audrey looking up at the night sky, accompanied by a maid.
As I approached, the maid noticed me first and hurriedly bowed her head.
A moment later, Audrey turned around as well.
"Lord Noah."
Swayed by the gentle night breeze, her hair fluttered ever so slightly in a graceful silhouette.
With her hands clasped delicately over her midsection, she carried the unmistakable, unassailable elegance of a highborn lady.
"So this is where you were."
"Yes. As expected of you, Lord Noah, my whereabouts are an open book to you."
"I merely happened to spot you. I do not yet possess an intelligence network like Father's."
"Oh, is that so? I have never felt it much myself, but is the late Emperor's intelligence network—the one you speak of so frequently—truly that formidable?"
"Yeah."
I gave a clear nod as various memories resurfaced in my mind.
"For instance, even the sweet nothings whispered in our bedchamber would have been entirely known to Father through that network of his."
"To that extent?"
"Yeah, even back when we were still at the Imperial Prince Mansion."
"Now that I am the Empress, it is practically known to anyone, but to think it was so even when you were an imperial prince."
"Yeah."
I nodded firmly.
A commoner, holding a certain mystique toward the imperial family, might assume that secrecy would be greater after becoming Emperor and Empress, but the reality was quite the opposite.
As an imperial prince, one had a fair degree of privacy, but an Emperor's private affairs were completely exposed throughout the inner court.
Whether the Empress or which concubine was summoned for the night, and how many times he bedded that person—all of it was meticulously recorded by specialized eunuchs.
Though sweet nothings in the bedchamber ought to be the most private of secrets, when it came to the Emperor and his Empress, an inverted phenomenon occurred where there were no secrets whatsoever.
Reflecting on this again brought a faint smirk to my face.
And then, as I thought:
"Today, I found myself truly wishing I possessed that intelligence network of Father's."
"You are speaking of that girl... Anne, was it?"
"Yeah. How much of the story have you heard?"
"Seeing as it is a criminal matter rather than affairs of state..."
Audrey prefaced her response before continuing.
"...I believe I grasp the sequence of events up until around this evening."
"I see. That makes things quick."
I let out a small sigh.
"I had the head clerk squeezed for information right away to make him confess, but had it been Father, I doubt there would have been any need for such measures."
"Even so, it is wonderful that you made him confess."
Audrey praised me with a radiant smile as she always did, and then asked:
"May I hear more about that matter?"
"Are you curious?"
"Yes."
Audrey nodded distinctly.
"It is not an affair of state, and depending on the circumstances, you might promote Anne, Lord Noah. Should that happen, the possibility of her becoming an imperial princess is not entirely out of the question."
"I see. That is true enough."
From Audrey's standpoint, it was only natural to be curious, so I decided to tell her.
"Then you do not yet know the details of when I interrogated the head clerk, right?"
"Yes."
"It is a commonplace tale. A woman who married in as a second wife found the former wife's child to be a nuisance. So, she conspired with her lover to eliminate the child."
"Her lover... the head clerk was a conspirator as well, then."
"Yeah. A young fellow, entirely spineless. When I threatened that adultery could carry a maximum penalty of castration, he spilled everything."
"My."
Audrey let out a quiet giggle.
A slightly amused look came over her face.
Castration meant emasculation—namely, the punishment of severing a man's genitals.
I had issued a light threat to the young man: 'If you don't speak the truth, I'll snip it clean off.'
It proved remarkably effective; the threat alone was enough to make him lay everything bare.
"You call him spineless, but wouldn't very few gentlemen be able to resist such a threat?"
"I suppose you have a point."
Beneath the moon, Audrey and I shared a brief chuckle.
Then, returning to a serious expression, I continued the conversation.
"At any rate, it is an ordinary tale. The only part that differs slightly from the norm is that the second wife is the younger sister of the first wife, meaning the former wife's child is her own niece by blood."
"How strange."
"Which part?"
"If she is the younger sister, that means the other parties are her elder sister and that sister's child. I find it entirely baffling that she could do such a thing in the household she married into alongside her sister."
"I see."
I figured Audrey would think that way.
She had willingly encouraged her own younger sister, Anya, to become the concubine of the man she married—namely, me.
While rooted in the common sense of the nobility, there was no doubt it had been done out of her own volition as well.
Noble marriages were political unions forged for the sake of tying house to house.
For the sake of the house, children were of paramount importance; thus, she genuinely could not comprehend conspiring with a lover to harm a daughter.
"Would 'true love' be easier for you to understand, then?"
"To put it bluntly, yes."
Her expression strongly asserted that she would never do such a thing herself, of course.
The notion of 'true love' stemmed from the fact that noble marriages were always political matches and never born of romance.
Thus, the half-jesting, half-serious sentiment was that true love existed only in illicit affairs.
To Audrey, born a noble and a member of the imperial family, while she would never actually engage in such an act, that scenario was far more comprehensible.
"However, that gives rise to another question."
"Hm?"
"Why did she cast the daughter down into a brothel? From what I heard, it seems she intended to let her waste away to death, but isn't that far too roundabout?"
"The remote cause of that might just be me."
"Pardon?"
Audrey looked as if she were wondering what on earth I was bringing up out of nowhere.
"...Do you know the story regarding Zoe and Dosso?"
"Pardon? Yes..."
She still wore a look of bewilderment.
Dosso was Zoe's hometown.
Back when I was a child, a flood had struck Dosso.
At that time, Zoe attempted to leave the Imperial Prince Mansion, but I stopped her.
The reason was that the family she had left behind in her hometown had suffered in the disaster, and a vast sum of money was needed for their reconstruction. While the Imperial Prince Mansion paid higher wages than elsewhere, at that very moment, a sum exceeding that amount was required immediately.
So, she intended to quit my service and sell herself to a brothel under the pitch of being a 'maid who served in an imperial prince's mansion.'
Naturally, I stopped her and averted the crisis, but there was a sequel to that affair.
"A few years after that, when I became the Royal Minister of Justice, I revised a portion of the law."
"In what manner?"
"The sale of children by their parents. Until then, it was punished unconditionally, but I changed it so that it would not be punished unless the child themselves requested it."
"Why did you do that?"
"I saved Zoe, and she avoided having to sell herself to a brothel. But there are those who have no choice but to sell themselves. In the past, and in the future as well."
"..."
Audrey kept a straight face, offering neither affirmation nor denial.
She was intelligent; the fact that she could constantly declare 'I do not involve myself in affairs of state' as the Empress and consistently uphold it was proof of her wisdom.
Because she was so wise, she understood well.
Tragedies never truly vanish.
While a ruler must aim as close to zero as possible, Audrey understood perfectly that it would never truly reach zero.
Even so, there was the emotional aspect to consider.
That was why she took it in with utmost gravity, yet neither affirmed nor denied it.
I continued.
"Suppose a family is on the verge of starving to death due to a disaster, and sacrificing oneself alone could save the household. If someone makes that judgment and carries it out, and the parents are punished under those circumstances, what would become of the other children?"
"Yes..."
"Naturally, there are cases where that is not the reason. Cases where they were not backed into such a corner, but were forcefully sold off by their parents anyway. In those instances, punishment must be delivered."
"Hence, only when the child desires it."
"Exactly."
"That is remarkable... Lord Noah."
It was a soft, solemn praise, slightly different from her usual cheer.
I nodded and accepted it in silence.
After saying that, Audrey asked as if suddenly recalling something:
"How does that constitute a remote cause?"
Since she asked, I decided to respond with a question of my own, half as a way of having her deduce the answer.
"What does it imply if it is only when the child desires it?"
"............!"
Audrey gasped, catching her breath in sudden realization.
"If they die, they cannot make that request..."
"Precisely."
I gave a firm nod.
"I extracted the truth from that lover of a head clerk in exchange for promising not to castrate him. He stated clearly that the second wife sold Anne while she was incapacitated. Anne was put to sleep with drugs and transported to the brothel before she ever regained consciousness. And the woman implicitly hinted that they should 'use her up completely.'"
"Eliminating the daughter... Since it was not done directly, the charge is not murder, but the sale of a child. And if the child died as she was, she would be unable to request punishment either."
"That's how it is."
I continued with a deadpan expression.
Consciously suppressing any outward emotion, I hardened my face as though I were a stone statue.
"In short, regarding this entire affair, had Anne died just like that, the second wife would have faced no legal consequences whatsoever."
"How could she do such a thing... Even if she was not her own child, she was her niece—the child of her own sister."
"There are those who pay no heed even to bonds of blood."
"...Indeed."
Audrey nodded heavily.
Paying no heed even to bonds of blood.
Even in my generation, Gilbert and Albert had attempted to do just that.
"What do you intend to do with that child?"
"..."
I could not answer.
Part of it was that I had yet to confirm the girl's own wishes, but it was also because I had not yet made up my mind.