Chapter 150: Sculptor
I saw an immortal within the marble.
And in order to set that immortal free, I carved away the stone.
-Michelangelo Buonarroti-
“……Very well.”
I nodded.
It did not take long to grasp what she meant.
‘So it seems she has not been going to see Prince Albert at regular intervals.’
Her Majesty did not look particularly bright as she spoke of going to see Prince Albert.
That the love of one’s life could be alive and well, and yet one could wear so gloomy a face when speaking of seeing him.
I did not know the particulars, yet it seemed there was some sort of promise or constraint. Whatever it was, the cause that had parted a pair said to have no equal in the European martial world for their conjugal harmony must be more serious than I could imagine.
Plainly, there were circumstances I did not know, beyond the mere fact that Prince Albert had hemophilia.
It even occurred to me that she might not have met her hemophiliac companion even once in the last twenty years.
‘She looked as though she had made some great resolve……’
I turned over in my mind the expression she had just shown.
The reason she declared, at this late hour, that she would meet Prince Albert was surely because of what I had said.
‘It feels like digging into a tender place, and I am sorry, yet it is not something that can be passed over as though it were nothing.’
A moment ago, from a few clues, I had inferred a fatal secret regarding Prince Albert, and Her Majesty did not deny it.
The danger of hemophilia sufferers had been verified countless times for a hundred years.
The blood-drinking impulse brought on by an Elixir Field and blood paths shattered by a strange illness.
In the end, a hemophilia sufferer becomes a monster that slakes its thirst on the blood of others, led by instinct.
The scale and aftermath of the incidents caused by those with hemophilia, beginning with the Blood Bath raised by Erzsébet Báthory in the early seventeenth century, far surpassed imagination.
There were many hypotheses about the origin of this strange illness, yet my master Phileas Fogg maintained that the cursed bloodline originated in the Schwarzwald1, counted the worst inhuman demon-realm among certain Forbidden Areas that exist within and beyond the European Murim.
My master had said.
That the beings lurking in the Schwarzwald all possessed such powerful demonic strength that one hesitated to even call them human, yet they could not escape beyond the forest.
Yet certain European houses, at last, took seed from those beings and dragged their lineage, however imperfectly, beyond the black forest and mountains.
That is to say, a hemophilia sufferer born of the royal family’s original sin could be called a Half-Blood.
I believe Prince Albert to be a good man, yet I do not deny the tale that an ancient curse flowing through the veins can drive a man mad.
As a consulting detective who guards the nights of London, I could not let such a being run loose in the martial world.
It was regrettable toward Her Majesty, but my resolve was firm.
If I could not see with my own eyes how Prince Albert was being isolated from society, if I could not be certain that he was causing no harm to those living on British soil.
Then I would have to bring him down, by any means and method.
Even if it meant, if necessary, leaking the secret Her Majesty the Queen was hiding to the outside.
“If you see Albert yourself, you too will understand what the situation is. You may be at ease. Albert is a man who would rather take his own life than do harm to the martial world. I swear it upon my name.”
Her Majesty spoke with a quiet smile.
In that face, one could glimpse boundless trust toward her other half.
Not blind faith, but the confidence of one with wisdom and strength, after repeated deliberation and the placing of the best move.
I had heard more than once of the mysteriousness of the Ancient Tomb Clan’s Kung-Fu through my master, and so it was easy to guess that Her Majesty had isolated Prince Albert from the martial world by means I did not know.
To take me with her to see Prince Albert meant that, rather than killing me to silence me in order to avoid the worst outcome, she had decided upon a frontal course.
Furthermore, I could roughly guess why she declared a month’s grace.
‘It seems one must meet certain conditions in order to enter the place where Prince Albert is.’
What those conditions were, too, could be understood without making my mouth sore by saying it aloud.
Since she had lost the Sword Debate Chess wager, Her Majesty had to bestow upon me an Ancient Tomb Clan treasure, and in addition hand over a Kung-Fu.
In other words, I, a debutant of ordinary gentry origin, would receive instruction in an Ancient Tomb Clan secret manual from Victoria, the Ancient Tomb Clan clan head, the Queen Of Spades.
That is to say, leaving aside the content of the wager, it meant she was taking me as a disciple.
Even if I could learn nothing beyond a single Kung-Fu, by the common measure used in the martial world, it would certainly be a master-disciple relationship.
In the martial world there were those who, like my master, passed down all their martial learning to a single successor, yet my master also treated Mycroft and the maid Jean Passepartout who learned Kung-Fu other than demonic arts as disciples.
The face of Timothy Young, the Phantom Fist, brushed past my mind for a moment, yet he had only received demonic art consulting from James Moriarty, so it would be difficult to call him a proper disciple.
Her Majesty was not teaching me Kung-Fu in exchange for some separate payment, so it could be said it was entirely different from their case.
In any event, even if not an in-name disciple, the fact that Her Majesty herself would grant me a thread of the Ancient Tomb Clan’s secret teaching was surely something that would make the clan’s guardians gasp.
Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s official successor would likely be His Highness Edward, the Prince of Wales, the next heir to the throne, but to learn directly from Her Majesty meant that I would take a rather high share within the Ancient Tomb Clan.
“To take me with you in one month means that by then I must be qualified as a member of the Ancient Tomb Clan.”
Her Majesty the Queen nodded.
The place where she had confined Prince Albert was surely a secret place beyond the reach of people’s eyes.
If I narrowed the candidates, it was either one of the royal hunting grounds, or a place managed by the mysterious clan shrouded in secrecy, the Ancient Tomb Clan.
And as a rule, to enter a forbidden area of this sort, one must become an involved party.
If, over the course of a month, I could learn the Ancient Tomb Clan Kung-Fu I chose, I would be recognized as a member and could enter the place where Prince Albert was confined.
Then, indeed, it would be reasonable to think there was a strong possibility that Prince Albert was sealed in a place managed by the Ancient Tomb Clan.
‘This too can be seen as a kind of test.’
I do not enjoy belonging anywhere, yet if I were acknowledged as a member of the Ancient Tomb Clan, I would not stop at learning a single Kung-Fu, and I would be given a chance to learn the clan’s lofty Kung-Fu learning.
If I passed Her Majesty’s test within a month, I would come to share her greatest secret.
In this life, where I must face Moriarty who has transformed into a stronger being than before my regression, if I could draw Her Majesty the Queen to my side, the odds would rise greatly.
I had only intended to secure what I needed at once through the wager, yet in the end a new path opened.
“I will certainly make the Ancient Tomb Clan’s Kung-Fu my own within a month.”
“It will not be easy. Of the Westminster Ancient Tomb Clan Kung-Fu learning, not a single one is easy to master. If you wish, I shall personally choose for you the one that seems easiest for you to learn.”
“I am grateful for your consideration, but I will choose myself.”
“And what do you know of what secret manuals the Ancient Tomb Clan has?”
“After I have already chosen even the treasure Your Majesty cherishes, do you truly think I know nothing of the Ancient Tomb Clan Kung-Fu.”
“……So I have been caught completely. Was it not a wager in which I did not lose from the start? You seem a swindler more dreadful than your master.”
Her Majesty poured out praise without stint, and I could not easily stop smiling.
“I beg your pardon.”
“I will ask only one thing.”
As though cutting off my words, Her Majesty spoke in a tone that had grown notably sharp.
“What is it?”
“Your master, the Heavenly Demon Phileas Fogg. Has he ever transmitted to you the Kung-Fu of the Ancient Tomb Clan?”
It seemed it weighed on her mind that my master, after wagering and dueling with the royal couple, had taken an Ancient Tomb Clan secret manual.
“My master once said that the Ancient Tomb Clan Kung-Fu were miraculous and unpredictable, and varied. He also once briefly went over the names and effects of certain techniques. But he said that he could not transmit them, for he must keep his promise with Your Majesty.”
“……The Heavenly Demon kept faith. I trust that you also will not betray my trust.”
In summary, beyond the stake I demanded, she would share the Ancient Tomb Clan’s secrets and accept me as a member, so I was to hold my tongue well.
It had come to look as though I had gained an advantage by threatening her over Prince Albert’s secret without intending it, yet in the end it would be of great help to me, so it was acceptable.
“I will bestow the promised Ancient Tomb Clan treasure before long. So, which secret manual do you want?”
When I answered by Direct Message, Her Majesty nodded with an expression that suggested she did not like it.
“I will send it together with the record of the match.”
“Your grace is beyond measure.”
For a moment I hesitated whether to perform Nine Styles Of Bowing, then instead bowed at the waist in ordinary courtesy and turned my back to Her Majesty.
It was because the thought occurred to me that if I could not fully digest the secret manual I had requested within a month, I could not say I had become the disciple of the Ancient Tomb Clan clan head.
-Clatter
And then.
“Hm.”
As I walked toward the office doorway, my foot caught on something.
When I lowered my gaze to the floor, I saw a large chunk of stone that had scattered when I broke Her Majesty’s enormous Sword Debate Chessboard with Heavenly Demon Descending Steps.
Marble, not blue granite.
It was not a fragment of the chessboard, but it seemed the base of the pawn I had stepped on had failed to endure the impact and split off.
It seemed something a court lady had not managed to clear away, and since it would only be thrown out if left alone, it would do no harm to take it as a keepsake.
On the fragment of ten-thousand-year marble I picked up with that thought, an unexpected name was inscribed.
“This is……”
The name engraved on the broken pawn’s piece belonged to a sculptor.
More precisely, a skilled sculptor, and a craftsman of plaster statues.
“What is it?”
“It’s nothing. Then I shall be off.”
Her Majesty asked, but I blurred it over suitably and hurried out of the office.
“Why is this man’s name……”
There was no possibility I could forget.
He was the culprit of a case I had already solved once.
An Italian who had caused a strange crime entangled with plaster statues and the mafia.
“Beppo……”
Chewing over an old memory, I spoke the sculptor’s name aloud.
- TL/N: Black Forest, Germany ️