I seemed to hear the words Lebert had left unspoken at the end of his sentence. Janice and Cho drew in a breath. His difficult life lay bare for all to see.
The life he had lived pressed heavily on my conscience.
It seems he has never once been shown pure kindness.
My heart felt very heavy.
There was never a decent adult around him.
Every time I came face to face with a dark side of the kingdom I had never seen in my past life, I was struck anew by my own shortcomings.
I rushed about vowing to be a splendid queen without really knowing anything, didn’t I? I saw only the shining parts of the kingdom.
Not this time. Resolving to face the kingdom’s bare face and its failings squarely, I looked Lebert in the eye.
“Don’t try to give me something. Let’s make a deal.”
“What kind of deal do you mean? As I said, I have nothing to give…”
“Make medicine.”
Lebert’s pupils trembled as if an earthquake had struck. The color drained from his face.
In the kingdom, making and distributing counterfeit medicine was illegal. Unwillingly, Lebert had lived by breaking many laws. No wonder he was frightened.
“No need to shake. I told you I’d protect you. All you have to do is make a painkiller that doesn’t strain the body. It isn’t difficult, is it? You’re already making one. Stabilize that medicine. I’ll support everything you need for the research.”
I explained at length before he could take it the wrong way.
I had to say quite a lot to convince him that I already knew about his medicine and that I would not use it to hand him over to the city guard.
“…Everything I need for the research?”
At last Lebert began to take an interest in our deal.
“Yes. Corpses too, if you want.”
“My lady!”
Janice cried out. I decided to explain it all to Janice in detail later and concentrated on persuading Lebert.
“How about it?”
You like my terms, don’t you? You’re tempted? You want to say “yes” before you even realize it?
Sure enough, Lebert’s fingertips twitched.
I did make him an offer he can’t refuse.
In the future before my death, Lebert had been called the mad physician.
Because word had spread that he loved dissection.
The rumor was not entirely baseless. Lebert would go anywhere dissection could be done.
The story of how he went without sleep for a week, day and night, making the rounds of the Artists’ Association to take part in their dissection studies, was famous.
He is a little crazy.
But Lebert’s obsession with dissection was absolutely not because he was mad, as the gossips claimed.
He was simply mad about researching effective treatments.
And the reason was perfectly in keeping with a genius physician, wasn’t it?
The kingdom relied on divine power and magic for serious injuries and illnesses. In a word, only people with money could be treated.
It would be solved if there were many healing mages and users of divine power, but magic and divine power are not fields a person can learn through effort.
The field of medicine that Lebert studied and tried to advance, on the other hand, could be learned by anyone.
So Lebert devoted himself to research on surgical treatment for the sake of advancing medicine.
Develop medical technique and train many physicians: that was Lebert’s argument.
To perform safe and flawless surgery, he wanted a perfect understanding of the human body. So he carried out, on his own, the dissection of corpses, which was forbidden in the kingdom.
“My lady. No. Corpses? You do mean a dead person’s body, don’t you? You’d provide them?”
Janice asked, frightened.
“My lady, you’ll get into serious trouble.”
Janice tried to stop me, her tone dripping with worry, but for striking a deal with Lebert, nothing was better than this.
“Lebert, I’ll provide them for you. The corpses for you to dissect.”
I spoke looking at Lebert, not Janice.
“Th-th-that’s illegal, my lady!”
The answer came from Janice, so I turned around to look at her.
“There’s legal dissection too. The painters do it twice a year.”
To draw the human body perfectly, painters held dissections at the association level. That was not illegal.
It was an age when medicine, which saved lives, was held in lower regard than art.
“I’ve never heard that an individual was allowed to dissect corpses.”
Janice, you’re going to cry at this rate. Should I give the handkerchief I put aside to Janice instead of Lebert?
“If you say it can’t be done and sit still, nothing changes. If it can’t be done, make it so it can. I’ll make dissection possible for medical research, and if that gets blocked, I’ll simply found ten artists’ associations.”
“They say that costs a fortune. Is that easy, my lady?”
The cost of registering an association was comparable to the price of three mansions in the capital. On top of that, since I would be making a ghost association, I would also have to hire fake members.
In short, even founding a single association would cost as much as five houses.
And that’s setting aside the cost of procuring the corpses. It’s enormous.
Found an association for the sake of one single person? Others could never even dream of it. But I could.
“It’s hard for other people and easy for me.”
Janice’s jaw dropped. Cho also straightened up; perhaps my wealth finally felt real to her.
“Once I’m Head of House, that is.”
Of course, there was a mountain to cross before I could spend the money.
“Why… go that far…”
Lebert, who had been fidgeting with his hands and keeping his mouth tightly shut, asked haltingly.
“Why? For you, of course.”
I poked a finger at Lebert. Bringing Lebert under Irenber was not only my own greed.
Lebert would let his talent bloom even under a black-market dealer. He had in the past.
But he had given up far too easily. That was a great loss both to Lebert himself and to the kingdom.
“And it’s for my sake too. I absolutely need your help.”
Lebert was greatly shaken.
“You need me?”
When I nodded, tears welled at the corners of Lebert’s eyes. I promptly held out the handkerchief. Lebert accepted it with trembling hands.
“Do you need time to think?”
I sank into the sofa, twice the size of my body, and crossed my legs.
I wanted to show the composure of a splendid grown woman, but because my body hadn’t finished growing, both feet dangled and bobbed in midair.
Slowly, focus returned to Lebert’s dazed eyes. I was sure Lebert would accept my offer.
In his tear-stained eyes lurked desire and excitement.
“Yes, I’ll do it!”
His voice was so strong it made all his earlier hesitation look absurd, and I too could finally smile brightly.
Everything went smoothly. Lebert accepted my proposal, and I arranged a laboratory for him.
So far, it was an expense I could cover from my own private funds.
In half a day, he produced the side-effect-free painkiller I had asked for.
The pills, kneaded by pressing with his fingers, looked shabby and smelled foul. But I knew that their effect, at least, was certain.
“How do you know it works?”
Janice was still wary of Lebert.
Is she still holding a grudge over the bite?
“I was told you shouldn’t take medicine carelessly.”
Janice said, pinching her nose.
“Right, it needs to be checked.”
I decided to become the test subject myself. I had a headache from sleeping badly the night before, so it was just the right situation to take a painkiller.
“You’ll take it, my lady?”
Her voice trembled, her eyes wavered. I understood Janice’s worry perfectly well, but if I didn’t trust Lebert, who would?
And I couldn’t use anyone else as a test subject in my place.
“There’s no problem. I’m confident. All my younger siblings take it.”
Lebert said, glaring at Janice. He seemed quite hurt by her constant suspicion.
“He has siblings?”
Janice avoided talking with Lebert as much as she could. Naturally, the question that should have gone to him came back to me.
The siblings Lebert meant were not blood relatives but the children of the slums.
Children who walked barefoot along filthy streets and did not get enough to eat were hurt and sick as a matter of course. The medicine Lebert had just given me was medicine made for those children.
The countless children who had taken it and survived all this time had, in effect, proven its efficacy and safety.
“I trust it. That’s why I’m going to take it.”
I swallowed the pill with a loud gulp, so that Lebert could see. He hadn’t expected me to really eat it, and his pupils dilated wide. Then his enlarged eyes filled with tears.
I don’t have a handkerchief.
He had cried earlier too, and Lebert was a man who cried easily.
“Would you like to wait in the room a while until it takes effect? You want to check that it works too, don’t you?”
Lebert nodded. As he stood there not knowing where to sit, Janice, with a disapproving face, dragged him over in front of the sofa. After making sure Lebert had sat down, I closed my eyes.
The effect came quickly. The pain in my heavy eyelids vanished, and the heat I had felt at my temples cooled.
“Oh, this is good?”
As my head cleared, I felt energized. When I opened my eyes wide and said so, Janice stared at me as if she couldn’t believe it.
“It’s true, Janice. I wish I could take it when I hurt once a month, too.”
“It worked on you?”
Lebert jumped to his feet. He had shown confidence in its effect when Janice doubted him, but deep down he had apparently been anxious.
“Yes, very well. Trust me and try it yourself.”
I sounded like a swindler just now, didn’t I?
But in truth, Lebert’s medicine worked well enough to recommend without a second thought.
“I wish we could do something about the smell. And could it handle stronger pain, not only mild pain?”
I asked as I got up and approached Lebert. I had not brought Lebert here just to make my headache medicine.
I wanted him to cure Cassion’s illness.
And if a cure was too hard right away, at least to lessen his pain.
“Yes, I’ll try!”
Lebert gave a shy smile and nodded vigorously. He looked just like a big dog.
“Good work, Lebert.”
I stepped right up to him and reached out a hand. I meant to pat Lebert’s head.
But patting Lebert, who was half a head taller than me, was not easy.
When I stood on tiptoe and flailed, Lebert slowly bent at the waist.
As I rubbed his head, I noticed Janice’s strange expression.
