The bone-chilling cold within the prison cell was a harsh trial for Rowan, who was over fifty years old. Even so, he was grateful to have a crude bed, as it meant he didn’t have to sit directly on the floor.
Somewhere, a bell tolled.
It was the first sound from outside he had heard since being imprisoned, and he couldn’t help but strain his ears.
Then, he faintly heard footsteps. The Bell Toll was likely caused by the opening of the dungeon door, the sound leaking through the gap.
“Well, well, Prime Minister. It must be cold here.”
“So, it is the Prime Minister. What brings you here?”
It was Aurila’s Prime Minister, Tim Walker, who had appeared.
He held out a cup towards him.
The scent wafting towards him made it immediately clear. Hot wine. He was drawn to the warmth of the steam more than the smell of the spices, and he involuntarily reached out to take it.
“Rest assured, there’s nothing in it.”
It seemed he hadn’t brought it with the intention of offering a poisoned chalice.
“…I almost wish there was.”
At those words, Tim chuckled softly.
“I suppose so. Considering what’s to come, it might be better to die in an instant.”
Rowan was to be sent to the mines of Aurila as soon as preparations were complete. There, he would serve a twenty-year Penal Labor sentence.
A deadline was set, seemingly to give him hope, but there was no way this old body would last twenty years.
“Have you ever done manual labor?”
“No, I haven’t. However, it’s not impossible.”
The reason working was a punishment was not so much the physical labor itself, but the unbearable humiliation of falling from a position where he used to employ commoners.
However, Rowan had already lost his pride. The glorious days of the past had vanished the moment he saw the pathetic begging for life of the king he had believed in and served.
“Your body will be trained as you work. Come now, you’re good at grasping the knack of things. You won’t be completely useless.”
Tim cupped the cup with both hands and exhaled softly.
“You will lose everything.”
“Yes. Both the benefits and the obligations of being a noble.”
“If you think that means becoming a commoner, you’re mistaken.”
Rowan was surprised. He certainly had the idea that he was falling into the life of a commoner.
The man, wearing a high-ranking robe and bearing the emblem of the Prime Minister on his chest, looked at him as if scooping him up.
“Commoners work. They work from morning till night. They sometimes lack food and freeze in the cold.
But—at the same time, they have connections.”
“Connections,” Rowan muttered hesitantly.
“When their labor is done, they go home, eat with their families, drink and talk. They go to bed, and when they wake up, it’s a new morning. They greet their neighbors, complain to each other, and start a new day again.”
Tim’s words forcibly reminded him of his wife and children, whom he had tried to forget.
He had divorced them just before the defeat and sent them back to their parents’ home, but he didn’t think they would be recognized as nobles under the new regime. They would live as commoners, along with their relatives.
Exactly as the thoughtful-looking man before him had said.
However, he wasn’t speaking because he was thinking of Rowan’s family.
He was talking about Rowan’s own future.
“I,”
His voice trembled pathetically.
“How will I live?”
“You are a criminal. You will be in a small, locked room, just like this one. You will work without speaking to anyone, eat the bare minimum, and sleep. That’s all.”
Ah, that was certainly a punishment. For the first time, Rowan imagined his future with despair.
“Do you lament your fate?”
It took Rowan a long time to answer Tim’s question.
“If that were fate. Then, yes, I would have lamented it.”
The wine in the cup was gradually cooling.
“But this is not fate. I knew how to avoid this future.”
There were two opportunities.
The first was when the king announced that he would marry off that pitiful last princess to a country no one knew.
And when, despite being denied all education, she still didn’t try to overturn that decision.
It was he who did not respond to the voice of the righteous within his heart. So this was not fate. It was, in fact, a just punishment for himself.
“By the way,”
He was about to sink into his inner thoughts, but Tim’s voice pulled him back.
“Princess Wendy-sama made a direct appeal to the king.”
“Haa… how so?”
“It went like this: ‘Hey, look at this record here, Rowan tried to catch Dahlia-aneesama and send her off! Good job!’ ”
“G-Good job…?”
“Of course, Cyril-dono appropriately changed those words and delivered them to the king.”
That was good.
“Your sentence has been reduced to 10 years.”
He gasped.
“Now then. 10 years, huh? You’ll be 62 years old. That’s the bare minimum age to survive after harsh labor.”
“…That won’t do. That’s… that’s less time than Wendy-sama spent alone…”
Tim took Rowan’s cup, stood up, and turned his back.
“Your lord is no more. How you live from now on is up to you.”
As he left, for a moment, the Bell Toll could be heard again.
Rowan knew.
That it was a Bell Toll for the king he had once served.