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Chapter 82
“Are you all right? Are you starting to come around?”
It was a human voice.
I jerked my upper body upright. Pain flared in my waist, shoulders, and arms one after another. It felt as if someone were stomping down hard on my limbs, crushing them.
“Ugh…”
“Here, have some porridge.”
When I opened my eyes, a wooden spoon was right in front of my mouth. A brown-haired woman who looked just past thirty sat at my bedside with a bowl of porridge, tending to me.
I looked around. The room was small, its walls built of stacked logs.
I parted my dry lips and accepted the porridge. It was the first real food I had eaten in what felt like forever. My eyes prickled with heat for no reason.
I had survived. I was alive.
Pressing my eyelids with my fingertips, I wiped away the tears.
I had only suffered one miserable day after falling from my horse in the forest, yet it had felt like an eternity. At last, it was over.
“I saw you collapsed near the house, so I quickly brought you in.”
“….”
“It looked like you hurt your leg, so I checked. I don’t think anything’s broken. If you rest for about a week, you should be able to stand again.”
The woman gestured toward my legs. I pulled back the blanket. Both legs were tightly wrapped in bandages. Judging by how I couldn’t bend my knees, she had probably set splints too.
At that time, I still didn’t understand Dvorka very well. I could only catch a few words and their nuances.
It was odd for someone to live so deep in the woods, but she didn’t seem like a bad person. After all, she had brought a complete stranger into her home and treated my injuries. I should at least thank her.
“…Thank you. The child?”
I squeezed out the words in Dvorka from my memory.
I was curious about the angelic child who had first found me. The woman looked old enough to be the girl’s mother. They didn’t look alike, but she probably was.
“Our young lady is in the sitting room. Should I bring her?”
“Our young lady?”
That title was clearly used for someone of higher status.
Did that little child count as this woman’s superior?
The woman went to fetch the girl. The child scampered over and perched herself on the edge of my bed.
She said nothing, only smiled brightly and watched me closely.
Her tiny hand, like a maple leaf, brushed my freckled cheek. She fiddled with my sweat-matted red hair as though fascinated.
Almost as if she were studying some newly discovered creature.
I, too, stared blankly back at her. Platinum-blonde hair, sparkling violet eyes full of life—her entire being glittered like a jewel.
“The young lady was born without hearing. Her vocal cords are malformed as well, so she cannot speak,” the woman explained with sorrowful eyes.
Deaf and mute. Like my own mother.
“What’s her name?”
“I’m sorry, but I cannot tell you.”
Couldn’t tell me her name? Why? Were they hiding because they were wanted?
…They didn’t look the part at all, but appearances could be deceiving. Perhaps reading the suspicion in my eyes, the woman gave a weary smile and spoke again.
“I’ll take care of you until you recover. But can you promise me one thing?”
“Promise?”
I understood only three words: recover, care, promise.
“Please act as if you never saw us.”
“Never saw…?”
“Keep this house’s existence a secret.”
She emphasized the nouns—house, existence, secret—so I could follow.
“Why?”
I frowned. I was grateful for her help, but I wondered why they needed secrecy.
“We’re not criminals. That’s all I can say.”
“….”
So they weren’t fugitives, or so she claimed.
Should I believe her?
“Judging from your accent, you must be from Levanteia. I don’t know why you came this far into the forest… but we’ll also act as if we never saw you.”
After some hesitation, I agreed—on one condition.
“You know paths well?”
Since I had learned Dvorka mostly through reading and writing, speaking it was clumsy. But surely someone living in the forest would know the paths.
“If you mean the forest trails, yes. Very well.”
“When leaving… help, please.”
I said it with an awkward smile. I had no confidence I could escape the forest alone without a horse. The woman readily agreed.
Though she never told me her name, she helped me move, wash, and settle in. Later that evening, a bearded man returned—her husband, judging by how she introduced him. His garb marked him as a gamekeeper. Since she had asked not to share details, we exchanged only a nod.
And so began my life in the forest hut.
Life in the hut was peaceful.
Every morning, the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the girl’s violet gaze. She always woke at dawn and sat by my bedside, studying me so intently it felt as though she were counting each eyelash and every freckle on my cheeks.
I pinched her milky-white cheeks lightly, and she would smile bashfully. Her innocent joy made me smile too.
The woman, watching quietly from behind, wore a sorrowful expression.
“Our young lady finds you fascinating and likes you very much.”
She spoke slowly and clearly, with subject, object, and verb for my sake.
“Why?”
I honestly wondered why the child liked me.
I had a sharp, stern face, and when she had first found me, I was dressed in filthy rags unfit for the eye. She had no way of knowing I was a duke’s daughter or absurdly wealthy.
How could she like me for no reason at all?
“Because you’re the first person she’s ever seen.”
“The first person? Ever?”
“Yes. Aside from my husband and me, you’re the first person our young lady has met.”
The woman’s words shocked me.
The girl had only ever seen three people in her entire life. She must have been raised in this remote forest since birth. I wanted to ask why, but I restrained myself. We had agreed not to pry into one another’s pasts.
Unable to move much due to the aches in my body, I often sat dazed in bed. The girl brought a picture book and settled beside me, thrusting it toward me as if to ask me to read it.
But why ask me to read, when she couldn’t hear? Why not her guardians? Maybe she didn’t realize I was a foreigner.
“Ah… well, my husband bought that picture book once, but we couldn’t read it to her. We don’t know letters. She can only look at the pictures, so I think she wants to know the story. I’ll explain to her that you’re a foreigner.”
The woman offered an embarrassed explanation.
“No, it’s okay. I… can read Dvorka. A little.”
At least for a picture book, it should be manageable. But one thing bothered me.
“She cannot hear, though.”
“That’s fine. Our young lady can read lips fairly well.”
“You don’t speak with hands?”
I couldn’t recall the word “sign language,” so I asked it that way.
“Speak with hands? Is that possible?”
Ah. She didn’t even know such a thing existed.
I examined the child’s storybook. The cover was worn and smudged, likely secondhand. But I knew at a glance what it was. A cloud and the sun glared at each other, while between them a traveler clutched his cloak.
It was the fable The Sun and the Wind.
The sentences inside were simple. I could handle this.
I opened the book wide so the girl could see the pictures and read slowly, exaggerating my lip movements.
“The sun and the wind spotted a traveler. They decided to see who could make him take off his cloak first.”
The girl switched her gaze between my mouth and the illustrations, fully absorbed.
Finding her concentration adorable, I overacted with lip shapes and hand gestures, telling the story dramatically. She squirmed with excitement and clapped joyfully when the sun finally won.
Too precious for words.
Even after the story ended, she begged me to read it again. I did so, over and over. It warmed my heart to realize such a simple story could delight her so much.
Was this why people chose to bear and raise children?
But the hut had only this one picture book. Morning after morning, after each meal, before bed—she came to me asking for The Sun and the Wind.
I grew a little weary at times, but I told the tale with all my effort.
One day, I thought: wouldn’t it be wonderful if she could read herself?
“Do you have quills and ink?”
I asked the woman when she came to check on me.
“No… but I’ll buy some when I go to the market today. Please watch our young lady until I return.”
She left the girl in my care and went out.
I carefully tried standing. My right leg throbbed as though stabbed by knives, but I could manage a little. I even practiced a limping step or two.
The girl, seeing me upright, ran in with wide eyes and hugged my waist. She mimicked the woman’s gesture of supporting me, helping me balance.
