But the fire that seemed poised to burn indefinitely died down in an instant.
His strength gave out, and he finally lost consciousness.
“Call a doctor! Fetch the doctor right now!”
I opened the door and shouted. Instantly, servants and knights alike began rushing about.
Even without being explicitly ordered, a servant brought a basin of water and towels to wipe down Lucas’s body and placed a cold, damp cloth on his forehead.
Yet, even as others touched his body, Lucas failed to open his eyes.
“Count! Are you unhurt?!”
The doctor rushed into the room out of breath and checked on me first.
Without a word, I simply pointed toward the bed.
The moment the doctor discovered the patient, he quickly examined him, and his face drained of all color.
“Why? Is it that severe?”
“I fear it will be difficult for him to survive the night.”
For a moment, my mind went completely blank.
I had only been thinking about how I needed to be cautious around Lucas.
I never imagined a moment like this would come.
“…Even though he was merely beaten?”
“He wasn’t beaten just once or twice, sir. This is the result of prolonged abuse. If wounds are repeatedly struck before they have a chance to heal, they fester, and when they fester to this extent, a person’s body breaks down.”
“He is a knight.”
“Even a knight’s life is in just as much jeopardy as any ordinary person’s when subjected to such beatings.”
The doctor looked at me with pity, as if what I was harboring wasn’t hope, but a lingering, foolish attachment.
When I stubbornly glared back, the doctor showed me the injuries firsthand.
He showed me the gash on the back of Lucas’s head that was still oozing blood, and his broken ribs, which shifted in the completely wrong direction with every ragged breath he took.
The amount of time Lucas had endured without uttering a single word to me was a mere week.
He had even stood right back up after being beaten and calmly sought me out in my office.
He had knelt before me as if nothing were amiss.
I hadn’t possessed even the faintest inkling that he harbored such horrific wounds.
“Is there no way?”
“We need a mage or a priest who can cast healing magic.”
Mages were precious commodities.
Magic tools were items created and distributed by the Mage Tower, which was why our family managed to hold a few, but I had never even seen a proper mage in person.
A mage capable of casting high-tier healing magic would be rarer still.
If it were a priest, however, it was possible to summon one.
“Do everything in your power to keep him alive.”
“Pardon?”
“Keep him breathing. I will summon a priest, so keep him alive until they arrive.”
The doctor froze in surprise, but the moment I arched an eyebrow, he scrambled back to tend to Lucas.
I immediately summoned Tayros.
If we had to bring a priest here in the middle of the night on such short notice, it required someone of at least Tayros Lesroll’s stature—a direct vassal and knight of the Pation family—to go in person and maintain proper etiquette.
Arriving in a hurry, Tayros sensed the ominous atmosphere in the room and asked, “What’s going on?”
I cut straight to the point. “Go bring a priest. One who can perform blessings and healing.”
“Why?”
Tayros asked, his eyes tracking a servant who was rushing past, before finally spotting Lucas lying as still as a corpse upon the bed.
In the short interim, Lucas had grown even paler, and his breathing was incredibly shallow.
Tayros looked back at me, silently seeking confirmation for the answer he had just deduced.
Naturally, one could not summon a priest to heal a slave. I needed a different pretext.
“I had a nightmare, and I need to receive a blessing.”
“…….”
“You were the one who told me to get a blessing since I’ve been having nightmares lately. I feel like I’m going to have another nightmare tonight, so go fetch one right now. Please.”
The temple held its head incredibly high. If I told them a slave was dying, they wouldn’t budge an inch.
But once they were actually here, they were still servants of God; they wouldn’t be able to turn a blind eye and disregard a dying man right in front of them just because he was a slave.
They would heal him. Though it meant I would have to pay a hefty donation in return.
Tayros didn’t push any further and nodded.
He dashed out of the bedroom to fetch a priest immediately.
After instructing the butler to prepare a pouch of gold coins, I sat on the sofa and stared at Lucas.
Even to someone like me who knew absolutely nothing about medicine, it was obvious Lucas was dying.
The bleeding wouldn’t stop, forcing the doctor to keep applying constant pressure to the wound.
‘To think I’m going as far as to summon a priest.’
I knew I was being foolish. I should just let Lucas die.
This was an opportunity to rid myself of him without ever getting my own hands dirty.
Even if his name were cleared down the line, the only charge I would face would be negligence in managing a slave.
A slave was mere property, so any punishment could easily be resolved with money.
‘Have mercy…’
His eyes, looking as though they were engulfed in flames, flickered through my mind.
Had I been swept up in those flames along with him?
Perhaps I had.
‘Please, have mercy…’
It was just… I wanted to make the scene where Lucas reunites with his sister and mother a reality.
Perhaps because I, too, was in a position where I was waiting for my brother and sister-in-law, I simply couldn’t bring myself to ignore him.
The priest arrived.
An elderly man dressed in pure white robes, he walked with a slow, unhurried pace.
“Thank you for coming.”
“I hear you have been troubled by nightmares? To summon me in the dead of night, they must be terrifying dreams indeed.”
He was subtly mocking me, implying I was a coward.
I simply smiled and readily accepted his jab.
“I am a bit of a coward. You have no idea how much peace of mind your presence brings me. Shall we proceed to the bedroom?”
Every second mattered too much to waste time arguing.
As I hurried my steps, the priest reluctantly followed me toward the bedroom.
I threw the bedroom door wide open, guiding him to step in first.
Following my lead, the priest walked inside, only to immediately discover Lucas lying on the bed.
“Count, there is someone in your bed…”
“Ah, that is my bedroom slave. Did I not recently receive a gift from His Majesty? I placed him there because I wanted to show him off a bit.”
The priest stepped closer to the bed, as if testing to see just how remarkable this “gift” truly was.
Upon seeing Lucas, whose life was hanging by a thread, a look of shock crossed his face before he quickly masked his expression.
In a trembling voice, he asked, “C-Count… you say this person is the gift…?”
His reaction was bizarre.
Even though I had referred to Lucas as a slave, the priest had addressed him as “this person.”
