Tear-Stained
The ride back home to the Haas residence felt a bit sullen that afternoon.
Anneliese sat in the coach unusually quiet, not chatting with her handmaiden about her day at the academy, not leaning back against the velvet seat cushion as she would always do, none of that.
She simply looked outside through the coach window, staring off blankly. The bustle of the capital city's street was a dazing scene.
Maria her handmaiden, on the other hand, was fiddling her fingers while stealing glances at her lady.
The sombre air in the carriage was the most she saw from Lady Anneliese since that day five years ago. Ensuing that day, her young lady did not speak a single word for an entire year.
Maria writhed against the resemblant silence.
"Milady, if I may, a letter from the physician had arrived this morning. Mr. Kesteron would be visiting tomorrow morning for his lordship—"
It was high noon, so the horse-carriage had to plough through the crowded streets of Coinsward.
The merchants were selling their wares last-minute in loud, garbled shouts and the townsmen—peasants and freemen alike—haggled the prices in the same manner.
It was a Solar Mass afternoon after all, and everyone was all out and about after finishing minding their daily toils in the morning and going to attend the Solar Mass prayer at the Imperatorial Solareian church, the St. Lucia Cathedral.
It was by law that the day of the Solar Mass—Vybek'ya—as well as the ensuing day—Vysed'ya—were to be half-days, where working was allowed only in the mornings and no one was to work past midday.
It was initially observed by the ecclesiastics of the Church of the Holy Sun before His Majesty embraced its tenets and decreed that the church, specifically, the Ecclesia Altaris sect, commonly known as the Order of the Altar, was to be made the official religion of the empire.
Mentioning the empire, Anneliese was reminded herself of what Mr. Kraus the history preceptor had said in his orotund lecture this morning...
"...the Empire was quite young compared to its contemporaries in the east as it has been just around for 100 years. It was previously known as the Salvatoire-Austeirweiss Empire before it was renamed into the Holy Weissan Empire. It was also best to note that His Majesty Saint Emperor, with the help of the Order of the Altar sect of the church, overthrew the Kingdom of Emverweiss and just two months after, brought his military campaign to the Kingdom of Esmer in the western heaths and siege her capital, the fort city of Gssev, and felling it in the summer of 1156 AL, before ending the Weissan Civil War by capturing the Wochsteinweiss Hierocracy to the southern meadows in the winter of the same year. All three fallen kingdoms were then united under His Majesty's banner by the new year's spring of 1157 AL..."
"—milady? Milady?"
"Ah, yes? Yes. What was I saying, Maria?"
Anneliese jolted out of her reverie—she was unconsciously blinking her almond-shaped eyes and scrunching her forehead a few times as she gestured her handmaiden to reiterate.
Maria, familiar with her lady's habits of daydreaming, simply cycled back up to where she began explaining about tomorrow's visit by the physician Mr.Kesteron.
He was the one who treated Lord Kian's injury two days ago and he would be coming again to medicate the bruises and rebandage the wounds, as indicated in his letter that came that morning.
Though he was no savvy Imperial Officer of Medicine, he was invited to the academy as a guest lecturer on a regular basis, to provide lessons on patient treatments and medicines for the Tertiarium students of Medicines.
Maria even thought to herself that the only reason her lady was able to call for Mr. Kesteron was because he owed her lady's grandfather, the late Earl of Vilheim a favour.
"Milady, I would also wish to remind that the new cook, Mrs. Freda had arrived this morning and would be preparing today's lunch. She was recommended by the Merchants' Guild. Mrs. Lena meanwhile is still in recuperation following her injury two days ago. Mr. Rolf, serving milady's grace, had allotted one month worth of Mrs. Lena's pay amounting to 13 platzs, 2 silver cents and 2 copper rounds as compensation, from the coffers..."
Anneliese was still listening to her handmaiden running through her morning report when the carriage suddenly stopped and the coachman's voice was heard, announcing their arrival at the Haas' residence.
Her handmaiden paused, and nodded, indicating she would continue the report later.
Anneliese waited for Maria to open the door and got off the carriage, before she held out her hand to be received by her handmaiden as she climbed down after.
And loomed before her was the gated mansion of the Yellow Thistle.
Four Imperial Knightguards stood guarding the gates, all the while saluting the lady as she arrived.
The current Haas residence in the capital, the Yellow Thistle, was not huge in comparison to most other noble residences along the Crested Sword Street.
This had to do with the fact that on the year right after the Burning of Haas incident, the mansion was procured as part of one of the marquessate debt negotiations, exchanging the Haas' original residence in Prinzburg with a viscountcy's at Knightsburg.
Anneliese remembered it clearly as she was there the day the agreement was notarised; she was the decreed heir to the House of Haas after all.
The Yellow Thistle was two-storeys high with a modest flower garden, and interiors matching its unassumingness.
Most of the Haas' grandiose luxury furnishings had been auctioned off to cover for the residence expenditure and clearing the march's debts, otherwise taken away by her uncle's from the Haas branch family, who fortunately or unfortunately did not come to the Haas annual ingathering that winter five years ago.
Indeed, the marquessate was a fallen house.
"We welcome home the Right Honourable, the Countess of Norhurst! May her ladyship be blessed with the Dawn."
Anneliese who just entered the building was greeted by the butler Mr. Rolf, as well as by the maidservants who stood side-by-side, routinely forming a line extending from the front door into the mansion.
She nodded, greeting the servants as she strode through the savonnerie-carpeted living room.
With Maria trailing behind, her, she continued listening to the unfinished report earlier while giving instructions to her handmaiden.
Anneliese was making her way to her elder brother's bedchamber on the first floor upstairs, creases was forming on her forehead for every step she took.
A valet stood by her brother's bedchamber's door.
She glimpsed at the wrecked sculpting room beside her brother's bedchamber and made a mental note to have its door quickly replaced with a new one; that was where her brother was found when the valet and the knights arrived to the horrifying scene.
She was greeted by the young valet before he opened the door and invited her in duteously.
And there she stood rooted, dumbstruck.
"Bro-brother...? Brother, you're awake??? Oh, by the Goddess' Dawn, brother you're awake! You're finally awake..."
Anneliese sprinted across the room and leapt towards a young man with ruffled black hair and bandaged chest, sitting in the bed.
Her arms were already wrapped around the man's waist clumsily but furiously as she had begun screaming and crying into his chest, where it elicited him to wince at the sting of his wounds.
"...waah, bro— *sniff* brother, waah, brother..."
"I'm fine, Annie, I'm fine...shhh, shhh, shhh, I'm fine, Annie..."
Anneliese, despite her agitation, felt the familiar pair of arms hugging her back, her elder brother's familiar palm stroking her head gently and his voice whispering her comfort.
She cried harder and balled her hands into small fists and began hitting him at the shoulders, her tears wetting the bandaged chest she was burying her face into.
"...I was, hurk, was really afraid *sniff* you would leave, hurk, leave me like *sniff* everyone else, hurk..."
"..."
"...*sniff* don't leave, hurk, brother, don't leave me alone, hurk, ever again, hurk..."
A pained expression rose on her brother's face, but Anneliese did not notice it.
"Shhh, shhh, shhh, I'm sorry for making you worry, my little Annie... I'm not going anywhere, I'm right here..."
"...*sniff* hurk...*sniff*..."
After a lengthy while or two, Anneliese finally calmed down in her brother's embrace.
She felt his hand patting her head while his other hand wiped her tear-stained face, like the baby sister she was—she had cried so hard. Maria and the valet had long since vacated the bedchamber.
It was a moment of private solace, a moment for their own.
"Annie, when I woke up today, I realised I can see with my right eye..."
"...*sniff*...???"
"Annie, I can see..."
Anneliese looked up from her brother's chest, and saw her eyes reflected in his right eye, its golden iris glinting in the light. Her pupil dilated in shock, her elder brother was actually gazing her back!
"Brother, by the Goddess' Dawn, you— "
"Yes, I can finally see!"