I Married the Mad Duke Who Killed My Husband - Chapter 38
I quietly followed behind Cassion and the knights who stood like a wall in front of me, heading towards the underground prison.
Should I say I lost both my excitement and motivation after Cassion’s ventriloquism? When he went that far to stop me, how could I not listen?
“Open the door.”
I knew there was a small underground prison in the Duke’s mansion, but this was my first time seeing it. Walking down a corridor in the corner of the first floor and opening a small door revealed narrow stairs leading downward.
“This way, Your Grace.”
Since this wasn’t the imperial palace but rather a prison made to punish servants and knights working in the Duke’s mansion, it wasn’t as gloomy as I had imagined.
Inside the iron bars of the small and clean underground prison that clearly looked unused, lay a man who appeared even filthier than the prison itself.
“Hey. His Grace is here.”
There’s no way he couldn’t have heard multiple footsteps coming down, but the man who remained curled up was very dirty and thin. Flying insects buzzed around his filthy hair matted with grime, making it understandable why the knight had hesitated when I asked if he was blonde.
“Raise your head.”
“….”
Though Cassion ordered, the man only squirmed without moving. When the knights knocked on the iron bars several times with their scabbards, the flinching man slowly raised his body.
“…It is indeed Parmenion.”
Cassion stared at him for a while before speaking loud enough for me to hear, along with a sigh. Even though he had seen him before, the momentary silence was because his appearance had changed surprisingly.
It wasn’t just that he was dirty; he looked like a completely different person.
“Gasp…”
The most shocking thing was the long cut visible through his rags that barely covered his private parts. The wound, stretching from his chest to his abdomen, clearly showed signs of forced surgery and stitching, still oozing pus as it hadn’t healed properly.
I unconsciously drew in a small breath at the sight and hearing that momentary intake of breath, Parmenion suddenly lifted his head that had been lowering again.
“Asilia!”
His cracking voice echoed through the narrow prison. Crawling like an insect and clinging to the iron bars, Parmenion thrust his head between them as if trying to tear off his facial skin.
“Asilia! Asilia! You dog, I knew you were here!”
Parmenion’s eyes, suddenly thrashing about madly, were red as if all the blood vessels had burst. Was it simply from hunger? Had he taken some drugs? His protruding eyeballs were horrifying.
The knights knocked on the bars several more times with their swords telling him to be quiet, and moved to block me more thoroughly.
“Did you come for revenge? Targeting Asilia?”
After quickly checking that I was safely hidden, Cassion approached the bars to face Parmenion.
“Asilia–!”
But my half-brother, half-crazed, ignored Cassion’s question and just kept shouting my name while rolling his eyes.
Just like in the past, he starts yelling when things don’t go his way. I clenched my fists, ashamed that I had been frightened for even a moment.
“I’ll talk to him.”
“…Asil!”
“I won’t get close. I’ll speak from here, so please step aside a bit.”
Realizing we wouldn’t get anywhere at this rate, I joined the conversation. Finally noticing me, Parmenion started waving his hands frantically while laughing madly. Cassion tried to block me in surprise, but I hadn’t moved a single step to begin with.
“Is there any need to get close to something so filthy?”
“There’s no need to exchange words with filth either.”
“This idiot seems determined not to speak to anyone but me, so we have no choice.”
Though Cassion tried to stop me while striking down Parmenion’s bony hand reaching out through the bars with his scabbard, my stance was firm.
“Parmenion.”
“You wench… you insolent wench. How dare you call your brother’s name like that, you must have truly gone mad along with the Duke.”
“The mad one is you.”
As the knights moved aside a bit more, I could see round bruises on his bony arms and his strangely sunken gums. He really had hit rock bottom.
“Why did you come? No, why did you crawl all the way here?”
“Heh heh… heheh.”
“Did you come to kill me? In that state?”
“Yes, I’ll kill you. You devil! We shouldn’t have accepted a bastard like you!”
“Did you ever accept me? It would have been better to send me to an orphanage.”
I gritted my teeth, remembering my childhood. How was this small, clean prison any different from the room where I grew up? If anything, this might be better since there’s no dust.
They never acknowledged me in the first place. Until I was nineteen, I hadn’t even properly gone outside, let alone had a debutante ball.
“If I hadn’t been pretty, you wouldn’t have raised me at all.”
The only reason I was fed just enough to stay alive and grow up was because I was a useful asset to them.
From doing chores instead of servants to being property they could sell once I grew up.
“Face… Yes, you’re getting cocky because of your face. Asilia, you vermin.”
“You bastard…!”
When Parmenion made strange laughing sounds and mocked me, Cassion and the knights became outraged. They grabbed their swords as if ready to enter the cell, but stopped at my single hand gesture.
I wasn’t particularly affected, but seeing them so worried and anxious about me made me feel sorry instead.
“I should have slashed that face first during sword practice. Heheh. Heh.”
“Sword practice? Do you mean that flailing around like a scarecrow? You failure who couldn’t even pass the academy entrance exam.”
When I snorted, Parmenion’s face, which had been constantly giggling, instantly turned bright red. Oh? Do you still have some pride left?
“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you, you devil!”
“If you had that much energy, you should have come to your parents’ funeral instead of sneaking in like a rat now.”
At that moment, Parmenion’s struggling stopped abruptly. From his bulging eyes that looked ready to pop out, I sensed that he didn’t know about his parent’s death.
“…What? What did you say?”
“…”
“You devil, now you’re saying my perfectly healthy parents are dead? I, I don’t believe it. They said they would come get me with money…”
Parmenion’s pupils dilated. Soon after, he stopped struggling to grab me and crawled towards the wall. Biting his nails while muttering, he didn’t look sane.
I closed my eyes long and opened them as I turned around.
“Look for the gambling den where my brother was.”
From his words and appearance, it seems he was caught while on the run. Or perhaps his parents, tired of being fugitives, used Parmenion as bait and tried to escape alone, only to meet with an accident.
Since it was a low-class gambling den, they probably didn’t believe he was nobility and took immediate action upon catching him. While there might not be places trading organs like in my previous life, there are those who mutilate bodies to prevent escape and force people to work.
“…Asilia.”
“That’s enough now. I’m going back up.”
What happens after that is obvious, isn’t it? Even if he barely escaped, in his half-mad state, the only thing he could think of was anger towards me.
Feeling there was nothing more to learn, I turned around, and Cassion, who had turned pale, quickly followed me.
“Asilia. Are you alright?”
“What’s there not to be alright about?”
“…I must have thoughtlessly suggested a solution back then.”
“No. That was the best option at the time, and I was the one who ultimately accepted your suggestion. It’s my fault that Parmenion ended up like that, and it’s my fault that I destroyed my family.”
“Fault? You did nothing wrong.”
“No. This is all my fault. And I don’t regret the things I caused.”
It would be a lie to say I wasn’t surprised, but what good ending did I expect when making my family flee in the night? While I gained stability by removing them from sight, I must have anticipated such an ugly outcome.
As I emerged from the somewhat dark underground prison, I blinked once more in the bright corridor to erase the image of my half-brother with the long scar on his abdomen and his half-mad state.
“If I had given them money, they would have kept demanding more, and if I had forgiven them, they would have endlessly looked down on me. Even now they curse me. It was the best choice I could make.”
From when I avoided death on my first night with the Marquis, to when I met Cassion and Jenin and faced my parents’ death.
I know that the changes I’ve made will cause no small disturbance. So I will accept the consequences without avoiding them.
“Have him treated. Don’t keep him in the underground prison, move him somewhere else and take care of him until his body heals, and then…”
I looked at Cassion, whose eyes held only concern for me. I just hoped that my current and future actions wouldn’t disgust him.
“Send him back to that gambling den. If he has debts left, he should pay them himself. And if we release him onto the streets, who knows what rumors might spread.”
But even at my cold words, he still examined me with gentle eyes.
I pressed my lips shut, feeling like a monster for worrying about others’ disgust towards me rather than feeling guilty about sending my half-brother back to hell.
“I’ll do as you wish, Asilia. Don’t mind the ravings of a madman, just forget them.”
“…I’m not concerned.”
“Good. Go play with Lili. She must be waiting.”
I let out a small laugh, and seeing this, Cassion’s expression also lightened. If I don’t go quickly, he’ll probably do that ventriloquism again.
“Don’t think about doing that again, it’s creepy.”
