Chapter 5: CH 5

Katya, who had been running for a while, breathless and out of breath, turned around to see if she had lost him.

She saw a man, much taller than any of the knights, with broad shoulders, running towards her at frightening speed.

There were no other men around.

Katya turned sharply down the street and dived into an alley.

“There–”

The man followed her around the wall and into the alleyway. The razor-sharp blade touched his throat.

Katya pushed him back against the wall with her shamshir around his neck. Their bodies pressed closely together.

Up close, the man had a rarely seen handsome face and eyes as blue as turquoise.

He looked like one of the gods depicted in temple murals.

He was so much taller than her, Katya’s neck was stiff from looking up.

“Are you acquainted with that Petroztsky fellow?”

Katya said, glancing behind the wall to see if she was being followed again.

“Who is that?”

“You’re risking your life to take sides with someone you don’t even know?”

“I’m just trying to get this–”

Nikolai shoved his hands into his pockets, and Katya grabbed the back of his hand.

“Don’t move! In case you haven’t noticed, this is a real knife.”

“I know, it’s a real knife. Isn’t that the shamshir you bought at the shop?”

“Who are you, are you following me?”

Nikolai sighed, as if to clear up a misunderstanding, and then slipped something into her hand.

Still staring at Nikolai, Katya lifted her hand. In her hand was a pocket watch her father had bought her for her birthday.

“Uh, when?”

Katya fumbled with her hips in surprise. It was indeed pocket watch.

“I went to the shop to get the shamshir, and you were just coming out, and I thought you’d lost it, so I followed you to give it to you.”

Katya dropped the shamshir and stepped away from him.

“But why are you chasing me with such a scary face? I thought you were coming to kill me.”

“It’s just my normal face, and I’m a bit of a fast walker.”

“Anyway, thanks for this.”

She thanked him and turned to leave, but Nikolai stopped her.

“What else?”

Katya said, looking back at the road, nervously wondering if the bums were coming again.

“That shamshir, won’t you sell it to me? I’ll give you five times the normal price.”

“I paid six times for it, and you want me to sell it for five?”

Katya said in a disbelieving tone. Nikolai wondered if he’d bid too low and immediately regretted it.

“Then ten times–”

“Sir, you’re annoying the hell out of me. Will you go away?”

She looked as annoyed as if she were swatting away a flying fly. Nikolai had never been treated like this before.

“Did you just talk to me?”

“Then who else is here besides you?”

“By the way–”

“Hey, this bastard! I’m currently being chased, you know?”

“You don’t have to worry about that. I managed to shake them all off.”

“What do you mean?”

Nikolai decided to hide the fact that he had beaten every man who came in his way with his bare hands.

If she said she was scared and wouldn’t do business with him, that would be a problem.

“They must have been drunk, because they just tripped over my feet as they ran up to me.”

“All of them?”

Katya blinked in disbelief.

Nikolai nodded his head, wearing a calm expression that resembled that of a large dog.

“If you’re going to drink, you should do it with elegance. It’s not proper to act unruly even in broad daylight. It’s unseemly.”

While it was true that Katya had also acted out of line, as the men did, Nikolai decided to let it slide.

“What about twenty times?”

“Oh, you’re persistent. Do you have any idea how much this cost? I scraped together all the pennies I had from selling the trinkets I had.”

For one thing, they were both dressed as commoners, so the idea of overpaying for expensive goods was absurd.

They couldn’t afford to be discovered so easily before they had achieved their goal.

Nikolai spoke up eagerly.

“I also saved up quite a bit to buy this.”

“How much?”

“I invested my entire fortune to buy this.”

She wasn’t wrong, she’d spent every penny she had, but the words made Katya click her tongue.

“Looks like you’ve got one hell of a hobby on your hands.”

Padovangrad was the seat of the Duke of Smirnov, and she could not extort money from the small territories.

Katya sheathed the shamshir and held it out to him with a wistful look.

“I’ll just take the normal selling price, and you can stop collecting these things in the future.”

Nikolai looked up as if he’d heard something wrong.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not married yet, but when you have a family, you’re going to need a lot of money to spend on things, so you should start saving.”

“I can pay twenty times the list price.”

Puzzled, he pulled out his wallet but Katya took out the mentioned amount of money from his wallet and put it into the outer pocket of his coat.

“Uh-huh, okay, leave it there. It’s illegal to bargain on top of that.”

“It’s not that, I can really pay–”

“And there are a lot of pickpockets around here, so you shouldn’t be carrying that much money.”

It was a truly strange sight as to who was worried about whom.

“Live diligently from now on!”

Embarrassed by her good deed after a long time, Katya waved her hand gracefully and quickly disappeared.

At the fork in the road where she disappeared, Boris appeared, panting for breath.

“Your Highness, are you sure you want to do this!”

“Why? I’m not hurt.”

“Those men were hurt!”

Boris exclaimed, looking as if he might faint at any moment.

In the first place, the reason for travelling with a bodyguard was not that he was worried about anyone hurting the Grand Duke.

It was to prevent the Grand Duke from harming anyone.

Aide Boris, was a celestial scholar1suggests that the person possesses exceptional wisdom, insight, or intellectual abilities beyond ordinary human comprehension who only studied and was insufficient in restraining the powerful figure on his own.

“At least I didn’t use a weapon this time.”

“There are people who have engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Your Highness and returned from the celestial realm2can represent a spiritual journey, enlightenment, or transcendent experiences.”

“But they didn’t die.”

Boris swallowed hard at the nonchalant reply.

He hadn’t killed them himself, but many had died on the Grand Duke’s orders.

Nikolai had been dubbed the ‘Bloody Duke’ for the bloodshed he had wrought in the north since his ascension to the throne.

His reputation as a man to be feared was already tarnished, and any further incidents would only add fuel to the rumours.

“Did you deliver the goods to the woman named Katarina?”

“Katarina?”

“The man with the lute around his neck was screaming Katarina on the way over, wasn’t he?”

When he first witnessed the fight, he was too far away to hear the conversation.

It was only then that Nikolai realised that the strawberry-blonde, fierce woman was the one the men had been swearing at in the bar.

“I’ve never seen a woman like that in my life. I thought she was a fighting chicken.”

“Yeah, I’ve never had a woman hold a knife to my throat before.”

“What? She threatened you with a knife?”

So, is she still alive?

Boris was too stunned to say anything else.

Nikolai laughed in amusement, unaware of the speed with which his body was burning.

“Are all Southern women that fiery?”

“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure not.”

“Oh, well, that’s a shame, she was charming.”

“What?”

Boris repeated, wondering if he’d misheard.

Nikolai, who had been walking ahead, stopped midway.

It was a shame to part like this.

“Speaking of coincidences, I want you to find out which family this Katarina belongs to.”

She was dressed as a commoner, but if she was paying for that expensive shamshir, she was most likely a noble.

“And what are you going to do when you find out?”

Are you going to kill her?

Boris thought to himself this time.

“I don’t know.”

That was all Nikolai said, and then he was on his feet again.

***

The next day, a marriage proposal from the Petrozsky family arrived on the doorstep of the Duke of Smirnov.

It was addressed to Katya, and the suitor was Pavel, the eldest son of the count.

“Not that guy Ivan?”

It can’t be. Katya muttered in disbelief.

“It really has the eldest son’s name on it?”

“The handwriting is Lord Pavel’s. We have corresponded before. Why is that?”

“Because I heard that Ivan is in the South.”

Katya made another excuse to cover up yesterday’s outing.

“If it were Ivan, I’d be absolutely against it, but Lord Pavel is a sincere man who doesn’t fit into that household.”

“And how does father know that?”

“Do you remember the winner of the previous Grand Tournament?”

The Grand Tournament was a renowned event held every four years in the capital of the Duchy of Hersen. It was a prestigious competition where knights and soldiers from various countries participated.

For generations, the monarch of Hersen had organised it in the name of the House of Vasily, and it had a reputation for not accepting requests.

“Of course I remember it, because for the first time ever, a commoner won.”

Needless to say, the faceless winner was someone Katya had always admired.

As Katya sighed, she recalled the memorable final match of the previous Grand Tournament, which was hailed as a legendary battle.

Bianca had come down with a nasty cold, so Katya had stayed home, and only her father, the match’s sponsor, had gone up.

“Sir Pavel is the winner.”

“What?”

“He entered the competition without revealing the family name. After winning, he became a high-ranking officer.”

Pavel had a good reputation among the northern nobility, and the southern nobles with daughters had heard the rumours and were jostling for position.

In person, he was a polite young man, and even as a duke, Pavel was a coveted son-in-law.

“He came down to the south for work, but he doesn’t have much time, so I wanted to invite him to the villa.”

“Anyway, as Ivan’s older brother, it’s a little awkward, isn’t it?”

Even if Pavel had been the winner she had dreamt of, she would have hated to have such a brother-in-law.