"It took a long time... truly a long time to avoid their suspicion. You probably can't even imagine what I did to avoid death back then. I tried to protect Cornell and that mountain..."
The one who suspected Jean most strongly yet also trusted him most strongly was his old friend, Nathan Wickham. While not understanding Jean's attitude on the day of the revolution, Wickham didn't dare suspect that he had hidden the Crown Prince's body. He didn't seem to think that his sometimes boringly upright friend would have thrown ashes on the great work they had prepared for so long. Or perhaps he didn't want to believe it.
"To protect..." That knight, filled with passion for a new world, was so naive.
Nathan Wickham died like that. After the revolution, as the country was being reorganized and various groups arose to fight for their own interests. In that time when pure loyalty and obedience to ideology cast a sharp blade pressuring everyone, he stood on the execution ground for "having elitist thoughts." As the former knight grew older, the purity of his youth faded and he began to become familiar with political power and schemes, he became dangerous, so none other than Jean Erhardt decided to put him on the guillotine.
By then, not many of those who could be called the main figures of the revolution remained, and Cornell was always by Jean's side, so once he made up his mind, it was an easy thing to accomplish.
Is this the world you, or I, wanted?
"Maximin, is it really you?" Looking at Chantelle who had collapsed wailing beside Wickham's head rolling under the guillotine, he thought at some point.
The world after the revolution was different from what the ideology had shown and depicted. A world where everyone held wine and bread in both hands laughing and chattering was not there. It was bloody, full of contradictions and intrigue, and ridiculously, inequality was rampant. Discrimination and violence with slightly changed names lurked everywhere, and some people longed for the past, while others longed for a future that had not yet come... no, that they believed had not yet come.
It was a time when days continued where he couldn't know at all what he should do, or what he could do in that world.
'Nathan. Perhaps you should have been the standard-bearer of the new era.' As he collected the body of his old friend at the deserted execution ground, Jean whispered words to his friend that he probably would never hear again. Maybe the one who should have remained here was you, not me. Maybe that would have been the right choice for everyone. Who could know that answer? Only God would know. But...
'...I must go on further.' Because my hand is still being held.
That was all he could say out loud. He picked up his friend's silent head, made the sign of the cross, and promised alone. I will atone in hell, my old friend. Do not forgive me. I will gladly offer my neck there.
"It took a long time... truly a long time to avoid their suspicion. You probably can't even imagine what I did to avoid death back then. I tried to protect Cornell and that mountain..."
The one who suspected Jean most strongly yet also trusted him most strongly was his old friend, Nathan Wickham. While not understanding Jean's attitude on the day of the revolution, Wickham didn't dare suspect that he had hidden the Crown Prince's body. He didn't seem to think that his sometimes boringly upright friend would have thrown ashes on the great work they had prepared for so long. Or perhaps he didn't want to believe it.
"To protect..." That knight, filled with passion for a new world, was so naive.
Nathan Wickham died like that. After the revolution, as the country was being reorganized and various groups arose to fight for their own interests. In that time when pure loyalty and obedience to ideology cast a sharp blade pressuring everyone, he stood on the execution ground for "having elitist thoughts." As the former knight grew older, the purity of his youth faded and he began to become familiar with political power and schemes, he became dangerous, so none other than Jean Erhardt decided to put him on the guillotine.
By then, not many of those who could be called the main figures of the revolution remained, and Cornell was always by Jean's side, so once he made up his mind, it was an easy thing to accomplish.
Is this the world you, or I, wanted?
"Maximin, is it really you?" Looking at Chantelle who had collapsed wailing beside Wickham's head rolling under the guillotine, he thought at some point.
The world after the revolution was different from what the ideology had shown and depicted. A world where everyone held wine and bread in both hands laughing and chattering was not there. It was bloody, full of contradictions and intrigue, and ridiculously, inequality was rampant. Discrimination and violence with slightly changed names lurked everywhere, and some people longed for the past, while others longed for a future that had not yet come... no, that they believed had not yet come.
It was a time when days continued where he couldn't know at all what he should do, or what he could do in that world.
'Nathan. Perhaps you should have been the standard-bearer of the new era.' As he collected the body of his old friend at the deserted execution ground, Jean whispered words to his friend that he probably would never hear again. Maybe the one who should have remained here was you, not me. Maybe that would have been the right choice for everyone. Who could know that answer? Only God would know. But...
'...I must go on further.' Because my hand is still being held.
That was all he could say out loud. He picked up his friend's silent head, made the sign of the cross, and promised alone. I will atone in hell, my old friend. Do not forgive me. I will gladly offer my neck there.