Leonardo, eyes widening, let out a puzzled breath while looking at the air.
"Huh?"
Hugo, who had been concentrating, turned his head halfway following his gaze that had shifted to the side.
"What?"
"That, is it a turtle?"
His gesture pointed to the sculpture. Hugo, who had rested his arm on the chair back, narrowed his eyes and answered.
"It seems so. Is there some problem?"
"Ah, no. It's not that..."
'Why is that there?'
Perhaps because he had discovered something related to the topic he was just about to discuss, Leonardo's lips hesitated. If it was really related, then from that point on, another story he could tell this person would disappear.
Suddenly wondering if there were other such sculptures elsewhere, Leonardo looked up at the tops of the columns standing on both sides. However, there were only reliefs adding an elegant atmosphere, with no animal sculptures positioned there. In other words, among the six stone columns, only one place had a turtle.
Usually when decorating landscaping, wasn't unity important? Why was there only one?
Moreover, a turtle statue - was that commonly used for decoration? He had seen quite a few lions and eagles...
While trying to hide his puzzled expression, his mind was spinning rapidly when Leonardo's field of vision, which had been focused on the turtle, expanded a bit more. Then the villa building draped behind came into view like a backdrop.
At the same time, the flickering memory became clear and the scenery inside the castle he was just about to describe unfolded.
Among them, one particularly special hall was projected before Leonardo's eyes.
Marble columns and golden candlesticks lined up regularly, with waterways on the floor. A temple-like space surrounded by a lake. There was one strange sculpture there - a precisely miniaturized model of the castle. While it couldn't be said to represent a real turtle, its overall appearance, if compared to an animal, resembled a turtle.
Just then, the train that had come running from afar, due to proper perspective, had passed under the castle's piloti.
Regarding that, he had said:
"A turtle that took the train."
At the words exhaled like a sigh, Hugo's eyebrows rose loosely.
Leonardo carefully retraced the scene he had witnessed at the time while looking around. Columns, waves on the floor, the lake. And turtle, turtle.
That single turtle existing up there was positioned, in terms of composition, at the center of the arc-shaped building. More precisely, it was at the center of the glass dome he had looked up at from the bath. As if it had climbed onto a long structure.
As the pieces fitted together one by one, goosebumps gradually rose on Leonardo's arms. He, who had been silently moving only his mouth, urgently asked Hugo.
"This place, you said it was old, right? That it was several hundred years or more."
"Mm, as far as I know, yes."
"Then that turtle... do you know what it means?"
Hugo, who had straightened his posture, assessed Leonardo's reaction with a strange gaze.
"Are you suddenly curious about that? I'm more curious about your story."
"...It's related to that."
"Hmm."
Soon Hugo, who had been thinking, opened his mouth.
"Turtles are often regarded as symbols of patience, so it might contain related meaning. The aesthetics of waiting and leisure, or... it might wish for longevity, immortality."
"...Immortality?"
One of Leonardo's eyebrows rose.
"To speak a bit politically, before I purchased this place, the villa's owner was a distant relative of the imperial family."
As soon as he heard the word 'imperial family,' Leonardo's expression visibly hardened. Hugo, who had been quietly observing him, added while filling his empty wine glass.
"Even saying relative, it's only a hollow relationship beyond eighth cousins with the current imperial family. Moreover, it's someone who died half a century ago, so in fact even the ownership was unclear. Their descendants are close to commoners unrelated to core power."
At the words that seemed intended to reassure him, Leonardo once again looked around the villa's landscape. Come to think of it, he seemed to have heard in the reception room before that it was 'a place secretly acquired recently.' However, for such a place, this villa bore a striking resemblance to its current owner's character.
So much so that one couldn't think the previous owner was someone else.
"Wasn't the villa originally owned by your family?"
"Originally, yes. You have good insight. At first, it was owned by the Agrizendro family. But since Logia remained a duchy for quite a long time, as a pledge of loyalty, we had to donate some land and villas to the imperial family. This place was one of them. A few months ago, when I was looking for a place where you could stay, I reacquired it."
To understand the story His Grace was telling required going back a bit further into the past. It began from the long history when the hurried Raina and Logia were unified, with Raina seizing imperial power while Logia was recognized as a duchy for its old kingdom's land.
While the imperial family honored the Logia royal family, the hereditary autonomy of the Agrizendro family continued within their existing territory. Thanks to this, the Agrizendro Grand Duke stood as both a direct vassal of the emperor and an independent duchy's monarch. This was because during the peace treaty process, the content that 'the duchy's autonomy is guaranteed by treaty, and even the emperor cannot directly abolish the treaty without the Grand Duke's consent' was included in the agreement.
Even without that specific treaty, Logia possessed territory three times that of old Raina's land and proportional military power. So even Raina, which had seized imperial power, would have had no other way to protect the unified empire without acknowledging Logia's legitimacy.
Therefore, until the kings of both countries who had made the agreement no longer existed in this land, that system seemed to be maintained like an immutable law.
But in human affairs rather than truth, there is no such thing as eternity.
Several centuries passed, and an era arrived when all those who had experienced the transitional period of the two countries' merger had died. It was a time when nobles of Raina origin, who regarded Logia beside the imperial capital as a thorn in their side competing for power, gradually increased their influence.
From this time, Logia was required to show stronger loyalty to the empire, and to avoid being accused of treason, had to pay tribute of a certain amount of gold and land annually. Naturally, within Logia, a royalist faction emerged arguing they should become independent from the empire and elevate the prestige of the Logia royal family. On the other hand, due to already reduced military power and territorial problems, there was also an imperialist faction that believed they should somehow maintain the current system to avoid falling out of favor.
Since there was a common object of restraint, the two opinions within the family weren't opposed to the point of being sharply confrontational, but about three centuries ago, there was an incident where Logia's Grand Duke, falsely accused through slander, had to bow his head humiliatingly before the emperor under the pretext of responsibility for internal rebellion.
As a result, the grand duchy was demoted to a duchy. The opinion conflicts within the family also intensified, but by then the emperor's power had reached sky-high levels. Logia had no choice but to endure the humiliation to prevent collapse, and from this period, family forces that openly rejected the imperial family emerged.
At the current point, the one at the pinnacle of that force was Gladias Agrizendro. Of course, Hugo didn't voice this fact.
"My great-aunt wishes to regain Logia's lost land and honor. I don't know how it might appear externally, but I understand and respect her feelings. After all, she's taking the lead to love and revive the family."
Hugo continued while gazing at the spread-out lake.
"Therefore, from the time of the previous Duke Agrizendro... my father's generation, we began gradually recovering the land confiscated under the name of tribute. The villa's previous owner being a distant relative of the imperial family with diverged roots, and my reacquiring this place are also for that reason. Of course, since it had been empty for half a century, I judged it would be a safe place for you too. It was uniquely beautiful and uniquely warm."
Leonardo, who had been blankly listening to the quiet voice, swallowed dry saliva. He hadn't expected to hear directly from the duke's mouth the history of political strife within the Agrizendro family that he had only speculated about through rumors.
"Is it okay to tell me such stories?"
Hugo, who had been propping his chin, tapped his lips before making eye contact with Leonardo.
"Why, are you uncomfortable?"
"...No. I'm just worried it might be dangerous."
"It's fine. The legal recovery of land rights was approved by the previous His Majesty the Emperor. And... all the stories shared in this place are also secrets between just the two of us. Right?"
His blue eyes curved pleasantly. Before he could even think he should agree, Leonardo nodded as if entranced.
"We got sidetracked for a moment, but so. We were talking about the turtle. The reason the turtle might represent immortality is, as you know, the long-cherished wish of the previous owner, the Raina royal family, is—"
"Eternal life."
Leonardo interrupted midway. Hugo, who had stopped speaking, answered with a gesture.
"Yes, eternal life. You know the massive building located on the path to the imperial palace, right? 'Porta Aeternitatis', the Gate of Eternity."
"...Yeah."
"Perhaps they projected their desire to make the impossible possible onto the turtle. I don't know how long it's been in that position, but there are theories that turtles live for hundreds of years. Sometimes even longer than that."
Leonardo quietly stared at Hugo, who said this and then lifted his glass to drink. He seemed to think that turtle had been made by the imperial relative who had owned this villa for a brief time. And naturally so, since unlike other old sculptures located elsewhere, that turtle alone had a clean appearance as if it lived in a different time.
Like the old castle in the mist.
Logically, it might be right to judge that it was made relatively recently, but Leonardo thought differently. That thing would have been in that position from the beginning.
If his time in the castle he had visited wasn't just a mere dream.