The place Raphael took Ariadne to was outside the walls of San Carlo, upstream of the Tiber River.
It was a beautiful riverside in late autumn with thick clouds and cypress trees filling the hills.
“Ariadne, thanks to you I can come out of the castle like this.”
He spoke into the refreshing river breeze.
“It was a real shame when the Gallico Kingdom army was running wild.”
Ariadne smiled faintly and looked down at her right hand.
If the defeat of the Gallico Kingdom's army was thanks to Ariadne, and if the freedom that Raphael and Ariadne now enjoy is truly based on her good deeds, would that all be included when calculating the price of sin and good deeds?
'How much of it is my credit and how much is my fault?'
But the halo hidden beneath the thick gloves remained silent. It was a betrayal of hope.
“Yes. I’ll make sure you don’t get cold.”
Raphael spread a mat on a sandbank by the river, had Ariadne sit on it, and skillfully made a bonfire by gathering dry branches.
The weather cooperated, the wind wasn't too strong, and the slightly chilly air added to the charm.
Raphael smiled as he covered Ariadne with a blanket while she warmed herself by the blazing fire.
“You ride better than I expected.”
“It’s warm.”
“Oh no. This won’t keep you warm. I brought more in case you get cold.”
He opened the sack and took out two sandwiches and a tall bottle.
"Ta-da."
“What is that?”
“Food for the mind.”
What Raphael took out of the wine bin was port wine, made by re-aging sparkling wine.
“During the logistics chaos in San Carlo, the only place left to get this is the cellar of the Baldessar family.”
He filled two tin cups with port wine and handed one to Ariadne. Ariadne laughed in bewilderment.
“No, you’re preparing to be ordained as a priest, right? Can you drink something like this?”
Of course, her father, Cardinal de Mare, kept grappa in his study and drank it, but that was because his position was more politician than clergy, and the priests and acolytes were subject to strict prohibition.
Raphael was not yet a priest. It was the time when he had to most solemnly abstain from alcohol.
But Raphael smiled and emptied his goblet in one gulp.
“It’s cold, isn’t it? I can’t help it.”
He shrugged and placed his share of the tin cup on the mat.
Ariadne covered her mouth in surprise at Raphael's cheerful one-shot that did not match his appearance.
“Yes. Yes. Yes. You have sinned. You who wish to become an apostle of the Heavenly God.”
It was half teasing, half accusation. Raphael paid no attention and filled his glass once more.
“Humans originally live while committing sins.”
He hummed as he brought the second glass to his lips.
“That’s why you’re human.”
He looked into the distance at the river flowing mightily.
“There is no one who has not sinned except a newborn baby who has not yet had the opportunity to sin.”
His voice was as confident as if he were giving a catechism. He added,
“Perfection is not a virtue that humans can possess.”
Ariadne answered. Her voice was empty and drained.
“Then why do we live our lives being taught not to sin?”
It's so hard and sad to run towards an impossible result.
“What’s the point of working towards an impossible goal anyway?”
Her eyes shook uneasily.
“Isn’t it torture to have to run towards an ideal that cannot be achieved?”
Raphael answered in a spiteful, lighthearted manner.
“That’s why it is taught in the Book of the Holy Spirit. Humans are born with original sin, so they must swim in the sea of suffering to attain enlightenment.”
Ariadne did not give up and persisted.
“If everyone fails, what difference is there between those who have sinned more and those who have sinned less?”
In response to this question, Raphael drank his second glass and wiped his lips with his sleeve.
Her bright red lips were soaked in red wine and shone even brighter.
“I think I’m a little drunk. Now that I’m drunk, I’ll tell you something.”
He put his lips to Ariadne's ear and whispered.
It was a remote riverside where there was no one, but it seemed like it was a story that no one dared to tell.
“When I was little, I hated my older brother very much.”
Ariadne opened her eyes wide.
“I thought you were very friendly.”
Raphael de Baldesar was a man who gave up everything and went to Padua alone for his brother.
There weren't many borrowers who were so devoted to their elders.
“That happened later. When I was young, I really hated my brother. He had no ability, but he was born a little early, so he held everything in his hands.”
The position of the lord, the titles he would inherit, the lands, the property. They all belonged to his dead eldest brother Feliciano.
In reality, Raphael was better than his brother in terms of learning ability, judgment, and athletic ability.
“My delusions reached their peak when it was discovered that I was sick at a young age.”
Compared to his brother, Raphael, who was more talented in every way, ended up monopolizing even his parents' attention when his health deteriorated.
“At that time, I thought I owned the world. But the position of successor was not mine. I couldn’t accept it.”
So Raphael got angry.
At first, it was just a simple tantrum, but it gradually became childish and eventually crossed the line.
“I felt wrong, thinking, ‘Why am I the only one who gets sick? Why can’t I be the only one who gets sick?’ My brother needs to get sick too.”
Seven-year-old Raphael would leave his healthy older brother out in the sun for five hours at a time, saying, "Let him get sunburned too." He would also tell his parents ridiculous stories about his brother's illness, saying that he was sicker than usual.
Raphael's older brother, Feliciano, would laugh and tolerate his sick brother's misdeeds.
That further irritated the sensitive and nervous Raphael.
- “That’s because you’re not sick! You don’t know because you’re not sick!”
While playing by the window together, Raphael's eyes turned bright red and swollen and he was shedding tears due to direct sunlight coming through the window glass. When he saw this, Raphael yelled at his brother who had told him to "stop crying and go inside."
Feliciano asked his brother, who had a hurt face.
“How can I ease your mind?”
“You must be in pain too!”
Raphael took one of the longest and thickest needles from his sewing kit.
The nanny who had been watching them play had left them behind for a moment.
“Huh, huh?”
Feliciano took a step back, but that was it.
Feliciano could have physically subdued his smaller and weaker brother, but he didn't, and Raphael took advantage of the gap and attacked his brother with a needle.
“Ah!”
What followed was chaos. Feliciano's eyes were bleeding.
When young Raphael saw what he had done, he was so frightened that he burst into tears. The whole family came running, and the Marchioness of Baldessar scolded her two young sons, asking what was going on.
Feliciano answered stubbornly.
“We were playing, Mom. We got hurt while playing.”
Feliciano never told his parents that Raphael had stabbed him on purpose.
But the needle incident didn't end as just an incident.
Feliciano's right eye began to swell and turn bright red, and Feliciano suffered from a high fever.
“...Brother, why didn’t you tell mom the truth?”
One day, when it became clear that Feliciano's right eye had become white and that he would never be able to see normally like other people, Raphael approached his brother with a suspicious look on his face and asked him.
“Nothing will change even if I do that. Our parents will be sad.”
“...You don’t hate me, brother?”
“...”
“Why don’t you care about your feelings?”
Feliciano turned his upper body to look at his brother with his left eye, which was clear.
“I don’t get angry easily. I like it when other people are happy. If I told them that it was your fault, Mom and Dad would be sad.”
Raphael was confused. If it were him, he would have exaggerated the incident to tell his parents, out of revenge, resentment, and the thought of stealing their affection.
Unable to find the answer on his own, Raphael sought out another teacher.
“Father, you said that nobles have to be outstanding.”
“Yeah. Right.”
The Marquis Baldessar, then in his early thirties, answered gently as he helped his sick and small second son sit on the front of his horse, positioning him so that he would not be exposed to the sun.
“Is it because they have to set an example?”
"Yes."
“...But why is it that I’m always a role model for others because I’m good at studying and playing sports, but that gives me a hard time?”
Marquis Baldessar lowered his voice and spoke to his young son. His voice was a little stern.
“Raphael. Being a good example isn’t something you can do alone. You have to rule your household. That’s a virtue.”
Young Raphael did not fully understand what his father meant.
But at that moment, he felt terribly ashamed of himself.
As time passed, Raphael slowly realized.
It may be that being able to read Latin well, do additions and subtractions quickly, and ride a horse well were all just secondary things.
Shouldn't the virtues a truly great person possesses be slightly different?
At that time, young Raphael simply sat on his father's horse's saddle and cried quietly while being held by his father.
Marquis Baldessar silently stroked the back of his second son's head.
“I surrendered to my brother after that. He was always ahead of me... He deserved it. You could say it was a kind of loyalty.”
Raphael's voice was somewhat muffled.
“...But no matter how devoted I was, my brother’s eyes never got better.”
The river flowed powerfully. It was similar to the flow of inevitable events.
“My brother cried and apologized on the day he completely lost sight in his right eye. I think it was during puberty. My good brother forgave me. I don’t know how that was possible. But his sight never came back.”
No matter how well he treats his brother, no matter how much he considers him, no matter how much he gives him everything, the fact that he has lost sight in his right eye will not change.
It is a sin Raphael committed, a past that cannot be washed away.
“And the evidence of my sins continues to trail.”
Feliciano died of a high fever of unknown cause in his early twenties.
Raphael still blamed himself for the remnants of the fever that lingered in his brother's body from that eye infection.
“But would it have been right to continue to blame my brother, to console me by saying that I had no choice but to do things because of him, and to live my life abusing people around me, thinking that I had already done it and discarded it?”
Raphael resolved from then on never to let his feelings get the better of him and hurt others.
To do that, you have to keep a very large distance from others.
“I promised myself that I would never let anyone get on my nerves after that incident. Of course, I couldn’t keep that promise.”
He was often sick, and he could not control his sensitivity by willpower when his condition deteriorated.
“But I’ve never raised my voice so far. I pride myself on that. But.”
His brother will not come back alive.
“I still feel sorry for my brother. I just live like this, chewing on the guilt. Could it be that I am actually the one who killed my brother?”
After killing his younger brother out of jealousy, he was banished from the community, marked, and left to wander the wilderness.
“After paying the price for sin, will I become pure?”
“...That’s not true.”
Farmer Cain must live forever with the mark on him, from generation to generation. Tears welled up in Ariadne's eyes once again.
“Even if you pay the price, you will always be a sinner...”
Clear tears flowed from her eyes. The number of innocent people of Gallico she had killed was increasing even at this moment.
She could feel the tingling sensation in real time as the red dots increased on her left hand, or rather, her left arm. They were the marks of her sins.
Raphael spoke softly to Ariadne.
“But Ari. Did the god kill Cain right away after he committed a sin?”
“...No.”
“The farmer Cain eventually built a city in the wilderness where people could live.”
Although it was a city founded by a sinner, his descendants and the city's citizens prospered.
Even those who would have died in the wilderness would have found safety and peace within the city.
“Humans commit sins. It is the nature of human beings to live in sin. We cannot become clean.”
These were desperate words for Ariadne. Humans cannot be purified.
She always lived with the belief that she was morally superior. Her comparison groups were Isabella, Cesare, and Lucrezia.
Her driving force was this sense of moral superiority. As a victim, she lived thinking that she could condemn her perpetrators.
But the greatest sinner among those who are alive and standing on this earth now is Ariadne herself.
He was worse than any murderer, worse than any tyrant.
Because they were slaughtering the people of the Kingdom of Gallico by the thousands, who were not destined to die.
“I always reflect on my sins and promise not to repeat them again. It is enough to be a better person than I was yesterday.”
Ariadne burst into tears. It was more than a sob, it was a wail.
Raphael muttered quietly.
“When I want to condemn someone, I always think about my own sins. Am I really clean? Can I confidently throw stones at that person? In many cases, no.”
His voice sounded like a song.
“It makes me more generous. I’m not a generous person by nature, but I think it’s a foundation for becoming a better person.”
But Ariadne's crying did not stop. Raphael looked at her trembling back.
As he sat there for a long time, the strong wind became quite bitter.
Her shivering back probably wasn't because of the cold, but he wanted to do something more even if it wasn't much help.
He took off his cloak and draped it over Ariadne's shoulders.
“And this is definitely not something someone who wants to be a priest would say.”
He tried to keep the coat from slipping down, but it ended up looking like he was hugging her from behind.
“Sometimes it’s too much work, so it’s okay to take a break.”
Raphael spoke affectionately. This was not the speech of a prospective priest.
“So what if you’re a sinner? You’re human because you sin, you’re human because you’re imperfect, and you’re alive because you’re human.”
His last words were whispered so low and quietly that it was not certain whether Ariadne heard them.
“...It’s beautiful because it’s alive.”
It was a beautiful riverside in late autumn with thick clouds and cypress trees filling the hills.
“Ariadne, thanks to you I can come out of the castle like this.”
He spoke into the refreshing river breeze.
“It was a real shame when the Gallico Kingdom army was running wild.”
Ariadne smiled faintly and looked down at her right hand.
If the defeat of the Gallico Kingdom's army was thanks to Ariadne, and if the freedom that Raphael and Ariadne now enjoy is truly based on her good deeds, would that all be included when calculating the price of sin and good deeds?
'How much of it is my credit and how much is my fault?'
But the halo hidden beneath the thick gloves remained silent. It was a betrayal of hope.
“Yes. I’ll make sure you don’t get cold.”
Raphael spread a mat on a sandbank by the river, had Ariadne sit on it, and skillfully made a bonfire by gathering dry branches.
The weather cooperated, the wind wasn't too strong, and the slightly chilly air added to the charm.
Raphael smiled as he covered Ariadne with a blanket while she warmed herself by the blazing fire.
“You ride better than I expected.”
“It’s warm.”
“Oh no. This won’t keep you warm. I brought more in case you get cold.”
He opened the sack and took out two sandwiches and a tall bottle.
"Ta-da."
“What is that?”
“Food for the mind.”
What Raphael took out of the wine bin was port wine, made by re-aging sparkling wine.
“During the logistics chaos in San Carlo, the only place left to get this is the cellar of the Baldessar family.”
He filled two tin cups with port wine and handed one to Ariadne. Ariadne laughed in bewilderment.
“No, you’re preparing to be ordained as a priest, right? Can you drink something like this?”
Of course, her father, Cardinal de Mare, kept grappa in his study and drank it, but that was because his position was more politician than clergy, and the priests and acolytes were subject to strict prohibition.
Raphael was not yet a priest. It was the time when he had to most solemnly abstain from alcohol.
But Raphael smiled and emptied his goblet in one gulp.
“It’s cold, isn’t it? I can’t help it.”
He shrugged and placed his share of the tin cup on the mat.
Ariadne covered her mouth in surprise at Raphael's cheerful one-shot that did not match his appearance.
“Yes. Yes. Yes. You have sinned. You who wish to become an apostle of the Heavenly God.”
It was half teasing, half accusation. Raphael paid no attention and filled his glass once more.
“Humans originally live while committing sins.”
He hummed as he brought the second glass to his lips.
“That’s why you’re human.”
He looked into the distance at the river flowing mightily.
“There is no one who has not sinned except a newborn baby who has not yet had the opportunity to sin.”
His voice was as confident as if he were giving a catechism. He added,
“Perfection is not a virtue that humans can possess.”
Ariadne answered. Her voice was empty and drained.
“Then why do we live our lives being taught not to sin?”
It's so hard and sad to run towards an impossible result.
“What’s the point of working towards an impossible goal anyway?”
Her eyes shook uneasily.
“Isn’t it torture to have to run towards an ideal that cannot be achieved?”
Raphael answered in a spiteful, lighthearted manner.
“That’s why it is taught in the Book of the Holy Spirit. Humans are born with original sin, so they must swim in the sea of suffering to attain enlightenment.”
Ariadne did not give up and persisted.
“If everyone fails, what difference is there between those who have sinned more and those who have sinned less?”
In response to this question, Raphael drank his second glass and wiped his lips with his sleeve.
Her bright red lips were soaked in red wine and shone even brighter.
“I think I’m a little drunk. Now that I’m drunk, I’ll tell you something.”
He put his lips to Ariadne's ear and whispered.
It was a remote riverside where there was no one, but it seemed like it was a story that no one dared to tell.
“When I was little, I hated my older brother very much.”
Ariadne opened her eyes wide.
“I thought you were very friendly.”
Raphael de Baldesar was a man who gave up everything and went to Padua alone for his brother.
There weren't many borrowers who were so devoted to their elders.
“That happened later. When I was young, I really hated my brother. He had no ability, but he was born a little early, so he held everything in his hands.”
The position of the lord, the titles he would inherit, the lands, the property. They all belonged to his dead eldest brother Feliciano.
In reality, Raphael was better than his brother in terms of learning ability, judgment, and athletic ability.
“My delusions reached their peak when it was discovered that I was sick at a young age.”
Compared to his brother, Raphael, who was more talented in every way, ended up monopolizing even his parents' attention when his health deteriorated.
“At that time, I thought I owned the world. But the position of successor was not mine. I couldn’t accept it.”
So Raphael got angry.
At first, it was just a simple tantrum, but it gradually became childish and eventually crossed the line.
“I felt wrong, thinking, ‘Why am I the only one who gets sick? Why can’t I be the only one who gets sick?’ My brother needs to get sick too.”
Seven-year-old Raphael would leave his healthy older brother out in the sun for five hours at a time, saying, "Let him get sunburned too." He would also tell his parents ridiculous stories about his brother's illness, saying that he was sicker than usual.
Raphael's older brother, Feliciano, would laugh and tolerate his sick brother's misdeeds.
That further irritated the sensitive and nervous Raphael.
- “That’s because you’re not sick! You don’t know because you’re not sick!”
While playing by the window together, Raphael's eyes turned bright red and swollen and he was shedding tears due to direct sunlight coming through the window glass. When he saw this, Raphael yelled at his brother who had told him to "stop crying and go inside."
Feliciano asked his brother, who had a hurt face.
“How can I ease your mind?”
“You must be in pain too!”
Raphael took one of the longest and thickest needles from his sewing kit.
The nanny who had been watching them play had left them behind for a moment.
“Huh, huh?”
Feliciano took a step back, but that was it.
Feliciano could have physically subdued his smaller and weaker brother, but he didn't, and Raphael took advantage of the gap and attacked his brother with a needle.
“Ah!”
What followed was chaos. Feliciano's eyes were bleeding.
When young Raphael saw what he had done, he was so frightened that he burst into tears. The whole family came running, and the Marchioness of Baldessar scolded her two young sons, asking what was going on.
Feliciano answered stubbornly.
“We were playing, Mom. We got hurt while playing.”
Feliciano never told his parents that Raphael had stabbed him on purpose.
But the needle incident didn't end as just an incident.
Feliciano's right eye began to swell and turn bright red, and Feliciano suffered from a high fever.
“...Brother, why didn’t you tell mom the truth?”
One day, when it became clear that Feliciano's right eye had become white and that he would never be able to see normally like other people, Raphael approached his brother with a suspicious look on his face and asked him.
“Nothing will change even if I do that. Our parents will be sad.”
“...You don’t hate me, brother?”
“...”
“Why don’t you care about your feelings?”
Feliciano turned his upper body to look at his brother with his left eye, which was clear.
“I don’t get angry easily. I like it when other people are happy. If I told them that it was your fault, Mom and Dad would be sad.”
Raphael was confused. If it were him, he would have exaggerated the incident to tell his parents, out of revenge, resentment, and the thought of stealing their affection.
Unable to find the answer on his own, Raphael sought out another teacher.
“Father, you said that nobles have to be outstanding.”
“Yeah. Right.”
The Marquis Baldessar, then in his early thirties, answered gently as he helped his sick and small second son sit on the front of his horse, positioning him so that he would not be exposed to the sun.
“Is it because they have to set an example?”
"Yes."
“...But why is it that I’m always a role model for others because I’m good at studying and playing sports, but that gives me a hard time?”
Marquis Baldessar lowered his voice and spoke to his young son. His voice was a little stern.
“Raphael. Being a good example isn’t something you can do alone. You have to rule your household. That’s a virtue.”
Young Raphael did not fully understand what his father meant.
But at that moment, he felt terribly ashamed of himself.
As time passed, Raphael slowly realized.
It may be that being able to read Latin well, do additions and subtractions quickly, and ride a horse well were all just secondary things.
Shouldn't the virtues a truly great person possesses be slightly different?
At that time, young Raphael simply sat on his father's horse's saddle and cried quietly while being held by his father.
Marquis Baldessar silently stroked the back of his second son's head.
“I surrendered to my brother after that. He was always ahead of me... He deserved it. You could say it was a kind of loyalty.”
Raphael's voice was somewhat muffled.
“...But no matter how devoted I was, my brother’s eyes never got better.”
The river flowed powerfully. It was similar to the flow of inevitable events.
“My brother cried and apologized on the day he completely lost sight in his right eye. I think it was during puberty. My good brother forgave me. I don’t know how that was possible. But his sight never came back.”
No matter how well he treats his brother, no matter how much he considers him, no matter how much he gives him everything, the fact that he has lost sight in his right eye will not change.
It is a sin Raphael committed, a past that cannot be washed away.
“And the evidence of my sins continues to trail.”
Feliciano died of a high fever of unknown cause in his early twenties.
Raphael still blamed himself for the remnants of the fever that lingered in his brother's body from that eye infection.
“But would it have been right to continue to blame my brother, to console me by saying that I had no choice but to do things because of him, and to live my life abusing people around me, thinking that I had already done it and discarded it?”
Raphael resolved from then on never to let his feelings get the better of him and hurt others.
To do that, you have to keep a very large distance from others.
“I promised myself that I would never let anyone get on my nerves after that incident. Of course, I couldn’t keep that promise.”
He was often sick, and he could not control his sensitivity by willpower when his condition deteriorated.
“But I’ve never raised my voice so far. I pride myself on that. But.”
His brother will not come back alive.
“I still feel sorry for my brother. I just live like this, chewing on the guilt. Could it be that I am actually the one who killed my brother?”
Cain, a farmer in the Book of Kings, is a prime example of someone who murdered his brother.
“After paying the price for sin, will I become pure?”
“...That’s not true.”
Farmer Cain must live forever with the mark on him, from generation to generation. Tears welled up in Ariadne's eyes once again.
“Even if you pay the price, you will always be a sinner...”
Clear tears flowed from her eyes. The number of innocent people of Gallico she had killed was increasing even at this moment.
She could feel the tingling sensation in real time as the red dots increased on her left hand, or rather, her left arm. They were the marks of her sins.
Raphael spoke softly to Ariadne.
“But Ari. Did the god kill Cain right away after he committed a sin?”
“...No.”
“The farmer Cain eventually built a city in the wilderness where people could live.”
Although it was a city founded by a sinner, his descendants and the city's citizens prospered.
Even those who would have died in the wilderness would have found safety and peace within the city.
“Humans commit sins. It is the nature of human beings to live in sin. We cannot become clean.”
These were desperate words for Ariadne. Humans cannot be purified.
She always lived with the belief that she was morally superior. Her comparison groups were Isabella, Cesare, and Lucrezia.
Her driving force was this sense of moral superiority. As a victim, she lived thinking that she could condemn her perpetrators.
But the greatest sinner among those who are alive and standing on this earth now is Ariadne herself.
He was worse than any murderer, worse than any tyrant.
Because they were slaughtering the people of the Kingdom of Gallico by the thousands, who were not destined to die.
“I always reflect on my sins and promise not to repeat them again. It is enough to be a better person than I was yesterday.”
Ariadne burst into tears. It was more than a sob, it was a wail.
Raphael muttered quietly.
“When I want to condemn someone, I always think about my own sins. Am I really clean? Can I confidently throw stones at that person? In many cases, no.”
His voice sounded like a song.
“It makes me more generous. I’m not a generous person by nature, but I think it’s a foundation for becoming a better person.”
But Ariadne's crying did not stop. Raphael looked at her trembling back.
As he sat there for a long time, the strong wind became quite bitter.
Her shivering back probably wasn't because of the cold, but he wanted to do something more even if it wasn't much help.
He took off his cloak and draped it over Ariadne's shoulders.
“And this is definitely not something someone who wants to be a priest would say.”
He tried to keep the coat from slipping down, but it ended up looking like he was hugging her from behind.
“Sometimes it’s too much work, so it’s okay to take a break.”
Raphael spoke affectionately. This was not the speech of a prospective priest.
“So what if you’re a sinner? You’re human because you sin, you’re human because you’re imperfect, and you’re alive because you’re human.”
His last words were whispered so low and quietly that it was not certain whether Ariadne heard them.
“...It’s beautiful because it’s alive.”
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