Chapter 128

The crowd fell into a brief silence.

“Master Roy, I had a good relationship with Sir Patrick-Laddin. I know him and his family fairly well. Let me take you there.”

A man stepped out from the crowd. It was the same young knight who had been on patrol with the deceased the night before.

“Then I’ll trouble you.”

“Knight Salvatore, at your service. This way, Master Roy.”

...

The Patrick-Laddin family residence lay in the northwest corner of the city, a manor of moderate size.

A rusted iron fence enclosed the grounds. Inside the courtyard, weeds ran wild, the earth buried beneath a thick carpet of fallen leaves, clearly long neglected.

Following the path from the front gate inward, a dried-up fountain stood at the center of the yard. Behind it rose a three-story building. Ivy crawled thickly over the side walls, with patches of curled, flaking plaster exposing the pallid surface beneath.

Before the main entrance stood two male lion statues carved from blue stone, one on each side. A date was engraved on the bases beneath their paws.

“1240, the Month of Ripeness.”

“That’s when the Patrick-Laddin estate was built,” Salvatore added.

Roy looked around the vast, empty grounds and clicked his tongue in wonder. “Sir Patrick-Laddin lived alone in a place this big, without even hiring a servant. Didn’t he ever feel lonely, stifled?”

“The brothers of the Order never heard Sir Patrick-Laddin complain,” Salvatore replied. “Perhaps his family was simply accustomed to a quiet, secluded life.”

They stopped before the manor’s tightly shut front door. Roy glanced up and spotted a second-floor window standing half open. He made no unnecessary movement. His knees bent slightly, and his body shot upward in place.

“Whsh, whsh, whsh.”

To Salvatore’s eyes, that blurred figure moved with an agility no human should possess, clinging to the wall like a gecko, hands and feet working together. In a single breath, he slipped through the window.

Salvatore seemed to think of something. A trace of gravity crossed his face. Relying on his own well-trained knightly physique, he forced himself to climb up to the second floor as well.

The second floor was a living area. In more than a dozen spacious, spotless bedrooms, there was nothing at all beyond neatly made beds. No dressing tables, no wardrobes, no decorations.

“So Sir Patrick-Laddin was a devotee of minimalism,” Roy muttered, puzzled. “But his family has been rooted in Ellander for decades. How could they have fallen into such poverty?”

“You don’t know the whole story,” Salvatore sighed. “The Order’s pay is not high to begin with. It was never enough to maintain an estate this large. And besides...”

“Sir Patrick-Laddin also gave part of his wages to relieve Ellander’s poor, and he was especially generous toward the brothers of the Order.” Gratitude surfaced on his face. “To be honest with you, I was once reckless myself. A few years ago I nearly squandered my family’s fortune. Then one time, when an emergency struck at home, if Brother Simon had not given money without hesitation, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life.”