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"There's no other record prior to her admission to the orphanage", the procurator looks up at me, his eyes weary and documents in between his hands.
I would've bit unto my last fingernail before my knees stops its shaking, I could only reply to him an exhausted sigh before I caved and massaged my temples. My elbows slumped unto my knees, it seems that there is no fruit to be reaped from today's mission. In hopes of getting a birth certificate, I came back all the way back here again to the west border where I first met young Nicaise. A week's trip away from home, I didn't tell anyone and took off by horseback in the middle of the night. This had been the third day of my stay but I've yet to gain anything from the workers at the orphanage.
Under my order, I relocated the orphanage into some building I bought, the least I could do was to make sure that there were no more children who suffered like Nicaise. The old staff were fired and replaced by familiar people I knew around the area. In proper proceedings in buying property and an establishment like the orphanage I now had the rights to every document in their records. It's what I came here for, I even hired a procurator for it to ensure everything proceeded accordingly but it was still to no avail.
No birth certificate, no homeland, no possible relations, unknown heritage, and she doesn't even have a last name. All she ever told them was where she came from, the mountains near the border, and her name, 'Lupa'. That's all she ever said. No further disclosure of her identity or even ethnicity. I had to track down the old staff members who got to interview her for her documents and interrogated them myself but there really was no other answer, they couldn't get anything out of her other than that.
So, I resorted to inquiring the children whom she was with, the few faces in that crowd that I could remember. Sitting beside them at their lunch table as I bribed them with food into a confession but while their stomachs were full, their words about my daughter was empty.
"She never really talked much!"
"She came here with a dirty sack and bruises all over"
"None of us are friends with her"
"There was this girl who used to hit her because she was greedy, she won't share food"
"I'm not sure, I never saw her ate anything"
"One time, she ate a live bird"
"We don't sleep with her, she slept in the stables"
It was the first time in a decade that I had been sober for four days straight, a new track record for me that would be a cause for celebration for Gak and Jhon. I stayed up all night in my cramped room, staring at the only piece of paper that proves as evidence of my daughter's existence. She's a child, she can't have come from nowhere.
The royal court well not be pleased if this is the only document I could present them in adopting her because she has had to have a last name prior to mine for it to be legalized. On the last night of my defeated stay, I drank again for the first time. The liquor felt more like water washing down my heavy throat. I can't think nor do I have anything to say.
I pondered, calling on the spirit of my husband to guide me despite how silly it actually was but that was the only thing that calmed me.
After that, I went back home. Of course I was berated by endless nagging from my two friends but once I told them my purpose, they fell silent and forgave me for my sudden disappearance. "Oh! That poor child", Gak could only hold back her tears while patting her chest as I told her everything I discovered from the orphanage and the doctor.
The festering of her wounds when we first had her should have been prevalent enough. Most orphans have a story to tell but hers is nothing but a tragedy. Born into it.
I'd recall the times I got to observe her.
In the beginning, she looked like she could blend in with the snow with how pale she was, even her lips had no color. Her eyes sunken and fingers blistered from the cold. When she first got into the carriage it was the very-fist instance that I saw any color in her cheeks. Her first bath water was brown and it took hours before the maids could fully untangle her hair. When she got her first winter coat on the ride back here, she almost melted into the fur's warmth.
Before she eats or gets dressed, she has a habit of observing the presentation of the table, and her clothes for the day. I've seen her play with her hair many times when she is bored or disinterested. And despite having quite a passion for writing with the copious amounts of paper that she orders, ironically her hand writing is terrible. Just like my husband's. Having a double standard, she doesn't seem to mind when she is messy but she despises it when others are.
Just this morning I caught her deliberately pushing a book off the table in the library when the maids who were cleaning had been a little too noisy. When she is alone, her expression relaxes, the most serene I have ever seen her. Such a beautiful child, you'd wonder why people could ought to themselves to harm her, in full awareness of it as well as I had heard the stories she told of her drunken father and temperamental mother in the next room during one of her sessions with the doctor.
Because of my eavesdropping, I even got to hear the story of how she once saved a little girl. And from Jhon, I hear she was once friends with a foreign prince. Although, I think she only said that so Jhon would leave her alone to enjoy her solitude. I've much come to learn why she did not like the play date, I found her to not be particularly fond of people. Her poker face when she has entertained too much conversation can be read as disdain if you look hard enough. As twisted as she may be sometimes, she also has her little charms.
She particularly enjoys dragging her dress out in the snow and finding herbs in the nearby forest, it is considered her play times other than those little experiments she conducts. I knew about how she would wait for me to come home, even if it is late when I used to avoid her. The maids would have to beg her to sleep and try again tomorrow. Or how she would eat slowly when we are eating together so her time with me could be prolonged. The obvious eagerness in her eyes when she looks up at me. Now I am this child's only family.
"She has quite a frail body, your ladyship. I doubt she had been delivered properly as most of her vital organs are weaker than most normal children", the doctor informs me in one of his reports.
She's weak. But you could never see it in her eyes.
I had only thought how it was odd that her breathing is close to not being heard of when she sleeps or how she easily tires from walking. Then I was reminded of what the doctor said one afternoon when I saw her take various breaks in between a few steps of the staircase before she could reach the top. That time, I suddenly found myself in tears as I hid from her sight. It broke me to see her in such a vulnerable state. But when she is in front of me, all she ever acts is brave.
I didn't think much of it then but I have never once heard her laugh. Now I could only be guilty of more sins. How could I have refused the child's effort? She had to deal with me as much as I had to deal with her, that I did not think of then. It must've been hard for her to adjust but all I can think of was my own selfishness. My friends had every right to be angry at me.
Come to think of it, it has been months since she came here as I should have been more aware but life hadn't been the same ever since. I had her to occupy my mind that I have began to slowly not have enough time to think about bad memories. The tavern is starting to miss its biggest customer.
I used to even forget I had gotten a child and having Jhon to remind me. But nowadays where I find myself spending more and more time with her, having a kid around actually isn't so bad. Whether back when I was indifferent of her company or now, I have surely came to be accustomed of her presence.
Who cares if she doesn't get along with other children. She only have to be happy with me and safe, that's all I need to worry about. She's a smart kid anyway, she'll figure out how to get along with people once she grows up. And she has made it very clear how she didn't want any friends.
I recall a time to when my husband and I, and our tropes were stationed at the east border where we were giving away relief goods, donation by the imperial family to the local villagers, we've come across a peculiar child in the group of kids who had a nasty look on his face and would refuse anyone (even food), he would just stand there and stare.
We'd complain about the child how he was too aloof while my husband would simply have a small smile on his lips and say, "Don't worry, he'll come around". The very next day, the kid had bread in his hand and laughing with my husband while eating.
When I asked him about it he confessed how he was actually similar to him as a child and how, "You'd meet plenty of folks but you could only ever get along with your kind of people". He did say that I wouldn't have liked being with him if we had met any younger than we were teenagers.
Would Nicaise finally give me a real smile once I shared the same bread with her?
I would lose my appetite or feel disdain by now as I usually do when I got to thinking of my husband but, strangely enough today. I am rather at ease.
Unlike me who could easily get anyone a good laugh clowning about her messy upbringing, my husband never liked sharing about his childhood. We had got to know each other for a decade before I'd ever learn about his father or the house he grew up in, the very estate he left for me. It belonged to generations of high nobles. As I am now only a low rank baroness, I wasn't cast out of my home and having strangers move in only because it was thanks to his majesty gifting it to me.
"Ah! Nicaise would love to have to this. A book on elixirs, don't you think so Jhon?", I breath a sigh of relief as I exited the bookshop, a book in hand as I made my way to the carriage. But when I looked back, I found Jhon to be stalled with a speechless look on his face.
"Are we… not going to visit the tavern, Your Grace?", with a bewildered expression as if he could not believe what he was saying, he slowly pointed to the direction of the tavern.
"Oh, right". I forced a meek smile, shamefully biting my lips and hesitating before I blew a puff of cold air and sat inside the carriage.
"Go get me a crate"
Because this was a spontaneous stop on our way back from a visit to the capital, when we got back, it had already been quite late. Jhon had quickly went and looked for the maids the moment we step foot inside like he had exciting news to bear for them to hear. I only shook my head as I made my way upstairs to my room but along the way, I could not help but stop in front of Nicaise's room when I remembered her night terrors.
I might wake her but, it wouldn't hurt to check.
I found her so soundly asleep, her pale skin being the only thing glowing in this dark room and she looks so at peace, just like any other innocent child. I wonder if this is what parents may have felt like when putting their children to bed. Who would've thought that now I could finally relate to them.
"Good night, my little daughter", I kissed her forehead before leaving her to her slumber. And before I could close the door of her room, I took one last glimpse of her.
It is then that I have come to fully made up my mind.
From this moment to the end of my life and in the next, she is my child.