Winter Bud - Chapter 75

“Sir Jerix.”

“…Yes.”

“Do you want to come over here and eat my mother’s meat pie too?”

“….”

“My mother’s meat pie is the most delicious in the world.”

The Crown Prince smiled and pointed at the round table. He should’ve refused, but he didn’t want to break that smile. Slan parted his lips toward him as he glanced around.

“It’s okay. There aren’t many servants here. Please, just sit here once.”

The Crown Prince’s invitation was strangely persistent. Jerix stared at the child, then slowly moved his feet. He couldn’t bring himself to refuse. Slan grinned and held out a meat pie to him as he sat in the empty chair. He remembered the pumpkin blossom dish and the sandwiches he’d eaten in the Western Palace.

“…Thank you for inviting me to a meal.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Slan shrugged. Jerix looked at the child, then turned his gaze to stare at the thin woman. Glassy sky-colored eyes were staring straight at him. Like sparks flying, it felt like their colliding gazes popped.

He quickly averted his eyes. The woman lowered her head as well. It was the first time since they parted in the Western Palace that they were seeing each other this close. Maybe it was the same for her too. Was that why he was so tense? Jerix bit into the meat pie with a slightly stiff face.

“Looking at you like this, you and Mother seem like a well-matched pair.”

All of a sudden, the Crown Prince said in a small voice as he chewed on a sandwich. Jerix, startled, looked back at the child. Slan smiled and said, “Just saying.” The Crown Prince’s mother said in a stern voice, “Slan. Don’t say things like that.”

The Crown Prince answered, “Yeah,” then avoided his mother’s gaze and looked out the window where drizzle had begun to fall.

“It’ll be Grandmother’s birthday soon….”

“It will.”

“They say there’ll be a ball.”

Slan, who had been blankly watching the rain, turned to Jerix. His heart pounded. If it were his nephew, he would’ve playfully pressed, asking what he even wanted to say. He would’ve told him it was bad to tease adults like that.

But the Crown Prince wasn’t his nephew. In truth, Jerix wasn’t even that close with his nephew. It left a bad taste in his mouth to look at his older brother’s child, and it was hard to take that child’s rude pranks in good humor. Maybe because that child, unlike him, was the main line of the family.

Swallowing the bitterness, he turned his gaze away. The Crown Prince’s mother, Nanna, was staring at him.

“…Are you feeling any better?”

Nanna nodded. “Yes.”

Jerix stared blankly at her, then chewed over those rampant rumors he had no choice but to pick up and swallow even if he didn’t want to. That is, that the woman in front of him had given birth to the Duke of Everhardt’s child.

“There’s no other seductress like her.”

A colleague who burned cigarettes without restraint muttered as he crudely twisted his mouth. Calling her a rag-like whore. Calling her filthy beyond measure…. He insulted that glass-like woman with words like that. In front of it, Jerix could only keep a stiff face and tell him to watch his mouth.

He wasn’t some mere servant, but a guard who carried out orders while protecting His Majesty’s person right at his side. Yet it wasn’t right to spout such careless words. It was only natural for him to warn him. But the truth was, he wanted to shout at him to shut up, and he wanted to grab him by the collar.

Maybe he could’ve done that. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even lift his gaze straight.

“When the ball is held, you’ll attend too, right?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Come for sure.”

“Your Highness.”

“You have to come for sure. Mother will come dressed very prettily too.”

“I….”

“Grandmother will like it too, right?”

“You mean Her Majesty the Empress Dowager?” Jerix asked with a frown.

Slan nodded with a faint smile. He thought of the Empress Dowager. Even though he still couldn’t really tell what the Crown Prince was trying to say, thinking about the Empress Dowager too made his head feel needlessly complicated.

He tried to say something more, then pressed his lips shut. There was no need to be swayed by what a seven-year-old said. No matter how clever the Crown Prince was, he was still just a child. With his gaze lowered, he finished the sandwich the Crown Prince held out without leaving a bite.

***

“It’s true that I loved you, but that didn’t mean I wanted to become Your Majesty’s woman.”

Maybe it was branded into his mind like a tattoo, because those crumbling words disgustingly wouldn’t fade. At times, he would peer down into the hollow pit. Realizing what that woman had left behind was an extremely difficult thing.

“Your Majesty.”

The chief attendant called to him, unable to leave the mirror. Orestes stared at himself in the mirror for quite a long time. Eight years had passed, but he was still robust. He was beautiful, and handsome. His body, with not an ounce of excess flesh to be found, was strong just as it had been when he roamed the battlefield, and his graceful features were still young and tall and fine.

And yet that woman…. He lightly bit down on his lip. She said she’d never wanted to have him. She said she hadn’t wanted him that way…. The face she’d had, like she was being made to take on something she didn’t want, was still vivid before his eyes. But that couldn’t be. Because that woman had always been looking at him. Even when she attended the duke, that woman liked him. So it must’ve been just a complaint. She must’ve had unspoken dissatisfaction.

‘It can’t have been sincere.’

Orestes thought of the woman who had twisted his heart with those few murmurs that felt like he might break, then turned around. As the host at the center of the summer banquet, dressed in ceremonial robes, he looked more splendid than usual. Since it was an event to commemorate his mother’s birthday, he needed to display majesty through an appropriate level of extravagance. Above all, it was the occasion where Stateira, his lawful empress, recovered and would appear for the first time.

Even before marriage, since she was a young lady, she was the one who stood at the center of major state events like high-society gatherings, large and small, and summer hunts. The Empress Dowager’s birthday banquet would be a fitting stage to announce her recovery and return.

He tried to empty his muddled head so he could focus a little more on his wife, but it didn’t come easily. Because the birth mother of the prince and princess would also attend this banquet. Feeling the corners of his eyes stiffen little by little, he stood before the empress’s quarters.

The one who had announced Nanna’s attendance was none other than Thea.

“There’s no need to do that on purpose.”

“What?”

“She’s a woman whose health is poor as it is.”

“All the more reason she should get some outside air too.”

Thea was expressionless. At his words that there was no need to pay attention to Nanna, Thea replied while examining a satin dress for the evening. When she said that since it was the Empress Dowager’s birthday banquet, they needed to invite the people the Empress Dowager wanted, he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

He felt a headache surging as he thought of Nanna. Ever since he heard those words…. Ever since he felt like he’d been “rejected” by that woman, he didn’t like thinking about her. Even originally, when he thought of her, it was unpleasant and stifling, like raising a burr. Sometimes it felt like his throat was being choked. At times, that sensation was so heavy it was hard even to face her.

He’d thought he hated that stifling sensation she gave him more than taking a deep gash from an enemy’s blade on the battlefield. Yet the woman who gathered her shoulders as if curling in and looked up at him with clear eyes said there was never a time she wasn’t sincere toward him.

That she never dared to set her sights on him, and never desired him and tried to have him. Her eyes, with no greed in them, were clear like glass. Enough to fool him completely. Enough to make him be swept up in those words without thinking. But was there ever a time Nanna didn’t crave him?

Every time, that woman looked like she wanted to burrow into his arms in bed. She would bring the child and hover near his side, her eyes tearful with a look that wanted to be loved.

‘It’s nothing but a protest.’

So Nanna was still lying. Even she herself probably didn’t realize it. It was proof that the dissatisfaction she held deep in her heart was deep and long-standing. Then what should he do? Orestes thought.

How could he return that woman to her original self? He wanted to gain Nanna’s love. Separate from whether he loved that woman or not, he thought it would be nice if she stayed by his side continuously. He wanted her to look up at him with devoted eyes and blush. He liked that utterly devoted face.

Yes. Thinking about it, maybe he liked it. He tormented her, condemning her as sinister, as not knowing her place and being greedy, as a sight of covetousness, but in the end he liked that. He felt sick of the sincerity in his own heart that wouldn’t change even if he admitted it, but he realized he couldn’t pull it out, and despaired.