Winter Bud - Chapter 82

Thea said she liked hunting. Since she’d been sickly since childhood, like her late mother, and lay in bed every day, she said she liked outdoor activities more. From horseback riding, hunting, and fishing. She even said she wanted to try a mounted tournament herself, so she seemed like quite the tomboy.

Orestes watched the woman fiddling with a rifle. She said she hunted, so he figured she could probably fire a gun a little, but Thea was fairly serious. He watched the woman lift the rifle, wearing hunting clothes made to fit her small body perfectly.

When their eyes met, Thea smiled cheerfully.

“I’ve camped quite a bit too. Just my father and me.”

“Your father’s love for his daughter is exceptional.”

“Something like that. I’m my father’s only child.”

Thea spoke with her chin slightly raised as if it were only natural. Orestes smirked. As she said, Thea was receiving the duke’s boundless love. It seemed the duke, who enjoyed hunting enough to often camp in the forest, had taught his daughter in detail how to catch a fox, and how fast a pheasant was.

So the fact that Thea liked hunting, and was even quite good at it, was proven true within half a day. He looked fairly surprised toward the woman showing him the fox she’d hunted herself. Thea burst into laughter, proud.

“Isn’t it time you admitted it now?”

Thea said to him as she nudged the dying fox with the tip of her foot. He nodded. Suddenly, Nanna, who had been standing behind Thea, carefully spoke to her. She said she should go back because she remembered things she needed to do.

“What do you have to do?”

“I, I have to go to the kitchen…. They said there’s a lot of work.”

Nanna didn’t look good. She was wan, pale. Thea stared at her, then nodded.

“All right. But not right now. How about going back a little later?”

At Thea’s question, Nanna hesitated, then soon said yes and bowed her head. She looked like she wanted to leave right away. Orestes clicked his tongue and looked at the dead fox. Nanna seemed to dislike blood. Every time gunshots sounded here and there through the forest, she seemed uncomfortable, trembling.

He stared at the woman who was enduring it with difficulty for a long moment, then turned his head. In any case, it wasn’t his business. He didn’t want to give up the amusement he was enjoying in comfort after so long. He turned away, withdrawing his gaze from Nanna.

Thea also got on her horse, telling Nanna to go into the tent and rest. The problem happened that afternoon. Thea caught one more and hunted two more otters as well. She seemed happier than ever.

Orestes also got completely absorbed in the hunt. Whenever he had a chance, he consciously tried to become closer to Thea in order to erase Nanna, who kept surging into his head without rest.

When Thea wanted to drink water, he handed her the waterskin at his waist himself. He praised her hunting skill as excellent, just as she wanted, and when she came down from the saddle, he got down first and held out his hand. Thea snorted and mocked that he was too easy to read, but she didn’t dislike it deep down.

It was around sunset. He and Thea gathered their respective prey in one place, set them in the middle of the tent, and counted them.

“We could even skin them and sell the pelts. Don’t you think?”

Thea said as she sipped rum straight from the bottle. Orestes looked at the cigarette in her hand. Thea asked, “Want one?” He took the cigarette from the woman and put it between his lips. The acrid smoke felt like it was piercing through his stifled heart.

It was when he took in the smoke a couple more times and breathed it out. A scream rang out from somewhere. Startled, Thea turned her head. Orestes also turned his head in the direction the scream came from.

“What happened?”

Thea was calm. The one trembling all over, tears gathered at the corners of her eyes like a child, was Nanna. Thea looked at Nanna with an unconcerned gaze, as if this wasn’t the first or second time. Under her young lady’s gaze, Nanna pressed her lips tight and tried to get up in front of the dead animals.

“Did you fall?”

“That….”

“Your skirt’s a mess.”

Thea scolded her indifferently. She probably got startled passing the pile of dead animals and fell. With an expressionless face, Orestes stared at the ruined hem of her skirt. Nanna disliked hunting. Seeing dead animals seemed even harder for her.

Since she was wearing a dress rather than trousers, she looked uncomfortable moving around near the tent. At this point, it seemed better not to bring Nanna along, but Thea didn’t seem to consider leaving Nanna behind at all.

Leaning his back against a tent pole as he smoked, Orestes watched the woman stagger to her feet, then lose strength in her knees again and collapse. Thea said Nanna was too faint-hearted. That everything else was fine, everything else was all right, but she was excessively faint-hearted and delicate.

That anyone who saw it would think Nanna was the master and Thea was the maid. At that, Orestes laughed weakly and walked over to Nanna, who was still sitting and brushing at the blood-stained hem of her skirt.

“Young master?”

It was a title he’d only been called when he was very young. After twelve, he was always called ‘Your Grace the Young Duke.’ Even Duke Everhardt called him that, but Nanna alone called him young master. He didn’t dislike it, so he let it be.

“What are you doing?”

“That….”

Nanna hesitated. He grabbed the woman’s arm and forced her up. Then he brushed at the hem of her skirt where scraps of flesh had come off together with the bloodwater. Nanna watched him, then muttered, ‘Please don’t do this.’ Looking at the sky that was starting to be dyed red with dusk, he put Nanna on a horse. It seemed like they should withdraw now.

“We’re heading back? We even got everything ready to camp.”

“It looks like it’ll rain.”

Orestes, who’d been looking up at the sky, said as he turned back to Thea. Thea looked at him for a moment, then shrugged and said, “Then it can’t be helped.” He turned to Nanna and put the reins into her hand.

“Hold them properly.”

“Yes.”

“And don’t cry.”

He warned her softly. Nanna couldn’t meet his eyes and bowed her head low.

The next day, just as he’d predicted, it rained. Thea muttered, “So you weren’t just saying it.”

***

Nanna tried to hold back her tears as she felt her heart pounding anxiously. Only today did she realize that if her heart beat too hard, that is, if even the vigorous pulse grew too strong, it became pain. She did her best not to collapse.

Anyway, what had just happened ended as an incident. Jerix wasn’t hurt. Nothing was broken, and there was no stabbing or anything like that. Her face, which had stiffened as she recalled the emperor’s face, turned pale again.

After nervously biting her nails, she covered her face with both hands. With her shoulders slumped, she bit down hard on her lip. The Empress Dowager’s maid said she would speak with the emperor about what had happened at the birthday banquet.

Nanna looked at her with an anxious face, then let tears fall. She thought everything had already been discussed. So, that as for her remarriage, the emperor also knew about it. Hadn’t the Empress Dowager come to see her herself and said so? Then why….

“Please don’t worry too much.”

“But….”

She retraced the calm voice that had soothed her. Jerix had a gentle and calm face as usual. He said it would be resolved well. Since he was safe like this too. They were a pair that the Empress Dowager, an elder of the imperial family, had tacitly allowed.

The one who decided to send Nanna out of the palace, and directly mentioned her remarriage, was her. She had her dignity. There was no way she would take it back now.

Yes, there was no way. She slowly cut off and drew breaths, thumping her chest to calm the heart beating like a drum. At that moment, the tightly closed door opened. Thinking it was the Empress Dowager’s maid coming to find her, she turned with a glad face. But the one revealed as the door opened was not the Empress Dowager’s maid.

“…Your Majesty.”

A pale face was like a broken blade. The emperor, who usually went around with attendants and guard knights trailing after him, was alone. Nanna looked at the emperor, who had come to find her without any notice of his arrival, with a fearful face. She licked her dry lips, then clenched her fist.

If there was no way to avoid it, there was only the way to face it. Without hiding behind the Empress Dowager or Thea. There was no choice but to clash.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking.”

The emperor, who had been narrowing the distance, stopped in front of Nanna, who instinctively stepped back two paces. Unlike a moment ago when he wore splendid ceremonial robes, the emperor was now only wearing a shirt and pants. Nanna lifted her gaze after looking at the open front of his chest.