At the Regent’s cold remark, the gazes of every noble in the reception room converged on Ariadne. It was a crude gesture, yet they had no intention of restraining themselves.
It was because Ariadne was someone who could be treated that way. Sensing their scrutiny, a flush of heat raced from the base of her neck to her cheeks.
“Don’t provoke them, Ariadne.”
Since becoming the Regent, Cesare had become increasingly unbridled. Now, he felt no hesitation in displaying his displeasure, regardless of who was watching.
“Conduct yourself properly.”
Ariadne bowed her head, trembling. Cesare did not like such an Ariadne.
“Answer me.”
She nodded with great difficulty, but Cesare remained unsatisfied.
“Answer!”
Ariadne replied in a voice that barely rose above a whisper.
“……Yes.”
This display of utter submission took place while all eyes in Palazzo Carlo watched. Ariadne felt faint, her knees knocking together. Cesare looked down at her, his expression harsh.
“I am only stopping here because others are present. Be grateful, do you understand?”
“……Yes.”
Cesare’s breathing remained perfectly steady. When he offered no further reaction, a cold sweat trickled down Ariadne’s spine. She hurriedly added, “Thank you.”
Only then did Cesare exhale in satisfaction. Ariadne let out a shuddering sigh of relief.
The central nobles were not the sort to miss a moment when such a vulnerable target was laid bare. Startled by the Regent’s cruelty—but realizing that Cesare had no intention of shielding his woman—Countess Marquez interjected with a sharp remark.
“I hope the Regent manages his fiancée more thoroughly.”
It was retaliation for the incident where her hair had been grabbed. The Countess openly swept her eyes over Ariadne, whose attire was in total disarray, with a look of sharpened contempt.
“With how she acts—hands flying first—I thought she was a wolfhound raised in a kennel, not a lady.”
Noblewomen close to the Countess chimed in, launching an onslaught.
“Her elegance is……”
“Her education is…… her lineage is……”
“That hair, those tangled locks—doesn’t she look exactly like a shepherd’s dog?”
Ariadne’s hand went to her hair of its own accord. As the noblewomen of San Carlo hovered, they tore her to pieces with their words while she awkwardly tried to smooth out the tangled strands with her trembling fingers.
“If the Regent desires a smoothly operating social scene, you must manage your fiancée well.”
“Not to mention the support of the central nobility.”
“Or, perhaps, why not change your match entirely?”
Someone giggled. That single laugh caused the atmosphere in the reception room to shift, turning from tense to viciously playful.
“It seems difficult with this woman.”
“My lady, surely that’s a bit much.”
Cesare smiled brightly, letting the suggestion slide. He did not even bother to rebuke them for their rudeness. By handing Ariadne over to be picked apart, Cesare secured his standing as an insider, if only for the moment.
“The daughter of a noble house……”
“Perhaps an old, high-ranking noble family of the capital would suit the Regent better……”
“An elegant young lady……”
These were all words exchanged with Ariadne standing right there. The fact that the Regent Cesare was himself a bastard of the King was conveniently obscured once the Regent’s fiancée was offered up as a sacrificial lamb.
– You are not a proper member of high society.
They enjoyed their tea, using Ariadne’s inadequacies as a side dish. As they stood up after a long conversation, Countess Marquez offered a final piece of advice to the Regent.
“I hope the Regent does not forget our request today.”
When the Countess’s eyes met Ariadne’s, she turned sharply and strode out of the reception room. As the Countess headed for the hallway, the rest of the noblewomen followed, casting one last disdainful glance in Ariadne’s direction.
Ariadne, left to face their gazes alone, was a wreck. Her dress hung in tatters from the struggle, and her hair was matted with sticky Sanguinaccio Dolce that had transferred when she scrambled over the table. The tea party was deserted; she had no friends left. The man she loved glanced at her bedraggled state with cold contempt.
It was miserable.
After that, no one openly discussed the origins of Cesare De Carlo. However, that day was recorded not as a day Ariadne had achieved a feat for him, but as a day she had committed a catastrophic blunder.
From then on, Ariadne gathered a collection of infamous labels: the wolfhound-like woman, the Moor slave, the farm maid. Naturally, the sneers followed—that her birth was base, that she took after her mother, or that she was a spinster who had grown hysterical for lack of a husband.
Ariadne repeatedly begged Cesare to marry her, arguing it would stabilize her position in a social scene that had grown increasingly hostile, but he refused outright.
“If you cannot even manage your own reputation, how could I ever elevate you to the position of Regent’s Consort? I cannot be with a woman who carries such blemishes.”
His requirements were precise.
“Study harder. Master the lute, the appreciation of fine art, and Latin. Become a talented and virtuous lady who will not be an embarrassment when I present you to others. Only then will I make you the Regent’s wife.”
She had truly believed that if she only accomplished those things, it would be enough.
***
It took a long time for the Regent to become Cesare I, but in the end, it was merely a matter of time. Both the military and the gold were firmly in his grasp. The only thing he lacked was legitimacy—a wound that time alone could heal, provided the right opportunities arose.
Ariadne still remembered Cesare’s accession, or rather, the night before the coronation. She was thirty that year, and he was thirty-six. Whenever she thought of that day, she could not suppress a hollow laugh.
“I am a generous king. I must even embrace the former Crown Prince’s forces into my bosom.”
Cesare sat on the edge of Ariadne’s bed, his lips grazing the nape of her neck.
“Ah—.”
His breath was hot and lascivious. Ariadne pulled back, but Cesare used one hand to pin both of her wrists above her head, pressing her firmly into the mattress.
“Stay still.”
He began to savor the pulse at her neck with his teeth. She closed her eyes.
Cesare frowned at Ariadne’s detachment. Her greatest strength was the seductive atmosphere she carried, yet he could never understand how she could lie like a log in bed despite possessing such a gift.
Ariadne at thirty was a flower in full bloom. Even without intent, she exuded a heady, dense richness. She was not the type to be considered purely innocent or conspicuously pretty in her features, but she was tall, with pleasingly rounded breasts and hips, making her undeniably attractive. Hers was a beauty that captivated men far more than it ever did women. Her alluring charm was the only thing Cesare, a man of endless demands, ever bothered to praise.
“That’s it.”
Cesare proceeded unreservedly against the submissive Ariadne. Layer by layer, her defensive walls surrendered without resistance. As her mind went blank from the warmth of their intimate contact, Cesare’s voice drifted into her ears, as casual as if he were discussing whether pork or beef would better suit the evening’s menu.
“So, Isabella will be crowned Queen.”
Isabella De Mare—after her marriage, Isabella De Carlo. The half-sister of Ariadne De Mare and the Crown Princess to the deposed Crown Prince Alfonso.
A perfect sister who resembled Ariadne not in the slightest, with honey-colored hair and eyes that sparkled like amethysts. She was famous for that innocent beauty, always exuding an effortless elegance; she was a woman of truly noble stature.
Ariadne suddenly snapped back to her senses and shoved Cesare away.
“What did you say?”
She must have misheard him.
“Cesare…? My sister was the Crown Princess to the late Alfonso De Carlo.”
Custom dictated that a widow without sons must enter a convent for the remainder of her days. Remarriage was impossible, and she could not return to her maiden home.
Cesare buried his face against the chest of Ariadne De Mare, who had tried to push him away. As he grazed her skin with his lips, he answered with chilling indifference.
“Don’t be so narrow-minded. Do you not even pity your own sister?”
What had she just heard? That he would marry her sister instead of her? Ariadne shoved him back, harder this time.
*And what about me? What happens to everything I did for you?* The words hovered at her lips, unspoken.
When Ariadne showed no sign of joining in his game, Cesare smacked his lips in annoyance and sat up straight.
“You were only my fiancée; you can still find a good match and live a wealthy life in the provinces. But as for poor Isabella De Mare, if I do not take her in, she will have no choice but to wither away on the cold floors of a convent.”
He was clearly mistaken about something.
“Marriage to a widowed relative is impossible.”
Cesare dismissed her concern as if it were a triviality.
“We simply need the Holy See to confirm the annulment of the marriage between the late Alfonso De Carlo and Isabella De Mare. Since Isabella remained chaste throughout the marriage, it does not fall under the Holy See’s policy against annulment.”
Ariadne was dumbfounded.
“Cesare, my sister is not chaste. In 1128, the first year of her marriage, she was pregnant with her husband’s child and suffered a miscarriage.”
“Quiet!”
Isabella’s chastity was clearly his Achilles’ heel. Cesare, who had been speaking so brazenly, suddenly flushed with rage, jumped to his feet, and pointed a trembling finger at Ariadne.
“Liar! They say a woman’s worst enemy is another woman, but to think it applies even between sisters—how base the female sex truly is!”
Ariadne felt as if she couldn’t breathe. Desperate to convince Cesare she was not “base,” she forced her voice to remain low, keeping her tone calm and measured.
“Cesare. This is not slander; it is the truth. Every maid who served the Crown Princess at the time knows it.”
“Be silent!”
Cesare was past the point of reason. To someone who had deliberately stopped their ears, no truth could ever reach them.
“I held you in high regard and intended to ensure your peaceful life by marrying you off to a merchant, yet you would dare slander her! How could I let such a wicked woman live!”
A merchant? A peaceful life? The absurdity of it left her reeling.
*You promised me that you loved me. You swore we would be together forever. That is why I did everything for you. You told me that I had flaws that delayed the day I would become Queen, and that I should learn and devote myself to you.*
But the conclusion was that the ‘flawless woman’ he sought was her sister, the Prince’s widow?
“You told me you loved me. You said you would make me your Queen and be with me forever.”
It was a foolish thing to say, but she had nothing else left. Cesare sneered, his expression curdling with contempt.
“I never imagined you were such a petty woman, willing to hinder a grand cause. You lack the virtue of sacrificing for the future of the country. How different you are from Isabella, who even yielded her own marriage prospects for the sake of her younger sister’s happiness!”
Her breath hitched. She could not tell if the tears or the rage came first.
“I am a hindrance? Isabella yielded? I sacrificed everything for you. I gave up my reputation, my chances at a proper marriage, and I even drove Alfonso De Carlo to his death with my own hands. What has Isabella done all this time?”
1.
During that winter, when Crown Prince Alfonso and Isabella celebrated their grand wedding—and when Isabella suffered a miscarriage, the fruit of their blessing—Ariadne was forced to chew the leaves of bitter reed-grass to prevent pregnancy every time she spent intimate moments with Cesare.
“Sexual intercourse without the possibility of creating life is a sin in the eyes of the Heavenly God. I do not want to take reed-grass anymore.”
“And if you don’t want to?”
“…If you do not want me to conceive before we are married, then marry me and take me.”
“Ari, don’t you love me? If you love me, prove it. Come here.”
The defiance she had mustered was simply brushed aside.
“How embarrassing would it be if you showed signs of pregnancy before we were even wed? A bastard meeting a bastard and birthing a bastard—I despise such things. Do not make me feel ashamed in front of others.”
If she did not want to lose Cesare, she had no choice.
In 1129, as Cesare sharpened his sword in preparation for the coup, Ariadne—an unmarried noble lady—tread through the snow every midnight to act as a secret messenger between the castle’s interior and the outside world. This was only possible because no one imagined that the fiancée of such a prominent man would play a vital role in military operations.
“For your sake, I jumped over walls every night, pretending I was in love with a shepherd boy.”
She had scaled those walls while chewing contraceptive grass, forced to fabricate excuses about meeting another man to shield Cesare. Ridiculously, the rumors that spread at the time—claiming she was an unchaste fiancée—still haunted her even now, nine years into Cesare’s rule.
“I even threw the rightful owner of the throne to the hounds with my own hands.”
Kind Prince Alfonso, who had always treated her with gentleness, had been left to hang from the castle walls as food for the ravens.
“This finger! It rotted and fell off because I drank poison in your stead!”
Ariadne held up her left hand, displaying the stunted, withered remnant of her ring finger.
In 1132, the fourth year of the Regent’s rule, she had collapsed after being struck by poison intended for Cesare. She survived, but in exchange for neutralizing the toxins, she lost her finger. She later learned that it was the Regent Cesare himself who had commanded her to use her left ring finger to extract the poison.
It must have been a misunderstanding. It must have been unavoidable; her left ring finger must have been the best option. I could do it all if it were for Cesare, the man I love most in the world. I believed he loved me as much as I loved him.
Because she had sacrificed herself for him, she was crippled. She had aged in proportion to the devotion she poured into him, and compared to her young, radiant, and beautiful past, she was now ruined, withered, and weak.
Now, it was time to receive his care and be rewarded for her devotion.
But Cesare, the man who was supposed to provide that reward, merely looked down at her with a chilling expression. His tall stature was imposing, and his statue-like features, contrasting sharply against his dark brown, reddish-tinted hair, remained devastatingly beautiful even at this moment.
He parted his transparent, thin lips.
“Someone had to dispose of Alfonso with their own hands. You wouldn’t expect me to make the noble Isabella do such a thing, would you?”
Ariadne’s eyes widened.
“Are you saying… you were with my sister even while Prince Alfonso was still alive…?”