Chapter 50

 When there was a most convenient method available, was there any need to go around because of a mere servant girl? There was no need to struggle with the simplest and most basic alliance of marriage. From Lucretia’s perspective, she couldn’t be more merciful and generous.

 Even though she had given birth to an heir, she was still a lowborn woman. The typical noble way would be to think it useless to sit a slave down and persuade her in a gentle manner saying “you should understand.” That’s how all nobles typically behaved. For a servant girl, there was no persuasion or compromise. If Larque decided to marry, he would marry.

 Ella deliberately didn’t want to change his decision. She didn’t even have the right to do so. Whatever decision a man makes, it was solely his to make, and Ella had her own role. The pounding stopped. It felt like the blood vessels leading to her heart had been expanding and were now being chewed on, but suddenly her rapidly beating pulse returned to normal.

 “Marriage benefits everyone.”

 Ella painfully raised her lowered gaze. Her dry eyes like dried straw still remained fixed in one direction.

 “I believe you think the same, Larque.”

 The water brewed with linden flowers was still steaming. She wanted to moisten her lips, but she didn’t have the strength to move even a finger. Ella blankly watched the woman who was drinking tea while seeking the duke’s agreement. Soon, the man’s voice was heard. It was low and dim, but his pronunciation was clear without any blurring.

 “……There’s no need to handle matters in a roundabout, difficult way.”

 The eyes that had been fixed straight ahead followed him. And then they became entangled again with the hollow gaze. The man was looking at her without blinking. It seemed as if he had been stealing glances at everything she did, even the smallest and most detailed things. Ella looked at his lips that held the white sunlight. He cut off her pulse without difficulty.

 “I will prepare the bedroom in the west wing for the guest.”

 *** 

 The midday sacred painting was meticulously beautiful down to the smallest details. Looking at the careful brushwork, she thought of the apprentices in the workshop managed by the archdiocese. When painting the baby held by the Holy Mother, did they think of Eselmund? It was said that a sacred painting hung on a celebration day should be made with all one’s heart, wishing blessings for the baby.

 Ella had never visited the archdiocese of Dale, so she didn’t know the apprentices of the workshop, let alone even the lowest monk of the diocese. But she thought it didn’t matter. It was a useless matter. Now, now they were also people she didn’t want to know.

 She changed her dress before the baptism ceremony. Ella looked at the busy hands of the maids. Their emotionless faces, like their master’s, resembled dolls made of wax. They were very diligent. Even with the dress, veil, Elizabethan collar to wrap around the neck, and small accessories, the women maintained flat expressions.

 Ella lowered her gaze slightly and looked at what the maids’ hands had touched.

 The hem of the sarasa dress, which might have been worn by an ancient god-king’s bride, was delicate with geometric patterns, and the translucent veil was long and elegant enough to cover all of her long hair. She spent time checking each rose and oriole sewn onto the edge of the veil. The maids were sweating as they tied it tightly so that the neckline wouldn’t show. After the busy hands evenly spread the skirt and applied powder from the fingertips to the upper part of the wrist to make it stand out in the light, only one thing remained.

 One young maid brought a shelf with powder made from dried leaves of a tropical shrub. Ella looked at the greenish mud and then stared at the young-faced woman. How long would it take to fade? Henna was a custom unfamiliar to Ella, who had only been born and raised in the capital.

 But it was for the baby. For Eselmund, the main character, anything was fine. After entrusting her hand to the maid, she closed her eyes. The summer sunlight, which would bring long greenery, was still not fully ripe and pleasantly warm.

 The ceremony began at noon. The priest representing the diocese and the monks greeted the duke and the young lord once. Ella couldn’t receive the priest’s greeting because she wasn’t a duchess. She silently followed behind the duke and looked at his broad back. It was something she had considered her own for quite a long time. The sturdy frame and tightly interlocked muscles, the gentle curve of his neck and shoulders. The joints connecting each thick segment……

 The times she had loved and worshipped him passed by in sequence. The morning walking in the corridor wearing a flat bonnet. The night when she undid her tied bodice and leaned against his firm chest. The dawn waiting for the day to break…… The dawns of the most beautiful days……

 “Abu. Abu! Mamma!”

 It was her young son who woke Ella from her memories. Ella gave a faint smile to the baby who was staring at her while being held in his father’s arms. One priest who seemed to be of high status took the child from Larque. The child who had been babbling “Abu, Abu” stared at the old man with his mouth tightly shut.

 His glossy gray eyes grew large. Eselmund showed tension by putting his chubby hand in his mouth. Ella looked ahead, worried that the child might make a mistake. Fortunately, the child didn’t burst into tears or wet himself. It was the same even when his skin was torn and blood was drawn. Rather, he just stared at the blood coming from himself and babbled “Abu, Abu” again. The priest tied a cloth around the chubby finger and returned him to his father. Larque, who took the child in his arms, gestured to Ella.

She moved forward hesitantly. Larque handed the baby to Ella who approached him, then climbed onto the platform where the priest stood. Should she climb up together? While she was hesitating, Baroness Laerik carefully gestured. Ella hid her confused expression and followed Larque onto the platform.

 Though the platform was only a few spans high, surprisingly, the visitors standing in a row could be seen at a glance. The next procedure was the ritual of sprinkling holy water on the couple. The priest would sprinkle holy water on the baby’s parents who knelt on one knee, as if crowning them. Larque first bent one knee. The priest, wearing a pure white dalmatic, dipped his hand in a silver basin and flicked a few drops of water at him.

 And finally it was Ella’s turn. Standing next to the duke in front of the priest felt as if she had become his wife, but in reality, no one in this place would think of her as a duchess. Her face flushed with the feeling of being assigned a position beyond her station. Looking at Larque with her crimson cheeks, he approached and took the child from her.

 With her arms free, Ella bent her right knee in the meantime. Though it was a baptism ceremony that didn’t follow proper etiquette, the priest looked serene. Just as he had done with the duke, he moistened his hand with holy water and flicked his fingers. As Ella rose from her position, Larque approached and wiped the water droplets from her eyes. Standing side by side, they looked at each other before turning around to show their young son to the guests.

 The duke was a man with even better physique than rumored. However, he didn’t feel dull at all, but rather smooth and sharp like the cross-section of a blade. Perhaps his frame had been extraordinary from birth. She had heard that northern men had thicker builds and joints than southern men, but this was beyond imagination. Clementina momentarily lost herself while gazing at the beautiful creature forged by the battlefield.

 When the priest flicked holy water with his finger, the duke opened his eyes and straightened his knee. Next was the turn of the young lord’s birth mother. Clementina stared blankly at the sparkling woman. She wanted to examine her piece by piece and tailor her like a noble lady attending a ball, but the woman merely sparkled in the summer light like a jewel possessed by the duke. Yet what stood out most even from a distance was her fluttering neck and shoulders as white as porcelain. Was this what overwhelming beauty looked like just from its outline? Clementina recalled hearing that it was the duke’s servant girl who carried more cumbersome rumors than the duke himself, as she looked at the young baby and the woman holding him. She couldn’t have applied pearl powder all over her body, yet how could her skin be so bright and clean…… Though her insides stung with envy, she was also amazed. She was a woman she wanted to keep looking at.

 The silver hair that sparkled even through the translucent veil. The luscious long hair. Purple and pink. Wall blue and azure blue rippled like dawn light in the summer sun. Clementina was staring with her mouth open when she startled at her maid’s touch.

 “Miss!”

 “Huh?”

 “What are you staring at so blankly?”

 “Ah… that……”

 “Look at that wench. A mere prostitute standing beside the duke……”

 “Shh!”