Chapter 3

Sorry if the updates take too long. I’ll try to update regularly (ง •̀ゝ•́)ง

Kylaq was not originally a large country. However, despite its small territory, the fertile land meant few commoners died of starvation. The founding king was valiant, and the successive kings were bold and wise. It wasn’t difficult for this small but fertile kingdom to dream of territorial expansion.

The Roxus people, who formed the subjugated class of Kylaq, were a race of men with black hair, tall stature, large frames, and great strength. The king chose an appropriate time to wage war. Though the barbarian territory beyond the border was an unsightly wasteland, they needed the barbarians’ land to establish trade routes across the great river. Around that time, most of the eldest sons of noble houses, led by Duke Durac of Kylaq, were knighted and sent to war.

The barbarians were fierce, and the war did not end easily. When dealing with hungry dogs, proper compensation was needed. Rest and food. The king felt the need to continue giving appropriate recognition to the men who went to war for him during the lengthy conflict. He stroked the plump flesh under his chin.

The full br*asts and long hair scattered across the pillow were warm and lovely. He pulled the woman’s waist close and held her tight. A week ago, Marquis Wayne’s son had died without leaving an heir. The title would go to a collateral line, and part of the Marquis’s vast wealth would revert to the state.

It was obvious how Marquis Wayne would feel about this. Nevertheless, the king had to continue the war. War needed grown young men, and young men needed women. The king’s worries were brief. These were men who elevated the kingdom’s honor in his stead. Rewards would come to everyone, appropriately and fairly. He stroked the woman’s hair as she clung to his neck. No man would dislike something so lovely. Thus, the female servants were born.

During the reign of the Lion King Alexander III, female servants were gifts bestowed by the king to those who were both knights and subjects upon their knighthood. Thus, female servants were both lowly and beautiful. Ella was not a servant girl given by the king to Larque. By the time it became customary for knights to have female servants, parents would personally choose servants for their grown sons. In a way, these servant girls were, like their masters’ proper wives, women chosen by their parents. Only the meaning of their existence differed.

Ella became a servant girl at twelve. Until then, she had lived in a brothel and was raised by a prostitute, but the act of receiving men was still a distant and frightening thing for a girl of that age. The girl was beautiful. She was the very embodiment of the ‘lowly and beautiful’ servant girl that Alexander III spoke of.

Her long hair was brilliant silver mixed with pink, and her white skin had a subtle peach glow. Her mother praised the girl before her as being like a well-fired milky-white porcelain doll. The girl was so perfect and flawless. A small face with deep-set eyes, nose, and lips. Graceful, proper, and beautiful beyond improvement — Ella. My Ella.

Larque thought as he looked at the girl who had just turned twelve. Are girls raised in brothels this beautiful? For someone who grew up in such a damp tomb, the girl’s white face was even noble…

“Do you like her, Larque?”

His father said, pushing the girl in front of him. The frightened girl bit her trembling lips tightly. Larque was eighteen. Having matured earlier than others, his skills were exceptional. Four years after leaving his squire days to become a warrior, on the day before his knighthood ceremony, his father brought this girl who stood only as tall as his solar plexus to be his servant.

“She’s your servant girl. Isn’t she beautiful like a skylark?”

His father lifted the girl’s chin with a pleased expression and looked at Larque. He nodded slowly. When gifting servant girls, fathers brought beautiful and healthy girls. Their status might be commoner or lowborn, but their beauty had to be undeniably delicate and alluring. However… she was almost too beautiful for him to possess.

“Her eyes…”

“They’re the color of amethyst. Your mother particularly liked her eyes.”

Suddenly, the girl rounded her eyes and looked at his father. His father stroked her head slowly as if petting a pretty cat, then pushed her back toward Larque.

“Embrace her.”

The girl approached him. The hesitant girl raised her head. He thought of his mother. More precisely, his mother’s crown. The pink diamond set in it. Larque curled his fingers one by one into a fist.

The girl’s eyes shone like glass beads whenever the noon sunlight hit them. Though occasionally mixed with rose color and blazing, those eyes were a vivid pink.

He stretched out his arms and embraced the girl. They said knights always embrace their servant girls when receiving them as gifts. They would touch their shoulders, waist, and hips to check if they were well-formed, if their skin was smooth and fragrant, before kissing their cheek. As was the custom, Larque also kissed the girl’s cheek in front of his father.

***

The war wasn’t long. The northwestern part of Kylaq was relatively stable. It was the result of diligent efforts by both Durac and the royal family of Kylaq to train the barbarians. When the northern barbarians they had united with were defeated, the rebellious Remond forces tucked tail and fled. Though they couldn’t behead Pedro de Remond, the leader of Remond, they had captured his son Pietro de Remond as a hostage, so they wouldn’t make any rash or aggressive moves for a while.

Larque finished his report thinking of the king in the capital. Three months had passed since he received the king’s order to rectify the chaos in northwestern Kylaq. He picked up his quill pen, thinking of his young son who had been wailing in his nurse’s arms. The letter from Hermel a week ago had started and ended in a plain tone.

It said that San Parvale, their main castle, was always peaceful and Eselmund was also healthy. Rather, Hermel said his young son smiled more brightly after being separated from his birth mother. Larque recalled the news of his young son that had filled the letter.

It hadn’t been more than a year since Ella gave birth. He had considered that it might be too much to bring her to the battlefield. However—however, he couldn’t know what that woman might do in the Duke’s castle without him there. If she planned to escape again like last time…

“Sir Larque. It’s Ella. I’ve brought your dinner.”

The hand holding the pen trembled. He looked up at the woman entering the tent. Her white face and pink eyes, unsuited for the battlefield, were exceptionally splendid. He stared intensely at the woman wearing a head covering to hide her hair, then pointed to the table.

The woman placed the tray on the wooden table and folded her hands neatly.

“I heard you skipped lunch.”

“Because I was torturing Pietro de Remond.”

Larque replied nonchalantly. Ella stared at the face of the man who spoke about crushing someone’s flesh and breaking bones without even furrowing his brow. His face was as calm and composed as it was unfeeling.

“Please have your dinner.”

Night had fallen. The twilight had deepened, casting shadows around his eyes. Ella picked up a matchstick, intending to light the oil lamp. Suddenly, Larque rose and stopped her. Wordlessly, he took the match from Ella and lit the flame.

“Sit.”

Ella stood before him with her hands neatly folded.

“Don’t make me repeat my orders.”

Larque pulled out a chair. Ella sat down and looked at the table. There was a slowly simmered potato soup and glistening fatty cuts of venison.

“Hold the spoon.”

“Sir.”

Ella looked up at him with disapproving eyes. The man’s gaze was, as always, straight and unwavering. Ella lowered her eyes, keeping her lips sealed like a clam.

“Take some soup and put it in your mouth.”

“I’ll eat dinner with Marie.”

“Pick up the knife.”

Ella took a deep breath and gripped the spoon. The man was waiting. Ella pouted her lips and shook her head.

“This is your meal, Master.”

The wait wasn’t long. The man finally sat in the chair opposite her and took up his knife and fork. Ella pulled the platter toward herself and watched her master cutting the venison. He had skipped several meals. It wasn’t intentional. He had no appetite. Ever since leaving the baby behind… Yet her br*asts still produced milk. She missed the baby. Without the child — without Eselmund — each day was exhausting from the moment she opened her eyes.

When she left San Parvale without the baby. No, even before that, Ella had been depressed all day. It had been just over half a year since she gave birth. She hated the fact that she had to go somewhere without her nursing infant. No, she didn’t want to be separated from the child. She had defied orders because that was unbearably detestable. The man had no choice but to make her follow him. He wanted her to cook meals, warm his bed, and perform the servant girl’s duties of lying beside him.

“Eat.”

He pushed the platter toward her. Ella hesitated. He placed a fork in her hand. She barely opened her mouth to chew the meat. Servant girls’ meals didn’t include meat. Larque remembered the servant girls’ meals filled only with grains. And that Ella was growing thin from not eating even that much. He would furrow his brow whenever he recalled the woman stumbling when she rose from bed.

Ella looked at Larque after chewing a piece of meat.

“More.”

“I’m fine.”

“Ella.”

He called her name. She scooped up some soup with the spoon.

“You said we’d return in ten days.”

“Yes.”

Ella swallowed the words she couldn’t speak. The child’s image flickered before her eyes. She couldn’t ask to leave first. He would surely invoke military law and order her to stay put. Instead, she diligently spooned the soup. The man pierced meat with his fork and fed it to her mouth. The venison was tender. Ella savored the meat dissolving between her teeth while stirring the soup.

“Eat anything. Anything… eat and become strong like Deimos’s Ligita.”

“Yes.”

It was an answer as light as air. She thought of Ligita, Sir Deimos’s servant girl. Ligita was a woman who had borne five of Sir Deimos’s children. She was pregnant now too, so counting the child in her womb, it would be six. Ella wondered if Larque truly wanted her to have Ligita’s voluptuous figure. However, seemingly unaware of her thoughts, the man was busy attending to her meal.

“Are you still angry?”

“……”