Chapter 4

Ella didn’t answer. She just kept her gaze lowered while chewing bread. Larque swallowed dryly. His chest ached remembering how she had panted after giving birth, yet he resented her. Once her mood soured, this servant girl remained cold until her heart softened. Her attitude had been consistent since the point when Eselmund was left behind at San Parvale.

“Ella.”

“A servant girl’s feelings are not worthy of your concern, Master.”

She raised her head. Her ash-colored eyes in the twilight were sharp as arrowheads. She moved her lips. The man slowly rose from his seat. Ella found herself standing up with him. They looked at each other for as long as their long-standing relationship. They were servant and master. The master was cold yet kind, indifferent yet delicate. He was cruel yet not cruel. Ella couldn’t figure out such a man. Even now, after bearing his child. Her chest burned like wildfire. So much that she couldn’t live as a servant girl. So much that she wanted to run away with her nursing infant.

“Are you still having foolish thoughts?”

“……”

“If you’re thinking of running away with the child, you’d better not. As you said, a servant girl’s feelings don’t matter, do they?”

She couldn’t reply. As always, she just stared at the man’s collar like a doll. It felt like peeling away layers of her heart’s surface. That dull ache would remain like a buoy, tormenting her. Suddenly, he grabbed her chin. Her gray eyes smoldered like embers buried in ashes.

“I can do anything.”

Anything. She could do anything. She slowly examined the man’s features that resembled the baby’s. The exposed forehead and the eyebrows beneath it, the well-curved nose, and lips that were red for a man. Eselmund didn’t take after her. He was born carrying only this man’s features. That’s why she wasn’t afraid of him. When he looked at her so coldly, her chest just ached as if it had been cut.

“So don’t harbor pointless thoughts.”

His hand left her chin. Ella stared at him blankly. Without shrinking away, without running away. And so for a while, their gazes remained fixed on each other, unwilling to part.

“Eat.”

He seated Ella back in the chair. She gripped the spoon. There wasn’t much soup left.

“Empty it to the bottom.”

At her master’s command, Ella took a large spoonful and put it in her mouth. It was delicious even when cold. She had made this soup herself. For him, she had cut potatoes and simmered them until they lost their shape. There was no other reason she had used precious salt and pepper generously despite resources being scarce on the battlefield. It was for him. Because he was precious. Yet he returned all that care back to her. Larque watched her briefly with distrustful eyes before sitting down.

“Is the meat tough?”

“No.”

“Is your mouth sore again?”

He looked ready to inspect her mouth right then. Ella shook her head firmly. She just had no appetite. Her mouth getting sore was because her body was weak. They said Ella hadn’t been healthy since birth. Her work hours weren’t longer than other servant girls’. When other servant girls went to bed three times, she went once. She did less sewing and kitchen work than others too. Sometimes the other servant girls were jealous, but a servant’s duties all followed their master’s disposition. So the servant girls couldn’t openly harass Ella. They all had their own masters and came here only to serve those masters. The reason for Ella’s lighter workload was always because Larque fretted over and cherished her.

“No. Just, just no appetite. That’s why.”

“…Would you eat better if you could hold the baby? Didn’t you eat better in San Parvale?”

Ella didn’t answer. She just silently chewed the venison he offered. She could taste the herbs and garlic that had been crushed to remove the gamey taste. Ella watched Larque’s hands as he diligently cut the meat.

“Aren’t you eating, Master?”

“I ate oatmeal earlier. Some women from the village came.”

Ella nodded. Sometimes women from the village would visit the knights’ quarters. To show their gratitude for the king’s grace and the knights’ hard work, they brought grain alcohol and freshly butchered meat to serve to the soldiers. The knights didn’t refuse them. Sometimes they would have the young women help their servant girls. Even though they were women from nearby villages, they weren’t allowed into the command quarters in case there were spies, but the servant girls worked with the young village women to help the medics treat the soldiers.

Having followed Larque through battlefields since she was twelve, Ella was as familiar with their presence as she was afraid of them.

“Eat a bit more.”

“I’m full.”

“Your stomach must be as small as a bird’s beak.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Your health would improve if I let you hold Eselmund.”

“……”

“I believe that will happen in ten days.”

Larque rose from his seat. Ella also stood up and began clearing the shelf.

“Do you have any orders for me?”

She straightened her bent waist at his heavy gaze upon her. Ella folded her hands neatly after organizing the shelf.

“Warm the bed.”

“Yes.”

Larque turned around. The man’s short black hair disappeared outside the tent. She had lain with him last night too. She was used to his body now. The command to warm the bed wasn’t frightening anymore. The pleasure his body gave, the warmth, the haziness—it was all familiar to the point of tedium. Nevertheless, Ella sometimes feared his call. When she undressed and prepared the bed, she would feel nothing, but when his seed spread inside her, she felt suffocated. She thought of the child and worried about conceiving again.

“Ella. Are you in there?”

A familiar voice penetrated the tent. It was Marie’s voice. Ella carried the shelf outside the tent.

“Have you eaten dinner, Marie?”

“Yes. Sir Endymion took care of it.”

Sir Endymion was Marie’s master. She too was a servant girl like Ella, and like her, of low birth. Though she hadn’t grown up in a brothel until she was twelve, their status was the same now.

“Is something wrong?”

Marie being outside when she should be in Sir Endymion’s room at this hour wasn’t a good sign. She examined Marie’s bright blonde hair and green eyes. There were no signs that Sir Endymion had struck her. But you never knew. Ella carefully spoke to her.

“Did Sir Endymion hit you? You don’t look well.”

“No. Ella. Sir Endymion doesn’t hit me anymore.”

 Marie stroked her belly as she spoke. Ella narrowed her eyes. Sir Endymion often hit Marie. Not just Marie, but other knights did the same. Hitting servant girls was nothing unusual to them. Therefore, a servant girl’s life was desperate. They could meet kind and gentle masters. That master might love the servant girl deeply and choose her as his companion. Even then, she would be at best a concubine. A servant girl was a secondary wife, and children born to servant girls were not treated as well as the children of the legal wife. However, all of this was only in cases where they transcended the master-servant relationship. Usually, it was worse than that. The reality of servant girls was more tragic than the previous examples.

 Servant girls died from beatings even while pregnant with their master’s child. They could be intimate with their master at night, panting and tangling their legs, but by dawn, their necks could be strangled by his ill-tempered hands. Therefore, they did not trust their masters’ affection. Nothing was more foolish than trusting a master’s touch and loving him in bed. Only humans could speak of love. Servant girls were not human. They were merely cats purring on nobles’ laps.

 “So?”

 Ella asked Marie. She took a step closer. Her outline became clearer in the twilight. Suddenly, she smelled of sewage.

 “Marie.”

 “Could you heat some water? I need to wash.”

 Marie took two more steps closer. The setting sun beyond the mountain ridge soaked Marie. She smelled the stench of sewage that drenched her friend’s long blonde hair and fragile shoulders. Marie was beautiful, even covered in sewage. Her bright blonde hair slipped through the crimson sunset. Her green eyes were clear and bright like jade. Ella examined Marie’s shoulders and arms. Unfinished oatmeal, straw, and animal excrement were stuck to her body. She took her friend’s hand and led her to the servant girls’ quarters. She didn’t ask who did it. She didn’t need to ask to know.

 Many people hated servant girls. No, even servant girls hated each other. They trampled on each other’s cheap beauty. So it was obvious how non-servant girls would view them. Ella feared not only the village women but everyone. She feared the women living as fellow servant girls and the knights who were their masters. The only one she loved was the baby. Eselmund. Only that child. But Larque, her master, tried to take away even the only being she wasn’t afraid of. She couldn’t tell if Larque loved the baby or not. She also didn’t know how he would raise the child. He never told her. When she was pregnant, he simply moved her room next to his and set up the birthing room not far away. Was it because it was his first child? Was that why he was so attentive to her?

 He didn’t dote on the child once it was born. Rather, he seemed uninterested. Ella brought Marie to the makeshift bathroom and began gathering firewood. Fortunately, there was leftover water that the servant girls had heated for the knights’ baths. Marie just kept sniffling beside it. Though such violence was nothing new, Marie would burst into tears whenever she was mistreated. And she would fret about hiding this from Sir Endymion.

 Ella couldn’t understand the knights. More precisely, the noble men. She couldn’t understand Endymion, and Larque was equally incomprehensible. He had been so attentive during her pregnancy, but once the child was born, he neglected it. Ella still couldn’t forget. The look in Larque’s eyes when he saw his newborn child. That hostile face. Ella felt wretched and miserable. As if something that should have stayed in the womb had come out. Larque never held the child once. If she hadn’t kept watching, he might have wrapped the baby in swaddling clothes and thrown it away.