WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Malfoid

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◈ Fragments of Thorns and a Cradle ◈

Chapter 11

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Content Warning: bereavement; child abuse; domestic abuse; physical violence; sexual coercion or assault; sexual exploitation and slavery.

Endymion handed Marie, who was trying to pull away from him, to his aide and walked toward Henrietta. Everyone watched to see what he would say, how he would soothe his wife.

But what Henrietta received was...

Smack!

Henrietta's face turned violently aside. Unlike the sharp sound of Marie's slap, this blow landed heavily. Henrietta fell to the floor like a paper doll caught in the wind.

In an instant, everything froze. No one breathed. Nothing moved.

Before Henrietta could look up with wet eyes, Endymion seized her by the hair. Marie stopped the leg he was about to use to kick Henrietta. Pushing away the aide, she rushed forward and clung to his chest.

"Please. Please..."

Endymion's eyes twisted fiercely at the sight of blood still gathering on her lips. His anger was bare and unfiltered. Marie trembled.

For Marie, being beaten to death was not important. Even if she died that way, she would not suffer much. Leaving her two young sons behind while pregnant would be miserable, but she thought it a fitting end for a female slave.

But a lord driven mad over a concubine striking his wife could not happen in House Gwendel. Not in Gwendel, not in any household. Such a ridiculous thing could not...

"Go back."

"...Let's go back together."

Rather than saying she would return only if her master stopped, Marie asked him to return with her. That was more effective in moving Endymion.

Marie knew Endymion better than his own mother. He was impossible to predict, but nothing moved him as effectively as a tear-stained face and an affectionate plea.

And so Marie was always a foolish female slave who cried easily. She was the silly woman who shut herself in her master's bedroom, laughed like an idiot, and readily spread her legs for him.

Still, it was all right. Yes. It was an acceptable life. Some people lived worse lives than this.

By rights, she should have done menial labor and suffered through exhausting work all day. Instead, luck had made her a woman who attended a nobleman's bedchamber.

So she had no reason to resent anything or think herself wronged. She should be grateful and devote herself to her master and his house.

'So you must not run away like your mother, Marie. Your mother...'

'...'

'She died because she did not know her station.'

Long, elegant fingers had stroked Marie's round head.

Your mother died because she did not know her station. Your mother... My mother...

'Those who do not live in gratitude for what they have been given all die miserable deaths.'

Lucrezia had looked down at Marie with a stern face. Marie had held a small molasses cookie then. It crumbled in her mouth with unbearable sweetness. She could not tell whether she was chewing sugar or pastry. Her tongue hurt from the sweetness.

'Agnes was not content with what she was given. She did not know her station.'

So you must not be like her. You must be happier than your mother.

❖ ❖ ❖

The grass swayed in the wind. Marie had her feet in the stream. The sunlight was hot enough that she needed a straw hat. She touched the brim her father had put on her that morning.

Madame Langdal, who had agreed to look after Marie for half a day, held out an ear of ripe corn. Marie nibbled at it and splashed in the stream.

Her mother and father left for work every morning at seven. They said they could not stop working if they wanted to keep Marie fed, because they were poor. Though they were free people, they worked like slaves. In truth, without money, free people and slaves were equally destitute.

Marie did not starve, but she never lived with a full belly. Still, sometimes, on her birthday, she ate quail dishes and molasses cookies. They were poor, but happy. At that time, Marie was always happy. Even when she ate only one meal a day...

"Living in a filthy hole like this and sleeping with another man..."

One day, the door broke down. Her father, who had been making a cloth doll for his daughter beside her, hurried toward it.

Then a long leg like a monster's tentacle smashed through the door. The ruined door fell to the floor, and her father...

"You even had a brat, did you?"

Something black was lodged silently in her father's body. The man who had burst through the door was a man without restraint. Marie learned later that he was far more savage and violent than she had seemed to understand then.

Marie froze, sitting at the old table where she had been playing with the cloth doll her father had made.

The man pulled the blade from her father's chest in a single motion and smiled at Marie. His white face, splattered with blood, was astonishingly beautiful. Standing against the light, he shook the blood from his sword, then approached her.

Marie stared at her father, who fell with a heavy crash. That long body... That body which had always been large and warm collapsed into a spreading pool of blood.

"Pretty. You should have borne something like this beneath me, Agnes."

"Aah!"

A sharp scream came from the bedroom. Marie could not even cry as she watched her mother dragged outside. Her mother had fallen asleep in exhaustion after returning from work, still in an old tunic.

"Greg! Greg, wake up!"

Her mother screamed until someone seized her hair and threw her to the floor.

[Non-graphic summary of sexual material involving a child observer: Marie watched in shock as the marquess violently assaulted her terrified mother, Agnes, while insulting her for having left him.]

Marie watched them with a face half gone blank. Her mother struggled and pushed at him, shaking in fear. Her face was red like heated iron, unlike anything Marie had ever seen. Her mother cried like a child and called for her husband. It felt as though the whole world were breaking.

It felt as though the world shattered into pieces around Marie's feet.

The marquess suddenly raised himself. Then he violently kissed Marie's mother, Agnes.

Marie watched everything silently. She wanted to look away, but she was frozen and could not move. It was the first violence she had ever witnessed.

"Stupid bitch. You don't know your station. How dare you betray your master with that filthy..."

Filthy bitch. Loose bitch. Whore. The man spewed endless curses.

Yet his expression was ecstatic.

As he held the woman he accused of betraying him, he looked as though he stood before a goddess. He seized a fistful of Agnes's curling blond hair and kissed her, then called her name as if groaning.

"Agnes. Agnes. Damn it. It feels so good."

Mine. My possession. My Agnes...

The man pressed his face to Agnes's motionless white nape and whispered.

Around then, Marie lost consciousness.

She did not know how long she had been unconscious. When she came to, she was not home. Her mother and father were gone. Marie did not cry. Everything was too unreal even for dry tears.

She had never seen such a vast, luxurious room. The blankets around her thin body were embroidered in gold thread. The curtains around the bed were purple velvet. The elegant scent tickling her nose was peony.

At first, Marie thought she had gone to heaven. Everything she touched was so soft that it did not feel real. She placed both hands over her heart, wondering whether she had stopped breathing, whether her soul had truly left her body and reached the sky.

"Is this the child?"

It was a middle-aged woman. Slanted eyes, a hooked nose, colorless lips, and a gaunt frame. Her dry hair was coiled neatly atop her head. She looked strict and unyielding. Dressed in a deep navy gown almost black like a nun's habit, she looked down at Marie.

"She resembles Agnes."

The indifferent murmur echoed through the spacious bedchamber. Marie whispered, "Mama."

The woman glanced at her, then turned away.

"So what does His Lordship intend to do with this thing? Her father is no longer here to take her back."

Her voice was dry and low. The words scraped cruelly at Marie's ears.

Marie shrank her shoulders as her lips parted uncertainly. The woman seized her small chin and turned her face this way and that. Her gaze was that of someone appraising an object. Marie could not shed even one tear.

"What a waste you are."

Marie blinked, unable to understand.

"You are ruined."

The woman withdrew her hand. Marie rubbed her aching chin and looked up at her. The woman turned away without regret, as though there was nothing more for her to concern herself with.

Marie watched her retreating back for a long time. They were words she could not understand while she was young and foolish. But they remained with her and bound her until her mind began to mature.

Whenever Endymion used her body. Whenever he touched her as though she were his possession. Whenever people mocked her or predicted her fate, she remembered that moment.

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