WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Malfoid

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◈ Fragments of Thorns and a Cradle ◈

Chapter 14

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Content Warning: child abuse; domestic abuse; physical violence; reproductive coercion; sexual exploitation and slavery.

Time passed. News came that Lucrezia had given birth to a son at House Durak. Lucrezia returned after recovering at her family home for fifteen days. Agnes ran out eagerly to greet her.

"I'm truly happy that you've returned, my lady."

Agnes greeted Lucrezia, who returned holding Randolph's legitimate son. Lucrezia nodded at her.

Agnes offered a bouquet she had prepared herself, remembering the flowers Lucrezia had sent during Agnes's pregnancy. Lucrezia glanced at the bouquet.

"Thank you, Agnes."

Lucrezia told a servant to take the flowers. Agnes looked down at the baby in the nurse's arms. The child, redder than her own newborn son, gave a tiny yawn.

"The young master is so adorable. He looks just like the marquess and you, my lady."

Agnes followed behind Lucrezia, speaking sincerely. The child truly resembled the marquess, even more than Agnes's own baby did. She thought she would feel jealous, but the moment she saw him, she only thought he was cute.

Before they had even reached the end of the corridor, Lucrezia's faint smile and the baby's loveliness made Agnes wish she could become his godmother.

Of course, godmothers could only be noblewomen. Usually, ladies of prominent families named one another's children as godchildren. Agnes had no position that allowed her to join them.

Still, the baby was so cute that she did not want to harm him in the slightest.

"I'm sorry, my lady."

They had reached Lucrezia's bedchamber. Since their wedding night, Randolph had not shared a bedchamber with Lucrezia. After a month, the room prepared as their bridal chamber was furnished like the room Lucrezia had used at House Durak and given to her. Randolph returned to Agnes and shared her bed.

"What are you sorry for?"

"Just... Everything. I have done so much to you..."

"It's strange. You have nothing to apologize for."

"Because of me, because I did not behave properly, you returned to your family home. I became pregnant without thinking. But I didn't want to become pregnant then either. I didn't want a child..."

Lucrezia listened to Agnes's babbling. Agnes was grateful and happy to be heard, so she poured out everything in her heart.

"In truth, I didn't want to have the marquess's child. Even if I had one, I wanted to wait until you gave birth to the eldest son. But His Lordship insisted that I become pregnant..."

"..."

"Perhaps you don't believe me, but it's true. I truly didn't mean to upset you."

"I see. I'll believe you."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"And I never think my son should become the marquess's heir."

"Yes."

"Anyway, I'm sorry, my lady. I became pregnant so thoughtlessly and caused you so much..."

Agnes lowered her eyes and kept talking. Lucrezia quietly listened, then merely shook her head.

"I returned to my family home because I was not comfortable here."

Agnes looked at her in surprise. Lucrezia stared expressionlessly at her, then continued.

"I returned to my family home not because of you, but because of the marquess. Why would you make me uncomfortable?"

"What?"

Agnes asked stupidly. Lucrezia smiled a little. Agnes bit her lip. Lucrezia's white face was startlingly clear.

"You are nothing to me. There is no reason for you to make me uncomfortable, Agnes."

"..."

"Whatever I do, you are the one who will be mocked. If you act foolishly because you are foolish, I will not become ridiculous."

The back of Agnes's head went numb. Her cheeks burned as she blinked. You are nothing to me. You are the one who will be mocked. The words rang loudly in her head. Agnes swallowed.

"I, I..."

"Thank you for the bouquet. I'll rest now, so go take care of your child."

Lucrezia entered her room without another glance. Agnes stood frozen blue with shock until a familiar low voice made her turn.

"Agnes."

It was Randolph. Agnes lowered her eyes. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment and shame, and would not cool.

She tried to raise her head and compose herself, but the angry man had already approached her. Recently, he grew angry often.

Agnes thought she could not understand him at all. He had always been that way to some degree. Fierce, capricious, arrogant. He possessed every bad quality a nobleman could have. It was growing harder for Agnes to please him.

She found it difficult to be alone with him when no maid or third party such as Lucrezia was present. She could not even guess what he wanted.

Lucrezia was better. No, Lucrezia was a hundred times better. At least she did not mock Agnes or rage at her so fiercely as a master.

"What are you doing?"

"The marchioness returned, so I went to welcome her."

Randolph said nothing. Agnes lowered her gaze further. She did not want to defy him. Randolph stared at her as though he wished to kill her.

He seized her wrist and dragged her. Agnes instinctively tore herself free. Randolph's face twisted completely.

"You..."

"Why are you..."

Before she could finish, he slapped Agnes hard across the face.

Agnes lay fallen, blinking because she could not believe the blow. Randolph mercilessly seized her hair and dragged her away.

A commotion rose at once. Every servant passing in the corridor froze. Once Agnes and Randolph were gone, they would undoubtedly whisper and laugh at her. They would curse her, saying she had finally become what she deserved to be.

People believed that a female slave was enjoying luxuries beyond her station. A mere concubine giving orders to servants and being waited upon as though she were someone important. They must have hated it. Her fall would delight them.

Randolph's hand dragged her brutally. Agnes struggled not to be pulled by the hair.

"Let me go! I'll walk properly, so please let me go!"

Agnes cried. At the commotion, Madam Retman, Lucrezia's attendant and nurse, came out of the bedchamber. Thinking this was her chance, Agnes cried out for Lucrezia's help.

"My lady! Please help me! The marquess...!"

When the attendant did not return, Lucrezia finally looked out. Her face was unchanged from moments earlier. The expressionlessness that had seemed calm now looked suffocatingly cold. Agnes stared at her with a wet face.

"Close the door. You'll wake Endymion."

"Yes, my lady."

That was all. Randolph gave a bitter laugh.

Agnes was beaten almost to death. It was the first time since coming to San Arzok. Randolph struck and kicked her until her cheeks and abdomen were bruised. Her nose and lip bled. He tore at her hair and kicked her again and again.

She screamed and begged for her life, but no one entered the bedchamber.

He hurled her against the wall and crushed the back of her hand beneath his shoe. Something seemed to have broken, though she could not tell what. Never before had she been beaten until her whole body ached.

No one helped despite the terrible assault. Perhaps that was because the marquess, lord of this castle and her master, was committing it. But could someone not look in once, just once, with concern?

Instead, the people who watched Agnes dragged away looked quietly entertained. They must have found it intolerable that a woman who ought to have fallen into misery had mistaken favor for love and filled the place beside him.

Only then did Agnes understand her status and situation. She remembered the sly mockery she had ignored while the maids attended her. She remembered again how, beyond the marquess's sight, they had ripped apart the seams and hems of her dresses.

'Surely you do not think that attending a nobleman at night makes you his equal? If you dare imagine you can stand beside a noble woman like the marchioness as her equal, you are truly foolish.'

The maids had needled Agnes every day. How ridiculous she must have seemed, mistaking an intimate relationship with the marquess for marriage.

Yet it would be nothing unusual for a female slave to die like this. Nor would it be unusual for her to be sold to a brothel the next day. If the marquess ordered her imprisoned and starved, no one would pity her even if she scratched at the door until her nails broke.

That was how her father had treated her mother. Back at her birth home, he beat her mother regularly. On days when he did not, he wounded her with words, calling everything she wore and the paint on her face unbearably vulgar. Her mother had become accustomed to enduring all of it.

People said female slaves made the brief time they had loved their masters in their youth the sole passion of their lives. After that, no bright days remained, and the memory alone gave them courage to go on.

Her mother had not even had that. Her father had disliked her mother from the moment he saw her. Agnes did not know why, but he had disliked her nonetheless.

The wife he married was the same. On days when her father did not beat her mother, his wife did. Sometimes she used servants; sometimes she beat her herself. Agnes had regarded it as natural. No woman would welcome her husband's other woman.

For that reason, seeing her mother beaten had never seemed strange to Agnes.

Then one day, her mother left the house. At some point, she had fallen in love with the stablekeeper.

Her father flew into a rage unlike any Agnes had seen. The servants, knights, his wife and children all froze. Agnes feared even breathing and could not bear to appear before him.

The first thing he did after her mother vanished was drag Agnes and her younger brother before him and demand to know where their mother had fled.

But Agnes did not know. She had not known her mother had left with a man, nor even that there had been another man in her life.

Her mother never spoke first to anyone in the castle. Not even her children.

Agnes trembled and said she knew nothing. Her father slapped her.

His faithful servants began searching around the castle. They found nothing, and his anger deepened.

A week later, her mother and her lover were found at a port near the estate. Her father beat her mother's lover to a pulp before her eyes, then hanged him. Agnes watched him struggle and die.

'Anyone, anyone who touches what belongs to a knight dies like this.'

The words made her knees shake. Her mother cried until she fainted. Agnes could not even cry.

The night passed. After her mother awoke, her father treated her somewhat better. He did not hit her and spoke kindly. At night he visited her, and they spent time alone.

Before long, they heard that her mother was pregnant. Someone told her father the child was not his. Suspicion became certainty after the birth. Had the child been his, it would have been born two months early, yet its limbs were sturdy and healthy.

Her father flew into another rage. Yet he neither sold her mother again nor beat her as before. The newborn was the stablekeeper's son. Her father did not keep the child in the castle. He sold him into slavery somewhere.

When her mother awoke after suffering puerperal fever and asked for her baby, her father told her the child had died. She fainted.

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