WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Malfoid

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◈ Fragments of Thorns and a Cradle ◈

Chapter 19

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

Gregory Ronin was a gardener at San Arzok.

He was not quite skilled enough to call himself a proper gardener, but five years had passed since he inherited his maternal uncle's work. He decided that he could call himself one now.

Of course, he still lacked skill. He did not know ornamental trees as well as his uncle had. He still had much to learn about landscape design: how to arrange plants without damaging the view, how to make trees coexist harmoniously.

One day, rain had been falling since dawn.

Greg woke early and began his work. He cut away diseased branches, laid fresh earth, planted flowers and trees the marquess liked for each season, and repaired the outer walls of the glass garden.

Since his uncle died, he had been very busy.

If he wanted to avoid working at night, he needed to begin at dawn. He slung a sack containing a shovel and pickaxe over his shoulder and entered the glass garden.

San Arzok had many gardens, but the glass garden was the most exotic and beautiful among them.

Because it was the marquess's pride, Gregory tended it with all his heart.

"Uh... Is someone there?"

He had just entered and set down his sack when he heard rustling.

The sound came from a flower bed thick with orchids and palms.

Gregory carefully picked up his pickaxe and moved forward, lifting long leaves aside.

The first thing he saw was long hair.

Unkempt strands touched the ground. The figure was narrow and small. It was clearly a woman.

Who was she, and what was she doing here?

He lowered his pickaxe and approached.

"Excuse me."

"..."

"Who are you? This garden belongs to House Gwendel. You cannot enter without permission..."

The woman suddenly lifted her head.

Her face, as small as a white pebble, was dim in the dawn darkness.

She was not wearing a maid's uniform. She wore a white muslin dress, the sort noblewomen wore to sleep. Her pale, smooth skin showed faintly through it.

The sight should have felt alluring, but her tangled hair made her seem strange instead.

"Madam Agnes?"

She had never taken her husband's surname, so she was Madam Agnes.

In truth, even madam was not a proper title. She was always called Agnes, just as she had been in her family home. Not Lady Agnes. Agnes.

But Gregory called her madam, or more precisely, Madam Agnes.

At the sound of her name, she looked at him.

"What are you doing here?"

Gregory looked her over.

She wore only a nightdress. She had no shoes. Her pale hands were smeared with damp soil, and her nails were broken.

He quickly removed his outer coat and draped it over her shoulders.

"My child..."

Agnes whispered something.

Gregory noticed clear tears caught beneath her long lashes. Her reddened eyes reminded him of dogwood berries buried in winter snow.

A dull ache rose in his chest.

"Madam, why are you here like this?"

"My child. My child..."

"What?"

"The glass... the glass bottle..."

Agnes raised both hands, her words slurred.

Gregory stared at her in confusion, then turned at the sound approaching behind him.

The people entering the glass garden were not servants.

They were knights with swords at their waists.

At their center stood the marquess in a silk robe.

"Agnes."

The marquess called to her.

Gregory stepped away from the marquess's woman in fear.

Agnes collapsed at his feet and began to cry. Her face twisted as she sobbed through ragged breaths.

Gregory bowed uneasily to the marquess, glancing at Agnes.

The marquess did not immediately take her away. He watched her for a long time. His beautiful face was dry. His lifeless gaze drifted over her.

Rather than raising Agnes himself, he had one of his knights bring her over.

Then he struck her across the face.

She fell without a sound.

Gregory trembled as he watched the marquess assault her.

"Get up."

The fallen woman slowly rose.

Gregory stared at her swollen cheek, visible through disordered blond hair. It looked badly injured.

She was pregnant.

Yes. They had said she carried a child.

She was not even far along, and yet...

Even an alley thug would not treat the woman carrying his child so brutally.

Anger rose in him, despite the fact that the marquess was someone he could never dare challenge.

"Forgive me, Your Excellency."

A sharp gaze flew toward him.

"I understand that madam is pregnant. It would be wrong to strike a frail woman even if she were not, but I only wish to remind you that Madam Agnes carries your child."

Agnes looked at him as though he had gone mad.

Her wet eyes trembled faintly.

Gregory swallowed hard.

The marquess stared at him.

As his lips began to move, Agnes quickly removed the coat Gregory had given her and threw it onto the ground.

The marquess's hard expression softened slightly.

Gregory's heart hurt.

"I'm sorry. I'd like to go inside now. I'll accept my punishment in the bedroom..."

Without looking at Gregory, Agnes clung to the marquess's arm.

The moment she touched him, his anger visibly eased.

The tense atmosphere from moments before vanished. It was as if his soul had changed while his body remained the same.

Though Gregory wondered whether the marquess would truly leave now, Randolph embraced Agnes gently and turned away.

He gave Gregory one final sharp look, but the matter seemed finished.

Time passed.

Gregory learned why Agnes had been digging through the garden soil barefoot.

The marquess had shattered the glass bottle where her dead child had kept precious treasures. It seemed to be the keepsake the marquess had recently returned to her.

He had broken it.

Gregory wiped away tears for the dead child and the woman, though he was neither the child's father nor blood relation.

The marquess's dead illegitimate son was pitiful.

What sin had the child committed? Being born illegitimate was not a sin. Who wanted to be born that way?

Who wanted to become a concubine? Did people born as slaves choose that life?

The marquess, the marchioness, the nobles who enjoyed noble lives, none of them had earned their positions.

If everyone were given a choice, who would not want to be born noble and become the lawful wife of one man?

But Agnes and Agnes's son...

Gregory could not understand why the mother and child had to be hated so much in San Arzok.

If Agnes had been born the cherished legitimate daughter of a noble family, she might have lived as a respected lady rather than a despised concubine. Her child would surely have been cherished as a son.

But...

"Why have you been staring at the ground since morning?"

"I'm looking for something."

"What are you looking for?"

"Something."

"Honestly. Did you eat something bad for breakfast?"

A guard with whom he was not close spoke in disbelief.

Gregory ignored him and continued searching.

Things Lucian could see so easily could not be invisible to him.

The child must have spent months choosing pebbles with vivid color and even shapes, gathering them to give to his mother.

And then that man had broken them.

Gregory fought back tears until his eyelids were wet.

At last, he found a blue pebble beside a carefully trimmed shrub and placed it in a glass bottle.

It was only the third.

He had searched from breakfast until afternoon and found only three. How long would it take to gather them all?

Gregory swallowed and refused to give up.

Randolph often became angry.

Because Agnes was pregnant and he could not have intercourse with her, he continued subjecting her to unwanted sexual contact. It seemed he was desperate to join their bodies in any way he could.

It was torment.

Agnes often examined herself in the mirror.

She had lost so much weight that she worried whether she could safely carry the child to term. She no longer looked beautiful. Her hair was dry and lifeless, her once-radiant skin rough.

Days passed when she could not eat. Her ribs showed clearly. Her breasts, once full and shapely, seemed to sag.

Yet Randolph still touched her greedily.

He was mad.

To Agnes, he looked like a monster.

How could she ever have loved something like this?

She dreaded seeing him, yet had to share his bed and eat with him every day.

To have to endure this until death...

She no longer cared what people in the castle said about her. Once she was living while being beaten by Randolph, the words of his servants became meaningless.

Randolph laid hands on her constantly.

At his gentlest, he seized and shook her shoulders. At his harshest, he struck her face.

Whenever she was near another man, he slapped her without fail. He did this not only over Gregory the gardener, but even over the servants assigned to attend her. He saw men in all of them and stopped them from approaching Agnes.

Agnes endured his violence without resistance.

And she thought only one thing.

Randolph truly could not bear to see her with another man.

It was laughable.

He had married, had a child, become another woman's husband and another child's father, yet would not permit Agnes even to dream of those things.

It was unbearably hypocritical.

He lived as he pleased while demanding chastity and love from Agnes with obsessive force. Recently, he would not let any male approach her, even a child, if he had the body of a boy.

He was insane.

The colder Agnes became, the less attention she gave him, the more Randolph demanded her love with fire in his eyes. And the more he feared that she might turn to another man, the more he barred servants and knights from approaching her.

He did not seem to know that this only made her love him less.

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