WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Malfoid
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Fragments of Thorns and a Cradle ◈
Chapter 20
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Content Warning: bereavement; domestic abuse; physical violence; sexual exploitation and slavery.
One day, a note and a glass bottle appeared on the chest of drawers she often used.
<I hope this can offer you some comfort.>
At first, she thought a maid had left it. Then she read the note.
The maids of San Arzok did not call her madam.
Gregory.
They had never even exchanged names properly. Yet Agnes had wept before him and laughed before him.
She did not know whether to cry or laugh now.
Her heart, which she believed had long ago shriveled and twisted, warmed as though frozen flesh were thawing in heated water.
Tears rose.
Agnes looked at the bottle, different from the one her son had left behind.
Colorful pebbles. Purple anemones and daffodils.
Her fingers trembled as she traced the glass.
She bit her lip hard so no sound would escape and swallowed her sobs.
She wanted to see him.
That man.
The young man who resembled her son.
She missed his harmless, youthful eyes and smile.
She hugged the bottle as though holding a child.
In her blurred vision, her dead son appeared, then the man who resembled him.
And Agnes fell in love again.
Gregory said he had spent his childhood in the south.
In the spring when he was twelve, his father died, and he came west to Gwendel with his mother. But she remarried soon afterward, and they could no longer live together. So she entrusted him to his maternal uncle, the gardener of San Arzok.
It was a bittersweet story.
But Gregory was cheerful and bright whenever he spoke of his past. Agnes found every story of his interesting.
Gregory was kind and lively.
He treated her as though she were a noblewoman. Sometimes, with the shy face of a young man in love, he brought Agnes bouquets.
She fell in love unbelievably quickly.
She had lost her child and suffered so much at Randolph's hands. Could she truly love another man, someone of the same sex as Randolph?
She could not help it.
Agnes had never met anyone as kind as Gregory. No one, regardless of status, had ever listened to her words or looked at her without contempt or pity.
Men and women alike hated her.
Like Lucian, Agnes was a woman hated simply for existing. As was common for women born illegitimate and forced to live as concubines, she was a target of scorn.
So it was only natural that Agnes would fall in love with Gregory.
"...When we have a child, I want to make the swing myself. I'm not good at farming, but I can make furniture."
"Greg is good at tending gardens too. Why can't you farm?"
"Ha ha. Flowers and crops are different, Agnes."
Gregory laughed softly beyond the window.
He wore his straw hat and carried his work sack as usual. He had made an excuse to the colleague sharing his quarters, saying he would tend the garden early, and had come to see her.
Agnes met him in secret every morning while Randolph handled his work.
Randolph rose at six, ate breakfast, and inspected his territory. Then he met his retainers and discussed Gwendel's business.
Unless he went to war, he repeated that routine in every season. He never tired of business or war.
Agnes waited eagerly for him to leave the bedroom, then ran to the window to meet Gregory.
Exactly ten minutes after Randolph left his study, Gregory arrived. To signal that he had come, he threw a pebble slightly larger than a grain of sand against the window.
Agnes loved that time most.
Her heart pounded. Even when she was deeply in love with Randolph, she had never felt such exhilarating nausea.
She was happier then than at any other time, happier even than when Lucian had lived. Happier than when she and Randolph had been lovers.
Gregory was the first sweetness she had ever tasted in life.
Even her dead mother had never been so gentle with her.
Few people had ever treated Agnes warmly. San Arzok was a place where people glared if she merely breathed. Even while making love with Randolph, Agnes had been intimidated by him and his knights.
But Gregory...
"You'll be good at it anyway. You take good care of everything."
For one hour each day, he seemed to breathe life into her.
Gregory had the power to revive anything his hands touched.
At Agnes's whisper, Gregory stopped smiling and looked up at her.
The woman with the small, pale face watched him sorrowfully.
"Agnes..."
His heart ached.
No matter what he did, Agnes never regained the vitality she had once possessed. He had watched her since she first settled in San Arzok as the duke's concubine.
People insulted her without hesitation just because she was a female slave.
To Gregory, she was only a girl who still had not shed all traces of youth. People said that she had seduced the marquess with the seductive face inherited from her mother. They shamelessly said they would watch to see when she fell, claiming she coveted the place of a marchioness who did not even yet exist.
Gregory could not understand what she had done to deserve such condemnation.
Agnes was only a pitiable girl.
A young girl who fled home because she did not want to become the third or fourth wife of an old man whose children were over forty. A girl with no one to trust except the man whispering love to her.
And that man had married and had a child soon after.
If not for the marquess, no one in San Arzok would look after her.
And now her relationship with the marquess was poor as well.
Whenever Agnes smiled faintly at him, Gregory felt as though he might cry. At the same time, his heart pounded whenever she lifted the corners of her mouth at the bouquet he had brought.
"You know..."
Agnes was looking down at the blue stock bouquet he offered her.
Gregory moved his dry lips.
He did not know whether he pitied her or loved her. But when she hurt, his chest hurt. When she smiled, his heart raced.
Others remembered only her beautiful face. What he remembered was her smile. That innocent, youthful smile was everything to him.
He still could not forget hearing that Agnes's child had died. He could not imagine how much pain she must be in.
"I want to make a swing for Agnes's child."
He did not know what he was saying.
"Greg."
"I mean..."
His face grew hot.
Agnes, who had been looking at the flowers, stared at him.
Gregory gathered the courage to voice what he had held inside.
"I want to protect you."
The muscles beneath his eyes trembled wildly.
He stammered, not knowing what he had said, then lifted his head.
"Agnes."
She was crying.
Startled, Gregory wiped her cheeks.
Agnes cried even more at his touch. She fought her tears so no sob would escape, afraid someone might hear.
It felt as though his chest were tearing apart.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
"No. No, Greg..."
Agnes shook her head.
When she smiled faintly, Gregory smiled with her.
He thought his confession might have reached her. He wondered whether she felt the same.
Then he heard low footsteps.
The sound made him cold, as though his ears had been cut away.
The door had not opened. How had he entered?
There was no time to panic.
Agnes recognized instinctively that it was the marquess. She quickly shut the window and made Gregory flee.
But the marquess was faster.
Without surprise, he seized Agnes by the hair and hurled her onto the bed.
Gregory fled trembling, unable to scream.
He imagined the woman enduring everything inside.
His legs shook, but there was no other way.
As he recoiled from the cruelty occurring beyond the window, the marquess's knights approached.
Gregory ran instinctively.
He could not stay here.
Had the marquess ever reacted this violently before? Gregory remembered the look he had given his woman.
If he were caught, he would suffer something terrible enough to make death seem merciful.
He avoided the men chasing him, climbed the wall, and fled.
Randolph seemed to be shaking.
No. He was frozen pale, like a man so angry that he had gone beyond rage into fear, staring at the blue flowers scattered across the floor.
Lucrezia watched him destroy every object within reach.
He seemed to have truly lost his mind.
Usually she might have said something, but today she could not bring herself to speak.
She wanted desperately to leave, but thought Agnes might not survive unless Lucrezia remained.
Of course, she could not make the mad Randolph sane.
But Lucrezia was Duke Durak's daughter. Before becoming mistress of San Arzok, she had been the only woman Randolph could not suppress with authority.
She could act as Agnes's shield.
But now...
"You, you fucking bitch! You filthy bitch! How dare you! How dare you... betray me!"
He overturned a desk, then kicked and smashed it until it split in two with a crack.
Lucrezia watched him.
His eyes, always composed and beautiful, had gone wild with madness. It was enough to leave her speechless.
Randolph had always been mad over Agnes. But the last few months could not be explained merely by calling him mad.
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