WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Malfoid

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Fragments of Thorns and a Cradle ◈

Chapter 3

──────

Content Warning: domestic abuse; sexual coercion or assault; threats of violence.

Just as her expression began to twist, a commotion arose at the entrance. The woman stood with a rigid face and quickly picked up Ewin. Placing Claude in front of her, she began walking toward the doorway.

"Do not tell your father anything. Understood?"

The urgent whisper came from above Claude's head. He frowned and listened to his father's footsteps. At last, his father strode over on long legs. Claude pressed his lips together, smoothing the expression that threatened to crumple as though he might cry.

"My lord."

"So you like children."

His father stopped before the woman. The deep shadows of muscle showed through the unfastened front of his clothes. His father's wife blushed and fluttered her lashes.

The moment Ewin saw his father, he burst into tears. Henrietta patted his bottom, trying to soothe him, but the child would not stop crying. Father did not take Ewin from her arms, only watching his son closely.

"My lord, I didn't mean anything by it..."

"You don't need to make excuses. Liking children is not a bad thing."

A large hand took Ewin from the woman. In his father's hands, Ewin cried even louder.

"Shh."

As he gently patted his young son's back, Father looked down at Claude. Claude stared at the floor. He wanted to return to Mother quickly.

Then a long arm lifted him around the waist. Claude settled into Father's arm by habit.

"But they are not your sons. You should ask my permission before taking them. Taking children without their parents' permission is kidnapping, isn't it?"

Cold eyes gleamed sharply. The woman looked at him in fear, then lowered her gaze. Claude did not want to see her, so he buried his face against Father's solid chest. Father lightly kissed Ewin's soft hair, then looked at Henrietta again. Ewin gradually stopped crying.

"You may become pregnant."

"..."

"Sleep with whatever man you like. I will not harm your child. I can even make a place for your son in San Arzok. Naturally, until the day our interests align."

Father turned away. Claude breathed in his scent. It was a heavy scent like wood, and it calmed him. Father's long legs cut through the corridor, carrying them farther from the marchioness's bedroom. Claude rested his cheek on Father's shoulder and blinked.

"What did that woman do to you, Claude?"

Claude raised his face from Father's chest. He was too close to see anything but his father's firm jaw. Claude shook his head rapidly. Ewin, who had stopped crying, began whimpering that he wanted to see Mother.

Father carried both children swiftly to his bedroom. Their fussing must have irritated him terribly.

"My lord."

The nursemaid called to Father in a low voice, her face pale and rigid. Father handed Claude to her, then carried Ewin into the bedroom. The nursemaid quietly followed.

The instant Ewin saw Mother, he began crying again.

"Mama! Mama!"

Though he was three, he shook his limbs in little spasms like a nursing infant. Ewin was especially like that. Perhaps because he was the youngest, he was terribly spoiled.

"Shh. Good babies do not cry."

Mother soothed Ewin gently. Claude approached the bed where she sat and rubbed the bridge of his nose against her arm. Mother's pale, slender hand lifted Claude into her embrace.

Ewin buried his nose in her full breast and whimpered. He seemed sleepy because he had risen early. Marie soothed her young second son with practiced ease and looked at the nursemaid. There was no confusion or anger in her expression.

"I think Ewin is sleepy."

Marie, parting Ewin's hair, looked at Father. Father had been staring blankly at the nursemaid as if she were awaiting punishment, but he turned a gentle gaze on Marie.

"He still gets terribly fussy when he is sleepy. It must have been difficult bringing them here. The marchioness must have been startled too..."

"Leave."

Father snapped coldly at the nursemaid. Standing stiffly with her hands folded, she left the bedroom. Claude watched her leave, then looked away.

"Marie."

The woman stroking their second son's hair lifted her head. Her face was innocent.

Did she understand this devastated heart, emptied of everything? Her expression was like someone looking at a shapeless wind fading weakly away. Those dull eyes had always been guileless. Even when he married, Marie had been all right.

"Should I punish that one?"

"Who do you mean?"

Marie opened her eyes wide, her fingers still in Ewin's honey-colored hair. He barely restrained the twist in his gut. Closing his lips, he looked down at his sleeping son.

Marie had already borne him two sons. Yet she wore that face. She loved her children so dearly that she seemed unable to live without them.

"She handed my sons by you to that woman without my permission."

"..."

"Who knows what that woman might do to my sons by you?"

"...The marchioness is your wife, my lord. She is not a bad person."

His closed lips twisted. He wanted to seize the woman by the shoulders and shake her. Would striking her cheek, as he usually did, make him feel better? He did not know.

He had raised and trained Marie for a long time. Sometimes he whipped her bottom. [Non-graphic summary of sexual material with unresolved age: He also subjected her to sexual punishment as part of that discipline.] Whenever Marie did something wrong, he disciplined her mercilessly in order to correct her.

But now he did not know what to do. How could he make Marie cry and say she was sorry? How could he win her jealousy?

"So you trust that woman? You believe she will cherish the son born from you as you do? Is that why you do not care?"

"My lord."

"Only when I am inside you again will you start watching my mood."

He seized her chin. He took their sleeping son from her and shoved him aside as if brushing away crumbs. The three-year-old, who had only just fallen asleep, woke and began to whine. Marie looked at him in fear.

After becoming a mother, his female slave had come to fear a child's crying. Was it because she was a nursing mother? When their infant son would not be soothed, when she had held the crying little thing and sobbed that no milk would come, Endymion had always felt something strange.

She was the woman whose belly had swelled with his seed. He had impregnated her. He had made her a mother. The children Marie bore were his own.

Yet he was angry at her for living as a mother.

It infuriated him beyond endurance that she feared not him, but the cries of a child made from his blood.

"The children can hear."

"Move them quietly before I threaten your sons too."

"My lord."

Marie's eyes began to fill. Holding both boys, she climbed from the bed and fell to her knees. Her eldest son clung to his mother in fright, and the younger one began crying loudly as well.

"Please... What must I ask forgiveness for?"

Marie began pleading for forgiveness as she patted the back of her son, who was crying while watching his father. She wore only a thin negligee after intercourse, and its front had fallen open beneath her second child's restless hands.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried