WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Malfoid

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◈ Fragments of Thorns and a Cradle ◈

Chapter 39

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Content Warning: bereavement; child abuse; suicidal thoughts or self-harm.

Endymion considered that futile thought, then asked Marie:

"Do you enjoy the piano?"

Marie, who had been hanging her head, looked up. Her eyes lit up, and she nodded quickly.

"Then only play in front of me."

"I promised Lady Lucrezia I would play for her too..."

"No."

"Why?"

Because she looked too beautiful when she played the piano. Because he wanted to be the only one to see her.

But he could not say that.

He stroked Marie's round head. They had dressed her in a pink silk satin dress and tied ribbons in her hair, as they might dress any noble child. She looked like an angel. A beautiful child had become exquisite as a doll.

"You are the prettiest thing in the world when you play the piano."

Endymion sat beside Marie.

Marie looked up at him. He placed his fingers beside the keys under hers. Marie fled from his hand. Endymion caught the hand that had escaped to other keys and whispered as if sighing:

"Try singing."

He released her hand.

Marie shook her head.

"I do not know all the words..."

"Sing as much as you remember."

The bridge of Marie's nose turned red. Endymion wrapped his arms around her small body.

Marie pressed the keys softly and began to sing.

"Spring garden. In a beautiful field where pale green shoots grow beneath a blue sky... An endless horizon beneath the sky where sheep and shepherds walk..."

Marie sang, moving her soft lips. Whenever she forgot the words, only the accompaniment continued. But her voice, like a nightingale's, was more than enough to stir him.

Could excessive loveliness provoke murderous impulses?

"I do not remember."

Marie turned toward him with a sulky face.

Endymion watched her silently. Marie's eyes filled with tears under his expressionless gaze.

He did not wipe them away. He only watched.

She was beautiful even when she cried. Like Agnes.

Yes.

Marie was beautiful even while crying, like Agnes. Even when Agnes had shouted at his father, even when she had lost her reason and screamed, she had been beautiful.

Would Marie become like that too?

Would she be unbearably beautiful even while crying because of him and clinging to him?

"It is all right."

He lifted the child, who was sniffing and rubbing her eyelids with her sleeves, onto his thigh.

"Really?" Marie asked.

Endymion answered by kissing the bridge of her nose.

Marie buried her face in his broad chest and whimpered. He patted her back and met her gaze.

Her wet eyes trembled. From her lashes to her pupils, everything shook as if waves ran through the eyes that held his reflection.

Endymion hugged her tighter, hard enough to make breathing difficult.

It was in place of saying he loved her.

"Are Endymion and Marie sleeping together again tonight?"

Lucrezia asked Madam Retman.

The woman nodded silently. Her face looked defeated, as if the son she had raised with her entire life had gone wrong beyond control.

Lucrezia stared blankly at the woman with a gloomy expression, then looked at her younger son, who had taken over the center of her bed.

"Shall I take the young master away?"

"Leave him."

"But there will be no room for you to sleep, my lady..."

"I can move him aside a little and sleep beside him myself."

Lucrezia smiled fondly at the son occupying the vast bed's center, then sat in the empty space and stroked the child's curly hair.

Who did he resemble, to be so childish?

Unlike Endymion, her younger son was still spoiled. Lucrezia's face as she watched him was no different from any mother's.

Madam Retman, who had followed Lucrezia and served her since before her marriage, also looked warmly at the boy.

"It is fortunate that the young master is so friendly."

"Of course. Imagine having two boys like Endymion."

"That is a frightening thought."

Lucrezia smiled faintly at Madam Retman's words.

Owen.

Owen Oscares was Lucrezia's illegitimate son.

His father had been one of the knights under Randolph, a mercenary from Turkis. His name was Lusakan Oscares. Lusakan's father was said to be a renowned great lord in Turkis, but Lusakan had unfortunately been born out of wedlock.

Lucrezia had known him before she met Randolph. In an alley in the marketplace, when she had secretly gone out without her father's knowledge.

The instant their eyes met, she felt destiny.

A woman's intuition was like instinct. She knew with uncanny certainty that loving him was her fate, that he would become part of her life.

Her duty as Duke Durak's daughter to benefit her house had been one reason she chose Gwendel. But truly, she also wanted to be with Lusakan.

In the end, she was the only one who benefited.

Still, when she chose to marry Randolph, he must have thought it was a contract that left him with nothing to regret. A marriage between two of the kingdom's foremost houses. A union that harmed neither family. And a flawless son born from it.

But Randolph was dead, and only Lucrezia remained to guard this palace.

Agnes.

Lucrezia did not know why, but Owen made her think of Agnes.

Strangely, Marie rarely made her think of Agnes. But Owen inevitably did.

"My lady."

As Lucrezia's face hardened while she stroked her son's curling blond hair, Madam Retman called softly to her.

Lucrezia emerged from her thoughts and turned to the woman.

"You look sad. You have seen your son after such a long time..."

"I was thinking of Agnes."

"Why would that woman suddenly...?"

"I wonder. Why would I?"

Lucrezia asked in a melancholy voice.

Madam Retman cautiously sat beside her. Lucrezia looked at the woman who worried over her as though they were sisters.

"Actually, it is her child I am thinking of."

"May I ask why?"

Owen and Lucian had nothing in common. They did not even resemble each other, nor had they ever played together.

Yet Lucrezia seemed to see Lucian in Owen's face.

But Madam Retman thought bringing Lucian to mind when she saw Owen was merely forcing herself to remember something bad.

"Her child died, and mine is alive."

It was a simple, clear answer.

Madam Retman lost her words and only stared at Lucrezia.

"My child is alive, growing so innocent and happy... while that woman's child was lonely from his birth to his death. We both only had children by the men we loved, yet our lives were so different."

"My lady."

"The servants of San Arzok say that a slave stole a noblewoman's husband and bore his child, so the child could never have a blessed life. But if we look at it properly, I was the one who took Agnes's husband."

"That is not true."

"It is true, Elena. Agnes entered this house by becoming Randolph's first sexual partner when he was alone. She kept this house and bore his child first."

"Agnes was Lord Randolph's concubine. A concubine is not the same as a wife. You, my lady..."

"She was a concubine because she was a slave. If her station had been the same as mine..."

"The premise is wrong, my lady."

"Randolph was her husband too. Her husband and her master. So I took her man and took her home. And even that was not enough. I left her to die. I thought death would be better than continuing to live that life. I should have helped her live properly..."

For the first time, tears gathered in Lucrezia's eyes.

Once she admitted regret, heat rose behind her eyes. It was strange. She had felt nothing as she saw Agnes's body. She had not fallen into this terrible emotion when she watched nails driven into Randolph's coffin.

Had she not felt relieved instead?

Had she not thought it was fortunate that Agnes had died? Agnes's life had seemed so miserable that Lucrezia had thought death was preferable. She had thought that if Randolph married, she herself would hang herself.

She had never spoken those cruel words because they would damage her dignity. But she had thought them dozens, hundreds of times.

Yet whenever she became happy because of Owen, whenever she felt affection for the child of the man she loved, Agnes came strangely to mind.

A woman whose life was worse than death.

A woman who had carried her husband's child but received only coldness in his home.

A woman who had been mocked even after losing her child.

A woman whose very existence had been a weapon threatening her life.

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