Chapter 105

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 105
Chapter Title: The Secret of Birth (2)
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The old midwife checked Maletta's temperature, took her pulse, and examined her discharge before making her declaration.

"You're with child, no doubt about it."

Maletta's face was beaming with joy as she asked again.

"Old woman, is it true?"

"Have you ever known me to lie? It's early, but there's no mistake. You're pregnant."

"I've done it...!"

The old woman clicked her tongue at the state of the world, where an unmarried girl was overjoyed to be with child. A time when morals and ethics had hit rock bottom.

"Be careful for a while. Don't drink. Don't give in even if the baby's father begs for it. You could miscarry in the early stages. You must take care of yourself."

"Yes, yes!"

Maletta handed the old midwife five florin silver coins and hurried back to the de Mare cardinal's residence. She had to deliver this joyous news to the young master Ippolito at once. As soon as she stepped through the entrance, Maletta tossed the fur cloak she had been wearing to the *il domestico* standing in the hall. Her attitude was that of a lady of the house. The *il domestico* looked at Maletta as if to say, 'Has this woman lost her mind?' but, overwhelmed by her presence, he ended up taking the fur cloak.

"Young master—!"

Maletta shouted for the young master at the top of her lungs as she headed for Ippolito's room on the second floor. As it happened, Ippolito was in his room. He was reclining, having opened a book for a change.

"Young master, we have the fruit of our love!"

"Oh?"

Maletta had imagined Ippolito would embrace her and rejoice, but he didn't move an inch from his reclined position. But Maletta was not one to be discouraged by this.

"Young master, when will we have our wedding?"

Ippolito's expression grew strained. But Maletta, filled with self-assurance, continued to press him. Half of it was that she was too excited to notice his reaction, and the other half was the confidence of one who held the upper hand. Her attitude screamed that marriage was a foregone conclusion, regardless of his feelings, now that she carried his child.

"Have you spoken to His Eminence the Cardinal and Lady Lucrezia? When will you tell them? You'll be the one to tell them, won't you? It would be better coming from you than from me, right?"

A crack finally appeared in Ippolito's expression. The change came the moment she mentioned His Eminence the Cardinal. By no means was it the face of a joyous young father-to-be.

"Right, Maletta."

Ippolito hastily cut in.

"I must tell my parents. Now that you've brought it up, this is perfect. I'll go speak to my mother right now."

He quickly got to his feet.

"Don't go anywhere. Just wait here quietly."

Ippolito urged Maletta earnestly.

"Yes, yes!"

Maletta exclaimed joyfully. And so, about an hour passed after Ippolito left. Maletta hadn't expected Ippolito to meekly go to the Cardinal de Mare and his wife, confess the pregnancy, and immediately set a wedding date. But when he didn't return for a full hour, she slowly began to grow anxious.

*'Could it be... he ran away...?'*

It wasn't that she hadn't considered it, but she thought there was no way he would go that far. Maletta steeled herself. Even if the young master Ippolito had run away, the best strategy was to hold her ground in this house. *They wouldn't dare throw me out when I'm carrying their only son's firstborn child.* As Maletta was pondering her options, the door opened. Her face lit up, and she rose from her chair.

"Young master?"

But the people who flooded in were not at all who she expected. It was Loretta, the woman who had become Lucrezia's new confidante after the head maid Giada's death, and several servants under Niccolo the butler.

"You shameless thing! How dare an unmarried girl whore herself out to some man without a shred of decency?!"

"What? What?"

"I don't know which bastard you got involved with, but you can no longer stay in this mansion!"

"Which bastard! It's the young master Ippolito's child, of course..."

"Silence! Quick, drag this wench out!"

The servants sent by Niccolo the butler seized Maletta's limbs.

"Aah!"

Maletta tried to curl up to protect her lower abdomen, but with stout men holding each of her limbs and lifting her into the air, she was helpless as she was hoisted up spread-eagled.

"Uwaaah!"

Maletta struggled desperately.

"You bastards! Let me go! Do you know whose child is in my belly! It's the young master Ippolito's child!"

As she screamed at the top of her lungs, a flustered Loretta slapped Maletta across the face.

"You, be quiet!"

"In my belly! Is the young master Ippolito's child!"

"This little—!"

In her haste, Loretta took a dirty rag from her apron pocket and stuffed it into Maletta's mouth.

"Mmph!! Mmph!!"

Incomprehensible cries erupted from Maletta's mouth, making it impossible to tell if she was disgusted by the rag, trying to speak, or suffocating. But Loretta was satisfied that Maletta had at least been silenced.

"Let's go, quickly!"

She led the strong men away from the second floor where the family resided and hurried toward the annex on the lower level. It was a place connected to the kitchen, used for washing dishes and as a storage room—a place where maids were punished and dealt with. * * * An hour earlier, Ippolito had left his room and gone straight to his mother, Lucrezia's, room on the first floor. It was certainly not to ask for permission to marry.

"Mother."

"My son, what brings you to your mother?"

"Mother, your son is in big trouble."

"Why, what is it? Just tell me anything. Mother will solve everything for you."

Ippolito hesitated, glancing at Lucrezia's face before speaking. Even for Lucrezia, who doted foolishly on her son, it seemed this time she wouldn't be able to just coo and coddle her way through it.

"Well... you see..."

"It's all right. Trust your mother and tell me."

"...Maletta says she's pregnant."

Lucrezia let out a roar that seemed to erupt from the depths of her belly, powerful enough to cause a landslide.

"What?!"

"Mother, Maletta says she's pregnant. Please do something."

Under normal circumstances, one would ask their son, 'What do you want to do?' but the fact that Ippolito had come to her made his intentions clear. He didn't want to take responsibility.

"Oh, you wretched boy!"

Lucrezia smacked the back of her grown son, who was a good hand and a half taller than she was. - *Thwack!* This time, Ippolito, knowing he was in the wrong, meekly took the blow and endured it without a hint of pain.

"Seeing you fooling around like that, I knew this would happen, I just knew it!"

"Ah, I get it, so please just do something!"

Seeing Ippolito on the verge of tears, Lucrezia snapped at her son.

"You! Square your shoulders! Be confident! A man shouldn't walk around like that."

Ippolito was thrown into confusion by his mother's command. Just thirty seconds ago, she was beating him for his mistake, and now she was telling him to square his shoulders confidently as if he'd done nothing wrong. But Lucrezia paid him no mind, patting down her son's back, red from her own hand, and straightening his wrinkled outer clothes. Her touch held a hint of anger, as if she were continuing to beat him.

"These things can happen in a man's life! Don't you dare walk around all hunched over and intimidated!"

Such wonderful parenting. Despite this, Lucrezia left Ippolito huddled on the sofa in her room and pulled the bell cord to summon her new confidante, Loretta. She hadn't been with her as long as Giada, but she was from the same region, Taranto.

"Loretta! Bring me Niccolo the butler! No, I'll go to Niccolo myself."

Lucrezia searched the room for gold coins to use as a bribe for Niccolo. The pouch she took from the chest contained mostly florin silver coins; only a few ducat gold coins remained. Lucrezia scowled and took out Isabella's pink sapphire tiara, which she had hidden deep inside the wardrobe.

"Loretta. Later this afternoon, take this to the pawnshop and exchange it for ducat gold coins."

Lucrezia decided to use these last remaining gold coins to save her darling son from a money-grubbing maid. Her eldest son was her lifeline, the last love of her life, something that defied logical explanation. Ippolito had to marry the only daughter of an old noble family—if not royalty, then at least someone of good standing and a gentle nature. It was her son's destiny to become a great noble who acquired lands through marriage and integrated into San Carlo's high society. Nothing else was acceptable. * * * While Lucrezia was negotiating with Niccolo the butler, Ippolito squirmed anxiously on the sofa. Lucrezia didn't return for a good thirty or forty minutes, and when she did, Ippolito shot up from the sofa like a leaping fish and asked his mother.

"Mother, what happened?"

"It's been handled."

Lucrezia took off the gown she was wearing and laid it on the sofa, glaring at her son. Lucrezia intended to admonish Ippolito with a rare display of motherly concern. However, the content of her admonishment was a little strange.

"A man, you see, can fool around a bit. And when you fool around, a child might come along, that sort of thing. But."

Seeing his mother's serious expression, a rare sight for him, Ippolito flinched and pulled his neck into his shoulders like a turtle.

"You shouldn't do that before you're married."

At first glance, it seemed like normal advice, but it was subtly twisted.

"You're not planning to marry some nobody, are you? Right?"

"N-no, of course not."

"Who would marry a man with an illegitimate child? No noble lady in her right mind would make that choice."

Ippolito swallowed hard. He had no title or lands to inherit. If he didn't receive them from his father-in-law through his wife, he would become a commoner after his own father's death.

"Once you're married, you can do as you please. If you have a child with her, do you think the girl will run back to her family? After that, you can do whatever you want. Until then, be careful!"

It was a story that even someone with Ippolito's level of ethics could understand. He nodded.

"You, I'm only taking care of this for you this one time. There won't be a next time!"

Ippolito, finally relieved, grinned. To Lucrezia's eyes, Ippolito's grin looked like an innocent smile spreading across his face. He clung to his mother affectionately, belying his large frame.

"Oh, Mother, there's really no one but you. I'm your son, you're the best."

Ippolito, shaking Lucrezia's arm, asked slyly.

"Mother, so what did you do with her? Did you throw her in the Tiber River?"

Lucrezia's expression soured.

"Son?"

"What?"

"You really... She's still the woman carrying your child. How can you be so cruel?"

Lucrezia put on a serious face, as if she'd never killed a servant in her life. While cleaning up her son's mess, she had just plunged another family's precious daughter's life into ruin, but strangely, this time Lucrezia hadn't considered killing Maletta. This was because the situation, even for the self-centered Lucrezia, overlapped with her own past experiences, stirring a sense of sympathy. Today's events reminded Lucrezia of her younger days, when she would tightly bind her swelling belly with cotton cloth to go see the de Mare Cardinal—no, back then, he was Friar Simon. How arduous and difficult it had been, abandoned by a man while carrying a young life in her womb, searching for a place to rest one body—no, two. The memory of that time evoked a rare, fleeting sense of mercy in Lucrezia. Lucrezia was feeling rather proud of her own benevolence. However, Lucrezia's rare, personal act of kindness was shattered by Ippolito's next words.

"Mother. She knows too much. She heard that Arabella has a different father."

"What?!"