Sister I am the Queen in This Life [Novel] Chapter 137

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 137
Chapter Title: Queen Marguerite's Decision
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Having left the ball early with Leo III, Queen Marguerite was back in her palace, removing her finery. While her attendants were helping her take off her earrings, she received word from her lady-in-waiting, Lady Carla.

“Your Majesty… Prince Alfonso has arrived.”

“Alfonso? At this hour?”

She had changed out of her elaborate ball gown into her nightclothes, but she had not yet removed her makeup or washed.

“And he doesn’t mean tomorrow?”

“He is waiting outside.”

Queen Marguerite sighed.

“It’s so late… Can you not tell him to return in an hour? Tell him his mother would like to wash up before seeing him.”

“Your Majesty, about that… I believe you should come out now.”

Lady Carla, who rarely went against Queen Marguerite's wishes, bowed deeply. Slightly surprised, Queen Marguerite asked,

“What is it?”

“It is… complicated for me to explain. I have dismissed everyone for now and told the two of them to wait in the ‘Queen’s Drawing Room.’”

Sensing that something was amiss, Queen Marguerite dismissed all the maids who had been helping her prepare for bed with a single gesture. Whenever Alfonso came to see Queen Marguerite, he always went straight to her private chambers; he never met her in the ‘Queen’s Drawing Room,’ a place for receiving guests. Besides, ‘the two of them’? Queen Marguerite felt a sense of foreboding as she spoke to Lady Carla.

“Let us go at once.”

***

Upon arriving at the Queen’s Palace, Alfonso summoned Lady Carla to announce he needed an audience with his mother. He then immediately sent a man to the Prince's Palace to fetch Sir Bernardino. Lady Carla promptly sent a page, but Sir Bernardino, the prince's secretary, was absent as it was nearly midnight. Instead, Sir Elko, the prince’s knight, was on duty. He was the same gray-haired knight who had once escorted Ariadne to her secret rendezvous with Alfonso.

When Sir Elko rushed to the Queen’s Palace, Prince Alfonso ordered him to dispose of a body. He told him the location of Duke Mireille's body and instructed him to retrieve it without being seen and place it in a secure location. Sir Elko replied immediately, without asking any questions.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“After you have secured it, report back to me at once.”

“Understood, Your Highness.”

After Sir Elko left to retrieve Duke Mireille's body, Alfonso and Ariadne remained tight-lipped, saying nothing. They waited in silence in the Queen’s Drawing Room for Queen Marguerite to appear. As the silence stretched on, Alfonso squeezed Ariadne’s hand.

‘…’

The marks where Duke Mireille had struck Ariadne were now beginning to swell properly. The bruises, which had been reddish-blue, were now turning a deep, almost black, purple. With purple bruises ringing her neck and dried blood on her lip, which had been split during the struggle, her appearance was ghastly.

She felt like she was running a fever. Or perhaps it was just the tension. Ariadne’s body began to shiver.

Noticing this, Alfonso took off his own cloak and wrapped it around Ariadne. He enveloped her in the purple cloak, meticulously checking for any gaps before stroking her forehead.

“Are you cold?”

Ariadne froze as she was about to answer Alfonso’s question. Seeing her silent, Alfonso also sensed something was wrong and followed her gaze to look behind him. There stood Queen Marguerite, her eyes wide.

‘…Oh, no.’

Ariadne clicked her tongue. Queen Marguerite’s expression was not pleasant. She had to deliver the bad news verbally anyway—that the Queen's son was in love with a girl of low birth and had killed a high-ranking foreign noble for her—but there was no need to present it so vividly.

From Queen Marguerite’s perspective, it was a bolt from the blue in the middle of the night. She had rushed to the drawing room after being told her son was waiting at this late hour, only to find him with a girl who had clearly been beaten up. To make matters worse, her son was affectionately touching the girl. Feeling her vision swim, she pressed a hand to her forehead and swayed.

“Your Majesty!”

Lady Carla, who had followed Queen Marguerite, hurriedly supported her. While the Queen remained silent, Lady Carla couldn't bring herself to speak first, but she made her feelings plain by glaring daggers at Ariadne.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.”

After catching her breath, Queen Marguerite first questioned Prince Alfonso.

“Surely you didn't do this?”

She asked, gesturing with her chin toward the disheveled Ariadne. Alfonso and Ariadne were both taken aback.

“No, of course not.”

Alfonso replied, waving his hands dismissively. Ariadne wanted to explain the situation further, but she kept her mouth shut, sensing that it would not end well if she spoke up.

“What happened was…”

Prince Alfonso explained to Queen Marguerite that an unknown man had abducted Ariadne in a royal carriage and assaulted her, and that he had rescued her. Relieved that her son was not a ruffian who beat women, Queen Marguerite sighed and asked,

“So, what happened to the assailant? Did you catch him?”

The two of them said nothing, merely staring at the floor. Alfonso was a son who kept no secrets from his mother, and the Cardinal de Mare’s second daughter beside him was famously never at a loss for words. The fact that both of them were now standing silent and tight-lipped gave Queen Marguerite a sense of foreboding, and she pressed them again.

“Did he run away? Did you lose him?”

“…He’s dead.”

Alfonso said in a heavy tone.

“…I killed him.”

Queen Marguerite gasped, covering her mouth with both hands. Lady Carla, too, stared at Alfonso in shock.

“Our prince…!”

Lady Carla cried out.

“What are we to do!”

It was Alfonso de Carlo’s first kill. Alfonso belatedly felt the cloying weight of it and silently stared at the floor. Lady Carla glared at Ariadne, who stood beside the prince with her head bowed, and shouted sharply.

“You…! Because of you, our prince…! If it weren’t for you…!”

“Enough.”

It was Queen Marguerite who stopped Lady Carla.

“Don’t make a fuss, Carla. Alfonso is a sovereign of the Kingdom of Etruscan and a proud knight. It is inevitable for a monarch who must protect his country to have blood on his hands; it is only a matter of when.”

“But, Your Majesty…!”

“That’s enough.”

Queen Marguerite spoke firmly, then looked at her son, whose head was bowed.

“Alfonso. In your judgment, could you not have saved that girl without killing him?”

“…Yes, Mother.”

The queen walked over to her son and gently embraced him.

“Then you did the right thing. There is no need to feel guilty.”

She held him in a warm hug, patting his back comfortingly. Tears belatedly welled in Alfonso's eyes, which until now had been dazed with shock, agitation, and the responsibility of protecting his woman. Not wanting to make a scene in front of Ariadne, he barely held back his tears. Crying his eyes out in his mother’s arms in front of his girlfriend was a mark of failure as a man.

“How did you deal with the body?”

But at Queen Marguerite’s question, the two once again fell silent, their lips sealed.

“You said that girl was dragged away and assaulted?”

Queen Marguerite’s sharp gaze swept over Ariadne. In addition to being beaten, her collar was torn.

“If word of this gets out, that girl won't hear the end of it in high society.”

She knew the nature of San Carlo’s nobility all too well.

“They will gossip and spread nasty rumors, regardless of the truth.”

Ariadne could only bow her head lower toward the floor.

“And I do not wish for my son to be publicly displayed as a murderer. My apologies to the dead man, but let’s wrap this up neatly and pretend it never happened.”

Seeing the two young people staring at the floor without a word, the queen asked,

“Well, what is the problem?”

Just then, there was a knock on the drawing room door. Since she had explicitly ordered all the servants to withdraw, everyone was startled and snapped their heads toward the door. The voice of the person knocking came from outside.

“Your Highness, it is Elko.”

Because Alfonso had ordered him to report back immediately after hiding Duke Mireille’s body, the dutiful Sir Elko had apparently returned straight to the Queen’s Palace. Prince Alfonso let out a sigh of relief and said,

“Enter.”

The gray-haired knight entered, knelt on one knee, and reported to Prince Alfonso.

“As you commanded, Your Highness, I have hidden the body of Duke Mireille in a secure location.”

Queen Marguerite’s eyes widened. Lady Carla also looked around as if she had misheard.

“What did you just say…?”

Prince Alfonso answered in Sir Elko’s stead.

“Mother. The man I killed was Duke Mireille of the Kingdom of Gallico.”

Queen Marguerite staggered and then crumpled to the floor.

***

“Does this make any sense at all!”

Having regained her composure, Queen Marguerite berated Prince Alfonso.

“Duke Mireille, of all people!”

Alfonso groaned.

“…I had no choice in that situation, Mother.”

He explained calmly.

“The culprit was strangling Ariadne. She was on the verge of suffocating. I struck him with my sword from behind first and only confirmed his face afterward.”

Ariadne, hoping to help Alfonso, spoke for the first time since entering the room.

“…His Highness truly could not have known who it was. Who would have imagined that a man of Duke Mireille’s stature would commit such a crime in a foreign country?”

But Lady Carla did not miss this opening.

“If the prince didn’t know, then you should have!”

Previously, when Ariadne had been a guest of Queen Marguerite, Lady Carla had addressed her formally as ‘My Lady,’ but in this situation, she clearly had no intention of showing her any respect. In truth, Lady Carla, being a foreigner, was more of a court official than a member of high society. Setting aside the religious deference due to a cardinal and her social connections, Ariadne was no different from a commoner, and Lady Carla had no need to treat her with courtesy.

“…”

It was a clearly unjust rebuke. Ariadne had never even met Duke Mireille. Not in her past life, nor in this one. But unlike Prince Alfonso, she was in no position to defend herself.

“How do you propose to handle this mess you’ve caused!”

Lady Carla reprimanded Ariadne harshly.

“Your Majesty, since the victim is Duke Mireille, we cannot simply bury this matter as if it never happened. Even if we could dispose of the body in the Tiberi River without anyone finding out, His Majesty the King and the Kingdom of Gallico will not stand for it!”

“Hmm.”

Queen Marguerite could only hum in thought.

“The moment it’s known that Duke Mireille is missing, the entire castle will be swarming with hounds.”

The queen asked.

“Sir Elko. Where have you hidden Duke Mireille’s body?”

“…I placed it in the garden tool shed attached to the Prince's Palace and locked the door.”

It seemed this measure was taken because the Prince's Palace was the only place Alfonso’s men could completely control access to. But it turned out to be a poor move. Queen Marguerite gave a hollow laugh. If the hunting dogs were to pick up the scent, they would lead everyone straight to Alfonso’s palace.

“Your Majesty, did you hear that?”

Lady Carla raised her voice.

“There is only one way.”

She glanced at Ariadne.

“We must set up a shadow, Your Majesty. Find a loyal subordinate to step forward and claim he was the one who assassinated Duke Mireille. If asked for the reason, he should say it was to save that young lady from the Duke, who was trying to do something terrible to her.”

It was a plan that would completely exonerate the prince and even spare the shadow subordinate’s life, but it would throw Ariadne to the wolves. Queen Marguerite slowly turned her gaze to Ariadne. Her somber, blue-gray eyes met Ariadne’s weary green ones in the air. Ariadne’s heart pounded.

If the queen approved that plan, Ariadne would be publicly shamed by high society and the de Mare family. A woman who couldn’t conduct herself properly and caused an international conflict between the Kingdom of Etruscan and the Kingdom of Gallico; a woman who had something terrible happen to her and was no longer a suitable match; a daughter with no market value.

- ‘Serves you right for flirting with both the prince and Count Cesare at the same time. The only place for you now is a convent!’

Imaginary voices of condemnation echoed in her head. Ariadne closed her eyes. Finally, Queen Marguerite spoke.

“…It is one way…”