Chapter 2

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: The Queen is Your Sister, Not You
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Cesare had never berated her in front of others before.
If his fiancée looked inadequate, it reflected poorly on him as well.
But since becoming Prince Regent, his words and actions had grown increasingly unrestrained, and he no longer hesitated to show his displeasure, regardless of who was present.

“Don't get on their nerves, Ariadne. Conduct yourself properly.”

This time, Cesare made no effort to lower his voice.
His sharp rebuke filled the entire drawing room in an instant.
And the high nobility were not the sort to miss such an opportunity.
Realizing that Cesare had no intention of defending his woman, a countess swiftly seized the chance to add her own remark.

“Prince Regent, you must manage your fiancée more thoroughly.”

She openly raked Ariadne, whose hair was a mess, up and down with a contemptuous gaze.

“The way she lashes out with her hands first, I thought she was a wolfhound raised on a ranch, not a noble lady.”

The countess and her circle of ladies chimed in, launching a fierce assault.

“Such lack of grace...”

“Poorly educated... her breeding...”

“That hair, all tangled like that, doesn't she look just like a sheepdog?”

Ariadne's hand instinctively went to her hair.
As she stood there, awkwardly trying to comb through the tangles with her fingers, the ladies of San Carlo sliced her apart with their words.

“If the Prince Regent desires a smoothly running high society and the support of the central nobility, he would do well to manage his fiancée.”

The countess and the other ladies looked Ariadne up and down as she stood there, utterly alone.

“Or perhaps, why not change fiancées altogether? It seems quite impossible with this woman.”

*You are not a proper member of high society.* Their unspoken thoughts seemed to echo throughout the palace.

“We shall take our leave now. With the former queen gone and a new master of the court, it seems one cannot even visit the palace without expecting to be assaulted. How uncultured. Hmph!”

The countess led the way out of the drawing room, and the other ladies followed, all shooting glances up and down at Ariadne, who was left alone.
Sticky preserves, from when she had lunged across the table, clung to her hair, and her dress was in disarray.
The tea party was deserted, and she had no friends there.
The man she loved glanced at her sorry state with contempt.
It was wretched.
After that, no one dared to openly question Cesare's birth, but instead, Ariadne earned many notorious labels: the wolfhound woman, the Moorish slave, the farm maid.
Taunts about her low birth, her resemblance to her mother, and her status as an unmarried old maid naturally followed.
She repeatedly begged Cesare to marry her for the sake of smoothly managing high society, but he flatly refused.

“How can I make you the Prince Regent's consort when you can't even manage your own reputation? I cannot be with a flawed woman.”

His demands were specific.

“Study harder than you do now. Become proficient in playing the lute, appreciating famous paintings, and speaking Latin. Become a talented and virtuous lady whom I would not be ashamed to present to others. Then, and only then, will I make you the Prince Regent's wife.”

And so she thought that was all she had to do.
* * *
It took a long time for Prince Regent Cesare to become Cesare I, but in the end, it was only a matter of time.
The military and the treasury were both in his grasp.
The only thing he lacked was legitimacy.
That was something that time—or more precisely, the opportunities that came with time—would heal.
Ariadne still remembered Cesare's coronation—or rather, the day before the ceremony.
It was the year she turned thirty, and he, thirty-six.
Whenever she thought of that day, she couldn't suppress a laugh.

"I am a magnanimous king. I must embrace the faction of the deposed crown prince as well."

Cesare sat on the edge of Ariadne's bed and buried his lips in the nape of her neck.

“Ah—”

His teasing breath was sultry.
Ariadne tried to pull back, but Cesare seized both her wrists with one hand, pushed her onto the bed, and pinned her down.

“Be still.”

He savored the nape of her neck with his lips.
Ariadne's greatest asset was her alluring aura.
Ariadne's features weren't strikingly beautiful, nor did she have an innocent charm, but she was tall with a well-proportioned figure, her breasts and hips full and appealing, which made her quite attractive.
Her captivating presence also played a part.
She was the type of woman men found beautiful, more so than other women did.
At thirty, Ariadne was a flower in full bloom.
She exuded a seductive richness even when she didn't intend to, and it was the one thing the demanding Cesare consistently praised about her.

“That's right.”

As the warmth of his intimate touch clouded her mind, Cesare's casual voice reached Ariadne's ears.

"So, Isabella will be crowned queen."

Isabella Mare de Carlo, Ariadne de Mare's half-sister and the crown princess of the deposed Crown Prince Alfonso.
Her perfect sister, who resembled Ariadne in no way, with flaxen hair and eyes that sparkled like amethysts.
She was renowned for her innocent beauty, always carried herself with great dignity, and was the epitome of an aristocratic lady.
Ariadne suddenly came to her senses and pushed Cesare away.

“What did you say?”

She must have misheard.

"Cesare...? My sister was the crown princess of the late Prince Alfonso."

It was customary for a childless widow to enter a convent and live out the rest of her days.
She could not remarry, nor could she return to her family home.
Cesare, burying his lips in Ariadne's chest once more after she had pushed him away, answered nonchalantly.

"Don't be so narrow-minded. Don't you feel sorry for your own sister?"

*What did I just hear? He's going to marry my sister instead of me?*
Ariadne pushed him away again.
The words, *'What about me? What about everything I've done for you?'* lingered on her lips.
Seeing that Ariadne had no intention of meekly participating in his pleasant game, Cesare finally licked his lips and sat up straight.

"You were only my fiancée, so you can still find a good match and live comfortably in the countryside. But poor Isabella, if I don't take her in, she'll have no choice but to spend the rest of her life on the cold floor of a convent."

She must be mistaken about something.

"It's impossible to marry the widow of a relative."

Cesare answered as if it were nothing.

"We just need to get confirmation of divorce for the late Alfonso de Carlo and Isabella de Mare from the Holy See. Since Isabella remained chaste throughout her marriage, she qualifies for an exception to the Holy See's no-divorce policy."

Ariadne was dumbfounded.

"Cesare, my sister is not chaste. She was pregnant with my brother-in-law's child in 1128, the first year of her marriage, but she miscarried."

"Be silent!"

Isabella's chastity seemed to be a sensitive topic for him.
Cesare, who had been speaking so brazenly, suddenly flushed red with anger, shot to his feet, and pointed a finger at Ariadne.

"Lies! They say a woman's enemy is another woman, and it seems there's no exception even between sisters. How base you females are!"

Ariadne was so aghast she could barely breathe.
Desperate to convince Cesare she wasn't base, she forced her voice down and continued in a calm, measured tone.

"Cesare. It's not slander, it's the truth. All the handmaidens who served the crown princess at the time know it."

“Silence!”

Cesare was in no state to be reasoned with.
No rational argument could reach a man who deliberately closed his ears.

“I was fond enough of you to arrange a marriage to a merchant and guarantee you a peaceful life, but how can I let such a wicked woman live!”

*A merchant? A peaceful life?* The very idea was absurd.
*You promised you loved me, that we would be together forever.*
*That's why I did everything for you.*
*You told me we were postponing my coronation as queen because I had flaws, that I had to study and strive to improve.*
*And the conclusion is that the 'flawless woman' you're looking for... is my sister, the prince's widow?*

“You told me you loved me. You said you would make me your queen and we would be together forever.”

It was a foolish thing to say, but it was all she could manage.
Cesare scoffed, his eyes filled with contempt.

“I never imagined you'd be such a petty woman who would interfere with my great work. You have no virtue, no willingness to yield for the future of the nation. How can you be so different from Isabella, who even gave up her own marriage prospects for her sister's happiness?”

Her breath finally came in ragged gasps.
She couldn't tell if tears or rage came first.

"I'm an interference? My sister Isabella yielded? I sacrificed everything for you. I gave up my reputation, my chance to marry, and I even sent Prince Alfonso to his death with my own hands. What has Isabella ever done?"

That winter, when Crown Prince Alfonso and Isabella had their grand wedding and Isabella miscarried the blessed fruit of their union, Ariadne had to chew on leadwort leaves, used as a contraceptive, every time she was intimate with Cesare.

- “Intimacy without the possibility of new life is a sin in God's eyes. I don't want to take leadwort anymore.”

- “And if you don't?”

- “...If you don't want me to bear a child before marriage, then marry me and take me.”

- “Ari, don't you love me? If you love me, prove it. Come now. Come here.”

Her courageously spoken refusal was simply ignored.

- “How embarrassing would it be if you got pregnant before we were married? A bastard born from the union of two bastards—I despise that sort of thing. Don't you dare shame me in front of everyone.”

If she didn't want to lose Cesare, she had no choice.
In 1129, as Cesare sharpened his blades and prepared for his coup, Ariadne, an unmarried noble lady, acted as a secret messenger between the castle and the outside, walking through the snow late every night.
It was possible only because no one would have ever imagined that a delicately raised lady like her could play such a crucial role in a military operation.

“For you, I climbed the wall every night, pretending to be in love with a shepherd boy.”

For Cesare's sake, she chewed contraceptive herbs while climbing over the wall, claiming she was meeting another man.
How ironic.
The rumor that spread then—that she was an unfaithful fiancée—still held her back, even now, in the ninth year of Cesare's rule.

“I threw the rightful heir to the throne to the hounds with my own hands.”

The kind Prince Alfonso, who had always treated her gently, was hung from the castle walls to become food for the crows.

“This finger! It rotted and fell off after I took poison meant for you.”

Ariadne held up her left ring finger, one joint shorter where it had rotted away.
In 1132, the fourth year of his regency, she had collapsed after being struck by arsenic meant for Cesare. She survived but lost the finger that had drawn out the poison.
She later learned that it was Prince Regent Cesare himself who had ordered the poison to be drawn out through her left ring finger.
*It must have been a misunderstanding. He must have had no choice. The left ring finger must have been the best option.*
She could do it all, as long as it was for Cesare, the man she loved most in the world.
Because he would love her as much as she loved him.
She was maimed because she had sacrificed for him; she had aged in the years she'd devoted to him; compared to her young, brilliant, and beautiful past, she was now weak and ugly.
Now was the time for her to receive his care, his reward.
Cesare looked down at her with a cold expression.
His towering height was intimidating, and his sculpted features, starkly contrasted by his reddish-brown hair, were breathtakingly beautiful even in this moment.
He parted his thin, smooth, translucent lips.

"Someone had to get their hands dirty and dispose of Alfonso. We couldn't ask the noble Isabella to do such a thing, could we?"

Ariadne's eyes widened.

"Don't tell me... you and my sister, even when Prince Alfonso was still alive...?"