Chapter 216

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 216
Chapter Title: I Wish You Would Cry as Much as I Did
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Shaking off Cesare, who was trying to remove her glove, Ariadne thought of the countless crimson dots hidden beneath it.

The dots, which had started at the tip of her left ring finger, had climbed up her finger along with the Gallican army's northward advance. Now, her entire finger was a grotesque sight, as if soaked in blood.

- “He said you’re too big, that holding you is like hugging a man. That your hair is so black, you look like a raven.”

Isabella’s songbird-like voice echoed in her ears.

She thought she had forgotten it all.

- “He said your breasts are too big and saggy, that he thought you were a milk cow.”

Cesare is cruel to things that are not beautiful.

- “He said a woman has to be small like me, someone who fits perfectly in his arms, to make him feel like he needs to protect her.”

He had a predefined definition of ‘perfection,’ and he mercilessly condemned anything that deviated from it. It was practically a damnation.

To fall short of Cesare’s standards was a ‘sin.’

If ugliness was that much of a crime, what would Cesare think if he saw a physical deformity, something that went beyond merely being unpretty?

“Don’t you lay a single finger on me!”

Ariadne violently wrenched her left hand—the one he had tried to unglove—from his grasp.

“Don’t come near me! Don’t you dare even approach me!”

Startled by Ariadne, who was screaming as if she had lost her mind, Cesare called her name.

“Ari…”

But that only provoked Ariadne further.

“Who gave you permission to call me that?!”

She glared at Cesare with blazing eyes.

He could only stare back at her, bewildered, not knowing the source of her bottomless rage.

“I hate how you do whatever you please!”

Anger and resentment flowed from her green eyes.

“You approach me on a whim and then leave just as casually! You toss aside devotion, loyalty, and love! The only thing that matters to you is your own mood!”

The Cesare before her was not the Cesare who had hurt her.

He was a different person from the man who had used her as he pleased, cut off her finger, and ultimately abandoned her to be with Isabella.

She knew this, intellectually. But an uncontrollable rage erupted from within her. A rage that had been suppressed for a very long time.

Once it crossed the threshold, it was like a flood bursting through a dam; she could no longer hold it back.

“My lady, why are you angry? Did I do something wrong?”

A flustered Cesare began to gently soothe Ariadne. His voice was soft and sweet. That only made Ariadne angrier.

“Today, too! Who asked you to visit whenever you please?”

He asked back, dumbfounded.

“…Weren’t you the one who welcomed me so willingly?”

“As if the gatekeeper of the de Mare estate would dare turn away the Duke of Pisano when he wishes to visit!”

Such a thought had never once crossed Cesare’s mind. He went wherever his feet took him, and he was welcomed everywhere.

He had sensed that the ‘welcome’ had grown warmer since he became a member of the de Carlo royal family and was granted a dukedom, but he had simply thought it was because people wanted to associate with him more.

He had never imagined there could be an element of coercion or pressure involved.

“What?”

“I’m forced to accommodate you! And I don’t want to!”

Ariadne was lashing out like a raging storm, but even she felt no relief. The anger she was spewing now was merely a side issue.

There was something else she truly wanted to say.

‘Why! Why did you abandon me?

Why! Why didn’t you love me? Why was your reward for my love and devotion betrayal!

What was it about me that you disliked so much! I did my best! Was I that unsatisfactory to you? Was I that… lacking for you?’

In the end, they were words she could never deliver. Because he didn’t know.

Ariadne turned her head, unable to catch her breath. Tears welled in her eyes.

“My lady, don’t cry.”

Cesare gently placated her. Even in this situation, Cesare did not lose his soft demeanor.

A voice like one cooing to a small child, a gentle expression, a tender attitude.

“You’re upset, aren’t you? Are your feelings very hurt?”

Ariadne’s heart sank. His red lips moved beautifully, uttering such fine words.

How she had once craved that.

And even now, her heart stirred against her will.

Eighty percent of it was anger. But could she declare with certainty that there was no lingering attachment in the remaining twenty percent? No, wasn't the anger itself a form of attachment?

If she had truly overcome him, if she had cleanly forgotten him, she would have been able to remain calm and laugh off anything he said.

Cesare, oblivious to her inner turmoil, took another step toward Ariadne and spoke.

His voice was still as soft as the down on a chick’s neck.

“If I did something wrong, I’m sorry.”

And at that, Ariadne snapped. The attitude Cesare was showing today was the one he adopted when he was determined to win someone over.

The attitude he showed to someone important. For example, the Isabella of her past life. Limitless concession, sacrifice, submission. Something he had never, ever shown the Ariadne of his past life.

And she knew very well that this came at a price.

Cesare was the type of person who would always retaliate for any humiliation he received.

If Ariadne’s heart were to soften and she took Cesare’s hand, he would one day make sure to collect the price for soothing her like this.

“Something wrong? You’ve done nothing wrong.”

The Cesare of this life had done nothing wrong. That was true.

“If there is a fault, it’s your very existence?”

But she wanted to drive a nail through his heart. I wish you would cry as much as I have suffered.

“I hate you. I hate that crooked gaze of yours, that chin you hold up so high and mighty, I hate every single thing about you!”

The saying ‘know your enemy and you will win a hundred battles’ didn't just apply to warfare.

Ariadne knew Cesare inside and out. Where he was most vulnerable, where to strike to inflict the most pain.

“You can’t do a single thing with your own two hands, yet you strut around puffing yourself up like a peacock, don’t you? You think people don’t see through it? Everyone knows you’re incompetent and that you climbed up on someone else’s coattails—it’s so obvious it’s tiresome to even mention! And the lifeline you’re clinging to is a rotten rope! How long do you think your current power will last!”

The thought that she was crossing a line flickered for a moment, but her reason had snapped long ago.

Her tongue moved of its own accord, beyond her control.

“I hate you. I can’t even stand the sight of you!”

This was the truth. Or was it?

Would she truly be okay if Cesare never sought her out again, never cast those yearning glances her way? Would she not be hurt?

But it was fine. If she was afraid of him leaving her, she would just have to abandon him first.

“Get out. Don’t ever appear before my eyes again.”

If they never met again, she could never be abandoned again.

With those words, Ariadne stood up. And without a backward glance, she left the drawing room.

The speechless Duke Cesare could only stand woodenly in the middle of the de Mare drawing room, staring with a dazed expression at the departing mistress of the house.

For a host to leave a guest alone was an immense breach of etiquette, but Cesare deserved it. No, she didn't know.

She just wished he would cry, too.

* * *

For days after Duke Cesare’s ill-fated visit, Ariadne remained cooped up in her bedroom.

She neither washed nor ate, and never opened the curtains on her windows.

A report came from Representative Caruso of the Boccanegro Company, stating that some of the grain was currently being sold on the market, and with grain prices not just soaring but reaching historic levels, the profits were far greater than expected. She merely skimmed it and set it aside. She forbade him from visiting.

It wasn't that she feared retaliation from the Duke of Pisano.

It was less that she was confident she could win or endure, and more that her thoughts simply didn't extend that far.

She was, at present, completely broken.

“My lady. The Gallican army has completely withdrawn beyond the border. The Commander of the Montpellier Heavy Knights apparently died of illness on his way back.”

The news from the outside world, which Sancha relayed from time to time, could easily be verified by the new red spots appearing on her hand.

“The plague is said to be spreading in the Kingdom of Gallico as well. Following the path of the Montpellier Heavy Knights… I heard Philip IV was so enraged that he has the knights garrisoned outside Montpellier and has strictly forbidden their entry into the city.”

In her past life, the plague of 1123 had stopped somewhere just past the Gaeta domain, the northernmost territory of the Kingdom of Etruscan.

The epidemic had been unable to cross the Prinoiac Mountains.

This time, however, the plague was using the Gallican army as its vector, marching relentlessly northward.

Once it crossed the mountains, it no longer even needed the Montpellier knights. It was spreading like wildfire among the common people of Gallico.

Ariadne had known all of this in advance.

The red spots, having moved past her ring finger and onto the back of her hand, now crept up her wrist and forearm.

Ariadne thought that if she were to be given a single epithet, it would be neither ‘The Girl Who Sees the Truth’ nor ‘The Saint of Rambouillet Almshouse,’ but ‘The Blood-Stained Left Hand.’

“My lady, shall I call for a doctor? If you show him your left hand, perhaps he might have a remedy…”

“I don’t need one.”

“Then at least your right hand…”

“Sancha. Please, just leave me alone.”

When Ariadne was left alone and her anger became unbearable, she would pick up the paperweight and smash it down on her right hand.

A shimmering halo of light danced from the terribly crushed fingertips of her right hand.

The day the Gallican army began its retreat, the halo shimmered with fervor.

It seemed a little larger than before, too. A stark contrast to her blood-stained left hand.

The day the Gallican forces left the borders of the Kingdom of Etruscan, the halo was ecstatic.

It burst like fireworks and did the wave from one fingertip to the next. It was as if it were celebrating the successful achievement of its goal.

Its size was also definitively larger than before. From a distance, she looked like a saint from some holy painting.

One could have believed it was a depiction of Gon of Yesak baptizing Joseph of Ratgalin.

But one plus negative one did not equal zero. Sins were not washed away by good deeds. They remained sins.

What was worse was that the result of her sin, the bloodstain on her left hand, was visible to all, while the result of her good deed, the halo on her right hand, was visible to no one.

An achievement known only to herself. An honor she had not even wanted.

- *Shimmer, shimmer*

The halo at her fingertips danced delicately once more. This meant that someone who had sinned—likely a person of importance—had died.

The halo had danced just like this on the day the commander of the Montpellier knights had died.

- *Crack!*

Enraged, Ariadne lifted the paperweight and once again smashed the fingertips of her right hand.

The ‘Golden Rule’ had betrayed her.

The goal pursued by the ‘Golden Rule’ was not righteous justice. Of course, what constitutes justice is not agreed upon.

There was a simple thought experiment.

There is a flooded river. If left alone, it will inundate a village, killing 100 people. But if I break a dike, the water’s path will change, sparing the village.

Instead, it will flood an isolated house where a family of five lives, killing them.

In this case, is breaking the dike justice, or is leaving it be justice?

Had the choice been given to her, Ariadne would never have broken the dike.

It wasn't because she had thought deeply about which of the two was justice. It was because it wasn't her business.

Her stance was that she had no energy to meddle in others’ affairs when it was hard enough just to save her own skin. And it was true.

She had barely secured a place in the de Mare family, but this was a house that would be passed on to Ippolito after the Cardinal’s death.

And Ippolito, as the head of the family, would have the authority to marry Ariadne off as he pleased.

The second wife of an old nobleman sixty years her senior, the wife of the capital’s most notorious rake, or perhaps even confinement in a convent. All were possible scenarios.

She should have just been looking out for herself.

Her blood-red left hand was a hideous thing. A disability. Something utterly unsuitable for a commodity thrown into the marriage market.

It was painfully obvious what would happen if Isabella, Ippolito, or even Cardinal de Mare were to discover her left hand.

For a moment, she had thought she was not just some high-society lady.

Forming a bond with Queen Marguerite, saving the Rambouillet Almshouse, repelling the Gallican army—she had thought she was something with more autonomy than a pawn in a political marriage, used like a chess piece for the family’s profit and loss.

“What a foolish delusion.”

But she was a bird in a cage. Her limits were much closer than she had thought. So close she couldn't even budge.

If she couldn't marry and leave the house within two or three years, the status and position she would have would ultimately be nothing more than that of a spinster, a troublesome burden to the family.

- *Thud!*

She lifted the paperweight and again smashed her right hand. Her fingertips were mangled, and the dried blood burst forth anew.

It hurt terribly, but it was the kind of pain that reminded her she was alive, rather than being simply agonizing.

“As if there could be anyone in the world on my side.”

There was no such person who would unconditionally take her side, show her the right path, someone whose words would bring her benefit.

To think a divine entity would be any different was utterly naive. She couldn't stand her own foolishness.

“As if everything could go this smoothly.”

- *Thump!*

Only her monologue and the sound of the paperweight striking echoed through her chambers at the western end of the elegantly decorated de Mare mansion.

* * *

Ariadne’s firm belief that she was alone was not, in fact, true.

She had momentarily forgotten, but she had Sancha, who would follow her lady even into hell.

- *Thump!*

Hearing the sound of the paperweight from inside the room, Sancha paced restlessly outside the door.

If she could, she would have rushed in, clung to her lady, weeping and begging her to stop, but she knew her stubborn mistress well.

If she were the type to be stopped by such things, she would not have come this far.

‘Isn’t there anyone who can help…’

Normally, if a young lady of Ariadne’s age were in distress, one would inform her parents and ask for help, but Cardinal de Mare was not such a person. He was unsuitable in many ways.

Her lady was someone who had fallen from the sky.

Thinking about it, the number of people she had a close relationship with was truly a handful.

There were many people she took care of, but there was no one to be found who could take care of her. Her social safety net was that of a true orphan.

‘The only one, perhaps…’

Sancha thought of Lady Giulia de Valdesar. Among Ariadne’s acquaintances, she was the closest thing to a ‘friend.’

It would be presumptuous of her to explain the details.

Even if she brought her, Lady Ariadne might refuse to see her.

But what if she met Signora Giulia, and the two took a walk together or shared a cup of tea? Sancha truly wanted to drag Ariadne out of that room.

“I’ll write a letter.”

Sancha began to write with the letters Lady Ariadne had taught her. *Scratch, scratch,* one letter after another, neatly on the parchment.