Winter Bud - Chapter 65

“There was a time when you lived with your bodies pressed together, so I don’t think it’ll be easy.”

Suddenly, what Thea had said flashed through his mind. Eight years was never a short time. And on top of that, there were clearly children between them. Even if the youngest wasn’t of imperial blood, Nanna had lived for a long time as a woman of the imperial family. But….

“…Nanna is a pitiful child. You should feel sorry for her.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I don’t feel good when I think of Thea, but it’s the same when I think of Nanna.”

Orestes’s eyes twisted. Jophie let out a sigh. It wasn’t that she didn’t know Nanna’s situation. According to the court physician who’d examined Nanna, the time when Nanna conceived the child was when she was in the main palace, not the Western Palace.

That meant it was when Thea still hadn’t woken up. Even so, it wasn’t something that could be accepted easily. Because she couldn’t understand what he was thinking, coming and going so often that he wore down the Western Palace. Thea had clearly awakened, and Nanna was in confinement.

The Empress’s dignity wasn’t being upheld. Thea’s emotional state was the same. It wasn’t a simple political marriage. There was love and loyalty between the two, and Jophie respected their will. Thea’s status was impeccable, but her frail body as Empress could never be called a good condition.

Even so, Jophie respected Thea. Even when she languished without a single child and was wasting away, she worried about her. Orestes was the same. Even when Thea had a phantom pregnancy, he was concerned only for Thea. She was the woman he loved so dearly, and yet….

“I can’t just watch it like this,” Jophie murmured softly.

Thea said she was fine, but she wasn’t fine. Because there was no woman in the world who would be fine with a husband’s child from another woman. Even so, the existence of Slan and Stella was something she had to accept.

But there was no need for Nanna to be like that. So Jophie meant to deal with Nanna. She was sure that would be better for Nanna as well. That child hadn’t liked palace life even during the eight years she’d lived as Empress Consort.

Because her status wasn’t good, her footing wasn’t good either, and because she wasn’t loved by her husband, her treatment wasn’t good as well. Even as Empress Consort, she didn’t take charge of the inner palace household, and there were no cases where she became the main figure of events held by the imperial family.

In society, it was said she lived without even one person to talk to, to the point that rumors came out that she was often ostracized among noblewomen, so how could she have grown attached to palace life? It would have been a little different if she’d been a woman with greed and ambition, but Nanna was an introverted, shy woman.

They said the place she was born and raised was a tiny rural village you couldn’t even find on a map. Seeing her cheeks redden as she smiled bashfully, it made her think of a young farm girl. So leaving the palace was something Nanna needed, too. Even if she gave birth to the Emperor’s child, she’d never lived as his proper wife, so finding her a match would be fine. In any case, Nanna had done what she had to do. A reward of that much was necessary.

“Mother.”

“Get a hold of yourself, Karl.”

Jophie looked at her son with firm eyes. He tried to keep to the bare minimum of courtesy as he stared at his mother’s lips.

***

“Madam. Please open your eyes.”

The hand shaking her shoulder was impatient. Nanna rubbed her stinging eyes in the morning sunlight and carefully lifted her head. Sister Raphaella was waking Nanna with a stiff face. Before she could ask what was going on, she saw the maids busily coming and going through her bedroom. It was a sudden situation.

“What….”

“You need to prepare to return to the main palace.”

“Yes?”

“His Majesty gave that order.”

It was the first she’d heard of it. Nanna sat up with a rustle and looked around, then met the nun’s eyes. She seemed no less flustered. Her heart pounded. Up until last night, she hadn’t heard a single thing…. What had happened? With an anxious face, Nanna called over a young-looking maid.

But the maid also lowered her head again, saying she was only carrying out orders.

“First, let’s get you ready to go back.”

As Nanna sat there blankly, Sister Rafaella spoke. Nanna nodded in a daze and got up from the bed. It didn’t take long to return to the main palace. Because she didn’t have much luggage.

She washed her face with cold water and tidied her hair. After making a ribbon out of a clothlike towel and half tying her hair up, Nanna put on the navy linen dress she always wore and got into the carriage. The longer time passed, the more her unease swelled. Even if she was leaving the Western Palace, she hadn’t expected to leave this abruptly…. With her hands folded neatly, Nanna felt her heart pounding.

The carriage came to a stop not long after. She stared out the window, feeling the clattering hoofbeats die down. Soldiers guarding the grand and splendid main palace, so imposing it felt dramatic, stood watch with expressionless faces.

Nanna tried to calm her thudding heart as she watched the carriage door open.

“Please get down, madam.”

A voice with mechanical politeness rang in her ears. Nanna got down from the carriage while looking at the Empress Dowager’s maid, whose attitude was as expressionless as the soldiers standing guard.

“Her Majesty the Empress Dowager wishes to see you.”

The woman with a thin, angular face recited briefly to Nanna, then turned around. Nanna opened her lips, then quietly followed behind her. She wanted to ask if it was bad news, but as always, it seemed like she wouldn’t answer.

With her hands folded neatly, Nanna followed the old woman in quick, small steps. Passing through the corridor, they arrived at the audience chamber. The old woman stopped and turned to Nanna.

“Go in.”

The old woman spoke as if giving an order. Nanna glanced at her, then entered the audience chamber. A beautiful fragrance suited to the antique space stirred the tip of her nose. Nanna thought, is this the scent of peonies, and then she parted her lips as she saw the Empress meeting her gaze.

“It’s been a while, Nanna.”

“…Your Majesty the Empress.”

“You should greet us.”

“Ah.”

Thea pointed it out with a gentle smile. With a flustered face, Nanna hurriedly offered her greeting.

“…I greet Her Majesty the Empress Dowager and Her Majesty the Empress.”

“Get up.”

The Empress Dowager’s kind voice rang in her ears. Nanna couldn’t bring herself to twist her expression and lightly pressed her lips together. The Empress Dowager gestured to the seat across from them. Just then, the door opened and a maid brought out three cups of tea and things like dried apricots and cake piled high with raspberry jam onto the table.

“You gave birth to the Second Prince not long ago, and yet you’re pregnant again. His Majesty the Emperor is truly too much.”

The Empress Dowager took a sip of tea with ice chips floating in it and spoke first. Nanna, who had reddened at the mention of Alexis, had no choice but to lower her gaze. But the Empress Dowager wasn’t scolding her son with empty words.

“No matter how much having many children and many sons is considered a virtue, I’m worried your body will be ruined if this keeps up. Pregnancy and childbirth aren’t only a blessing for a woman, are they?”

The Empress Dowager spoke kindly to Nanna, who had her hands folded neatly together. Nanna didn’t know what to say and only blinked quickly.

Unlike Nanna, who had given birth four times and was pregnant again, the Empress Dowager had given birth only once. And that child was the Emperor. She said that even though she’d miscarried before giving birth to Orestes, it had been so early that she couldn’t remember it well anymore.

“I didn’t cry. I was despairing at having to do that again with my husband.”

All of a sudden, the Empress Dowager’s face, faintly smiling, came to mind. The Empress Dowager hadn’t been on good terms with her husband, who died on the battlefield when she was young. At the time, she was from the House of Enroy, which as the Grand Marshal of the North and a grand ducal house held tremendous power. Some people said that if you judged only by nobility, the Empress Dowager’s maternal family, House of Olvertir, was more noble.

That was because the bloodline of the “Holy Mother,” revered since the days of the Old Empire, had been passed down directly to her. Because things were like that, they said the Empress Dowager’s temperament was rougher and fiercer than ordinary women’s. Her pride was strong and her stubbornness, too, so she often clashed with her spouse, Orestes’s father.

Even so, the two of them had to share a bed regularly until they had a child. Even if each of them had lovers, and even if they often waged cold wars so brutal they were frightening. The Empress Dowager could be seen as having done her part by enduring that unpleasant duty.

Then what about Nanna?