The Viscountess Is from Another World
What?
What did Kael just say to me?
That I was looking for a remarriage partner?
“What are you talking about? Looking for a remarriage partner while your father is still around?”
“Because Mother doesn’t love Father.”
Hmm? Well, that much was true, but what did it have to do with this?
In noble marriages, what weight did personal feelings ever carry? My surname had become Bayorn long ago—and I had already borne two children, no less.
“Your mother isn’t so thoughtless that she’d turn her eyes elsewhere for such a trivial reason. The name of Bayorn doesn’t belong to your father alone, does it? For your sakes as well, I have to protect our honor.”
“Then why, the moment Father leaves his seat, do you declare you’ll go off on some escapade?”
“Escapade? That’s a bit much, Kael. Your mother simply wants to breathe a little outside air for once.”
“If you wish to breathe outside air, why not simply tour the Bayorn domain? Ours may only be a viscountcy, but the territory is quite large. There are many places to wander, and every subject and vassal holds Mother in the highest respect. Wherever you go in these parts, you will be welcomed.”
Who said otherwise? It wasn’t as though I found my life unsatisfying. I enjoyed touring the lands, exchanging greetings with the people who liked me.
At first it had been nothing but misery—abducted against my will, forced into marriage—but spending time with the children I loved had brought its own quiet happiness.
Even as a provincial lord, a viscount’s household still meant a rather affluent life. The orange-related ventures I had pushed forward had succeeded beyond expectation, so the retainers no longer dismissed me as a commoner; they acknowledged me as the lady of the house.
Yet the reality that I could not even attend my own son’s victory ceremony was something I refused to accept. Kael was my flesh and blood, as good as another self. He was my most precious child—so what kind of mother would miss her son’s triumph?
“It isn’t simply that I want to feel the wind outside.”
“Then what is the problem?”
“Twenty-odd years confined to the domain have left me restless, yes, but that’s secondary. What I want is to celebrate my only eldest son’s achievements in an official setting.”
“…So you truly aren’t considering remarriage?”
“Of course not. Honestly, Kael! Why on earth would I want to meet some other man? Your father is a perfectly decent man as it is.”
“Wait—Father is a perfectly decent man?”
Those blue eyes flashed; the reaction was pure surprise. Well, Kael had every right to look that way. Judging by my past behavior, no one would ever have guessed I thought well of his father.
“It’s a little awkward to say it myself, but for a noble, your father is rather decent, isn’t he?”
“What in the world happened in the last three years? You used to hate him.”
“…I still don’t like him. But we’ve shared years together. And between us we have you and Piel. What’s the point of hating him any longer? I should just be content with what I have and live on.”
“Didn’t Mother always carry hatred toward Father?”
“Uh…?”
“You used to say he dragged you to the bedroom at every chance, that he was no better than a beast in heat…”
“W-wait!”
Right. I had. From very early on I would slip into a side chamber and pour out my complaints about my husband in solitary mutters.
I had never been foolish enough to unload those feelings on my young children. It turned out Kael had been eavesdropping from the opposite chamber, stealing his mother’s words—more than once, at that.
I only learned the truth when the boy turned twenty. If Kael himself had never told me, I would have gone to my grave without knowing.
Still, even if he adored his mother, was that really necessary? Well, perhaps it had been filial piety—trying to understand a parent’s suffering. In any case…
“Looking back, that was my fault. A noble lady shouldn’t speak ill of her husband even in private monologue…”
“I am not trying to interrogate you, nor to blame you.”
“I know, I know. Anyway, as you’re well aware, your mother has a rather peculiar temperament, doesn’t she?”
“…I will grant that much.”
“Think about the other nobles besides your father. You come and go freely from the capital—you know them better than I do.”
By “peculiar temperament” I meant the modern mindset I still couldn’t shed from my previous life.
Of course the forced marriage my husband had inflicted on me was wrong. The coercive nights were wrong too. But in this other world that styled itself a medieval fantasy, once you weighed a commoner’s station against the prestige of a viscount’s house, any complaints I voiced only sounded like the grumbling of the overfed.
The white dress I wore right now cost a commoner’s ten years’ wages. Beneath me, once a commoner myself, stood countless domain folk. Many of the retainers who served the viscountess had originally outranked me.
The tangerine and orange orchards had flourished only because the viscount’s wealth backed them. A common girl like me should have been grateful merely to marry a prosperous commoner, let alone enter a viscount’s house.
Would a great provincial warlord who commanded hundreds of thousands of subjects make a spectacle of raping one common woman? In noble society, a pretty commoner with nothing but a face was usually kept as a concubine, used as a broodmare, and discarded once she aged. Even the lowest baron looked down on commoners as dirt.
So no matter what I felt toward my husband, the people of the domain praised the relationship between the viscount and his lady as the romance of the century—a bond of true love that transcended rank and station. He had taken a common woman as his lawful wife and kept not a single concubine; of course they thought so.
In short, my husband might be barbaric and rough-tempered, but he was no human scum like so many ordinary nobles. Put simply, he was a noble worthy of a woman’s respect and love.
Naturally I hadn’t always thought this way. For decades the gulf between my own perspective and that of medieval people had made me shudder. But after living a reasonably comfortable life, after a certain degree of “medievalization” set in with time, I couldn’t help realizing I was a fortunate human being. Realizing that even our once-prosperous family orange farm had immediately fallen into ruin only drove the point home harder.
Of course, a little resentment still lingered whenever my husband forced his way between my legs…
“Your father does try to consider your mother’s position from time to time, doesn’t he?”
“That ‘peculiar temperament’ of yours?”
“Yes. Looking back, he kidnapped me at seven yet never laid a hand on me until at least the proper marriageable age of fourteen. After the wedding he even abolished the custom of plunder, claiming it was out of consideration. His manner toward his wife is rather sincere, don’t you think? And above all, he named this very castle ‘Darin’ after your mother…”
“I understand what you’re saying, Mother, but haven’t you always told me to join with someone I love? That a life without ever loving anyone is filled only with misery? So why, all of a sudden, are you saying it’s fine?”
“You were only five years old then. Your mother wasn’t in her right mind. Ha—wait. What on earth did I say to a child? I’m sorry, Kael.”
“I actually liked it. I was glad Mother was honest only in front of me. I simply wonder why the words you spoke to me have changed now.”
“Mmm… that’s the perspective of a noble like you. To a commoner mother, this much was already an excessive honor. And love? I’m starting to wonder whether it’s something one absolutely must do. I already love you and Piel.”
“…Mother seems to have changed a great deal in these three years.”
“Perhaps. After you both left, I had more time alone to think.”
“For now… haah. Never mind. I understand. If that is Mother’s position, there is no further need for me to doubt.”
“Heh. Thank you for understanding, my son.”
I had wondered why he was being so prickly, but even if his attitude remained less than enthusiastic, I was relieved he had given his consent. And the truth was, all that talk of love had merely been me reminiscing about my previous life as a man and fantasizing about what it might have been like to marry a woman.
Wait—why had I fantasized about that?
Accepting that I was a woman did not mean I had come to like men. The fact that I had shared a bed with my husband for over twenty years yet never sprouted a single shoot of love rather proved the point.
Me, committing adultery with some other nobleman? Absolutely not. Even now, coupling with my husband was less about enjoyment than simply surrendering my body to the pleasure rising from below.
Looking at my two little angels—now grown—I couldn’t even summon interest in the opposite sex. Attachment to people wasn’t only romantic love, was it? As long as the children I loved married and built happy homes of their own, I would have nothing more to wish for.
Grateful that my son had accepted his mother’s words, I smiled and faced him. Hm? But something felt off. Why was Kael’s face still so rigid? Did he have more he wanted to say?
“Mother, yet the way you speak is strange.”
“Eh? Wh-what’s strange?”
“I am not calling you a wicked woman who intends to commit adultery. Yet from the beginning you have spoken as though you would never stray—under the premise that ‘you have a husband.’”
“Uh…?”
“Your son asked you from the very start whether you were searching for a ‘remarriage partner.’”
“……”
“Has it not already been three months since Father went missing…?”