The Iron-Blooded Empress (1)
The Viscountess lay in her private chamber, basking in the sunlight.
Her gaze was fixed beyond the window, where a little boy swung an axe. Every time the blade came down from above, her mother's heart lurched in perfect time with it.
Kael is only five years old…
A child who should still know nothing but his mother's arms was forced to endure grueling training under the blazing sun, all for the single reason that he was the heir of Bayorn. Darin sincerely could not understand the traditions of the barbarians.
Of course, it wasn't as though she had never protested this to her husband. But in the end, she had been told that Kael himself wanted this. That he had no desire to become a son his mother would be ashamed of, nor a man unfit to stand as the head of House Bayorn.
"Kael…"
Had he grown up too fast, at far too young an age? Every time that small body staggered under the weight of a wooden axe, it looked painfully precarious.
And yet the boy's blue eyes only grew more radiant the more he swung. Whenever Darin faced that resolute expression on her treasure's face, she found it hard to stop him. She also fretted that her own frail nature might somehow rub off on the child.
Were all children who inherited the blood of Bayorn like this? She worried that he was pushing himself too hard — he was smaller than other children his age, and his constitution wasn't the strongest — but watching him throw himself so wholly into the pursuit of something made her want to cheer him on as a parent, too.
"…Piel, look at that. Isn't your big brother magnificent?"
This was why the Viscountess did not hover near her son. Nestled in her arms was a child even smaller than the little boy chopping wood outside.
The baby, who had inherited her brother's snow-white hair, blinked her blue eyes. She wriggled her tiny hands, staring blankly up at her mother, then spread both arms wide and broke into a full smile.
"Mama!"
She called for her mother with the bold confidence of an infant who had only just graduated from newbornhood. Yes — this child was the vermilion-haired girl's second miracle.
"Hehe, Piel, why are you calling Mama~?"
Not anyone else's child. My child. The one I carried and birthed myself. Being a different gender from the first made her loveliness feel entirely new.
"Oom-oom…"
The baby pursed her lips and babbled. Darin knew exactly how to respond when her daughter did this. She slowly pressed her cherry-red lips to the child's mouth and met her eyes. Only then did the baby burst into a peal of delighted laughter.
The mother's eyes curved helplessly to match her child's smile. They were full to the brim with affection for this tiny life.
The Viscountess was, at her core, a woman of kind disposition. She would never neglect a second child simply because it wasn't her first.
"How is it that Piel looks exactly like her father, too? The features take after me, but…"
She hadn't particularly wished for it, but she had hoped that at least one child might be born with vermilion hair like hers. Piel, too, had come into the world with the white hair and blue eyes that symbolized the head of House Bayorn.
She had been told that the more strongly a child inherited these outward traits, the more superior their barbarian bloodline was considered. Darin recalled this and pouted.
What does that even matter? Our Piel is a girl.
The Viscountess made up her mind. Born such a darling little girl, Piel would be raised like a flower in a greenhouse, cherished and protected. Even so, she mustn't grow up selfish — so teaching her proper manners and etiquette must not be forgotten, either.
To the right of the Viscountess's bed, several sheets of parchment were spread out wide. Remarkably, they were a list of prospective political marriages.
Given Darin's nature, arranging a political marriage for such a young child might have seemed strange. But she had her own reasons.
Free love wouldn't be so bad, but I'm far too anxious that Piel might meet a terrible man.
Perhaps it was because they were both women.
Whatever else she left alone, when it came to her daughter's romantic prospects, this mother wanted to interfere.
Had she herself not been wounded so deeply by the man called the Viscount of Bayorn? Looking at her handsome eldest son, Piel — who took after her brother — would surely blossom into a beautiful flower as well. Drawing attention at social gatherings even before coming of age would be only natural.
Arranging a political marriage in advance with a boy whose face one had never even seen could hardly be called the right thing to do. But it was still far better than meeting a bad man and being exploited.
A foolish woman who moaned beneath a man she didn't love — a bad man — was more than enough in her mother alone.
The precious young lady of House Bayorn ought to walk only a path of flowers.
I hope Piel will like him…
Even if it was a political marriage, this was the boy who would become her daughter's partner. For a full year she had wracked her brains, carefully selecting and reselecting, until she finally settled on one house: the Marquisate of Calisto.
It was a provincial territory in the south, but a family of towering renown as a house of swordsmanship. Whether from the influence of the warm southern climate or simply their nature, the men of Calisto were widely known for temperaments as gentle as spring.
Of course, the ranks of a marquisate and a viscounty did not match. Still, her daughter was this lovely and this pretty — wouldn't they accept? The Marquis of Calisto had also been a comrade-in-arms who had fought alongside her husband in the war.
"Piel, Mama's sorry for deciding on her own. But Mama loves you so much that she's doing this — will you understand?"
Guilt welled up in the mother, as though she were sealing her child's future. By way of apology, she slowly stroked the baby's soft cheek, then nuzzled their noses together.
That lovable softness that crushed even against her own powerless little nose. And the sweet scent rising from the baby's body. A darling little incubus who beguiled her mother completely.
Savoring this to her heart's content was Darin's right as a mother. She breathed in the baby's scent again and again before slowly lifting her head away.
Had Piel still found it insufficient, even after receiving so much affection?
"What's wrong, Piel?"
The child was staring steadily into her mother's eyes — eyes brimming with love — without so much as a blink. And sorry? That was a concept far too difficult for a baby who had only just begun to babble.
"…Mama."
Piel simply parted her pale lips and called for her mother. This child was always like this. Even after being fed, even after having her diaper changed, right up until the moment she fell asleep, she would call for her mother with desperate longing. And if the vermilion-haired girl vanished for even a moment, the pitiful tears that followed were a given.
"Heeheehee, Piel, Piel…"
Finding the child who clung so tenaciously to her gaze utterly adorable, Darin could not contain the emotion welling up and nuzzled her nose against the baby's face again and again.
On weekdays she spent all day servicing her husband's lower half.
In what free time remained, and on weekends, she ran the tangerine orchard.
And on top of that, she looked after her eldest, Kael.
Even two bodies would not have been enough — and yet a second child who sought her out so blindly might well have been a nuisance. But the vermilion-haired girl seemed only delighted. The smile that bloomed on her face like a rose showed no sign of fading.
Everything she had done in this world had amounted to little more than a bitter, thorough experience of her own powerlessness.
And so a small child who needed an incompetent woman like her felt all the more precious. The existence of a daughter who followed her so blindly was more than enough to transform Darin from a girl into a mother.
— Roll, roll, roll.
The girl gently cradled her giggling daughter and tumbled across the bed. Then, startled by her own reflection in the mirror, she sat up and stared at it directly.
The belly that had swollen as though it might burst was still vivid in her memory, as if it had been only yesterday — and yet somehow it had already grown slender again. How strange.
I truly do resent him…
More than six years had passed since she first lay with the Viscount of Bayorn. And still, Darin had not forgiven her husband. An ordinary commoner might have bowed her head in gratitude for being received as a Viscountess — but unfortunately, she was a person with the sensibilities of a modern woman.
Of course, she was not ignorant of the gulf between commoners and nobles. She even felt gratitude toward a husband who had considered the position of a common-born girl. But knowing and feeling were different things. The merciless acts of sex that had begun the moment she first menstruated had carved up her heart countless times.
But I don't only resent him, either.
Her gaze drifted to the right side of her now-slender belly. The little lady perched on her knee had been fiddling with flower petals her mother had brought, her tiny hands working them over — and when those amber eyes met hers, she broke into a bashful smile.
Darin gently gathered her child into her arms. Every time she faced the miracle of life, her heart — parched as a drought — grew endlessly wet with feeling.
The girl still resented the Viscount of Bayorn. She herself did not know how many years it would take for that knot to come undone.
"Piel, Piel…"
And yet, every time she faced her two children, she found herself considering his position like a patient with Stockholm syndrome. Had she never met him, she would never have met these two angels more precious than her own life.
It was an ambivalent feeling. But the miracle she had been granted was so vast that the latter emotion far outweighed the former. The gentle vermilion-haired girl had even come to think this of the man who had raped her:
The truth is, I'm grateful to you, too.
Resentment was resentment, and gratitude was gratitude. She resented him, and yet she would catch herself thinking how truly handsome he was. The children conceived in his likeness had been born so fine that she could not help but be satisfied.
Yes — in the end, we're family, aren't we?
The orphan who had somehow become the mother of two children felt a deep comfort in the family she had built with her own hands. The flesh and blood she had raised with such devotion would take their mother's side even if the entire world turned its back on her.
Darin was madly glad of that fact, and she looked forward endlessly to the future in which her children would grow.
Oh — come to think of it, I took Piel's first kiss, too, didn't I?
Lost in the idle savoring of her happiness, Darin suddenly became aware of her own crime. But she had grounds for a defense. Piel would burst into tears if she wasn't given a kiss.
"Hehe, Piel, Mama's sorry. But we're both girls, so you'll understand, won't you?"
The girl covered her mouth with one hand, expressing both embarrassment and apology to the baby — all while wearing a playful smile.
"Ooom…"
But the child didn't seem to mind in the least. One only had to look at the way she puckered those adorable lips toward her mother. Piel, taking after her big brother exactly, truly loved her mother's kisses.
Darin kissed Piel with love, then rose from her seat at the sound of a child's voice drifting in through the window. It was Kael's voice — her firstborn. Having finished his training, he seemed to be making his way back into his mother's arms.
Cradling her babbling second child, the girl approached the window. The snow-white-haired boy racing across the green lawn toward her looked like an angel.
Before long, the two children and their mother were gathered in one place, and bright laughter rang through the private chamber.
Darin thought she had been truly foolish.
Why had she spent her days so gloomily, as though she were the unhappiest person in the world?
When Mandarin Bayern was the happiest woman alive.