You Were the Only Fool
Someone inside the temple was laboring under that very delusion.
Amori spoke loudly enough for everyone around him to hear. “Why is that stupid woman standing there?”
It took a moment of stunned silence before the crowd realized that “that stupid woman” referred to the Duchess of Aud.
Gautier was not surprised. Whenever things failed to go exactly as he wished, Amori quickly turned into a thug. It was nothing new.
The countess, however, was so shocked that she tugged lightly at the back of his ceremonial robes and whispered behind him.
“Have you lost your mind?!”
Only then did Amori realize he had blurted out those words inside the temple, in front of the countless witnesses gathered for the wedding.
He stood there grinding his teeth in silence until he finally lifted his head. His father, Count Serpine, was staring straight at him.
The look of contempt he always received whenever he fell short of his father’s standards was deeper than usual. At last the count spoke.
“You are correct. As lord, I apologize for whatever foolish woman dared to block the Duchess of Aud’s path.”
He smoothed over the remark as if Amori had been referring to the woman lying on the ground rather than the duchess herself.
Some people let out an “Ah” and laughed it off, but others hid sneers behind their hands.
The king’s chamberlain, Raymond Danier, belonged to the first group. He gave a low chuckle. “Haha.”
“You startled me, Count. For a moment I thought you were speaking to someone who should never be addressed in such a manner.”
“How could that be? This is my eldest son. He is to become master of Serpine. He could never be so insolent or foolish.”
At those words Amori suppressed the tremor running through his body and forced himself to smile like a devout young man. Raymond looked at him and grinned.
“Of course not. Not the great Serpine.”
‘That dog of a king dares to speak to the future master of Serpine…!’
Amori wanted to beat Raymond bloody on the spot, but since he could not, he simply kept the trembling smile fixed on his lips.
He wished the wedding would end quickly so he could strike someone—anyone. His brother Gautier, his mistress, even his new wife.
They were all fools who deserved to be ruled by the rod.
“Speak, woman. What would you have me help you with?”
Izabo’s voice reached him as she questioned the mistress.
‘Why are you even asking her that!’
Amori was about to rush forward and seize Izabo by the wrist when a low voice stopped him before he could take a single step.
“If you take even one undignified step and drag Serpine’s honor through the dirt, I swear by the god who bestowed this Chador upon us that I will drop your head to the floor beside it.”
At his father’s single sentence, Amori had no choice but to plant his feet and stand still. The countess, pressed close behind him, secretly poked his back and whispered.
“Do you know her?”
Amori’s relationships with women had always been complicated. The countess therefore paid little attention to his affairs.
She believed her son’s taste for women came from her husband, and she considered it beneath a noblewoman’s dignity to point it out or demand confirmation.
“It’s nothing. Pay it no mind.”
Even now Amori was lying—a lie that would be exposed in moments.
“Please save me! There is a great man’s child in my womb…! Though the mother is lowly, the father’s blood runs in this child as well. It is a child who will grow in the house the father provided, cared for by the nanny the father himself chose. Please, I beg you, show mercy to this humble wench, Your Grace!”
The mistress wept loudly. She tried to cling to Izabo, but the knights refused to let her damage the duchess’s priceless robes.
The Iron-Blood Knights of Aud held her firmly on both sides, preventing any movement, and looked up at Izabo.
Though they tried to hide it, their faces were filled with dismay. When a woman crashed a wedding claiming to carry a child, the identity of the father was painfully obvious.
“It is presumptuous of me, but you must endure this.”
Arian had said those words earlier. Izabo’s fingers itched to slap the woman who had invaded her wedding, sullied her name and her family’s honor, and now played the victim with noisy tears.
Instead of giving in to anger, she gave a small nod and ordered the knights holding the mistress to help her stand.
The square in front of the temple, which had been bursting with cheers only moments before, fell deathly quiet. Farther back in the crowd, people began to whisper.
“She says she’s pregnant.”
“With Lord Amori’s child, you mean?”
Those too far away to hear Izabo or the mistress relied on the people in front to relay the scene in hushed voices. It seemed as though the entire world was murmuring.
Izabo felt shame burn through her, but she endured it. If this was the price of becoming Aud’s true master, she could bear far worse.
“Are you unmarried?”
When Izabo asked, the mistress nodded. She was the woman Amori had given a house, servants, and even a personal nanny the moment she announced her pregnancy. She possessed considerable beauty, though she could not compare to Izabo.
Tears gathered on her long lashes and fell.
“If an unmarried woman such as yourself lost her chastity and conceived, it must mean the man forced himself upon you.”
The mistress had only wanted to announce in front of everyone that the child belonged to Amori. That way neither she nor the child could be discarded.
Amori, who had no choice but to marry the Duchess of Aud, would still have to care for them both. And if the child was a son—the eldest son—he might even become the heir. Her thinking had been that simple.
Yet the Duchess of Aud had asked the question in front of the entire crowd. Had it been forced?
She could not admit in front of all these people that she had lost her chastity without marriage.
Her entire family would be pointed at for the rest of their lives. Her siblings would be forever condemned as carrying dirty blood.
Only then did the mistress truly wake up. She had never publicly admitted her pregnancy. Officially she had been nothing more than an unmarried young lady.
People might have known in private whose mistress she was, but that knowledge had remained strictly unofficial.
Once it became public, everything changed. A defiled woman would never again be allowed inside a temple.
‘Why did I do this?’
Ever since she had become pregnant she had lived in constant anxiety, craving more acknowledgment from those around her.
Bit by bit her reason had slipped away. When she finally came to her senses, she realized she was about to hurl her whole family into the flames. Because of her, they might never again set foot inside a temple.
That meant no place to turn when ill, no one to ask for food when hungry, no mediator when trouble arose with neighbors.
It was social death.
“Is that not so? …Or did you desire this pregnancy?”
In that instant the mistress understood exactly what answer she must give.
“No. I was taken by force.”
Tears poured from her eyes.
“I understand your fear. Your circumstances are truly tragic. As master of Aud, I swear upon my honor that if there is not a single lie in your words, I will protect you. Now speak. Who is the child’s father?”
The mistress looked toward Amori. He was a terrible man. She had often grown furious with him, cried because of him, and even screamed that she wished he were dead.
Yet he was the only man who had ever bought her dresses. He had read poetry to her and adorned her with jewels.
Each time, her heart had pounded as though she possessed the entire world.
Ah, he was the man who made her feel that way. The thought of betraying him filled the mistress with terrible sorrow.
But when Izabo whispered almost too softly to hear,
“If you do not speak at once, I will leave you here and return to Aud. I cannot say whether you, who have ruined this wedding, will be allowed to live in Serpine.”
the mistress cried out at the top of her lungs.
“Amori Serpine! The father of the child in my womb is Lord Amori, eldest son of our lord!”
Until that moment the people inside the temple had not understood why the woman lay collapsed on the floor or why the duchess was speaking with her.
That single scream explained everything. Gasps of shock and strangled cries rose from every throat.
Thud. The countess collapsed, still clutching Amori’s robe. Count Serpine walked over, gazed for a long moment at his son’s violently trembling face, and whispered in a voice that seemed to crawl along the floor of hell.
“If it is not true, then deny it. But do not even think of lying. Remember that if I wish to know what happened inside Serpine, I can learn the circumstances of a single grain of barley.”
Amori shook his head frantically.
“I-I, that is, I never meant to—”
“So it is true.”
The moment the count rendered his verdict, Izabo finally turned to face them.
Aud’s vassals burned with terrifying fury. The knights looked ready to draw their swords at any second.
While Serpine’s own knights watched the situation with extreme tension, Izabo walked slowly into the temple.
No one could mistake that stride for a bride’s. A judge had entered.
She crossed the star-shaped Chador, passed through the temple filled with sacred fragrance, and stopped before the count without sparing a single glance for Amori, the man who had nearly become her husband.
“Aud has extended much goodwill to Serpine. Yet Serpine repays us with this manner of insult.”
As the count licked his dry lips in discomfort and tried to gather his thoughts, Amori—realizing his own position had become precarious—shouted.
“No, why did you stand there wasting time in the first place?! You manipulated everything so—”
“Shut your mouth.”
Count Serpine growled. He had known his eldest son was somewhat immature and arrogant; his wife had raised the boy far too indulgently.
Yet he had tolerated it, telling himself such traits belonged to a future ruler. Never had he imagined the boy would commit such madness.
And even now the fool addressed a duchess with the rude “you,” then trembled like a coward the moment he was told to be silent. The realization that this brainless creature who could not tell up from down would be his successor made the back of the count’s head throb with rage.
Izabo Aud did not look at Amori at all. In that way, she humiliated him completely.
Though Amori was two years her senior, she made her position crystal clear: he had no right to speak, and he was not even worthy to be her conversational partner.