6.

Alisandra was admiring the garden that shone green in the sunlight. The fruit trees with shrubs sparsely placed between them and the carelessly blooming flowers absorbed the sunlight and looked fresh. Suddenly she remembered the gardener who had bowed his head. He said that the rose bushes should be trimmed now to look good in summer. But Alisandra shook her head.

‘It doesn’t look bad growing like this.’

‘However….’

‘Leave it be.’

Alisandra turned her head away from the rose bushes that had started to grow wildly and put a pipe in her mouth. Her courtyard was cruder than she had expected. As if a part of the wilderness had been cut off and moved to a corner of the palace…… The unrefined beauty was ignorant of restraint and greedy.

But isn’t that unrefined natural beauty closer to power?

The elegant and elaborate garden of the empress’s palace didn’t suit her. Those flowers that bloomed so neatly were noble and beautiful, but that was all. Something that is merely beautiful is meaningless. A soft presence tapped at her ear. Alisandra didn’t turn her head and waited for the attendant to announce.

“Empress Dowager, His Majesty the Emperor has arrived with Her Highness the Empress Consort.”

The attendant who announced properly soon opened the door. Martha stiffened her expression at the word that the emperor had arrived. Alisandra twisted the corner of her lips and caressed the round teacup.

Soon after, the emperor strode in and stood before her. Martha, who had been glancing at her, bowed her head deeply. How could a woman who fluttered around the palace, claiming to be the emperor’s concubine, be so petty and timid?

A woman who even decided to lie in front of the emperor about a pregnancy she didn’t have…… Alisandra took a sip of tea to avoid furrowing her brow and raised her head, elegantly pulling her lips. Her son was again carefully holding his wife as if she were a doll made of wax.

Despite the attitude of the woman in front of her, who should be called her daughter-in-law, being no different from usual since entering the palace, her insides twisted.

‘How did I raise that thing?’

Alisandra thought of the nine-year-old girl who was too scared to look up at her and only stared at the floor. Elaine’s daughter who came into her hands was terribly lovely. Enough that her son couldn’t come to his senses.

She looked at Elaine’s daughter, holding back the rising sensation. The girl who inherited her mother’s wavy, abundant hair was a dazzlingly beautiful figure.

Fleeting and futile. She had repeated to herself that beauty was so weak and tasteless, but before such overwhelming beauty that one could become infatuated, she felt distant. Suddenly a low voice rang in her ear. Alisandra turned her gaze.

“What’s wrong with your head since you’re pregnant? Such nerve not to bow your head even after greeting the emperor.”

Cesare stared at Martha with a piercing gaze. The woman behind Alisandra, who had been dazed, glanced at Alisandra with a bewildered look in front of the emperor’s procession. She didn’t react. Martha trembled her lips and hurriedly knelt at the emperor’s cold rebuke.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I, I have recently because of my pregnancy……”

“Ah. Yes, you said you were pregnant. I’m curious. Whose seed are you carrying?”

The emperor muttered with a crooked smile. Martha blushed and looked up at him. The man who held his wife’s slender waist was looking down at her coldly. While his wife gracefully bowed to the Empress Dowager, Martha trembled under his eerie gaze.

The empress who straightened her back neatly folded her hands again. The emperor, holding his wife’s waist, walked to the opposite side of the Empress Dowager. Martha, who hadn’t heard him tell her to get up, sat next to the Empress Dowager with a frightened face.

Unlike the energetic emperor with his flowing sharp aura, the empress was paler and more fragile than usual. Martha watched the couple with closed lips, and her eyes met the emperor’s. His long, handsome eyes were terribly cold.

There was a time when her heart fluttered at those purple eyes. Anyway, because she surely had Eve’s blood flowing in her, even if just a little, she thought she could captivate the emperor. So if he would just give her time, even just a moment, she would have no other wish. But……

“It’s been a long time, Martha. I heard the news. The Countess of Meteland said you’re pregnant. Congratulations.”

The empress smiled kindly and congratulated her. Martha, who had frozen as if she were about to die, stared at her.

The face of the woman congratulating the woman who was pregnant with her husband’s child was warmer than anything else. As if congratulating a sister’s pregnancy…… It was surprising that not even a small grain of discomfort could be found.

Suddenly she remembered the rumor that the emperor performed antics to get her attention. When she first entered the palace, she thought it was the most ridiculous nonsense among all the nonsense she had heard. The imperial palace is so vast, how could the emperor……

No. How could such a perfect man be made ridiculous? Even though all sorts of nonsense circulates in the imperial palace, isn’t this too much? The emperor was the most perfect creature God had created. He was Adam resurrected and symbolized Adam’s regeneration.

Of course he was perfect. If she could be that man’s woman…… If she could be the vessel for that man and bear his successor, how wonderful it would be. Although she couldn’t be his bride, her father said the possibility wasn’t entirely out of reach.

Moreover, it was the Empress Dowager who planted that possibility and gave her hope.

‘You have Eve’s blood flowing in you. Even the monks of the order have acknowledged it. Wasn’t your great-aunt the consort of Grand Duke Elrid?’

Martha recalled that day.

Before her debut in the capital, she entered the palace and arrived before the Empress Dowager with a pounding heart at the message that she was looking for her. The Empress Dowager, known to be very strict as the only adult in the imperial family, was very kind to Martha.

Until then, Martha hadn’t even dreamed of being by the emperor’s side, but she came to have hope at the Empress Dowager’s sweet whispers and entered the palace as a concubine the following year. Her fiancé shouted that he would hang himself in shock, but nothing entered Martha’s ears. However……

‘Empress Dowager, I’m embarrassed to say this, but that girl…… How could she? You clearly said it wasn’t a big deal. That she was just a girl who breeds like a sow!’

It was one morning. Martha, red with anger, visited the Empress Dowager’s palace with tears in her eyes.

Having entered the palace without ever wearing a white veil as a bride, she spent even her first night alone in the bridal chamber, which should have been spent intimately with the emperor.

If he had truly been her husband, she would have gone and slapped him, but the emperor was her lord and she was his subject. A person who was a husband but not a husband…… With the status of a concubine who could be cast out at any time if he didn’t want her.

Martha, who had grown up as the treasure of her family, was about to cry at the thought of becoming such an insignificant woman.

She was a woman who wanted to become the emperor’s woman even at the cost of breaking off her engagement. She, who had hoped to become the mother of the next emperor and even aspired to the position of empress, was confused by his unexpected coldness.

‘Calm down, Martha.’

‘But Empress Dowager. I’ve been patient enough. Whenever the other girls…… no, concubines try to slight me, I can’t bear the anger. But even with the situation like this, His Majesty doesn’t even attend official gatherings!’

Martha, distorted with anger, shouted without thinking of the servants’ gazes. The Marchioness of Toulouse didn’t spend the night alone in the bridal chamber. At least she had seen the emperor once.

But Martha had never had an audience with the emperor even once. The maid soon said that the emperor would come, so she should wait patiently, and the Empress Dowager who had recommended her as a concubine said nothing.

And that morning was officially the day when concubines could meet the emperor. Once a month, it was the day of the ‘Morning of the Rear Palace,’ the day of the emperor’s audience with his concubines.

Martha had been waiting for this day with her neck stretched out.

Anyway, the Marchioness of Toulouse and other concubines were women who had had private audiences with the emperor. But Martha had nothing. It was the day when she had been in the palace for more than two months. But the emperor did not attend the rear palace audience that Martha had been so eagerly waiting for.

It was because the Third Prince, Maxim, was suffering from an unknown fever. It’s natural for a father to worry when his son is sick. So she couldn’t complain otherwise. But didn’t he fail to attend last month as well?

The empress might be different, but a concubine is of such insignificant status that she couldn’t even argue about his duties as a husband. It was more frustrating. If it had been an excuse like last month that state affairs were busy, she could at least argue…… But the prince is sick.

‘I understand too. Since the child is sick, he must be worried as a father…… But what about the rear palace? Doesn’t he have a duty to take care of the rear palace?’

‘Martha.’

‘That woman isn’t even an empress anyway!’