Chapter 11 (Part 2)

The Madam’s coming-of-age ceremony was held more grandly than her wedding two years ago.

The ancient castle of Tarnu kept its doors open all day, welcoming all the tenants from the village below the castle. In one corner of the yard, pigs and geese were roasted whole over bonfires without rest, and the stew made from broth boiled for days was served to guests as the finest delicacy of Tarnu’s kitchen, which the Madam loved the most. Those who enjoyed the feast went home with a bag of fresh wheat and salted bacon as a token of appreciation.

The bonfires in the castle yard did not go out until late at night. Listening to the sounds of revelry beyond the window, Ellenia sat on her bed, where she had lain for over two years, hugging her knees with a nervous heart.

She wore uncomfortable underwear prepared by Leni and Greta, along with a slip and gown that were transparent.

Consummation. The wedding night.

She wasn’t entirely ignorant of what those words meant.

‘When the thing between his legs swells up, you see.’

‘How does that even go in?’

‘When you kiss and rub down there like this and that.’

Ugh, Ellenia instinctively covered her ears.

The servants at the bishop’s residence in Nux usually ignored Ellenia. But perhaps it was fortunate that they didn’t hit her too. They often forgot to feed her, just as they often forgot her existence, and they were busy chatting among themselves regardless of whether Ellenia was there or not.

She learned about the affairs between men and women that way. And then…

‘Witch’s seed!’

‘Surely filthy blood flows in you!’

You too will be helpless before men. I will purify that lascivious nature of yours.’

‘Your very existence is a sin.’

She also learned that it was a sin.

That she was born as a result of wrongful lust and was destined to be lustful, thus already committing a sin.

Waiting for her husband in such a state, she wondered if she was indeed the irredeemable offspring of a harlot, as her grandfather had said. She wondered if she was ultimately falling into corruption because she forgot her mission to save the family of unbelievers.

‘Everyone says it’s a duty and a natural thing, but if I am like this, it means I have forgotten my mission…’

The rough string of the underwear, barely covering her sensitive parts, seemed to dig into her skin as if punishing her.

She had waited for a long time in fear.

Until Ellenia, who had barely eaten anything all day, fell asleep from exhaustion, Edarson did not come to the bridal chamber.

「After the rainy season, Tarnu is ordered to march to the northern tundra and reclaim the land of the gods taken by the barbarians.」

It was a twist of fate that a letter arrived the day before his wife’s coming-of-age ceremony.

Edarson sat in his study, clutching the emperor’s decree he had received a few days ago. The sound of the parchment crumpling in his hand was pitiful.

Since that day, the head maid, the maids, and the butler began to send him sly glances every day… yet Edarson could not embrace his wife.

‘Glorious Tarnu, they say…’

It was a kind of death sentence issued by the king of a theocratic state to a family of unbelievers. For years, his fame as a hero in the war with the duchy was enough to displease the royal family.

He had married the bishop’s granddaughter by the royal command.

He had taken that bishop’s young granddaughter as his wife by the royal command.

Though there was no command, he had cherished the girl who was once a child, who was something between a girl and a young lady, and who became his wife.

Where did it go wrong? 

In the end, what the royal family gave him was…

‘If only I had died during the five-year war.’

Back then, he was prepared to die.

The servants might have been worried, but they could have started new lives with the severance pay from his estate.

But now… he was too concerned about his newly adult wife.

Thinking of his small, delicate wife with no place to lean on, Edarson’s heart ached. Then, then… so that his clear and young wife could meet a new husband as soon as he died.

‘The royal family’s unwritten law. If the wedding night is not consummated, the marriage is not established.’

It was easy for him to decide not to consummate the marriage with his wife. It was easier than worrying about the harsh future of a widow left alone in Tarnu.

It was the first time in his life he worried about someone left behind.

‘Nux is still a powerful bishopric nearby, so if the marriage is annulled, she could go to another family.’

Though he had no right to refuse and had already accepted it in his heart, Edarson could not easily send a reply.

He was too concerned about his wife, who was his only family.

Receiving pitying glances from the servants, having dinner with his young wife, occasionally watching her happily stroll in the yard with the maids from the window…

After delaying and delaying, the rainy season was upon them, and he had to send a reply to the royal family at the last possible moment.

After writing the letter to the royal family, Edarson secretly sneaked into his wife’s room that night.

It was the bridal chamber he should have entered a month ago to embrace his wife.

His wife, who always greeted him with a bright and clear face without any hint of resentment, was quietly asleep with the pale and fair face he remembered.

The moonlight flowed in through the slightly open window.

Her white face and dazzling platinum hair under the moonlight seemed like an angel of the god they believed in.

Edarson watched for a long time as the moonlight soaked into her thick eyelashes.

My wife… I will send you off properly, so I hope you meet a new husband who is not despised by the royal family.

I hope you meet a new husband who is healthy and lives longer than you, who is not as clumsy as me, and who is your age.

At that moment, the sky rumbled.

The first storm of the rainy season came suddenly. It was a few days after the royal messenger, waiting for a reply, had left for the village below the castle.

Edarson found it increasingly difficult to sleep at night. On such nights, he would sit in his dark study, open the usually closed window, and breathe in the cold, damp night air of the rainy season, basking in the hazy moonlight.

The heavy rain splashed on the window frame, soaking his face and clothes.

It was not easy to calm his mind when he was asked to make an honorable and meaningful sacrifice.

He had managed to do so during the war with the duchy.

It was a war where skilled knights from each territory were conscripted in large numbers, and as Tarnu, a family of unbelievers, he had the pretext of demonstrating loyalty to the royal family by participating as the most skilled warrior. There were many noble-born knights, experienced commanders, and skilled individuals like him.

There, he was just one of the many lords, and nothing grand was hanging on his shoulders. He had just thought it was okay to die there, but it wasn’t a place where he was driven to die.

He silently carried out the operations, cutting down the enemy, cutting, cutting, and cutting again. He had become a hero of the eastern part of the kingdom simply by diligently carrying out the operations.

But the royal command this time was to mark the grave of a hero. It felt like a hideous, terrifying monster named his end was waiting with its jaws wide open just below the cliff he was barely clinging to.

That season, Edarson endured with the feeling that he couldn’t afford to lose his footing, gripping his toes until they turned white.

The barbarians, though the royal family called them by that derogatory term, had a strong military force despite not having an organized state.

Instead of a palace with golden roofs, strong tribes were closely united, and instead of a common god, they believed in each other’s strength and starlight. And the northern cold season that granted them invincibility.

The royal family’s long-cherished ambition was to subjugate the land of the barbarians, but it didn’t have to be now.

Right when he was trying to truly build a marital bond with his small, delicate wife.

If he was very lucky, he might not die. If he was really lucky, he might win the war.

But in most cases, he would not return.