Chapter 244 : Chapter 244
Chapter 244 : Bride of the Rose (2)
Isabel Aleos.
Adeline's biological mother, and the youngest daughter of the former king, Arthur VI. And she was the one and only younger sister of Arthur VII, who died young.
"Everyone praised my mother as the 'last pure Aleos.' The sole and noble direct bloodline with no usurper's blood mixed in."
Adeline had no hesitation whatsoever even while introducing her mother like that. A strange mix of pride and sorrow was in that voice.
"......You were royalty, Your Grace."
At my question disguised as a monologue, Adeline asked back with a sullen face.
"Did you not know?"
"No, well. Rather than not knowing...... I knew as common sense that the Kingdom's powerful feudal lords would have a little bit of royal blood mixed in them. However, I did not know Your Grace was a direct descendant with no need to branch out to that extent."
Adeline stared fixedly at me with a look that seemed to say, what kind of person is this?
I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly.
"Because I originally did not have a hobby of digging around in other people's family affairs."
Adeline burst into a laugh, Pfft, as if caught off guard.
By my feelings...... It felt like the atmosphere was going to get endlessly heavy and dark, so I tried to lighten it up a bit, and fortunately, it seemed to have worked well.
I quickly asked while the trace of laughter remained.
"Did you say usurper?"
Adeline's momentarily relaxed features gradually found their place. The moment a shadow was cast over her eyes, she parted her lips.
"Arthur VIII, the father of Philinus II, is a thief who murdered the former king and his own nephew, Arthur VII, and stole the throne."
".........."
"You cannot cover the sky with your palm. No matter how much he denies it, the world knows. The fact that the bottom of the throne he sits on is damply soaked with the blood of his own flesh and blood."
There was a scene that flashed across my mind. It was Philinus II's toast, shouting vigorously while feigning majesty with his slurred pronunciation.
—Let us all raise our glasses. I, the lawful king and legitimate successor of the Aleos Kingdom, Philinus II, pray for the grace of the ancestors who founded this great Kingdom......
At that time, my gaze was solely on his ugly appearance.
To think that my failure to look at Adeline in that moment would return so deeply piercing.
"Those people over there right now."
Suddenly, Adeline cast her gaze down the hill. The scenery of the Pretoria mansion, which looked merely peaceful bathed in the sunset, came into full view.
"......Philinus II and Gunt are the children of the enemies who drove my mother to her death."
I did not interrupt and silently listened to Adeline's story.
The ugly and heartless history of the Aleos royal family began with the passing of her maternal grandfather, Arthur VI.
Arthur VI had two younger brothers.
Archduke Falcon, 'Richard Aleos', who would later become Arthur VIII, and Archduke Langdros, 'Edmund Aleos', who would be defeated in the power struggle against him.
They were the fathers of the current King Philinus II and Gunt, respectively.
"After my maternal grandfather passed away, my maternal uncle, Arthur VII, ascended to the throne. However, already from that time, Richard and Edmund had divided and seized the real power of the Imperial Capital."
There was no way the reign of Arthur VII, who was no different from a puppet, could be smooth. The King, who was placed in a state of isolation and helplessness amidst the checks of his uncles tightening from all sides, eventually faced a suspicious sudden death not long after ascending the throne.
It was a young age where he had not even seen an heir yet.
"As if they had been waiting, from then on, it became a full-scale battle for the throne between Richard and Edmund, who each had the Falcon family and the Langdros family backing them."
At this point, I could not help but ask.
"You have been specially emphasizing Langdros and Falcon since earlier, are they powerful families of the Imperial Capital?"
"Yes. They are the very families that are the origins of the Sharon Faction and the Langster Faction."
Adeline added calmly.
For the two powerful families that had supported the Kingdom for generations to become the wives' families of the Archdukes side by side at that very time and fight for supremacy..........
Was it a simple coincidence, or was it the fruit of a scheme designed long ago?
"It is at least not the former."
At my assertion, Adeline quietly nodded her head, then spoke.
"After a secret feud, Archduke Falcon first succeeded in ascending the throne, but even after that, the royal family's political strife did not cease."
Since the symbols representing Langdros of the Sharon Faction and Falcon of the Langster Faction were a blue rose and a black rose respectively, the battle for succession to the throne that occurred at this time could be called the origin of the War of the Roses that would take place later.
'If the war between Springeus and Windermere was a desperate struggle risking the survival of their respective families, the fight between Langdros and Falcon was merely an ugly scramble to claim the highest peak called the throne.'
I stroked my chin. Even so, it was much the same, but if I had to choose, I thought the former was better. The latter was the ultimate endgame of the politics I found so disgusting.
......Well, anyway.
"In the midst of that, I was born. It was two years after Arthur VIII came to power."
"......You speak of your own birth very much like it is someone else's business."
At my pointing it out, Adeline gave a small bitter smile.
"It turned out that way as I spoke while suppressing my emotions."
Around this time, I realized it clearly. That I was now desperately reading the room for this woman's mood.
Of course, it was not like my usual self. Because something like catering to someone's mood did not fit my constitution.
It did not matter.
I don't want to see Adeline breaking down, drenched in sorrow.
"As soon as I was born, I had to leave Conwell and go to the Imperial Capital with my mother. There were many pretexts of this and that, but in the end, we were hostages placed under the Royal Family's surveillance."
To Arthur VIII, who had snatched the throne as a collateral bloodline, the former king's direct descendants, Isabel and her daughter Adeline, were threatening thorns in his side just by their existence alone.
He summoned Isabel, who was in Conwell, to the Imperial Capital immediately after his accession, but she was able to avoid it using childbirth as a pretext.
However, as soon as that grace period ended, Arthur VIII, as if he had been waiting, summoned his niece, who had just finished giving birth, and the newborn baby who hadn't even opened its eyes yet, back to the Imperial Capital.
"I have heard it somewhere. That childhood memories and experiences become the foundation that forms a human being's personality. That if the result called a person is a single fruit, that fruit grows on the soil called childhood."
Adeline paused for a moment and looked down at the back of her hand.
"Unfortunately, my garden was under a damp shade. The shadow of the Royal Palace was far too massive to be cleared away by the fragile sunlight called my mother."
".........."
"......This cold and angular temperament of mine might, in the end, be the most toxic result that a fruit grown feeding on malice instead of sunlight could bear."
My hand flinched without me realizing it. Before I knew it, my gaze was on Adeline's shoulder.
Adeline cleared her throat and continued speaking.
"Arthur VIII knew better than anyone that he was a usurper. Even though he stole the throne with power, the public sentiment and legitimacy were still directed toward my mother, Princess Isabel."
Arthur VIII was extremely afraid that after he died, his son 'Lucian Falcon Aleos', that is, Philinus II, would eventually be ousted by Isabel.
"......Therefore, my mother was a target for elimination."
Because as long as Isabel was alive, the Kingdom's people would revere her as the true queen.
However, a purge without justification would bring about a fierce backlash of rebellion and popular uprisings in the East.
Thus, the Royal Family, led by Arthur VIII, first kept Isabel and her young daughter locked up as hostages, waiting for an appropriate justification to ripen while looking for an opportunity.
"Ten years."
Adeline let out a short sigh.
"It was the grace period stipulated in the Royal Family's laws, where a royal born with the Aleos bloodline must reside in the Imperial Capital before coming of age."
It was a legal confinement wearing the mask of custom.
".........."
Adeline wrapped her arms around herself. The cold night air had not arrived yet.
It seemed the nightmarish memories from that time were surfacing.
I did not want to go out of my way to ask.
"Your Grace, do not dig up painful memories."
"The persecution, contempt, and mockery from Falcon and Langdros were nothing. Compared to that ugly conspiracy."
I blinked my eyes and stared at Adeline's profile. She too took her gaze away from the sunset, whose edges were only faintly visible, and faced me.
"Arthur VIII tried to take me in as his concubine. When I was merely ten years old."
For a moment, I doubted my ears. A harsh word popped out of my mouth, but Adeline was not agitated.
"Because to him, my mother, Princess Isabel, was a past that had to be erased, but I was a future he absolutely had to possess. In order to transfuse the legitimacy of Aleos into the lowly bloodline of a usurper, taking me, a direct descendant, as his woman or daughter-in-law to tie me to the Imperial Capital would have been the most certain method."
I froze, at a loss for words. I felt as though I had witnessed the bottomless abyss of how far human greed could go.
"When I started my first period and showed signs of maturing physically, it seems Arthur VIII judged that he could no longer delay. He immediately announced me as the 'Bride of the Rose' and tried to formalize the engagement."
Bride of the Rose. The name was elegant, but its true nature was an ugly stigma meant to cover up the family's shameful parts by plucking a young flower that hadn't even ripened yet.
"My mother could not bear to just watch that sight."
Adeline's voice trembled thinly for the first time.
"To stop that shameless political marriage that is hard to even speak of...... my mother used her final resort."
On the night before the 'Bride of the Rose' was declared, Isabel took her own life in front of the portrait of the former king, Arthur VI, hung inside the royal cemetery.
"The royal cemetery is in the deepest part of the Royal Palace. I didn't know back then. Why did it have to be there of all places?"
".........."
"Only later did I find out. The reason why she had to meet her end in that dark and secluded place."
Taking her own life deep inside the Royal Palace was the one and only winning move Isabel threw to protect her daughter.
Instead of immediately announcing her death to the whole world, it gave Arthur VIII the minimum leeway to collect the body and cover up the truth.
The death of Isabel, who was the daughter of a sage king and a noble direct descendant, would be akin to pouring oil on the already boiling public sentiment. Above all, she knew better than anyone that her death would be tantamount to handing her husband, the Duke of Conwell, the justification for a righteous war called revenge.
"It was a silent warning spat out through death."
Arthur VIII had to make a choice.
Whether to fight against Conwell's large army backed by the angry masses when Isabel's death was exposed, or to give up everything and appease the Duke of Conwell to at least save face.
"The usurper ultimately chose the latter."
Even though the situation was disadvantageous, the upper hand in negotiations was still in Arthur VIII's hands.
Regardless, he was the king of a nation, and at this rate, the Duke of Conwell was in the position of a rebel. Above all, the fact that he had secured custody of Adeline was decisive.
Holding the hilt of the sword, Arthur VIII subdued the Duke of Conwell's desire for revenge using Adeline's life as collateral.
Ultimately, Adeline's immediate return home was permitted. At the same time, various political compensation plans poured in, including massive reparations wearing the mask of consolation money and exceptional tax exemption rights.
In return, the Duke of Conwell lent strength to the usurper's unstable legitimacy by offering a vow of loyalty to Arthur VIII, and colluded to bury Isabel's death in silence forever.
"Arthur VIII gave up his future legitimacy to avoid an immediate war, and your father practically suspended his revenge to save your life."
"The suspension of revenge...... That would not be entirely wrong."
Adeline lowered her eyes. Her pupils blazed as if she were staring at the flame called anger.
"Because my mother is still sleeping in that place."
Even after returning to Conwell, Adeline's fight did not end.
She continuously became sharply honed as she went through a fierce fight for survival with her half-brothers.
"I endured solely for the moment when I would return to the Imperial Capital, reclaim my mother, and bring down those who drove her to her death."
I wanted to finally put a peaceful comma in her perilous life that had never seen a calm day.
I took a step closer and faced her.
"If a rose has no thorns, how could it be a rose?"
Adeline's wet pupils shook greatly.
Well, for an ignorant person like me, it couldn't be helped. Rather than grandiose things like a noble bloodline surrounding the throne, a fishy political strife, and a tear-stained unofficial history, only one thing pierced my ears and resonated in my heart.
The entire time I was listening, this woman's desperate confession merely sounded like a sorrowful complaint to me.
The childlike complaint of Adeline, who had lived her entire life armed with sharp thorns, baring her scar-stained inner flesh for the first time in front of me.
'Since I'm a man who doesn't know how to comfort myself with words.'
I have no choice but to answer in my own way.
SHING—!
I drew the Heavenly Demon. The blade of the sword, harboring the fading sunset's light, shone fiercely even in the midst of this.
"When we first met, do you remember?"
Adeline looked at me with quivering eyes, unable to say anything.
I continued speaking on behalf of her, who had covered her mouth with both hands.
"You asked me to become your sword."
I bent one knee and lowered my posture. Holding up the Heavenly Demon laid horizontally with both hands, I presented it beneath her chest.
I did not know formal procedures like a knight's oath.
It was merely my sincerity with everything on the line.
"I will gladly become one. Your sword."
"Bi, Bihen......"
I did not want to hear that tearful voice anymore. There was no need for procedures like asking for permission either.
I stood up without delay and covered her trembling lips with my own.