Chapter 75 < The Weight Of The Crown >
Sister, I'm The Queen In This Life
After hearing Sir Delpianosa's belated report, Leo III picked up the paperweight and slammed it roughly on the desk.
Boom!
"Am I a joke?"
Queen Marguerite was startled and trembled at the sound of the heavy paperweight's impact, and Lord Delpianosa, who was accustomed to the treatment of Leo III, bowed deeply and spoke calmly.
"Is that possible, Your Majesty?"
"However! If I'm not a joke, why isn't this reported to me?"
He said, slamming down the paperweight.
"Is this your way of doing things, like a rat, without me noticing what happens in my court? Who did you hide it for? Is it Alfonso?"
Leo III glared at Sir Delpianosa with burning eyes.
"The King is old, now I must ride the Prince's line, something like that, Cypriano?"
After hearing those words, Sir Cipriano Delpianosa almost threw himself down and prostrated himself in front of Leo III, who was standing next to the desk.
"Is that not so true, Your Majesty! This Delpianosa is Your Majesty's loyal servant!"
He chose his words well so that the King, who was over fifty and approaching sixty, would not be upset.
"How can we discuss the next King when His Majesty the King has corrected himself like this? There cannot be two suns in the sky."
Moreover, this Delpianosa, enjoys the honor of assisting His Majesty the King at close range with the same grace and limited ability as His Majesty's younger brother.
"Would you be crazy to look for the next King!"
Sir Delpianosa begged earnestly.
"Next to the next King, there will be old confidants who have been established since childhood. When I got there, there was a stone rolling in! Where else would I go but next to His Majesty the King! Please advise Your Majesty!"
Perhaps because he liked the appeal of Sir Delpianosa, who had exhausted all his strength, Leo Ill's blade went to the next person. The next target was Queen Marguerite, who was standing right next to him.
The King stood up straight and glared at his Queen, questioning her fearfully.
"How on earth did you raise a child!"
The King's anger continued.
"Your pride has always been your son. Alfonso, Alfonso, our handsome son. Yeah, I admitted to that one too! My son is a good and round boy! My diligent son does well no matter what I ask him to do! But when this son's baby is so decisive? Is he causing an accident because of a woman and nothing else?"
Leo III glared at Queen Marguerite.
"The Grand Duchess of Gallico is here, and he's spending time alone with the Cardinal's illegitimate daughter in front of her? It's a shame because Cesare covered it up. If he listens, he can't picture the situation clearly either! Didn't he leave the Grand Duchess alone and enjoy a secret affair with his estranged woman? How could the Grand Duchess not tolerate that bird when she was visiting? Do you know how important the negotiations with the Kingdom of Gallico are right now?!"
He shouted, shaking the stack of papers in his hand.
"What is the meaning of your existence? You can't please men, you're not loved by the people, and you can't even get enough help from your parents!"
Queen Marguerite just lowered her head and listened without saying a single word.
"The only thing you were doing well was parenting, but you ruined it like this? The son you boasted about raising so well can't even control his poop and throw ashes on the nation's ambassador in such a critical situation!"
The King's anger rose more and more and crossed a line.
"Who knows, maybe he would hide in the garden and hang out with an illegitimate child! Is that something a well-raised son would do?!"
Queen Marguerite raised her head at these words of Leo III and glared at the King indignantly. She had been silently listening to her husband's verbal abuse, but she could not bear this. She opened her mouth.
It was Etruscan with a thick Gallic accent.
"I believe in my son."
"What is it?"
"I didn't raise my son to be so shameless."
Queen Marguerite looked straight at her husband, blue anger radiating from her blue-grey eyes.
"Even if there was a misunderstanding, what happened happened. The Grand Duchess herself doesn't seem to have realized it yet, but her attendants will soon understand the situation, so we need to prepare. The King has no choice but to sort out external matters. But it probably didn't happen as you think."
Queen Marguerite did not waver one bit.
"How can you, as a father, say something like that without even knowing the whole story?"
"What?!"
"I will talk to my son to follow up. I assure you, my son will get through this wisely."
Queen Marguerite, who had only said what she wanted to say, left the King's office without even receiving permission from Leo III. Leo III stamped his foot loudly and got angry.
"That woman!"
In front of Queen Marguerite, who left the King's civil war and returned to the Queen's palace, was her only son, who had already entered his mother's inner room and was waiting for her instead of returning to the Prince's palace.
As soon as Alfonso saw her pale-complexioned mother, he approached her and asked.
"Oh my. Is father very angry?
"You haven't been through hardships, have you?"
Alfonso looked at his mother sadly, regretting, 'Even if my mother had told me to stay behind, I should have followed her in and protected her.'
Queen Marguerite, on the other hand, looked at her son blankly.
"Yesterday I had a little quarrel with the Grand Duchess Lariesa, so she went out into the garden, and I went looking for her, and only ran into Ariadne."
The Prince was convinced that his suspicious father had written a drama of an impure genre in his head, with himself and Ariadne as the main characters and his half-brother and the Grand Duchess as supporting characters. His father was that kind of person.
"The story is complicated, but I never did anything that went against etiquette."
It was difficult for the King to misunderstand, but it was qualitatively different for his mother to misunderstand.
It wasn't every day or two that her father had strange thoughts, but he would be very sad if even his mother didn't believe him.
The Prince looked up impatiently into his mother's face. Her Queen nodded her head.
"I know. Son, this mother believes that you have not done anything against etiquette."
Alfonso's face brightened. But this was not a matter of trust between mother and son.
Queen Marguerite continued.
"But let's look into your heart. Can you truly swear before the Grand Duchess Lariesa that your soul is pure?"
Prince Alfonso could not answer this question. Isn't he truly ashamed of Grand Duchess Lariesa? Isn't there another woman on his mind right now, even if he doesn't love the girl he just met?
His son's silence was tantamount to denial. Queen Marguerite asked softly.
"Is the child you like Ariadne, Cardinal de Mare's second daughter?"
Alfonso, who had forgotten what to say for a moment, eventually nodded and affirmed his mother's words.
Her queen pulled up her own armchair and sat down next to the fireplace. The Queen patted her knee, and her son, who was all grown up but still tender-hearted, sank down on the rug at the foot of thw armchair and buried his head in his mother's lap.
"She is a good kid. Smart and calm. The wick is straight. She grew up in a difficult environment without being swayed."
Queen Marguerite said while stroking her son's hair.
"But this matter is not at that level. Let me tell you a story about my mother when she was young."
The Queen's eyes were looking far into the distance as she stroked her son's hair.
"Mom had a lover."
Alfonso was so surprised that he raised his head and looked at his mother with wide eyes. Having a mistress with the Queen was a capital offense punishable by treason against the King.
Queen Marguerite smiled at her son's surprised face.
"Don't look so surprised. It happened before I got married."
And she added one thing.
"Calling it lover might be my leap forward. Brother Bertrand did not accept my heart in the end."
Alfonso breathed a sigh of relief. Looking down at her son with her pitiful eyes, Queen Marguerite let out a deep sigh.
"This story is going to be a bit long. Listen carefully."
Queen Marguerite's eyes became distant. She seemed to have become a beautiful 16- year-old girl again, running around the Montpellier Palace.
"Brother Bertrand was the priest of the imperial palace. When I was young, I fell in love with his smiling face, sincere smile, and sincere faith and suffered from a fever of love. It was in the middle of marriage talks with your father. I saw your father's portrait and I didn't like him at first sight. Regardless of whether he was handsome or ugly, I hated those eyes. It may be a statement that fails to fulfill my duties as a woman and disqualifies me from being a good mother, but the truth is, I still don't like your father very much. Not only do I not love him, but I also don't like him as a person. Oh my, the story has gone sideways. So I ran to Brother Bertrand and confessed my fever of love. I asked if we could run away together and live in the wide open fields, farming and raising sheep. I was immature. At that time, Brother Bertrand said to me, 'The princess has a calling given to you by the Heavenly God.' Also, he said he also had a calling. He said that his calling was to guide the Princess of the Kingdom of Gallico to the right path and that the calling given to me was to devote myself to my country. For the prosperity of my country, I have a calling, a duty, and a responsibility to marry a man chosen by the country, rule over his palace, bear his children, and carry on his bloodline."
Queen Marguerite, who had finished speaking up to this point, looked strangely calm. She was the one who accepted her duty as her destiny. This was different from her discouragement or giving up. She just had a calm and peaceful attitude, doing her best every day where she stood.
"Actually, I can't farm or raise sheep. I don't know how to revive commerce or lead the military. In a subject that does not create any added value, the people's tax money is used to cover the Princess's expenses, but now it is the Queen's expense. I'm using it on a budget. Why on earth was the palace, or rather the people, supporting me like this? How on earth can this fatty food I eat and the luxurious clothes wear be justified?"
She looked into space with dim eyes. She wasn't looking at a specific space. Across the space, she thought of her duty, of her old people, of the responsibilities to fulfill.
"I had a duty to give back as much as I had received from my country. Brother Bertrand said that the purpose of our birth is to fulfill the calling given to us by God and that no matter how much we hate it or how difficult it is, not giving up and continuing our efforts is truly a holy sacrifice. I still engrave those lessons deep in my heart. Every time I have lunch with your father, every time I run into Rubina in the palace, every time I hear gossip about a foreign Queen who can't change her Gallic accent, or perhaps every morning when I wake up in bed, I always think of Brother Bertrand. I reflect on the teachings of Even if you don't like it, persevere, even if you can't, persevere."
'Every day's patience accumulates to create eternity. The unbreakable fighting spirit of a human being is truly noble.'
Queen Marguerite's ears seemed to hear the Gospel and her apocryphal proverbs. The contents of the Proverbs rang out in the voice of Brother Bertrand. Always, with that vivid, vital voice from when she last saw him in his early twenties.
"I ended up marrying into the Etruscan Kingdom. As a dowry, I took possession of the region of Gaeta. In return,, the Etruscan royal palace sent 20,000 ducatoes of gold to the Kingdom of Gallico and lent an additional 80,000 ducatoes. The 100,000 ducats of gold served as military funds for the Briand dynasty to defeat the remnants of the Capetans who had been fighting for 40 years, end the civil war, and establish a unified Gallico kingdom by unifying the entire Gallico region. My father became the King of the unified Gallico Kingdom, my brother and my nephew inherited it, and my old people were able to farm and have children with peace of mind on the fertile land where the devastation of war had disappeared. I can't say I'm very happy personally, but I have fulfilled my calling for my country. Now, my only happiness is watching you grow up."
She spoke calmly about what happened to the person she loved since then. Although she can now sit still and speak in a quiet voice, she would never have been so calm when she first heard it.
"Brother Bertrand volunteered as a military priest in the Crusades just before I got married and left for the Etruscans. He was originally scheduled to be deployed to the central cathedral in Montpellier after his dispatch to the War ended. It is said that the unit he fought in was annihilated due to endemic disease and hunger without even being able to approach Yesak. They said that he died somewhere in the wilderness east of the region of Rat Galin. Was he happy? I do not know. Did he die relieved that he had fulfilled his calling? Mother believes he did that. May he be happy in the arms of the Heavenly God."
The past story of Queen Marguerite, who made the sign of the cross, gradually took on present-day clothing from here on.
"Ariadne is a good child. Smart and calm. But this is not a child who is with you on the path to your calling."
Queen Marguerite continued speaking in a calm tone.
"They say the Grand Duchess of Valoa comes with cannon technology. To be exact, 20 finished cannons and 15 kilograms of gunpowder are her dowry."
These were the numbers that Count Marquez obtained after a fierce struggle against the Duke of Mireille and the Count of Le Vien. 15 kilograms of gunpowder was enough to train an artillery unit for a year and fight one real battle. In the end, we were unable to obtain the technology to manufacture gunpowder. Instead, 15 kilograms is added each year for each year of marriage, up to a maximum of 3 years. It was agreed that if the two had children, a lump sum of 60 kilograms of gunpowder would be paid for each son, and,30 kilograms lump sum for each child. According to Count Marquez, it was a condition that was well accepted. The Kingdom of Gallico is probably trying to obtain an Etruscan successor from the ship of the Grand Duchess of Valoa."
Prince Alfonso's complexion became increasingly paler as he began to guess the true meaning of his mother's story.
"The Etruscans are a country with developed commerce and culture, not a military powerhouse. For too long, we didn't know that the sack was rotting due to fresh play. The feudal lord's private army did not directly build up the military power of the central government by destroying it. We are now paying the price for outsourcing national defense to mercenary commanders. We are very rich and at the same time very weak. "It's perfect for becoming food for wolves."
The mother did not look after her son. Even as she looked at her son with full compassion, she nevertheless resolutely forced him to face reality.
"This country needs a strong military and advanced technology. Can you powerfully lead the next generation of this nation without getting Gallico's artillery? Do you have the ability to do that?"
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