The whole of San Carlo, no, the Etruscan kingdom, was reviling Isabella for having miscarried the Prince's companion, but Cesare could not join in the condemnation.
Isabella did what he really wanted: she bought him time so that Ariadne would never leave him.
If the child had grown vigorously in the womb and been born as Alfonso's proper son, Cesare would have had to ask himself more fundamental questions while experiencing a headache ten times over.
Fortunately, thanks to Isabella, he was able to shift his focus to asking himself a somewhat more inflammatory question. But even that was incredibly painful for Cesare's fragile ego.
'Can I... hold Ariadne, who had Alfonso's child?'
It was a delusion of his own, completely unrelated to Ariadne's own will. But to him, it was the most important concern in the world. Ever since Ariadne's legacy became widely known in high society, this thought had been lingering in Cesare's mind.
Cesare himself was as far from chastity as the distance from the Prinoyac Mountains to the White Sea.
The women he'd touched were similar. He'd dragged widows and married women, let alone virgins, into his bed without hesitation.
But this didn't mean that Grand Duke Cesare was completely indifferent to the woman's past. Quite the opposite.
It was possible because other women were just for fun and then threw it away. At best, they'd date for a month or two. There was no need for her to be chaste, just as there was no need for her family background or education.
“Ha...”
He's always been in a position to harm others. He met a married woman and destroyed her family, and he met a virgin and wiped tears from the eyes of an innocent young woman.
The women who met him, dreaming of a glamorous life for a while, probably suffered from lovesickness or the delusion that they had done something wrong and missed their chance as soon as they returned to their ordinary world, but that was none of his business.
Cesare wasn't just harassing women. The next man she met was also a victim.
Even if the young lady, once a dreamy maiden, were offended by the confession of the village bachelor's plain face compared to Cesare's statuesque features, even if the married woman he had played with could not forget her midsummer daydreams and forever refused to have a marital relationship with her current husband, that was their business.
But karma will come to you one day.
'Ariadne, can I stand it when you compare me to that bastard?'
Cesare's hands trembled violently. Never before had he thought about her former or current husband when holding another woman.
Because he was confident in bed. He was convinced that Cesare was the most fantastic lover of all, that no one living in the Central Continent could compare to him.
The only opponent he had no confidence in was Alfonso de Carlo.
It wasn't that he knew exactly what Alfonso was doing in bed.
Cesare's life was made up of fragments of the inferiority complex he felt towards his half-brother Alfonso.
'Can I keep my sanity when she compares me to that kid?'
The image of himself destroying things and searching for traces that he thought the predecessor had left behind on the day he first became one with her flashed through his mind.
He will imagine even something as plain as the shape of a kiss.
Like the woman's two hands that came up the back of his neck a little too late, he would not be able to readily accept the welcome that should have been natural and extremely welcome.
Suspicion, because of the suspicion that someone has already matched up with a certain person and is doing the same to him.
No matter what he sees, he can imagine her caressing the blonde man with the same speed and rhythm she does to him.
A conviction that may or may not be true.
It was a disaster.
Cesare was so wrapped up in his grief that he didn't even realize that he had considered his first night with Ariadne not as a day to 'have her', but as a day to 'become one with her'.
For him, who had always been driven by a desire to conquer, this was a verb he had never used with any woman.
Cesare, who had been leaning against the wall, slid down and collapsed on the floor.
He had to stop. He was going crazy.
“Ha...”
But he couldn't let go.
Even though he knew full well that he would be compared to Alfonso de Carlo and that he would crawl into what he considered the most terrible situation in the world, he could not let go of his feelings for her.
She was his salvation. His only salvation. His one chance to escape a life riddled with comparison, dissatisfaction, constraint, and inferiority.
He missed it right before his eyes.
Because of that damn Isabella de Contarini.
No, shit, it couldn't even be blamed on Isabella anymore. All of this had happened because of that damned Cesare de Como, that inferior bastard who knew who his father was but had no father, who could do anything but nothing.
Grand Duke Cesare, the third nobleman in the Etruscan kingdom, lived in the most beautiful and elegant architecture in the central continent, adorned with gold, wearing the most expensive and beautiful clothes on the continent, and frowning with the most beautiful face on the continent, thinking only of what he did not have.
Ariadne, oblivious to the immense thoughts of what was happening just a few hundred feet away, called for the birth chariot, avoiding the eyes of the Prince's attendants.
“Sancha. There’s something I need you to bring from outside the palace.”
Things would get worse if Ariadne tried to leave the palace. Ariadne figured the best way to get her hands on "that thing" was to have Sancha issue a permit and bring it in as a personal item.
Ariadne whispered quietly to Sancha what 'that thing' was.
“Huh? That?”
Sancha's eyes widened as she questioned. The item Ariadne had ordered her to bring was something she had never even imagined.
“Are you going to use it, Miss?”
Countless absurd scenarios flashed through Sancha's mind. Should I get this and... eat it at Countess Contarini's table? Something like that?
But Ariadne shattered all of Sancha's wild fantasies in a very plain tone.
“Then I will write it, who will I write it to?”
The loyal maid, who did not know what rejection meant to the young lady, shook her head firmly.
“No.”
She was ready to follow her lady's every command, but she wished that her lady would cherish her a little more.
“Reed grass!”
It is a contraceptive that prevents pregnancy when taken.
"Why would you eat that, Miss? Besides, it has side effects."
Reed grass was a powerful herb. Taking it in small doses regularly would completely eliminate the need for sex. In times of emergency, she recommended chewing raw reed grass after intercourse. This alone was said to prevent pregnancy.
Conversely, this meant that reed grass was poisonous. When teaching about reed grass, the old women who were well-versed in medicine warned that prolonged use could render one infertile, so they advised caution when taking it.
“Side effects don’t always come.”
The side effects of reed grass varied from person to person. Some became barren after taking it for three months, while others became fertile after drinking it for ten years.
'I'll be okay. I'll be okay.'
Ariadne of her previous life had been repeating this to herself every time she chewed on reed grass after her relationship with Cesare.
It was like trying to open a door that would plunge you into a precipice over and over again if you opened it wrong. She responded to Cesare's confession of love every time, and each time, she opened the door that led to the precipice. And she prayed, "Please, God, save me just this once." So often that even the listening angels were tired.
She hated the feelings she remembered from that time, which she remembered only occasionally. Anxiety, denial, fear. The anxiety was that if things continued this way, no, perhaps she would become forever barren. Denial of his love, but also the fear that if she raised her voice to Cesare, he would immediately leave her.
'It's all for us, so that we can be perfectly happy in the end.'
A sacrifice for the man she loves, the man who loves her. That's what she wanted to believe.
But every single one of his actions screams out loud that he doesn't love her.
"A man who values the woman he considers his companion enough to chew a fertility plant? A man who absolutely must have an heir?"
It was only after she died that she began to see things clearly.
It was nonsense. From the beginning, Cesare had no intention of placing Ariadne next to him.
But coming to her senses and being unscathed are two different things. Ariadne, having returned, hadn't even touched Reed grass.
Even when others suggested altering her lunar cycle to coincide with major events like hunting competitions or weddings, she remained unmoved. Even when she was engaged to Cesare, she remained unmoved. She never wanted to go near that rotten plant again.
Sancha pointed out exactly that point.
"Miss, you didn't say anything before, so why are you asking me to bring that now? Even if I boil some fertility-boosting herbs and drink them, it won't be enough..."
Sancha's words were correct. If she had really wanted to take leadful, she should have taken it then. On the day she first had sex with Alfonso.
The very night Ariadne woke up after losing her child.
She had a dream.
“Wife. How are you feeling?”
The dream took place late at night, with a heavy winter rain pouring down. A terrifying torrent of water shot from the sky to the ground, leaving no one without a roof to protect them.
It was a merciless night, a night when the situation of those who had a place under someone's eaves and those who had not was clearly divided.
“Damn it...”
And a woman was weeping. A woman she knew well. The woman whose maiden name was Isabella de Mare, the Princess of a previous life, Isabella Principessa.
Isabella did what he really wanted: she bought him time so that Ariadne would never leave him.
If the child had grown vigorously in the womb and been born as Alfonso's proper son, Cesare would have had to ask himself more fundamental questions while experiencing a headache ten times over.
Fortunately, thanks to Isabella, he was able to shift his focus to asking himself a somewhat more inflammatory question. But even that was incredibly painful for Cesare's fragile ego.
'Can I... hold Ariadne, who had Alfonso's child?'
It was a delusion of his own, completely unrelated to Ariadne's own will. But to him, it was the most important concern in the world. Ever since Ariadne's legacy became widely known in high society, this thought had been lingering in Cesare's mind.
Cesare himself was as far from chastity as the distance from the Prinoyac Mountains to the White Sea.
The women he'd touched were similar. He'd dragged widows and married women, let alone virgins, into his bed without hesitation.
But this didn't mean that Grand Duke Cesare was completely indifferent to the woman's past. Quite the opposite.
It was possible because other women were just for fun and then threw it away. At best, they'd date for a month or two. There was no need for her to be chaste, just as there was no need for her family background or education.
“Ha...”
He's always been in a position to harm others. He met a married woman and destroyed her family, and he met a virgin and wiped tears from the eyes of an innocent young woman.
The women who met him, dreaming of a glamorous life for a while, probably suffered from lovesickness or the delusion that they had done something wrong and missed their chance as soon as they returned to their ordinary world, but that was none of his business.
Cesare wasn't just harassing women. The next man she met was also a victim.
Even if the young lady, once a dreamy maiden, were offended by the confession of the village bachelor's plain face compared to Cesare's statuesque features, even if the married woman he had played with could not forget her midsummer daydreams and forever refused to have a marital relationship with her current husband, that was their business.
But karma will come to you one day.
'Ariadne, can I stand it when you compare me to that bastard?'
Cesare's hands trembled violently. Never before had he thought about her former or current husband when holding another woman.
Because he was confident in bed. He was convinced that Cesare was the most fantastic lover of all, that no one living in the Central Continent could compare to him.
The only opponent he had no confidence in was Alfonso de Carlo.
It wasn't that he knew exactly what Alfonso was doing in bed.
Cesare's life was made up of fragments of the inferiority complex he felt towards his half-brother Alfonso.
'Can I keep my sanity when she compares me to that kid?'
The image of himself destroying things and searching for traces that he thought the predecessor had left behind on the day he first became one with her flashed through his mind.
He will imagine even something as plain as the shape of a kiss.
Like the woman's two hands that came up the back of his neck a little too late, he would not be able to readily accept the welcome that should have been natural and extremely welcome.
Suspicion, because of the suspicion that someone has already matched up with a certain person and is doing the same to him.
No matter what he sees, he can imagine her caressing the blonde man with the same speed and rhythm she does to him.
A conviction that may or may not be true.
It was a disaster.
Cesare was so wrapped up in his grief that he didn't even realize that he had considered his first night with Ariadne not as a day to 'have her', but as a day to 'become one with her'.
For him, who had always been driven by a desire to conquer, this was a verb he had never used with any woman.
Cesare, who had been leaning against the wall, slid down and collapsed on the floor.
He had to stop. He was going crazy.
“Ha...”
But he couldn't let go.
Even though he knew full well that he would be compared to Alfonso de Carlo and that he would crawl into what he considered the most terrible situation in the world, he could not let go of his feelings for her.
She was his salvation. His only salvation. His one chance to escape a life riddled with comparison, dissatisfaction, constraint, and inferiority.
He missed it right before his eyes.
Because of that damn Isabella de Contarini.
No, shit, it couldn't even be blamed on Isabella anymore. All of this had happened because of that damned Cesare de Como, that inferior bastard who knew who his father was but had no father, who could do anything but nothing.
Grand Duke Cesare, the third nobleman in the Etruscan kingdom, lived in the most beautiful and elegant architecture in the central continent, adorned with gold, wearing the most expensive and beautiful clothes on the continent, and frowning with the most beautiful face on the continent, thinking only of what he did not have.
***
Ariadne, oblivious to the immense thoughts of what was happening just a few hundred feet away, called for the birth chariot, avoiding the eyes of the Prince's attendants.
“Sancha. There’s something I need you to bring from outside the palace.”
Things would get worse if Ariadne tried to leave the palace. Ariadne figured the best way to get her hands on "that thing" was to have Sancha issue a permit and bring it in as a personal item.
Ariadne whispered quietly to Sancha what 'that thing' was.
“Huh? That?”
Sancha's eyes widened as she questioned. The item Ariadne had ordered her to bring was something she had never even imagined.
“Are you going to use it, Miss?”
Countless absurd scenarios flashed through Sancha's mind. Should I get this and... eat it at Countess Contarini's table? Something like that?
But Ariadne shattered all of Sancha's wild fantasies in a very plain tone.
“Then I will write it, who will I write it to?”
The loyal maid, who did not know what rejection meant to the young lady, shook her head firmly.
“No.”
She was ready to follow her lady's every command, but she wished that her lady would cherish her a little more.
“Reed grass!”
It is a contraceptive that prevents pregnancy when taken.
"Why would you eat that, Miss? Besides, it has side effects."
Reed grass was a powerful herb. Taking it in small doses regularly would completely eliminate the need for sex. In times of emergency, she recommended chewing raw reed grass after intercourse. This alone was said to prevent pregnancy.
Conversely, this meant that reed grass was poisonous. When teaching about reed grass, the old women who were well-versed in medicine warned that prolonged use could render one infertile, so they advised caution when taking it.
“Side effects don’t always come.”
The side effects of reed grass varied from person to person. Some became barren after taking it for three months, while others became fertile after drinking it for ten years.
'I'll be okay. I'll be okay.'
Ariadne of her previous life had been repeating this to herself every time she chewed on reed grass after her relationship with Cesare.
It was like trying to open a door that would plunge you into a precipice over and over again if you opened it wrong. She responded to Cesare's confession of love every time, and each time, she opened the door that led to the precipice. And she prayed, "Please, God, save me just this once." So often that even the listening angels were tired.
She hated the feelings she remembered from that time, which she remembered only occasionally. Anxiety, denial, fear. The anxiety was that if things continued this way, no, perhaps she would become forever barren. Denial of his love, but also the fear that if she raised her voice to Cesare, he would immediately leave her.
'It's all for us, so that we can be perfectly happy in the end.'
A sacrifice for the man she loves, the man who loves her. That's what she wanted to believe.
But every single one of his actions screams out loud that he doesn't love her.
"A man who values the woman he considers his companion enough to chew a fertility plant? A man who absolutely must have an heir?"
It was only after she died that she began to see things clearly.
It was nonsense. From the beginning, Cesare had no intention of placing Ariadne next to him.
But coming to her senses and being unscathed are two different things. Ariadne, having returned, hadn't even touched Reed grass.
Even when others suggested altering her lunar cycle to coincide with major events like hunting competitions or weddings, she remained unmoved. Even when she was engaged to Cesare, she remained unmoved. She never wanted to go near that rotten plant again.
Sancha pointed out exactly that point.
"Miss, you didn't say anything before, so why are you asking me to bring that now? Even if I boil some fertility-boosting herbs and drink them, it won't be enough..."
Sancha's words were correct. If she had really wanted to take leadful, she should have taken it then. On the day she first had sex with Alfonso.
The very night Ariadne woke up after losing her child.
She had a dream.
“Wife. How are you feeling?”
The dream took place late at night, with a heavy winter rain pouring down. A terrifying torrent of water shot from the sky to the ground, leaving no one without a roof to protect them.
It was a merciless night, a night when the situation of those who had a place under someone's eaves and those who had not was clearly divided.
“Damn it...”
And a woman was weeping. A woman she knew well. The woman whose maiden name was Isabella de Mare, the Princess of a previous life, Isabella Principessa.
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