Chapter 18
18. Love is blind and deadly poison
[Episode 18] – Love is blind and deadly poison
“It’s the princess’s birthday soon, and the man named His Majesty doesn’t come out of the room and doesn’t even give the princess a name, so I don’t know what my son, His Majesty, is going to do.”
Vines swelled on the back of the queen mother’s pale hand as she held the cup. As if to soothe her boiling inside with alcohol, the queen mother was just busy drinking from her glass.
“If you drink like that, you will lose your insides.”
“I don’t know when you started saying that you were so concerned about my body.”
“Your Highness should be a little bit healthier, would you like to see the princess grow up and become a pretty lady? The princess will also wish that Her Highness will be healthy for a long time.”
“…… Tsk. Do you think I will listen to you if you sell the princess?”
Tak-
Contrary to what she said, the queen set aside her drinking cup. I smiled at her and filled her empty glass with cold water and brought it to the queen’s seat.
As if to refresh her mouth, the queen gulped on the cold water I had brought her, let out a sigh of exhaustion for a moment, then turned her head slightly and glared at me.
“I’d rather you name the princess.”
“…You’re kidding too much. Doesn’t His Highness know that too? That I am no different from the princess.”
“…Yeah, I was kidding too much.”
The Queen Mother let out a long sigh and chewed and swallowed her grapes in front of her in annoyance. In the first place, I couldn’t name the princess. Because Vivian didn’t get the surname of ‘Snow White’ either.
But the queen mother couldn’t name the princess either. Ignoring the king in the corner of the room, if the queen consort gave the princess her name, the council of elders below must have thought this.
The Queen Mother says that Her Highness intends to place the Princess on her throne and become her Regent.
Even the Queen Mother gave up Her Majesty in the corner of her room after all.
Even Her Highness, the Queen Mother, said that she judged Her Majesty to be no better than a ‘dead person’.
It was clear that everyone would say that in unison.
The Queen Mother thinks of what will happen after that, so she doesn’t name the princess. There is no way that a princess who ascended the throne at such a young age could grow up properly.
… Come to think of it, I wanted to break into the king’s room and take him by the hair. How can all the trouble be because of the king?
The Queen Mother was busy letting out her weary sighs, perhaps with the same mindset as mine. Ideally, she would get the king out of the room in the remaining three months, but…
“You must have a lot of complaints too. It’s been two years since I married her majesty, but she still hasn’t even had a ‘first night’ with her majesty. In the first place, why is there a law that says ‘castle’ is given only when you spend a ‘first night’?”
“Big, Coke! Coke!”
The queen mother s*xually harassed me, and I unknowingly got into the water I was drinking.
Ah, I’m so glad the princess isn’t here. I knew that Vivian couldn’t even send ‘first night’, but it wasn’t a story worth telling a young princess.
“Kheop, don’t worry about that anymore, kollock! Not. Coke!”
“Really? Is that why you act like a person has changed? Has His Majesty’s heartache healed from not coming to the ‘first night’ now?”
“…I will leave it to your imagination.”
I took her handkerchief and wiped her mouth, then quickly turned her head away from the queen’s smirking gaze. As if it was fun for her to tease me, the Queen Mother continued her story with a smirk.
“Yes, if you cling to a man who is bound by the past forever, you will only get hurt.
“……”
‘A man bound by her past.’ The queen mother described her own son as such. Then she suddenly remembered the room she had seen earlier. The appearance of the room as if it was stuffed with the first queen’s time cut out.
… The more she knew about this place, the more she felt she was drawn into a labyrinth as to whether the first queen was dead or she was still alive. The answer to this question is in ‘the room’ where the king is confined, but…
As time passed, I began to feel that the room where the king was supposed to live was like a Pandora’s box that shouldn’t be opened. Even if I open that door, I don’t think I can handle it… That kind of feeling.
However, it was impossible to leave the king alone. The only person who could name the princess was His Majesty in the corner of the room, and now there were only about three months left until the ‘main event’ of spring.
Within these three months, I had to somehow meet the king who had secluded himself.
Not for the sake of the princess, but also for the sake of others.
To do that, first…
“Your Highness, I have a question for you.”
At my words, the queen tilted her head and looked at me as if asking me to speak.
…In the first place, the only person who could tell this was the Queen Mother. Ainsel couldn’t say anything about the first queen, and the queen would be the only one who could accurately know this ‘fact’ and tell me.
“Can you tell me why the First Queen made such a ‘choice’…?”
*
Tak, Tak, Tak.
After my question, a heavy silence fell over the banquet hall. Should the queen say this, or should she not say it, she pondered as she slammed her finger on the table as if contemplating.
“…You must know about the rumors about the Marquis.”
“I am not stupid enough to believe rumors that the first queen made such a choice only through the education of the Marquis. Majesty.”
“I wish I was an idiot.”
The Queen Mother let out her deep sigh and gulped down her cold water as if to soothe her stomach. The Queen Mother glanced at me for a moment, then she sighed again and began to open her mouth, which was slowly heavy.
“You know as much as you love His Majesty, but her love is blind and poisonous.”
“…Yes?”
“Your Majesty, who was the only heir to the throne and the only son of the previous king, had no choice but to accept that heavy expectation as one body. Since she was only five years old.”
The Queen Mother recalled her past, and she slowly continued her story.
“I couldn’t afford to give love to you either. Before I got married to Her Majesty the King, Her Highness, the Queen Mother at that time, had already passed away.”
“……”
“That’s why, since I was a child, I’ve never given Your Majesty a love worthy of love. Still, His Majesty grew up under good teachers and was able to successfully become the king of this country.”
The Queen Mother gave a bitter smile, shaking the glass she held up and watching the water swaying in it. The queen mother did not put down her cup to cool her throat, which burned every time she opened her mouth.
…It was a story I knew to some extent. The Queen Mother had never expressed her love even to her own son, so she couldn’t express it that way even when she saw her granddaughter, the princess.
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“So, in Your Majesty’s eyes, the first queen must have looked sweeter than anything else. She was a woman who handed love to His Majesty, who had to make bloody efforts to receive love until now.”
“You mean the first queen?”
“Yes, the first queen was such a woman. The woman who taught His Majesty her love, made her love blind, and in the end became a deadly poison to His Majesty.”
“Deadly Poison…”
“…If that blindness hadn’t been for both sides, she would have been perfect. Tsk.”
Both sides..?
Does this mean that the first queen also blindly loved the king? As if the queen mother was dumbfounded even thinking about it now, she burst out laughing and then laughed bitterly.
“Even after the princess was born, the love between the two never cooled down. There were many who expected that soon a small sun would rise in this country. Although the results were disastrous.”
The little sun probably means ‘prince’. Vivian was able to marry the king because there was no ‘prince’ between the king and the first queen. However, when she heard the story of the queen, she did not understand.
If they loved each other so much, why didn’t she give the princess her name? Why did you leave a fruitful child born with someone you love without naming it?
“…You look like why didn’t you give the princess a name when you love each other so much?”
“…See that?”
“You should be my age too, you can read people’s thoughts to some extent by looking at their expressions.”
The Queen Mother gave a big smile, and then she returned to her calm expression.
“…I don’t know what to say as I’ve never given love to His Majesty… It seems that ‘motherly love’ and ‘affection’ are different.”
“…Yes? What is that…”
“Since His Majesty and the First Queen loved ‘only each other’, they had no interest in the princess born as a result. Doesn’t this mean that ‘mother love’ and ‘affection’ are different?”
…?
In an instant, it seemed like what was going to happen to my head with the emotions that were swirling around. Feeling like my common sense was being crushed, I couldn’t help but listen to the Queen Mother’s story without saying anything.
“…Continuing the story, even though they loved each other, they loved each other too much. If Your Majesty gives a glance at another woman at a ball or something like that, the high-pitched voices in the First Queen’s room wouldn’t stop that day.”
“……”
“That’s how the first queen appealed to Her Majesty to look only at herself, to love only herself, and not direct that gaze to others. And, Your Majesty listened to the words of the first queen.”
“So you said that love is blind and deadly poison…”
…I felt like I could understand why the first queen committed suicide even if she didn’t listen to this anymore. The first queen, who was so blind to each other, that blindness eventually became poisonous, and she took her own life.
Horrible imagination fills her head.
And as if adding to her ferocious imagination, the Queen Mother continued her story.
“… Why, she asked, did the First Queen make the choice to end her life on her own?”
I nodded slightly.
“Would you believe it if His Majesty said hello to a female envoy from another country?”
….Dreadful.
Unknowingly, her face frowned at the terrible blindness of the first queen.
“The First Queen’s will is said to have been written by ghostwriting, so she took her own life because she was just tired and struggling, but her original will was written in such a mess that it was difficult to read properly.”
“……”
“The content of the will, which was so terribly stained with blood and ink that it was difficult to read, were words that I could barely read, such as ‘Your Majesty.’, ‘Love’, and ‘Always by your side’.”
The Queen Mother’s face began to frown as she continued her story. As if she didn’t want to think of it anymore, the Queen Mother shook her head, let out her big sigh, and looked at me.
“…Since then, while Her Majesty’s mind was not clear, you were able to ascend to the position of the second queen thanks to the independent action of the elders to fill the vacancy of her queen.”
“……”
“And as you remember, right after her wedding, she shut herself up in His Majesty’s room and began to withdraw.”
As if her throat was burning, the Queen Mother, who cleared her throat, gulped down her cold water again and looked at me. I didn’t know how to respond to that gaze or what kind of expression to make, so she just looked down at the plate of food.
“…Is your curiosity satisfied now? The second queen.”
*