Chapter 14
“It’s connected to the outer garden of the queen’s palace?”
“Yes. It’s not divided exactly, it’s just roughly how people put it!”
“And it’s connected to the outer garden of the palace too?”
Rafael asked as if confirming, looking down at the map. At the innermost part of the palace, three palaces stood in an inverted triangle. The king’s bedchamber, Sun Place; the queen’s bedchamber, Moon Place; and standing as if one step forward between them was the Ignazio Palace.
“Why the central garden?” Gerald asked seriously.
“Just. I heard an interesting story.”
“An interesting story?”
Edward, who happened to be coming in, asked before Gerald.
“A story that there’s something in the garden house of the central garden. It’s a story that has nothing to do with you.”
“In the garden house of the central garden? That can’t be.”
Gerald shook his head as if it were nonsense, and Edward followed, shaking his head.
“All there is in the central garden is lovers having secret trysts. And that’s only something you see at parties; other than that, there’d be nothing.”
“Why not? There are the servants of those useless nobles who lost their things, sticking their bottoms up in the garden house and sweeping the floor clean. If you’re going to have a tryst, at least take care of that much beforehand.” At Gerald’s words, Edward nodded.
“Yes, there’s that too. Byron and Claire.”
So they were in the garden house of the central garden.
Rafael began counting the garden houses in the central garden. There were a hundred and six in total. Would he have no choice but to search them one by one? Rafael clicked his tongue.
“Will I have much to do once I become a royal consort?” At Rafael’s question, Edward and Gerald exchanged glances and shook their heads.
“There are a few things like tea parties and audiences, but nothing particularly much.”
“…I see.”
Then he would have to sleep during the day and search the garden houses first. Marie had been carrying that memo on her body when she died. There are two cases in which someone carries a memo on their body. One is when it is a memo for something about to happen, like when going to find some place. And the other is when it is a memo that would be trouble if someone else saw it.
Probably this memo was the latter. That meant that one of the things troubling Marie might have happened somewhere in a garden house in the central garden.
Rafael raised his head. The time to depart for the palace was now approaching. The investiture ceremony for Annemarie as First Royal Consort was scheduled for the evening.
“They say you are taking a royal consort today?”
A man asked with a seductive face. Ivory answered, lightly kissing the lips of his lover of over a month.
“Why, is it a seat you want?”
As the king’s lips were about to leave, the man wrapped his arms softly around the king’s neck, pressed his lips to him, and whispered.
“Your Highness, I do not like jokes. I heard the royal consort is again someone from the Shore family!”
“Isn’t it the family that mass-produces the most royal consorts? That is all they are good for, so they must keep delivering royal consorts right on time.”
“But if another irreverent thing happens…”
“Then the one family that has not fallen since the founding will fall, and people will once again learn the truth that nothing in this world is eternal.”
The king spoke of annihilating a house as if it were nothing.
The king was a cold man. The man knew the king’s coldness all too well. The story of how the king killed three hundred of the five hundred great nobles and had his special forces massacre the people of their two hundred or so households would be told for a long time. That is, at the enthronement celebration he dealt with all his political enemies, and before the blood had even dried on his sword, the special forces rushed to their mansions and massacred the nobles. It was only a single night. In a single night, everything changed.
What was more, at that celebration where people were trembling, the king embraced a man. In front of everyone watching, a count in his forties bared his buttocks and was ravished. He had not seen it, but merely hearing of it was enough to make one’s spine chill. That count had even once been the king’s swordsmanship teacher. He was ravished so miserably, and later had to take a sword into the very hole that had taken the king. He took it sheath and all, so he did not die, but killing him would have been more merciful.
“Your Highness.”
The lover, still lying in bed, crawled to the side of the king, who was having his clothes attended to, and smiled with his eyes.
“I have a request.”
The lover’s thick-knuckled fingers climbed up the king’s thigh. It was a firm thigh. The king lowered his large, long eyes, which had no double eyelids. Eyes beautiful as if seen only in a painting turned toward the lover.
“I have found a land where the sun shines… It was once the property of the western temple.”
“Gosia, you mean.”
“Yes. It would be beautiful to build a villa there.” Saying so, the lover stroked the king’s crotch. At that sticky gaze, the king burst out laughing.
“Your pillow talk is quite charming. Come, let me enjoy how expensive that mouth of yours is.” At the king’s words, the lover hurriedly undid the king’s clothing and took his half-erect member into his mouth. It was a large member. Seeing again the penis that had been thrusting into his buttocks all last night, the lover unconsciously clenched his buttocks as he took the king’s member and slowly moved his head. As he moved slowly back and forth, the king let out a moan, unable to bear the feeling of mucous membrane brushing past. The king’s long fingers, slender at a glance, seized the lover’s brown hair. Gripping the hair roughly, the king moved his hips like a beast.
“Ugh, haa—” The lover groaned as he gripped the king’s buttocks and clung on. Because of the long, thick club that seemed to reach his uvula, saliva kept running down his throat. He could not breathe. As it seemed about to end and yet did not end, tears dropped from the lover’s eyes. Watching that pained face, the king stuck out his tongue and licked his own lips.
And then, with a smack, his lower body struck the lover’s face. The king’s hips twitched. The lover tried to pull away as if suffocating, but the king did not let him go. In the end, the lover had to swallow the king’s member. Saliva mixed with semen ran down his lips. Plip, plip. Semen falling onto the red cloth looked like snow falling on blood.
Enjoying the last of his climax, the king asked the Head Attendant waiting behind him.
“What was the consort’s name again?”
“Annemarie la Shore.”
“Don’t you think the timing is a little too good?”
A woman who had vanished suddenly appears, is that it? With timing this good? At the king’s bleak question, the Head Attendant bowed deeply.
“I shall confirm it.”
The king looked down at the lover. The lover’s buttocks, stripped bare as he took the king’s member, trembled faintly. The lover was fine in other respects, but those wide, flat buttocks were not to his taste. He seemed to know men’s pleasure well enough that his hole was loose too. It was about time to dispose of him, he thought, even as he kept pouring semen into the lover’s mouth. Watching the lover convulse with his eyes rolled back, the semen may have gone down his windpipe.
Well, it doesn’t matter.
Thinking so, the king pulled his member from the lover’s mouth. The lover collapsed to the floor, coughing and retching.
“Your mouth is no good for pillow talk. That loose hole of yours would be better.”
“Y-Your Highness?”
“From now on, if you are going to ask for the country’s largest meadow, build up some ability first. If you think your body is worth that much.”
While the attendants wiped the king’s member clean and tidied his clothes with delicate hands, the king looked down at the lover. Each time he coughed, semen sprayed from the lover’s mouth. There had been times when that stirred his lust, but now it was only irritating.
“The consort?”
“Still waiting.”
“Still.”
The king smiled and turned to the Head Attendant.
“Is she pretty?”
The Head Attendant tilted his head slightly.
“What answer do you wish for?”
“The considered opinion of an excellent Head Attendant.”
“…She was ordinary. The maids’ skills were considerable, though. They hid it well, but for a woman, her features were a little bold.”
When the king made a thoughtful sound, his dressing had just finished. As the king moved, the Head Attendant and two attendants followed close behind, and behind them the royal guards stretched out in a long line. As he walked, the king asked the Head Attendant again.
“Was she a mannish woman?”
The king chuckled, apparently thinking of a burly, man-like woman. The Head Attendant shook his head.
“She was small and very thin, and her face was very pale. She did not look healthy, but strangely… her features were bold.”
“Well, if she were like a man, she’d be worth keeping at my side, so that would be fine.”
“That is not what I meant by looking like a man.”
“Of course it shouldn’t be. If she looked like a man, it would be better to bring a man in instead.” At the king’s words, the Head Attendant only bowed his head.
“What kind of woman is she?”
“Annemarie la Shore. Twenty-three years old this year. She is the same age as Queen Marie Trijia, and her younger cousin. Her body seems very weak. No doubt because of the hardships she has suffered. The Shore side has sent word that they will bring maids along.” The king suddenly stopped.
“Maids?”
The king’s eyebrows rose, and the Head Attendant’s waist bowed lower.
“Yes.”
The king was about to say something, then closed his mouth. The Head Attendant was not looking at him. The king looked around at everyone in the long, high corridor bowing their heads, unable even to look at him, and murmured quietly, “Very well.”
“It is better to attach maids to her and let her breathe a little than to let her drop dead. But I will not permit her family, maids excepted, any meeting other than audiences!” Everyone bowed lower as if to show they understood. As the king began walking again, the people followed.
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