The carriage seats were padded with cushions and soft.
But Rea, who had been trained never to lose a lady’s dignity no matter the discomfort, found this comfort awkward.
Unable to endure it, Rea pulled herself away from the backrest and straightened her waist.
If she did not do even this, she could not possibly feel at ease in her heart.
“You’re making trouble for yourself.”
Viscountess Nerasmun, who had been silent for a while, opened her mouth.
With her unwashed hair and gloomy gaze, she looked Rea over.
“Am I?”
“Hmph.”
At the cautious question, the viscountess snorted and turned her eyes out the window.
“As long as you bear Bashport as your surname, even when you go into society, it’ll be full of people hostile to you. This is the only time you’ll be able to rest comfortably.”
“I’m quite comfortable as I am.”
“Suit yourself.”
Nerasmun closed her mouth again.
It took a long time to digest the uncomfortable silence, but once she had, it began to feel as if it had always been there, and breaking it required even greater courage.
It was only around sunset that Nerasmun was able to muster that courage.
“From the look of it, His Highness the King’s Brother and Baron Bashport didn’t give you a proper explanation.”
“Is that so?”
“…Pretend to be stupid only with men. Right now, we’re having a kind of strategy meeting. I’m laying out the current situation.”
What she had learned and reality were different.
As Rea reflected on what she had gotten wrong, she remembered that the other person was not a man, but a woman.
That was right.
Everything she had learned as a lady had been for dealing with men.
Realizing she had learned absolutely nothing about how to interact with women, Rea’s mind went blank.
Even before she had become Rea, dealing with women had only ever been difficult.
“See this?”
Viscountess Nerasmun took out an apple.
Its skin was very red and glossy, and it looked delicious.
“This is you.”
“Wow.”
A whole, intact apple. So the existence called me was quite useful, wasn’t it?
Rea was genuinely moved.
Crack.
The viscountess’s hand mercilessly broke the apple in half.
“Ah, sorry. I meant the past you.”
“……”
Still, the fact that her past self had been a whole apple was encouraging.
Rea’s self-esteem had fallen that low.
Nerasmun seized the apple’s flesh with her fingers and scraped it out.
Juice and pulp fell messily onto the carriage floor, and what remained in Nerasmun’s hand was only the hard core with the seeds.
“This is the current you.”
“Mm… trash left after eating?”
“Pointless self-deprecation is disgusting, so don’t.”
“……”
Rea simply became afraid of dealing with people.
“They say this is the state of your soul right now. You suffered too great a shock, so your soul was torn apart, leaving less than one quarter of it behind.”
“Less than one quarter? My soul?”
“Yes. Ah… now that I’m trying to explain it, I don’t even know where to begin.”
Scratching her head, Nerasmun rummaged through her pocket and took out another apple.
It was a shriveled apple, withered brown.
“They say this was the state of your soul before you became Rea.”
Rea silently looked at the apple.
She felt pity.
“A soul withering from too much loneliness and too many wounds. Then His Highness heard a prophecy that you would soon suffer a great shock and have your soul torn apart.”
“……”
Rea did not ask.
What prophecy? How did the King’s Brother know?
Knowing the other party would not answer anyway, she remained silent.
Instead, she decided to reconstruct the events of that day.
“So that day, you waited until I was alone, made me drink the medicine, and turned me into a woman.”
“Turned you into a woman?”
Nerasmun frowned.
Her expression asked what nonsense Rea was spouting.
“Well, is that how it is? Hmph, I don’t have any great grudge against your side, so it doesn’t matter much. One thing is certain: that attempt was a considerable gamble.”
“What part was a gamble? My soul being torn apart?”
“You becoming a woman. The prophecy said you would receive a shock that day too great for you to bear, and even gave an approximate time. His Highness the King’s Brother found out the place as well, estimated the timing, and waited.”
Rea recalled how Yurien had briefly called her over at the entrance to the royal palace on that cursed night.
She had ignored it, intent only on seeing Seorin, but the thought that even that had been him waiting to make his move made her heart sink coldly.
Toward Baron and Baroness Bashport, disappointment and affection coexisted, but not toward Yurien at all.
“They only said you might be able to become a woman. Yes, that was all. His Highness Yurien gambled on that, and he succeeded. As if the heavens had appointed him the next throne.”
“Do not forget that it is still the third year of Queen Seorin’s reign.”
“At least it lasted longer than Orban’s six months.”
“Nerasmun, why did you take part in the rebellion?”
Rea’s tone was not that of a woman.
It was Earei’s tone.
And Earei as he had been when he made Seorin queen.
“Your house was the first among Orban’s royal guard to surrender.”
“And Bashport was the house that resisted to the end.”
Nerasmun glared at Rea and crushed the shriveled apple in her grasp.
A foul stench flowed out.
“Great commander, Nerasmun hated Orban’s tyranny and accepted Princess Seorin faster than anyone else. And yet why did the queen treat Nerasmun and Bashport the same?”
“I am sincerely sorry that your husband, Viscount Nerasmun, died in battle at the Battle of Jungheung.”
“He didn’t die in battle.”
The viscountess shed tears with her eyes wide open.
“He was made to die in battle.”
“…?”
“Margrave Derbek, the queen’s cruel axe, said this to my husband.”
There was more rage than sorrow in those tears.
“You traitor who changed masters without hesitation. What’s to stop you from changing masters again? Even that repulsive he-she Bashport stood firm for its master, yet you surrendered without even crossing swords. I have no idea what I am supposed to trust about you.”
“What…?”
It was a story Rea had never heard before.
It was completely different from what she had heard from Gyuren Derbek.
“Go and prove that you are someone worth trusting. There is your old master, the enemy of your new master. Take up your sword for your master and go fight the enemy. If you charge ahead of everyone else, I will acknowledge you. You dog of power.”
The cruel tone was the margrave’s exactly.
“Then he broke both of my husband’s arms, tied a sword beneath his armpit, and made him charge alone. The northern soldiers laughed at the sight, and I screamed as I watched his back.”
Blood was squeezed from the hand that had crushed the apple.
“Nerasmun surrendered while the rebel army was still at a disadvantage. For the salvation and peace of the people. And yet you people, Derbek, treated us as traitors and shoved us forward to go die.”
Rea could say nothing.
She had not known such a horrific truth had been hidden.
“You ask why I joined His Highness Yurien’s rebellion? Obviously, because even after Seorin became king, the people are still starving and dying. Nothing has changed. Is this the true nature of the peace Nerasmun gained by losing its head and my husband?”
The viscountess’s tears stopped.
Only emptiness filled her eyes.
“It’s a lie. I don’t care about the people’s peace anymore. I simply want revenge for my husband.”
Drop by drop, the remains of the rotten apple crumbled down with the blood.
“Derbek was right. It was exactly as he said. Nerasmun changes masters as easily as turning over a hand.”
“I don’t know what I can say to comfort you…”
“Don’t comfort me.”
The carriage stopped.
The viscountess opened the door and went out.
The sun had set, and stars hung in the sky.
“We didn’t comfort your pain either. We won’t do something like lick each other’s wounds. Our wounds are ours to tend.”
Rea was surprised to see that the coachman lighting the fire had a young face.
He was an exceedingly young boy.
His hair was a deep navy blue, but his eyes were the same color as the viscountess’s.
“Though each of us joined for different reasons, we are serious about the rebellion. Whether you join us or not, the rebellion will be carried out no matter what.”
“I won’t allow that to happen. More importantly, what exactly are you people trusting in, to tell me all this?”
“Your torn soul, and the things you could not see because you were drowning in sorrow until your soul was torn apart.”
“Things I couldn’t see because I was drowning in sorrow?”
“What happened to my husband is only one tiny fragment.”
“……”
“You love Seorin. If so, go and confirm not only the queen, but also the things she wanted to accomplish by becoming queen, and the reality of them.”
Both Rea and Nerasmun closed their mouths.
The viscountess roughly wiped her palm with a coarse cloth.
“Please eat, Mother.”
The young coachman scooped some rice porridge that had been roughly soaked in water and handed it to the viscountess.
When the relationship she had suspected was revealed to be true, Rea’s eyes widened.
“I am fine. You are still growing, so you should eat.”
“I can eat only if you eat first, Mother.”
Nerasmun smiled at her deeply filial son’s action, then became wary of Rea’s presence.
But seeing the dazed, endlessly envious expression fixed on the coachman, the viscountess felt a little pity.
“Go bring that lady a meal as well.”
The coachman did as he was told, scooping up rice porridge and bringing it to Rea.
But his movements were somehow stiff.
“Thank you.”
When Rea accepted the bowl of porridge and smiled, the coachman’s face flushed red.
Even that sight stirred in Rea a sweet sense of loss.