[Episode 16] - The King’s Mother (1)
Having received the Queen Dowager’s invitation, the princess and I decided to walk slowly to the detached palace where the Queen Dowager lived, located not far from the lake. There was still time before the dinner banquet she had invited us to, but still.
The main purpose was to show the Queen Dowager’s ladies-in-waiting and maids the sight of me being close to the princess. This sight of me holding her up, one arm supporting her bottom.
The princess, sitting on my arm as though it were a chair, fidgeted with the hem of her skirt as if embarrassed to be seen by others, but I had no intention of putting her down until we reached the detached palace where the Queen Dowager lived.
At least for now, I needed to appeal to others as much as possible that the princess and I were close. That way, word would reach the Queen Dowager’s ears. The story that the princess and I looked close.
“U-Um... Your Majesty...”
“Yes?”
As I was walking along while carrying the princess with all my might, the princess, who had been fidgeting with her skirt hem, hesitated for a moment, then cupped both hands by my ear and whispered softly.
“There’s s-something I’m curious about...”
“Go ahead.”
The sound of her lips moving shyly echoed in my ear. The princess groaned and pondered for a moment, then, as if mustering her courage, whispered in an extremely tiny voice by my ear.
“Ainsel is... the ‘fairy of mirrors,’ right..?”
“That’s right.”
“Th-Then...”
Gulp. I heard the sound of saliva passing down the princess’s throat.
“By any chance... is there a fairy of cakes too..?”
“Pfft.”
For a moment, I couldn’t answer the princess’s curiosity at all because I was too busy holding back the laughter that threatened to burst out. The princess in my arms seemed to like sweet foods, just as children her age did.
Hearing that from the other side of the princess, Ainsel said, “Uh, wh-what do we do..? I don’t think there’s any fairy like that..?” So, unfortunately, it seemed there was no fairy of cakes.
I glanced over and looked at the princess’s sparkling eyes, full of expectation. Just what did she want to do if she met the fairy of cakes? My curiosity wouldn’t stop.
“Pffhaha, well? I suppose I’ll have to ask someday.”
“Really?”
“Or you can ask yourself later. I’ll lend you the earring someday.”
At the mention of lending her the earring, Ainsel beside me gasped in horror in a small voice. She said I had pushed the cruel task of telling the innocent princess the truth onto her.
...She caught me.
Just as Ainsel said, I didn’t have the confidence to lie to the princess when she was brimming with expectation. The moment I said there was no fairy of cakes, those sparkling eyes would lose their light and fall into shadow.
As I walked while chatting with the princess about various things, before long, we were able to arrive at the detached palace where the Queen Dowager was said to live. It was smaller than the main palace where the king and princess lived, but the beauty of the castle was not inferior to the main palace at all.
Unlike the large-scale landscaping of the main palace, the garden of the detached palace was decorated with small, cute trees and flowers that were easy to grow and simple to manage. The interior of the castle also looked different from the main palace.
The main palace was so excessively gold that it could be said to have been painted with money, but the detached palace seemed to be decorated with a small amount of gold and finished on all sides with white tiles. The clean impression given by the combination of white and gold could not be ignored.
“Your Majesty, Princess. First, we will help you freshen up again.”
First, the lady-in-waiting moved the princess and me to the dressing room, saying that before meeting the Queen Dowager, we absolutely had to have our appearances redone. In the main palace, there were at most two maids who dressed me up, and even that was considered many.
But here in the detached palace, it was different. When it came time for makeup, five or six maids swarmed in and finished the work in an instant. Somehow, it felt as if I had become the doll in a game of dolls.
After quickly finishing our preparations like that, the princess and I were able to change into appropriate dresses. I thought that, with my body completely exhausted, I would finally be able to meet the Queen Dowager, but...
“There is still time before the dinner banquet, so how about looking around the detached palace? I will guide you.”
A lady-in-waiting of the Queen Dowager came to us and said that since there was still time before the dinner banquet, she would introduce the detached palace to us. The moment I propped my chin on my hand, wondering what to do, the princess sitting beside me came into view.
At the lady-in-waiting’s words that she would introduce the detached palace, the princess’s eyes sparkled. If we just sat still and waited, I felt like I would fall asleep anyway, and with the princess’s eyes sparkling like that, I somehow felt curiosity welling up in me too.
“Let’s do that. We have nothing to do anyway...”
I rose from my chair, took the princess’s hand, and followed behind the lady-in-waiting. The princess moved her feet as though she knew the way here, walking a step ahead of me as if leading me along.
“This place was built 150 years ago, when the king at the time, for his queen—”
As we walked while listening to a boring explanation like that of a museum guide, the princess shook off my hand and scurried into a certain room.
The lady-in-waiting did not stop the princess’s sudden action either. Rather, as if she had expected this would happen, she stopped her explanation and slowly followed the princess into the room she had headed for.
Naturally, I also moved my steps there.
When I entered the room the princess had gone into,
I couldn’t say a word.
A painting so large it left me speechless, as tall as two floors, was set inside a frame. I was surprised by the enormous painting too, but what shocked me was the paintings filling this wide room.
Paintings of a beautiful woman with hair as black as ebony and eyes as red as rubies were spread out everywhere. The paintings, dozens—no, seemingly over a hundred of them—
All depicted a single woman.
Her appearance was as if the princess had grown up.
As if familiar with this, the princess approached the largest painting with quick little steps and looked up at it. Then, in a tearful voice, she called the name of the woman painted within the frame.
“Mother...”
*
I felt as if I might lose my mind at the portraits of “Aurora Snow White” spread out everywhere. The portraits did not all have the exact same face; if there were smiling faces, there were also angry expressions painted as well.
As if every moment of her time had been cut out and preserved within frames.
“What... is this..?”
“...It is only natural that Your Majesty is surprised. The fact that such a place exists not only in the main palace but also in the detached palace is known only to us who serve Her Majesty the Queen Dowager, and to the princess.”
There’s a place like this in the main palace too?
The moment I heard that, goosebumps rose all over my body, every fine hair standing on end. Just who had painted so many pictures of the first queen, and what in the world had they been thinking?
I walked slowly, observing the countless paintings hanging on the walls. Beneath none of the paintings were titles or the artist’s name written. Only her smiling face while out on a walk, her face chatting with a maid.
There were only paintings that seemed to have cut out and drawn moments of her time like photographs. As I wandered around the room like that, before I knew it, I had arrived in front of the large painting the princess was looking at.
Only beneath this painting was a title written.
Naturally, the title of the painting was simply written as “Aurora Snow White.” Nothing else, no artist’s name, nothing at all was written there. Just as I was wondering who on earth had done such a fanatical thing—
“There is no longer any place to put the paintings His Majesty sends... To be honest, there are so many that they have become a nuisance. I wish he would stop sending them now, but...”
“His Majesty?”
“..? Yes, His Majesty ‘paints’ at least one painting every week and sends it to us. From what I have heard, His Excellency the Chancellor sends His Majesty ‘paint’ every single day. Truly, I wish His Excellency would stop now as well—”
Paints?
Then, all of these paintings were painted by the “king” while he was holed up in seclusion?
...Was this what it felt like to be so dumbfounded that words failed you? I wanted to say something in response to the lady-in-waiting’s words, but only my lips moved, and no words came out.
However, contrary to those thoughts, the only feeling that arose as I looked at the paintings was that they were truly “beautiful.” Did the king have some talent for painting? Every single painting hanging in its frame looked like a work of art.
‘...If he hadn’t been king, he could’ve made quite a name for himself with painting, couldn’t he?’
But even if the king in the game was a “devoted husband” who loved the first queen, this seemed to have gone far beyond the line.
He shut himself away for two whole years and spent all day painting only the first queen?
‘...Something is wrong.’
Something was very wrong.
No matter how devoted a husband the king, who had been the “player” in the game, was, he had not been this insane. Even in the grief of losing his queen, he was someone who did not give up being a “father” for the sake of his daughter.
‘That is the person I know as the king...’
As I stood blankly beside the princess, staring at the large painting, someone tapped my shoulder. The moment I turned my head, wondering who had tapped me, my heart dropped in shock.
“A fly will enter your mouth at this rate, Queen.”
“I-I greet Your Majesty the Queen Dowager...”
The moment I saw the old woman standing beside me with a faint smirk, I bent at the waist and gave her a deep greeting. The old woman raised her hand as if to say there was no need, stopping my greeting, but I could not straighten my back.
Hair that had turned pure white, unable to withstand the passage of time, sharp eyes and a sharp mouth. And eyes as deep and blue as the sea stared directly at me.
The mother of His Shut-In Majesty, and the queen of the deceased former king.
The Queen Dowager of this country was standing beside me before I knew it.
“...Yes, it has been a while. Rise now.”
Only then did I straighten my waist and look at the Queen Dowager. I had thought I would only see her at the dinner banquet, but before I knew it, she had come here with her cane and was standing beside me, appreciating the painting together.
“Thank you for accepting my sudden invitation. I thought that if it were you, you would surely make one excuse after another and refuse, just like last time, but it seems I misjudged you.”
“Ha, ha...”
If it were the original Vivian, would she have just refused even the Queen Dowager’s invitation without a care?
She really had been reckless...
When I glanced over at the princess standing beside me, the princess seemed nervous as well, standing stiffly like a rigid block of wood.
Following my gaze, the Queen Dowager also looked at the princess. As both my gaze and the Queen Dowager’s fell on her at once, the princess grew so nervous that she seemed to forget to breathe, her face gradually flushing bright red like a ripe apple.
After staring intently at the princess for quite a while, the Queen Dowager struck the ground once with the cane she was holding, then turned around and took the lead.
“Follow me. The dinner banquet has been prepared.”