Chapter 94#

Chaise a la ReineCh94 - Volume 5 Prologue#

The longest wait of his life ended with the frail cry of a newborn child.

His wife’s labor, which had begun the evening before as the sun dipped low in the sky, continued until nightfall the next day. In the Estina Empire, it was considered a grave taboo for a husband to witness the process of childbirth. As such, he had been politely expelled from his wife’s bedchamber and left to pace round and round the same spot in her favorite drawing room until his feet wore a hideous path into the carpet.

A noblewoman’s bedchamber is, by nature, an intimate space one may enter only with the lady’s express permission. Even if the noblewoman in question were one’s own wife, the rule held firm, and all the more so when the room had been arranged as a birthing chamber, as it had now.

The flurry of activity fell still for a brief moment, and a faint cry could be heard through the crack in the door. Yet he did not allow himself to hope so easily. The wait had gone on so long that he had already been misled by such false alarms more than once.

But soon after, the door, until now firmly closed to all outsiders save for when soiled linens or bloodied basins were being carried out, finally opened, and the household physician appeared, accompanied by a young page.

‘Your Excellency’ pVvlzf

The man, usually robust in both form and color, looked gaunt and hollow-cheeked after a single night’s vigil. It was clear that his mistress’s long labor had taken its toll on him as well. But for the man who had just become a father, such details were of no concern.

‘Well? How is she?’

‘Congratulations, Your Excellency. You now have a healthy heir.’

Only then did he release a long breath and collapse into a chair, relieved. Though his ordeal could hardly be compared to the pain his wife had endured, the tension of facing his first child’s birth had been no less trying for an inexperienced young father.

‘A son… Thank goodness. And my wife?’

‘She is much exhausted from the long labor, but there are no complications. Considering it was her first, the prognosis is favorable. You may go in now. She has been waiting for you.’

The young father’s eyes lit up at the words. He gave the physician a brief pat on the shoulder and, without hesitation, stepped into the bedchamber. Through the bustle of handmaids clearing the remnants of the birth, he saw his wife’s face. A classic noble beauty who took great pride in her appearance, she had rarely shown him her bare face since their marriage. Other than at night in bed, this might well have been the first time he saw her completely without adornment.

The wife had a horrendous complexion for her cheeks were swollen with fluid, and burst blood vessels had left purplish blotches blooming across her pale, exhausted face. Pride in having produced a rightful heir mingled with shame at her present appearance, and she looked at him with a strange, conflicted expression before offering a weary smile.

‘How are you feeling?’

He placed a kiSS on her forehead aS he aSked gently. She opened her cracked lipS with difficUlty and anSwered in a faint voice.

‘The joy is greater than the weariness. Did you hear? It is a boy.’

The foremoSt dUty of a nobleman’S wife waS to bear a Son who woUld continUe the family line. According to Lex Ardica, primogenitUre waS the bedrock of SUcceSSion, and the exiStence of a legitimate firStborn Son coUld determine a noble hoUSe’S very fUtUre.

Social normS tended to be lenient toward SpoUSal affairS, and there were indeed noblewomen who Secretly bore a lover’S child and paSSed it off aS their hUSband’S. BUt with a legitimate heir, SUch deceptionS were Unthinkable.

For that reason, newlywed noble couples often withdrew from society to their estates until their first child was born. This custom was not merely to nurture their bond, but to ensure the legitimacy of their bloodline.

They, too, had abided by that tradition and stayed away from the capital’s social circles for three years. As time passed, his wife had grown increasingly anxious.

Now, freed at last from that long-held burden and overjoyed at the thought of returning to society, she seemed to have forgotten even the ordeal of labor. The nurse, already arranged in advance, placed the freshly washed child into her arms.

She cradled the infant gently and gazed down at the newborn with tender eyes. Through the white swaddling cloth, the baby’s red-tinged forehead could just be glimpsed.

‘When is your father due to arrive?’

‘He knows the due date was near, so he must be preparing himself. As soon as he receives word, he shall come rushing down.’

‘I would like to ask him to name the child. Surely he will not refuse. Not when it is the grandson he has waited so long for?’ 64BtWO

‘But of course. No one else would even dare presume to name him.’

At his firm reply, his wife smiled again, pride shining through her fatigue. Among her sisters and the debutantes of her season, she had been the most beautiful and charming, but regrettably, her family background had been quite modest.

She was the daughter of a provincial baron, with a small dowry and little status to her name. He, by contrast, was the heir to a high-ranking title. She had secured a far grander match than her station should have allowed, relying solely on her beauty and wit, and for that very reason, her father-in-law had never been fond of her.

‘Would you like to hold him? This little one is Your Excellency’s heir.’ BQ0jWI

Perhaps she had sensed the longing in his gaze. After keeping the child to herself for a time, she offered to let him hold the baby. His curiosity had been simmering ever since he heard the news, and he did not hesitate to accept.

Though the nurse had bathed the infant carefully, he still carried the faint scent of blood. The skin, bloated from amniotic fluid, looked pitifully delicate, and bits of vernix still clung to his tiny face like patches of spring moss in sunlight. The newborn’s body radiated heat. Even through the many layers of linen swaddling, the warm pulse of life was unmistakable.

As he gazed down at the child in his arms, a flood of emotion rose within him. In that moment, he felt a fulfillment so complete, not a single thing was lacking. A boundless, immaculate joy, unlike anything he had ever known, surged through his heart until it felt ready to burst.

‘They who have lived their share of life with earnest heart shall understand. In the span of a long, long age, there come rare and wondrous hours when every fragment of a life falls into place and all that has been is made whole in the end, as by a miracle.’ Awm5no

A worn and ancient phrase surfaced in his mind. He murmured it aloud without meaning to, and his wife gave a soft laugh.

‘Heavens… did you just quote poetry?’

‘… Strictly speaking, it is not poetry, Beatrix.’

‘Be it a poem or play, what is the difference? For you to quote Hierodice, of all things! Not once did you whisper a single sweet verse to me, even when you were courting me.’ 1JbwDW

He gave a sheepish smile at her teasing. Indeed, for someone like him to recall a line from a classical play upon seeing his newborn child was rather out of character. As the heir to a powerful noble house, he had received the standard education expected of a young aristocrat, but had never shown particular interest in refined pursuits like poetry or the theater.

He was, at heart, closer to a soldier than a poet, and when it came to learning, he preferred practical disciplines like law or military science.

The handful of literary lines he remembered had been learned in childhood, drilled into him by endless copying exercises meant to teach the complex grammar of Disseor. Though he could name each author and citation perfectly, they had never stirred any real feeling in him.

But this moment was different. For the first time, he felt the words not with his mind, but with his heart. Within them was something he could never express himself, something profound, something true. He knew exactly what the writer had meant to capture.

He kissed the infant’s forehead, now squirming uncomfortably in his awkward embrace, and offered a quiet prayer of thanks. It was rare for him to speak of God with genuine feeling.

If all life flowed from Regire, then this fragile, beautiful life, too, must have come from Her. He had never seemed particularly devout before, but faced with the miracle of birth, he could only bow his head in reverence.

The child’s very existence had made his life complete.

‘How could God allow something so wondrous to humankind?’ XybZDI

He pressed his own forehead to his son’s and was seized by a quiet, innocent wonder. The joy he felt was so radiant, so brilliant, it hardly seemed of this world. He could almost believe that Saint Regire, Mother of All Life, had wrapped this child in Her holy light before sending him down to the human realm.

Even now, after so many years had passed since that moment, he still carried that same wonder in his heart.

How could the Gods allow such joy to humankind?

…Why do they let us know such love, only to take it away with cruel finality?

‘-But life is no song.

Even after its most beautiful passage, it continues on.

That, more often than not, is the source of tragedy.’ MKW 56

– Hierodice, The Death of Saint Altamia