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Chapter – 11
Not a single day passed quietly. I bowed my head to the shop attendant. For no real reason, I felt as though I ought to apologize. Following behind the count’s daughter, I spoke to her.
“If you didn’t like it, you could have just said so. Why go so far as to cut the dress?”
“Because it annoyed me that they didn’t even know my taste. And I simply felt like cutting it. I paid for it anyway, so what does it matter?”
“…I thought you liked extravagant dresses.”
The count’s daughter turned back and tilted her head.
“I don’t really like dresses in the first place, you know?”
An unexpected answer came out. She lifted the hem of her dress slightly as she continued.
“They’re uncomfortable. If you don’t walk carefully, you step on the hem and easily fall forward. And to wear a dress, you have to put on a corset, which is incredibly suffocating too. Of course, you wouldn’t know that, Priest, since you’ve never worn one.”
“Then why… do you insist on wearing dresses?”
The words slipped out before I could stop myself. I regretted them immediately. Her expression twisted as if she found it absurd—and even I could tell it was a foolish question.
“I’ll assume you were joking just now. You know perfectly well how a lady from a noble family is treated if she wears trousers.”
She was right. It wasn’t strictly forbidden for women to wear trousers. But if a woman—especially a noble lady—did so, everyone pointed fingers at her.
Even when riding horses, young noblewomen weren’t allowed to wear trousers. They always had to sit sideways on the saddle in a dress. If they wore trousers and straddled the horse, they were criticized for being unfeminine.
“How many young ladies do you think truly like dresses? Try wearing priestly robes for a month—everyone would be itching to throw their dresses away. But young ladies can’t wear priestly robes their whole lives… so no one ever finds out. They live on, believing they like pretty dresses.”
She went on to tell another story. Not long ago, a young lady had coughed while wearing a corset and fainted. People wrapped the incident up as ‘femininity’ and praised her for it. In the end, all her organs were crushed, and she died.
The count’s daughter said there were many women like that. And yet, countless women continued to wear corsets, believing it was their own preference.
Indeed, throughout the Empire there had spread a ridiculous saying: “A woman must faint at least once in front of a man to be a true lady.”
Apparently, many men were easily taken in by the image of a fragile woman. The count’s daughter seemed to truly despise such customs.
“No matter how much I’m called the Empire’s ‘villainess,’ the fact that I have to wear a corset doesn’t change. If I throw even that away, I won’t be acknowledged as a ‘woman’ at all. Well, it seems women aren’t considered people to begin with.”
She let the hem of her dress fall and resumed walking. Each time her high heels touched the ground, a sharp clicking sound echoed.
For some reason, that sound reminded me of shackles dragging along the floor. How much pain must she have endured to wear those heels so naturally?
“Priest, go on living your life without ever knowing. Don’t study it, either. That’s the ‘privilege’ granted to you.”
I closed my mouth. There was nothing I could say in this situation. I simply walked in silence, matching her pace. When I glanced at her from the side, her violet eyes looked like hollow glass marbles. She remained quiet for a while, as though lost in deep thought.
Then, when I happened to look up, I saw a carriage rushing toward us from not far away. At this rate, she might be struck. Panicking, I grabbed her slender wrist and pulled her toward me.
She turned to me, eyes wide. That brief moment felt unbearably slow. Her red hair fluttered softly in the wind. Her pale skin bathed in sunlight—her eyes fixed on me—everything shone dazzlingly bright.
The carriage sped past her side in an instant. If I had left her alone, it could have been disastrous. She stared after the carriage, speechless, as it disappeared without even an apology.
“Miss, are you all righ—”
“Are you insane? Can’t you drive properly? I almost died. Did you stick wine in your head?”
“Wine… in your head….”
Before I could even ask if she was all right, she hurled curses. Her eloquence was impressive. I had heard her speak crudely before, but I had never seen her swear so viciously. It was a new experience.
“Ah, thank you for helping me.”
“You look perfectly fine, so that’s a relief.”
She brushed the dirt off her dress and started walking again as if nothing had happened. I moved to her left side. Standing there made it easier to protect her than if I stayed on her right.
In any case, as long as I was responsible for her, she could not be allowed to get hurt.
“Priest, do you plan on holding my wrist the whole time?”
She suddenly looked up at me and said that. My gaze dropped to her wrist. Ah—right. I was still holding it.
Startled, I quickly let go. My face burned. Even if it had been a dangerous situation, touching a lady without permission was rude. I bowed my head.
“If I made you uncomfortable, I apologize.”
“No, not at all. I wasn’t uncomfortable in the least. In fact, I think I’d like it if you kept holding my hand.”
She smiled brightly and waved her hand slightly.
“…I refuse. People will misunderstand if they see us.”
“You really care a lot about what others think. If you don’t hold my hand, how do you know when or where I might disappear?”
She had a point. If you took your eyes off her for even a moment, she tended to wander far ahead on her own. When I was with her, I couldn’t let my guard down for a single instant. If I ever lost her while out together, it would be a serious problem.
After some deliberation, I had no choice but to take her hand. The warm heat of her soft skin flowed into me.
Walking beside her, holding her hand, I realized something. Thanks to that carriage earlier, the awkward silence that had been hanging between us had been broken. Perhaps that was a good thing.
“Where do you plan to go now?”
“Well, I hadn’t really thought about it…”
“So you were just walking aimlessly?”
She had been striding forward so confidently that I assumed she had a destination in mind. She shrugged shamelessly.
“I heard from Anton that a puppet troupe recently arrived nearby. How about going there?”
“A puppet show… I’ve never seen one before. Will it really be fun?”
“People usually think puppet shows are just for children, but they’re actually quite entertaining once you watch them.”
Memories from my childhood surfaced. Before I lost my family, the day I went to see a puppet show while holding my parents’ hands. It was one of my most precious memories.
Even now, as an adult, that puppet show remained vivid in my mind. The troupe performing today wouldn’t be the same as back then, of course.
“Then let’s go see it. If you say so, Priest, I’m looking forward to it.”
Holding her hand firmly, I led her toward where the puppet show was being held.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Thank you all very much for coming to see our performance today!”
The host greeted the audience from the stage. His face was hard to make out; he wore a black robe pulled low over his head. Usually, puppet show hosts appeared in flashy makeup. I thought it was unusual.
The count’s daughter and I took seats in a suitable spot. As expected for a puppet show, there were many children. But there were also quite a few couples without children.
I wondered idly whether others saw me and Lady Salome the same way.
Smiling, the host asked everyone to lower their voices, as the play would begin shortly. I turned to look at her. Perhaps because it was her first puppet show, she looked quite excited.
Soon, all the lights in the venue went out, leaving only the stage illuminated. It seemed this was a shadow puppet play, using light cast on a screen to tell the story.
“Long, long ago, there was a little boy.”
The host murmured softly. A shadow puppet appeared on the stage. It looked like a young boy. Beside him appeared two more puppets—a man and a woman, likely his parents.
“The little boy was a good child, but his parents were very bad people. They went around spreading stories that dared to insult the royal family.”
I watched the moving shadows in silence. The boy’s puppet looked on helplessly as his parents spread malicious rumors.
For some reason, the boy reminded me of myself. Parents deemed ‘evil’ for insulting beings as high as the heavens—and an innocent child born between them.
“The king gave his order at once. Execute the entire family. But the princes thought differently. The parents were guilty of insulting the royal family, but the child had done nothing wrong. So the princes spared the boy’s life.”
The child was pointed at and criticized by others—but what did that matter? The host added those words softly.
