Chapter 1

The Princess Who Went to the Eastern Country (1)

They said the winters in that country were terribly cold.

Twelve-year-old Ana Rosa sat absentmindedly, watching her maids bustle about as they packed her belongings. They had already been packing for a whole week.

Her mother’s head maid had spent the entire week going back and forth between Ana Rosa’s room, taking the lead in filling the young bride’s suitcases.

They had even asked Ana Rosa what she wanted to take with her, but of the things she wanted, there were only a handful she could actually bring. She couldn’t take the puppy that had always slept beside her, nor the parrot she had raised herself.

She even had to leave behind the scriptures she read every night when she prayed. They said that since she was being made Empress of Mun, bringing the scriptures of this country with her would be disrespectful.

It was then that Ana Rosa realized that what was absolute truth in one land could be considered blasphemy in another.

“Your Highness, shall I bring you some tea?”

Ana Rosa turned her head and looked at the maid. This maid had become her personal attendant only two days ago. She was to accompany Ana Rosa on her journey to the vast Eastern Empire where she would be married.

The playmates who had always been with her had already returned home. The maids who had cared for her belonged to her mother and could not accompany her.

She had to bring maids of her own, but there was no way a young girl like her could choose them herself. In the end, the maid her mother had chosen was this woman.

“Blanca.”

Blanca la Repo. She had heard that she was the daughter of the House of Repo. She was of average height, with a figure that was perhaps a little plumper than that of the other maids.

Her reddish-brown hair was neatly pinned up and covered with a hairnet. Her blouse rose all the way to her neck and had neither lace nor a brooch. Her skirt was completely unadorned.

The only thing that stood out was that the skirt came up to almost below her calves.

Ana Rosa had never seen a woman wearing a skirt that short before, so when she first met Blanca, she couldn’t take her eyes off her shoes. Especially because Blanca wasn’t wearing ordinary dress shoes, but boots.

“Do you think the tea we drink here will be available in Mun, too?”

Blanca answered honestly.

“I am sorry, Your Highness, but I do not know.”

That was one of the strange things about Blanca.

Unlike the other maids, Blanca didn’t know very much. And that was why Ana Rosa could trust her.

Ana Rosa was only twelve, but even she understood that her maids couldn’t possibly have an answer to everything she asked. Yet the maids always answered her questions without hesitation.

They probably pretended to know things they didn’t.

Yes, the maids didn’t know very much.

When Ana Rosa said she didn’t want to go to Mun, the women who hugged her were kind.

But when they said things like, “Her Majesty the Queen is also so overcome with grief at sending Your Highness to marry in a foreign land thousands of miles away that she forgets to eat and sleep every day,” they were certainly being irresponsible, trying to comfort her with pleasant words about things they couldn’t possibly know for certain.

Ana Rosa suddenly felt a dull ache in her cheek. She raised her right hand and covered her left cheek.

It seemed to throb.

The wound she had received when she begged her mother to save her because she didn’t want to go to Mun was no longer visible. But sometimes she still imagined that her cheek was throbbing.

Tomorrow, she would leave for Mun.

They said it would take a month to get there by ship.

Ana Rosa was frightened when she heard that she would board an ironclad warship at the port. The only boats she had ever ridden in her life were little boats meant for pleasure.

And now she was going to ride on a warship.

Would she be all right?

“Blanca. Is the New Era safe?”

Blanca la Repo looked down at the young princess with a puzzled expression.

New Era?

That was a rather presumptuous term for a princess to use.

A new era?

Her father the King was still hale and hearty.

Just then, the princess fidgeted with the teacup Blanca had handed her and finally voiced her worry.

“What if the steam engine explodes?”

Only then did Blanca realize that the “New Era” the princess was talking about was the name of the warship.

Ah.

Blanca swallowed a sigh.

What was she supposed to say?

I was dragged out of the temple only a week ago myself, Your Highness. I have never even been on a train, let alone a ship. My father is a terrible man. He said that if I refused to leave the temple and look after a child, he would destroy it. I had already devoted myself to the temple, but I had no choice but to come here…

Blanca couldn’t say any of that.

The princess was already far too unhappy.

She had heard that the Emperor of Mun was a lecher.

That country had a harem system.

Unlike here, where even getting involved with two or three women could lead to complicated consequences and responsibility, the Emperor of Mun had hundreds of concubines and thousands of palace maids.

Every woman in the empire belonged to him.

Even those he did not take to his bed belonged to him in the sense that he possessed the right to do so.

And a twelve-year-old girl was being married off to a man who had lived like that for sixty-nine years.

Blanca had heard the political reasons behind the marriage.

But no matter how many political justifications they attached to it, to Blanca this marriage was nothing more and nothing less than selling a little girl to a perverted old man.

“I have heard that it is an excellent ship. It took two years to build, and I heard that countless people gathered for its launching ceremony.”

A monk who had come to the temple had proudly told them all about the launching ceremony after witnessing it himself.

Even the priestesses at the temple had listened with shining eyes.

The high-ranking nobles they had only ever heard about sat upon the platform and applauded.

When darkness fell, fireworks began decorating the night sky in dazzling colors.

Barkers called out to customers from inns and taverns.

People sold all sorts of things at street stalls while crowds talked, drank, and danced.

Everyone looked upon the ship, enormous as a great wall, and dreamed of a shining future.

They rejoiced.

And that magnificent ship was scheduled to depart carrying a princess as its cargo.

That ship did not deserve such cheers.

Even so, Blanca tried to reassure the princess.

As Blanca recounted everything she could remember about the launching ceremony, the princess seemed somewhat relieved.

Her heaving chest slowly settled back down.

Only then did Blanca realize that the girl had been holding her breath the entire time, unable to exhale after taking a deep breath.

“I’ll be traveling on such a magnificent ship, so I’ll meet a magnificent ruler. I’ll be all right.”

The princess spoke.

Her eyes were looking somewhere beyond Blanca.

Following her gaze, Blanca saw the stacked suitcases.

Blanca couldn’t say a word.

After a full month at sea, Ana Rosa looked haggard compared to when she had left her homeland.

When they arrived at Mun’s capital, Yeongyeon, and the ship docked, the maids who had accompanied Ana Rosa tried their best to make her beautiful.

Blanca swallowed hard several times as she watched them tighten a corset around the princess’s slender waist.

Twelve was not an impossibly young age, but she was far too young to be presented as the bride of a man nearly seventy years old.

The maids tightening the princess’s waist until it seemed as though her ribs might break, all so that she would look like a “woman” to him, were disturbing to watch.

Ana Rosa’s eyes were fixed on Blanca.

Her long hair covered half of her small face.

The one visible eye trembled like a shipwrecked vessel.

Her irises, emerald-colored as though they had been fashioned from melted emeralds—the symbol of healing—were filled with despair.

And yet Ana Rosa kept her chin raised.

As though she refused to forget that she was a princess.

Blanca found herself once again contemplating what she had been thinking about for the entire month.

Should I run away with Ana Rosa?

There was no way it could be God’s will to offer this young princess to a perverted old man in power.

She had sworn to live as a servant of God.

Perhaps God’s will had brought her here so that she could save Ana Rosa.

But just as she had been unable to escape with Ana Rosa in the middle of the sea, the same was true here in Yeongyeon.

The young princess was never left alone for even a moment.

And that remained true until she was brought before the Emperor.

The imperial palace of Mun was quite different from the royal palace of Ausis.

Of course, the Casas Royal Palace of Ausis was enormous as well.

A magnificent palace with more than three thousand rooms.

When Blanca had first gone there, she had been overwhelmed by its sheer scale.

But the imperial palace of Mun was not a building.

It was a territory.

A vast domain containing countless palaces.

“Why are all the palaces divided into separate areas?”

Blanca had wondered whether such an arrangement wouldn’t make it difficult to maintain control, but the interpreter replied in a puzzled tone.

“People of such noble status cannot all live together in a single palace.”

“…Is that so? Then the Princess as well…”

“Yes. Her Highness will become the mistress of the Gon Palace—in other words, the Empress’s Palace.”

To be given her own private domain within the imperial palace was astonishing.

In Ausis, even the King could not have an entire palace to himself.

Of course, the palace assigned to her here would probably be a small one, but still…

Still? So what?

Just because she gets her own little palace, does that mean it’s all right for a twelve-year-old girl to be held by a seventy-year-old man?