216 - Pieces of the Broken Glass Slipper
Shattered Glass Slipper Shards 216
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The Emperor's death was now nothing. Only the man caught in the Crown Prince's fingertips mattered.
How could it not be so, when the short man had suddenly appeared as a tall one? No matter how much one's physique could change, one couldn't increase one's height. Perhaps that was why most of the people around couldn't believe it.
"Then who was the man we've been seeing all this time?"
Someone whispered with a questioning voice. But no one answered. Everyone was just blinking dumbly, bewildered.
Only those belonging to the Empress faction and I remained calm. Even Lady Roshan was speechless, silently moving her lips. It meant she found the situation absurd.
I asked her, "Did you really not know?" And I added to Roshan, who looked at me as if asking how I knew him,
"I happened to run into him a few times on the street. I've also seen him at the Masquerade."
"I see."
She nodded with an awkward smile. It was strange. Wasn't Lady Roshan the Crown Prince's closest aide, practically managing social circles' information on his behalf? Therefore, she couldn't have not known the Grand Duke, who had appeared at the Masquerade several times.
Even if she hadn't noticed his true identity, wouldn't she have been somewhat familiar with his masked appearance...?
But she wore a face that truly didn't know. There was no lie to be seen anywhere in her bitterly smiling face.
After a while, Lissette Roshan sighed and uttered words that were close to an excuse.
"Actually, I don't know everything either. I tend to filter out unimportant people. In social circles, new people appear and disappear dozens of times a day. Most of them are riffraff desperate to get in here."
She said that the Grand Duke had never appeared at general Masquerades or social tea times.
The place he frequented was gatherings like the balls Chatoul hosted, where prostitutes and male prostitutes could enter, so most of the information coming in was garbage.
'Otherwise, there's no way I would have overlooked a man with that kind of aura, right?' Roshan said in a light, joking tone, but that didn't brighten her gloomy face.
"Perhaps even if information about him came in, I might have dismissed it as unimportant."
It was a different attitude from the Crown Prince, who had hinted that he knew the Grand Duke's true appearance to some extent and had been constantly watching him. Covering her forehead with her hand as if confused, she seemed no different from the people around her.
Why did the Crown Prince keep the Grand Duke's information a secret from Roshan?
I tilted my head at the sudden question that popped into my head. It wasn't like she was a gossipy person.
I understood that as the next Emperor, he would gather information through his own channels, but they weren't so lacking in trust that they had to deceive each other. Or perhaps, it was a perfectly possible attitude for the Crown Prince, who constantly suspected others.
I swallowed a sigh that was about to burst out and lightly tapped the back of Roshan's hand with my finger. Then she looked at me and smiled again, forcing herself.
The Crown Prince, seemingly oblivious to the people's confusion, continued to speak. Roughly summarized, the Emperor's funeral would be in three days, all the nobles in the provinces would attend, and he told them not to grieve too much.
His voice, urging them to take time to mourn the Emperor even after returning home, was so calm that it was almost indifferent. It was a stark contrast to the Empress, who was endlessly grieving.
It was less like the resignation of someone who had no choice but to accept the great fate of death, and more like a completely ordinary attitude. He didn't seem like someone who had lost his father.
While everyone's gazes were clearly divided on whether to call it cold-heartedness or to sugarcoat it as enduring with composure, the Empress eventually fainted.
Fortunately, the Grand Duke, who was standing next to her, caught her body, or she would have fallen headfirst onto the drawing room floor in an unsightly manner.
People made a fuss and took the Empress to the inner room, and the Crown Prince dismissed everyone, saying that he needed to check on her condition.
It was a stark contrast to Chatoul, who seemed to have finally come to her senses and was barely getting up, leaning against one side of the wall.
I asked a maid to put Mother on the carriage first, excused myself to Lady Roshan, and then stood in a corner of the drawing room, calmly waiting for everyone to disappear.
And when enough time had passed that rumors wouldn't spread easily, I approached Chatoul, who was standing blankly as if she had lost her soul. She was greatly shaken, caught in a storm of sorrow and despair.
"Do you know what?"
Chatoul quietly opened her mouth as I approached. It seemed she knew it was me who had approached her, even though she didn't make eye contact.
Her voice, full of dejection, contained something bigger than sorrow for the death of the Emperor, who had protected her. It was far from enough to express it as shock.
"To His Majesty, I was a pet that could be mated with. Or should I say, a wild cat that wasn't well tamed. Just an object of amusement. Well, I treated him as the biggest guest in my life, so it's the same."
Perhaps memories of the Emperor came to mind. A smile suddenly appeared on her face. It was a calm attitude that didn't suit the reckless woman who had stirred up social circles with the Sun's favor on her back.
"So it wasn't as good a relationship as the rumors said. His Majesty was the most violent, capricious, and even had a bad temper of all the men I've been with. I probably would have run away a long time ago if he wasn't the richest man in the Empire."
Perhaps because of her shabby appearance, her leaning against the wall was so pure that it was even elegant at first glance. Her eyes, wet with tears, were a pitiful cat itself.
"Cats also know how to grieve when the person who took care of them dies. But people around don't think so. Tell me. Do I look like I'm crying because I'm afraid of death?"
Before, I would have handed her a new handkerchief. Or I would have reached out and put my arm around her shoulder. But now, Chatoul and I were maintaining a distance that was only one step away, a distance that should no longer be crossed. Like the many people who had turned away from her.
If not, this position was perfect until the Emperor's will was revealed. There was no need to create unnecessary gossip.
Nevertheless, the reason I stubbornly uttered a word was out of pity for her, who had been a lifeline.
"...I haven't forgotten the promise."
Then Chatoul laughed hollowly, as if she had heard something absurd. Her eyes measuring the distance between herself and me seemed to be questioning, 'While acting like this?' The voice that flowed out naturally was full of cynicism.
"Don't bother. Even in the brothel before, it was common to hurt each other while avoiding the eyes of the pimp, let alone the nobles. His Majesty is truly ignorant about women's power struggles. He's a cruel person."
People never forgot to use the word 'ignorant' when describing Chatoul. It was because she acted as she pleased, as if she didn't know etiquette, even though several years had passed since she entered the palace with the Emperor's favor.
Her attitude of exposing her cleavage as if she had no shame, laughing loudly enough to show her Adam's apple, and not hesitating to use vulgar curses when angry was closer to licentiousness than freedom. Some lamented that she had muddied the waters of social circles.
But there was no one as wise as Chatoul in examining her own situation. Of course, she was very greedy when it came to wealth and sometimes acted as if she were the Empress, shocking everyone, but when you thought about it, she was only playing within the lines that the Emperor had set.
"Just give me enough money. I've become so accustomed to spending that I can't live the same life as before."
Now that she had regained the strength to walk to her room, Chatoul took her body off the wall and straightened her posture. She would remain in the palace until the funeral, as a courtesy to the Emperor, so she could attend.
But it was uncertain how much wealth she would take with her when she was kicked out afterward. It was because the Emperor had suddenly died from a deteriorating health condition, so there was not enough time to exchange jewelry and paintings for money.
Of course, if she did such a thing while the Emperor was alive, she would have been caught up in all sorts of gossip and cursed.
"...The mansion?"
"I have a house that His Majesty gave me. It's a good mansion. So don't worry about anything else."
The end of the prostitute, who seemed like she would always be above the Empress, was so shabby. She, who had been meticulously cared for by the maids just yesterday, now had to return alone down the long corridor.
Even the people who were wiping the Emperor's corpse in the room didn't look at Chatoul. Not even at me, who was standing with her. As if treating her like she didn't exist, like that.
Even the Crown Prince, who had laid down the Empress, had coldly passed us by. So how much more harsh treatment would she receive at the funeral?
I blankly blinked my eyes, watching Chatoul's figure gradually moving away. From the beginning, the Emperor's death was causing great changes in everyone's lives. Closely to Chatoul and the Crown Prince, and distantly to the entire Empire, like that.
