Episode 37

Chapter 4. Nothing Goes According to Plan

The morning's wedding mass ended in a solemn and reverent atmosphere.

The chapel located in the middle of the Via Santalaria boasted a magnificent appearance after being renovated over a hundred and fifty years, but only a very small number of people attended, far from filling the seats for the numerous believers.

It was a shabby affair, considering that just a year earlier, the same chapel had hosted the wedding of the second son of a nobleman, with nearly a thousand guests.

It was a union between the Dukes of Escalante and Ballestena, so it cannot be dismissed as indifferent by the people.

It is also the wedding of the heir to the Duke of Escalante and the only daughter of the Duke of Ballestena.

How many nobles would want to sit close to the bride and groom on the second or third floor of the chapel, where they would be seen like dots, and see this precious sight with their own eyes, and talk about it for the rest of their lives?

I saw that wedding, the moment of a lifetime when the most handsome man in the empire and a witch of exceptional birth knelt before the archbishop and bound each other for the rest of their lives… Then they headed to the banquet hall of the Duke of Ballestena and placed bets.

'Captain Escalante, who seems to be holding back these days, when will he meet a new lover?', 'How long will he be able to endure the marriage he had been avoiding so much?', 'How much will a honeymoon with a solemn religious priest satisfy him instead of an exciting one-night stand?'...

Of course, even if you weren't invited to the wedding mass, such bets were already popular. There hasn't been a more boisterous topic of conversation in recent times than the young couple of Escalante.

It was clear that even the crown prince and his fiancée would not receive this much attention. So it was natural that the Mentos nobles were extremely disappointed when invitations to the wedding mass were extended to only a very small number of people.

Even though their marriage was announced in advance to the public, no invitations were sent back, so there were even more loud rumors and all sorts of speculations about their marriage.

However, the reason why Ines and Cassel did not regret their lackluster marriage was simple. No matter what people outside were saying, the scene unfolding before their eyes was always quiet and still.

It was a closed ceremony, with only a few members of the imperial family and representative members of the seventeen families belonging to the Grandes de Ortega invited.

The wedding mass, presided over by Archbishop Ortega himself, was solemn and the number of guests was so small that even a whisper would reverberate throughout the vast chapel.

Although the social circle of Mentossa sometimes boasted of even unethical nature, there was no other race that lived their whole lives like the Grandes de Ortega. There was not a single one who would throw away the family's honor for a single word.

It was a simple ceremony in which no one opened their mouth and, of course, no objections were raised.

The invitation was urgent, making the long engagement period of seventeen years pale in comparison. In a society where the young ladies of noble families invest at least two or three years just for their wedding ceremony and change their wedding dresses countless times—they were like heretics, canceling a wedding that wasn't even planned until two weeks before.

Even though Ines Ballestena was already a heretic, she still got to have the wedding of her dreams with 'that' Cassel Escalante.

It was so hasty that it was hard to show it to as many people as possible, the expectation that the Duchess of Ballestena excluded all the Mentos nobles in order to avoid this embarrassment, and the speculation that it might be the result of the closed, unfriendly, and exclusive personality of Ines Ballestena de Perez… … .

Various sober interpretations followed.

However, it is clear that at least none of the very few guests who attended the wedding mass felt that way.

"… … ."

Cassel sat at the head of the table at the magnificent banquet held at the Duke of Ballestena's house early in the evening, watching the dancers.

To be more precise, he was looking at the bride who should be sitting next to him right now.

The image of Ines dancing with her brother Luciano appeared and disappeared repeatedly between the dancing couple. Cassel's gaze followed her.

Her movements followed Luciano's lead smoothly, like flowing water. The hem of her dress fluttering like a blooming flower bud also caught the attention of others.

Luciano smiled faintly at some joke he made, and for some reason, my throat got dry.

As he looked at it, everyone here looked at it. A not-so-pleasant feeling came over him and then consciously disappeared.

Cassel picked up the glass of water and drank it immediately. Even as the water went down his throat, he was still thirsty.

The song was tiresomely long, and the dance didn't end with the song. He narrowed his eyes so as not to lose sight of Ines among the men and women who had begun to circle around, and absentmindedly opened his mouth into a straight line.

"Is the song too long?"

Isn't the song too long? Just as he was thinking that way, a voice suddenly came from next to him and for a moment, Cassel doubted whether he had said that.

But his voice had always been a sweet, low note that was pleasant to hear since he had passed puberty, and the voice that happened to strike his heart was sweet and gentle.

Of course, that was just how Cassel heard it.

"… Ihar."

Dante Ihar. He was the eldest son of the Ihar Dukes, who were famous for being old-fashioned. With his golden-brown hair neatly slicked back and a very neat appearance, this nobleman, who resembled his father and was known for being old-fashioned and conservative, enjoyed a rather free private life behind the scenes.

With the solid image of the Duke of Ihar as his halo, and the private life of Cassel, who was so handsome that his mere presence made a big fuss, he hid behind it… He was like a bird hiding between the branches of a dense tree. He was also like a crocodile bird living off of parasites.

If we are to talk about the private life of Dante Ihar, who has secretly hidden governments all over Mentor, then the many nights in Kassel are almost laughable.

But since people thought, 'That must be stupid,' and didn't pay any attention, no matter how much I lived like a rag, it didn't show. Since it didn't show, no one criticized me...

After Cassel returned to the Duke of Ballestena with Ines, he had a seemingly endless private moment with the Duke of Ballestena while she went up to get dressed for the banquet.

Unlike at the dinner, the Duke was calm and composed, and showed his dignity by not raising his voice even for a moment. However, the criticism pouring out calmly was a torture worse than losing his reason.

For example, 'Ines was going to marry Enrique Osorno in the future. As for him, he is different from you, who is only good at running on the parade ground and looks like you are full of muscles, but he has a brilliant mind and great learning, so he will give me a grandchild who is just right for me… '

Or, 'Look at Leonardo Helves, men generally don't live as long as women, and especially ones like you, who tend to end up outside and become a swindler, so it's better for you to marry a young one like that and let Ines control you.'

Or, 'Dante Ihar was just right. Even his father, Prince Ihar, was qualitatively different from your loose-lipped father in that he was an upright person, and he inherited that and lived a straight face and a prudent private life... As has been said since ancient times, a husband would never go astray even if he was old-fashioned and a little boring... ...' and so on, the eldest sons of marriageable age were called out one by one from each household. In order to make Cassel look inferior in every aspect of the world.

The Duke of Ballestena went around to all seventeen of the houses of the Grandes de Ortega, trying to be serious and reasonable, and to preach to them that there were so many precious grooms in the world, unlike their rag-like sons-in-law.

In contrast to the reality where he was completely obedient to his craftsman, if we are to be exact, there was no one who could be properly convinced from start to finish. Since Cassel was very objective about himself, he also viewed others very objectively.

No matter how flawed he is and how inadequate he is to Ines, there is no man better than him. Objectively speaking. If he is inadequate to Ines, no one in the world will be sufficient for Ines. Really, objectively.

Cassel made that judgment with a seemingly natural arrogance, and with difficulty took his gaze away from Ines to stare intently at Dante Ihar.

The most shocking of them all is Dante Ihar, who just happened to be talking to me.

A straight face? It's a face that you can find on the side of the road, and you can't really feel anything special about it, except that the eyes, nose, and mouth are in the right place.

A discreet private life? Well, never going astray…?

"You look anxious. You can't take your eyes off the bride for even a moment. I don't know if it's because you want the song to end quickly and you to stay by her side, or because you want to get her out of people's sight."

"Whatever it is, is it of any concern to you?"

"Someone bet you'd find a new one-night stand partner at the Ballestena family's banquet. If I were watching you now, I'd regret it so much. The loss would be enormous."

"That's not something I really want to hear at a wedding."

"I'm not saying this to make you feel bad. I'm just saying that they're wrong."

"… … ."

Dante Ihar shrugged and smiled slyly. Is that straight? Even when you look at him as he passes by on horseback, it is a worn-out smile. It is clear that not only his body has been rolling, but his mind has also been rolling.