A Certain Winter’s Tale Chapter 2.7 - Winterfall

Noah crawled into bed, wrapping the fluffy, soft bedding all around his body and curling up tightly. Of course, it was impossible that the strange man who would enter this room, the monarch who would invade and possess his body, would fail to find him just because he did this. But even so, he wanted to disappear from this place.

The cold, bleak night grew deeper and deeper.

His heightened sense of hearing was on edge, trying not to miss a single sound from beyond the door. He was terribly afraid that a stranger’s footsteps would cut through the sound of the wind.

An hour passed like that, and then three hours. Noah had been beaten all over, dragged here and there, and his body had been abused, yet he had traveled a long distance without rest. Lying down in the warm blankets, he gradually grew drowsy.

“I… can’t… fall asleep.”

The thought that he might wake up to find himself pinned beneath a man whose face he didn’t even know was horrifying. But he couldn’t help his body’s reaction.

Noah, who had been dozing off with his head bobbing, collapsed onto the bed with a thud without realizing it, and his breathing gradually became even.

In the end, he fell into a deep sleep where he couldn’t hear the sound of the wind raging outside the window, nor the footsteps of those who occasionally passed by outside the bedroom. No sound at all.

And that night, the thing Noah had feared did not happen.

❄️🐺❄️

“Do you know about the new person who came to the private palace in the rear garden?”

“You mean the one the Regent brought back from his last inspection of the territory?”

“Ah! Right, right! I hear rumors about him are all over the winter castle these days!”

On a cold winter day, the palace maids busily heated and carried water to deal with the piles of laundry gathered inside the castle. To get through their tedious and repetitive chores, various topics of conversation naturally came up.

The story of the monarch secluded in the inner palace and the concubine the Regent brought for him from his inspection tour naturally became a topic of conversation as well.

“I even helped him with his bath when he was being attended to in the bedchamber on his first night.”

“Gasp, I want to see him too! I don’t know which family’s noble he is, but the rumors say he’s more beautiful than anyone who has come as a consort before. Is it true?”

“Oh, don’t even get me started. From what I hear, he’s not a noble. His features are so delicate, and his skin is so fine. There wasn’t a single part of his body that wasn’t pretty, so while washing him, I even thought, is it okay for me to be touching him like this?”

As one of the maids, who was diligently pushing laundry into a washtub, recalled that day, the attention of everyone there focused on her.

“Wow, I want to see him in person too.”

“Huhu, he was trembling a lot since it was his first time. His eyes, shining purple like violets, were so pretty. I only met his gaze for a brief moment, but I almost cried.”

“Kyaaah!”

“Gasp, his first time. How scared he must have been.”

“Wow, so he’s a man. No, still, what era are we living in? How could someone so beautiful have no experience at all?”

The laundry area was filled with occasional screams of excitement and embarrassment, and the giggling laughter of the women. The youngest, who had been blushing and silently doing her laundry, suddenly asked.

“But, older sisters. It’s been a very long time since the Monarch has come out of the inner palace, right? Did that person go into the inner palace to attend to him in bed? I heard no one besides the imperial family has ever gone in there…”

“Ah.”

The maid who had been the center of attention for helping the beautiful new concubine with his bath shook her head from side to side.

“No. The truth is, the Monarch hasn’t slept with him yet.”

“Gasp!”

“Really?”

A solemn mood fell over the place that had been filled with excitement and shyness.

“Tsk, tsk. Someone so beautiful… He must have been so looking forward to a night with the Monarch. What a shame.”

“That’s right. If he saved his first time to serve the Monarch, he must be truly heartbroken.”

“Sigh. But what can be done? The Monarch isn’t the type to enjoy spending nights with concubines in the first place, and his anthropophobia has flared up so badly that he hasn’t come outside for over a month.”

Along with the solemnity, conversations flowed, mourning the plight of the beautiful concubine who must have polished his looks and worked hard to serve the Monarch.

“Since he has preserved his first time for so long, don’t you think they’ll be joined before he takes his eleventh consort?”

“That’s right. I’m rooting for him. He isn’t picky like other nobles, and he’s kind in all matters. Anyone can see that he’s lovely. So I really hope things work out for him! My other colleague who serves in the private palace feels sorry for him too.”

Their monarch was extremely picky with people and was the type to refuse to go out whenever something did not go his way. Noah, who had captured the hearts of the maids in just one month with his lovely personality and flower-like beauty, earned their pity all the more.

The women shook their heads from side to side, pouring out words of respect and support for the new member of the private palace. Since a man who was not a noble had entered the private palace, it would be difficult for him to endure the nagging of the people residing there unless he was joined with the Monarch. That point snowballed into rumors about the beautiful and pitiful concubine, stimulating the maternal instincts of the female palace staff and the protective instincts of the male palace staff.

Of course, Noah himself did not find the situation pitiful at all.

“Michaelis. You went to all the trouble of buying me for a high price, but what will you do if the reaction isn’t very good?”

A bright smile finally bloomed on Noah’s flower-like face. It had already been a month since he entered the private palace in the winter castle.

Having eaten quality meals on time and lived without any strenuous physical activity, Noah’s cheeks had filled out with fair flesh. As his once-slender body filled out nicely, Noah’s face shone even more brightly. It was to the point where one could say his beauty was in full bloom.

However, since the reason Noah could smile until that day was what it was, Michaelis’s stomach churned. The very pretty gift he had brought with such difficulty from a faraway land was showing off its beauty all by itself, and the original purpose for his entry into the palace had not yet been achieved. None other than, sleeping with the Monarch.

“Haaa…”

“Heeheehee.”

The cause wasn’t Noah’s fault either, so Michaelis could only sigh more.

Having helped the Red House, Noah had resolved to silently accept his situation and receive the Monarch.

However, Michaelis’s friend, their incredibly fussy monarch, didn’t even go out at all and remained secluded only in the inner palace. Since the fault lay with their side, he couldn’t blame Noah.

“So, where are you trying to go out again?”

“Just going for a walk.”

“That darn walk…”

Although Noah was assigned a space in a corner of the private palace, Michaelis had granted him free access within the palace grounds because he said he was bored of being confined there. Since his situation was no different from the other concubines who had entered the private palace, it was not logical to restrict only Noah’s movements.

However, there was one thing that did not sit well with him. Noah, as if he were having an affair with some other man, would leave his room whenever he had the chance and wander around the castle. But he hadn’t done anything conspicuous yet, and even if he really was, as long as the Monarch, who had no interest in the concubines, just let him be, Michaelis had no way to stop Noah.

“Haa, as I always say, before the sun sets…”

“Of course! I’ll be back before the sun sets.”

In case Michaelis might retract his permission, Noah smiled brightly and answered hastily. Then he buttoned his thick fur coat up to his neck, gave a deep bow, and immediately left the room.

It wasn’t that Noah was having an affair with someone or plotting something mischievous, as Michaelis feared. Noah knew his situation perfectly well and did his best to keep his promise with Michaelis, who had helped the Red House.

Although it was unfamiliar, he silently went along when the maids came forward to groom his beauty, pulling him this way and that, and he strictly followed what he was taught not to do within the palace.

The first two weeks or so passed by in a daze like that, and during that time, the winter monarch who was supposed to have taken his first time did not visit Noah’s room.

As time passed, Noah began to get used to life in the private palace. It was about time he started to feel bored and listless. So he got permission from Michaelis and began to wander around the parts of the castle he was allowed to go.

“Haha, Jonny will be in that garden again today, right?”

The place Noah had started to frequent recently was none other than the garden located between the private palace and the inner palace. When he first discovered that garden, which no one ever visited, Noah shook his head from side to side.

He couldn’t quite understand how a palace full of beautiful decorations could have such a desolate and dreary space. A garden in a castle this large and beautiful, without a single proper flower in bloom.

Moreover, when he asked about the garden, the answer from a maid he had come to greet while coming and going from the private palace stirred a sense of pity in Noah’s heart.

[Flowers do not bloom in the winter castle, Mr. Noah.]

Ever since the previous monarch suffered from madness, winter had come to the empire and stayed, refusing to leave. And right from that moment, all the flower blossoms in the winter castle withered. The garden, which once required hundreds of hands just to tend to all the flowers of the world blooming in harmony, gradually turned into a gloomy space.

Perhaps it was because he heard that story. Feeling a strange concern for that space that evoked loneliness, Noah kept finding himself visiting it.

“Maybe the flowers can’t bloom because it’s so cold. Jonny said he would look for flowers that bloom in winter, I wonder if he found any?”

Noah quickened his pace and looked around the garden. It was a garden that looked just as bleak as ever. Noah’s hometown, far from the central territory, the territory of the sun, had many unkempt vacant lots untouched by human hands, but small wildflowers would often bloom there. That was why, to Noah, the territory of the sun felt more like a place where people lived than the rich and beautiful winter territory.

The central territory he had come to for the first time in his life, and the harsh cold he was experiencing for the first time. Perhaps because of that, Noah desperately needed a single flower that could bring a small hope to his difficult and weary life. Back there, his life had been harder both physically and mentally than it was now, but a small, shyly bloomed wildflower would gently melt his heart.

“Jonny!”

“Mr. Noah!”

Noah hurried to meet the first friend he had made here. It was Jonny, a small friend who managed the yard and garden located behind the Monarch’s inner palace.

“I was just wondering if you weren’t coming today! You came at the perfect time! I looked it up, and there are this many flowers that bloom in winter!”

Noah smiled brightly and approached his new friend. He was a boy who looked to be just about fifteen. Perhaps because he had the same name as the six or seven-year-old Jonny who had clung to Noah’s back and giggled at the Red House, Jonny of the winter castle felt more endearing than others.

“Haha, you’re right? But is it really okay to plant these flowers in the garden?”

“Oh my, of course! It’s already been over ten years since I came to work as the gardener here. As long as it’s something nice to look at, no one says anything, no matter what decorations are brought in.”

Among the palace staff, there were many who had at least a little bit of noble blood and aged more slowly than commoners. Jonny, too, looked like a boy of about fifteen on the outside, but he was a palace servant who had already worked in the palace for over ten years.