Chapter 10
“Do you think there are too few varieties?”
But it seemed the emperor’s castle did not lack. Marcella looked at the well-maintained, fresh flowers and slightly frowned.
The emperor’s greed seemed endless. *Well, that’s how he got rid of his own flesh and blood and became emperor, after all.*
“Looking closely, I see now. It wasn’t just one; it was a different flower.”
The slight frown deepened.
Marcella watched him, wondering what he was suddenly talking about. He spoke as if he had just realized something.
“Surely you don’t mean to say you thought there was only one type of flower here, do you?”
*That’s a lie, isn’t it?* Marcella looked at him suspiciously. Then Nell, who had been looking at the flowers, turned his head to look at Marcella.
“It’s not that I can’t distinguish colors; I knew there were roses of many colors.”
“No, I’m not talking about roses. It’s not that there are only roses here.”
“……”
“This is confusing. You’re trying to tease me, aren’t you? If so, please stop. I’ve been surprised enough already.”
Marcella spoke, but Nell still looked puzzled. Marcella watched him suspiciously for a moment, then abruptly rose from her seat and stood beside him.
“What Your Majesty is saying… is that you thought roses and tulips were the same thing right now?”
“Which one is the tulip?”
*The owner of the glass garden doesn’t even know what a tulip is!* He gathered all these flowers and flaunted luxury, yet he doesn’t even know their names? Marcella couldn’t understand.
She pointed at another flower with her finger.
“Surely you won’t say you don’t know this flower either.”
“…A rose?”
“So you do know roses. I’m relieved.”
Nell had merely uttered the only flower name he knew; he didn’t actually know if that was truly a rose.
Still, hearing Marcella, who had been aghast at his ignorance, say she was relieved made him think he had answered correctly and he lifted his head.
The glass garden was made entirely of transparent glass, making it easy to see outside, and the same was true from the outside.
Nell noticed someone watching from the top floor of the south palace with a telescope. It was Arthur.
Arthur was holding the telescope with his right hand and making some sort of hand signal with his left.
“Then do you know what this flower is?”
At Marcella’s question, Nell, who had been watching Arthur’s gestures, turned his head.
Marcella tried to see what Nell had been looking at, but the distance to the south palace was too far to see who was there with the naked eye.
*Why was he looking at nothing?* Puzzled, Marcella looked around.
“A rose of a different color.”
“No. This is a ranunculus, Your Majesty.”
“Ranun…?”
“Ranunculus. It does look similar to a rose.”
Marcella moved closer to the pink ranunculus.
She could guess how much effort the person tending to it must have put in, and it made her sad.
Even though it bloomed so beautifully, the master who should appreciate it doesn’t even know what flower it is, thinking there are just different kinds of the same flower. For whom did these flowers bloom so beautifully?
Nell furrowed his brow, comparing the rose and this ranun-whatever to see what the difference was. To him, anything with petals and leaves that resembled a rose was simply a ‘flower’.
He had never observed flowers this closely before and had no interest. He hadn’t become emperor because he particularly wanted this glass garden either.
As he was seriously staring at the flowers, Nell suddenly felt a gaze and looked up. Arthur was gesturing even more urgently than before.
Perhaps feeling that wasn’t enough, he started waving his entire body, but it was too much for Nell to understand.
***
Meanwhile, Arthur was dying of frustration. *Give her the flower, Your Majesty. Give the lady the flower. What’s so hard about that!* Even though he had sworn lifelong loyalty to his liege, he really found him exasperating at times like this.
“There’s no way he’d understand. Even if he did, he wouldn’t know why he should give her a flower.”
Tamarin, who was forbidden from entering within twenty paces of Marcella, giggled and mocked Arthur.
“Expecting Nell to figure it out on his own is unlike you, Arthur.”
“Am I asking for too much from His Majesty?”
“You asked for something far too big.”
As Phoenix and Tamarin teased Arthur with mock sympathy, Arthur let out a long sigh and raised his head.
“It’s within the expected range. Let’s move to the next step.”
Arthur snapped his fingers, and a man dressed as a gardener appeared before him.
At Arthur’s nod, the man grabbed gardening shears and a bucket and ran toward the glass garden.
As the disguised gardener quietly entered the glass garden, Nell looked up.
The gardener flinched when he met the emperor’s eyes but put on his most harmless smile and approached them.
Nell saw Arthur plastered against the window, desperately gesturing, and looked back at the gardener.
“Do… as he… says!”
“You think shouting from here will reach over there?”
“With a sincere heart, it might.”
“To Nell?”
Tamarin giggled and mocked Arthur.
Ignoring Tamarin, Arthur used his whole body again to send telepathy to his liege.
“If he offers to cut a flower for you!”
Arthur desperately wished his feelings would reach His Majesty. This was all part of Arthur’s plan. Using the opportunity while Theon Morris was absent to deliver the invitation, bringing Marcella here in a rude manner, even pushing the two into the glass garden—it was all intentional, meant to give Arthur a bad role and highlight His Majesty’s relative kindness.
Wouldn’t it be perfect to give her a flower as an apology? Arthur marveled at his own genius plan internally while sending telepathic waves.
Finally, Nell seemed to understand and nodded. Arthur was moved.
Before a word of admiration could leave Arthur’s lips, he saw Nell grab the gardener by the collar. Before Arthur could fall from the window in horror, the gardener was flung straight toward him and crashed down.
At that moment, Arthur was so impressed by his liege’s perfect magic skill—even casting a spell to let the gardener pass through the glass and deliver him precisely to Arthur—that he felt tears welling up.
“Look at that!”
Tamarin held his stomach and laughed at Arthur like crazy.
Not wanting to see that, Arthur turned away and shoved the gardener off him with his foot.
“Move. Now.”
“Sorry, Lord Digory!”
Arthur gritted his teeth at his perfectly imperfect plan and stood up.
“Wait, what happened in the brief moment I looked away?!”
Arthur’s plan was for Nell to hand Marcella a flower, but for some reason, Marcella was handing a flower to Nell.
***
Marcella heard the sound of a bucket and shears falling to the ground and turned around. Since Nell had already grabbed and thrown the gardener, she didn’t know a gardener had been there and looked at the suddenly appeared bucket and shears in puzzlement.
It was strange, as if they had fallen from the sky. But the sky was blocked by glass. It seemed as if someone had thrown them.
The first person that came to mind was Arthur Digory, who had laughed heartily after delivering her to the emperor and then disappeared, but his figure was nowhere to be seen.
Then, was it Nell? But Nell merely tilted his head when their eyes met.
*Whoever it was, they probably didn’t intend for the emperor to use this himself.*
Feeling uneasy, Marcella picked up the bucket and shears. The shears were frighteningly sharp. *What if someone tried to attack His Majesty with this?*
Marcella looked at the emperor, holding the shears.
“If there’s a flower you’d like, I’ll give it to you.”
She wasn’t an expert at gardening, but she could manage to cut one rose.
Marcella snipped the air with the shears, waiting for Nell to speak.
“You don’t want one? Wait!”
Startled, Marcella threw down the shears and grabbed Nell’s arm. He was trying to yank a rose stem.
“Roses have thorns! What are you going to do if you try to tear it off like that?”
“The thorns don’t seem that tough.”
“Don’t underestimate them just because they don’t look tough. Those thorns can definitely hurt Your Majesty’s hands.”
*Is he really this lacking in common sense?* Remembering the time he tried to eat a mushroom raw, Marcella looked up at the blinking emperor suspiciously.
“I said no!”
Taking advantage of her loosened grip, Nell reached for the rose again. Marcella tightly grabbed his arm.
*He’s not a six-year-old like Tella, you know! How old is His Majesty this year? He became emperor at sixteen two years ago, so eighteen? He’s a year older than me!*
Marcella shook her head, looking at him with disbelief.
“If there’s a flower you want, I’ll give it to you. Will this rose do?”
With the clumsy skill she’d observed over his shoulder, Marcella cut the rose and trimmed its thorns.
It was burdensome that Nell was staring intently at her. She had already boasted she’d do it, and it wasn’t going well, making her self-conscious. Him watching made it even harder to do properly.
“I’m sorry. I ruined Your Majesty’s rose.”
In the end, Marcella tentatively offered him the rose while apologizing.
Taking the rose, Nell touched the part where the thorns had been with his fingertip. The clumsily removed thorns left an ugly, bumpy surface, but they didn’t prick his fingertip.
“Why are you apologizing?”
“Because I ruined Your Majesty’s rose.”
Marcella despaired at Nell, who made her repeat the same thing twice. If he wanted to accuse her of a crime, he should just say so directly.
But Nell, as if time moved very slowly for him, slowly brought the flower to his nose and smelled it.
“It’s the first time I’ve received a flower.”
*Can this even be called receiving?* She had only cut the flower for him; all the flowers here originally belonged to him.
Marcella hesitated, unable to readily reply. Since he said it was his first time, she felt oddly like she had done something monumental.
“It seems I only receive things from you.”
“…Are you talking about the lemon mushroom?”
“Yes.”
That was such a trivial return for saving his life.
Marcella felt dizzy recalling her past self, who had casually given him a lemon mushroom without even knowing who he was. It was a relief he hadn’t gotten angry, asking how she dared offer him such a thing.
