Published at 29th of October 2020 06:32:54 PM
Chapter 2
Chapter 02: Portrait of the King
The current king, Harold, was born as the bastard son of the former king .
Harold's father and his legitimate wife had no children .
Inevitably, the former queen was forced to accept and raise Harold, a child born to his husband's mistress, as her own son, at which point there was a major rift between the Royal Family, the neighboring countries authorities and the state religion, the Prospero Church .
The Prospero Church doesn't allow anything other than monogamy, nor did it recognize Harold, a child born out of wedlock, as the legitimate successor of the King .
Nevertheless, the royal family continued to seek a way of reconciliation, the difference in national power and military strength between the Kingdom and the neighboring countries was big .
It was thanks to the King's family support that it didn't become a war .
Harold was the son of a mistress . . . A mistress who was formerly one of the personal Queen's maidservants, and part of the queen's faction, her status was high enough for other aristocrats to accept him .
But even so, he was taken in by the Queen and raised like her own son, at the age of five was recognized as the crown prince, a few years later was betrothed to his cousin, the Princess Margarita, a "pure blood" with more lineage than even the Royal Family .
In other words, he was his father "mistake", but due to the extreme situation of the King having no other children, he was recognized as an exception to the rule .
The pure royal blood linage's imperfection, that would be cured in the next generation, thanks to the marriage with Margarita .
Harold, however, was unable to have children with his cousin and legitimate queen, Margarita .
Margarita conceived several times, but no child was born alive .
After several miscarriages and premature births, she began to have problems to conceive .
The legitimate Queen even attempted suicide, because if she herself died, Harold could marry again .
The doctrine of the Prospero Church forbids divorce, but of course it also forbids suicide .
It was an act of self-inflicted guilt, since Harold didn't violate the prohibition of divorce .
Harold felt pity for the queen, but at the same time felt a pang of cold fear .
With no successor, the power of the Kingdom, how long will it survive?
Harold is the unwavering head of a nation, and he always fulfills his responsibilities as a monarch by his own efforts .
Margarita is supposed to be in a solid position as the Queen of that nation .
As his cousin and having grown up with her from an early age, Harold loved Margarita as part of his family .
But the words that Margarita, who broke down in tears after experiencing her last miscarriage, were heard by Harold, and devastated him .
"--I wanted to save you . "
She wanted to atone for the sinful blood that flowed in her husband's body, with the half of the pure blood of royal lineage that flowed in her body .
That was Margarita's justice, which meant that Harold would continue to be treated as an unfortunate child born of the sin of his father . . .
Only as long as he continues to be Margarita's husband, the inland neighboring countries and the State Church will allow him to sit on the throne .
That fact was enough to make him decide to separate himself from the old forces governing the Kingdom .
"The time is already ripe . Set up a new church in this kingdom! Independent of the Prospero Church, which still does not recognize me as its official sovereign . "
Sponsored Content
Harold, of course, took great care in dividing the doctrine .
Although the king himself had converted to the new state religion, not all the aristocrats did .
Margarita, was the first to urge him to convert back to the Prospero doctrine and beg for their pardon .
Thus, Margarita and Harold may no longer be the loving husband and wife they once were, but they still respect each other as a family .
Allies for the sake of the country, the two of them were harmonious controlling on both sides of the kingdom's factions .
These events caused great changes on the Kingdom, for example the reconciliation of the locals with Harold's faction, despite the doctrinal and political conflicts that sometimes surged .
At the same time, it was Margarita herself, the rightful Queen, who first presented to Harold a mistress .
A noblewoman from a branch of Margarita's birth family, and her own maidservant, Margarita was who requested Harold to accept her as his lover .
But the lover couldn't give birth to a child neither, then the Queen gave Harold another noblewoman who served her for many years, as well as other nobleman's daughters from her faction, the aristocratic faction .
She wanted an heir who would only inherit the pure blood of the nobility, as it had been in the old days .
The local nobles, who were not silent about it, began to compete with Margarita in sending their daughters of "native blood" to the royal court .
Knowing this, Margarita tearfully advised Harold not to grant these native girls any favor .
It could have been called a plea, more than a request .
Sponsored Content
Without meaning to, the royal palace was taking on the appearance of a harem, but Harold was approaching his thirtieth birthday without having a single child to call successor .
This is not surprising, as Harold's royal bloodline, even if diluted by his birth mother's blood, is thick with consanguineous marriages .
Even so, the blind aristocrats want a pure blood, healthy, robust child, preferably a boy who can take over the throne .
And then, the daughter of a wealthy merchant family that owns one of the bigger estates of the country and manage the trading of the country, Berta Kasha, was proposed as a new candidate for the King's harem .
The Kasha family, whose business acumen spans generations, has amassed an immense fortune .
They never sought any favor, power or authority inside the royal family, but didn't serve anyone either .
Not much is known about the inner workings of the Kasha clan, nor the trading estate in which they reside, far away from the royal capital .
When the messengers sent to the Royal City were rejected without even granting them an audience with the King, they retreated, but they did it in a cunning way .
After this offense, the Kasha clan finally took action against the royal family and it was like a whole mountain in motion .
The Kasha's family distanced itself from the authority of the Kingdom, so for the country's powerful families became essential reconcile with them, before they side by the neighboring countries authorities .
Moreover, the Kasha clan offered to send Berta, the daughter of the current head of the family, an heiress .
Admitting her into the royal palace as a maid, servant, or mistress was impossible, and after that offense, it would be worst .
There were some that even suggested that Margarita should be removed and Berta received as the new Queen .
Harold rejected that idea, but due to the dangerous situation, he offered a promise to receive her as a queen, the official second queen .
Sponsored Content
It was also an act of complete disobedience to the teachings of the religion he had abandoned .
He could not give the daughter of the Kasha clan, an heiress, such rude treatment, and that was true story behind the pact between the King and the Kasha clan .
Harold didn't touch any of the local nobles daughters, as Margarita pleaded, but he had to marry Berta Kasha and treat her as a rightful Queen and wife, to not aggravate the offense he did to his family .
Fortunately for him, she was a serene woman of around twenty years of age .
Berta Kasha was wise and aware of the atmosphere in the palace, her position and the inner conflicts in the palace .
She was the perfect daughter of a great nobleman .
If Harold had met her before, instead of marrying her in this way, he would have recognized that Berta was an honestly desirable woman for marriage .
What was unexpected, however, was that Berta became pregnant, after passing three nights with the King, as was established by the Palace's rules .
It happened even before Harold could make Margarita accept her a new queen .
Of course, Harold considered the possibility of having a child of native blood, blood of Petra, but that wasn't a prospect, at least not in the early days of their marriage .
For her to enter the Palace he confronted the Queen, the aristocratic faction, and thus, in view of his relationship with the rightful Queen Margarita, he passed only 3 nights with Berta Kasha and after that, he didn't ever talk with her again .
If anything, he was more preoccupied with the movements of the nobles and domestic adjustments caused by the new queen's arrival than with the queen herself, to the point that he had relegated her to the back of his mind until he heard the news of her pregnancy .
He was caught off guard because, in the nearly fifteen years since he married Margarita, Harold had long and painfully craved for a child .
But in all those years, no child was born, so he never thought that with only passing three days with Berta, she would be pregnant with his child .