…
"You love gold, my queen?" Maan said looking at Jwala's string-like headpiece and a layered necklace of gold.
"The same way you love robes," she said, brushing her loosely braided hair away from her face.
Maan gave a side smile and poured a glass of wine into one of the tiny ceramic cups, "It suits the queen."
She raised her glass and took a sip. Then gently placed the cup and sat joining her hands, her long fingers intertwined together while she examined him.
Maan was sipping his drink when he saw her strangely staring at him. He placed his empty ceramic cup on the table as he asked in a gentle voice, "Is something bothering my queen?"
"I just recalled what you said that day…" She leaned in, her expression mysterious, shifting the weight of her torso on her elbows. "…That you will be faithful to your queen 'til…"
"My last breath." He nodded, smiling. "I remember."
there was no way he would forget that day, even after giving his best he got rejected, he knew he would but he still felt disappointed in himself.
Her one index finger was nursing the rim of the cup, she had just put down, in lazy circular motion. A smirk appeared as she prepared her next words.
"hmm… Mi Na Beak, what about her?" she said after taking a long breath. "She has been here for a while… Is this the sincerity you were talking about?"
[MiNa Beak was the royal concubine, in simple terms, his second wife. She was the niece of one of the Baek clan's/ leftist ministers planted as a spy to keep an eye on the king and Queen-mother.]
"A second wife was already in place before the king even got his first wife." She had known he was lying about sincerity since the day he proposed but his extent of lying had been bothering her.
She would have let him be if he had proposed a political alliance but the way he had presented the marriage proposal... making promises he had no intention to keep, she couldn't let it slide. She won't.
He was poised and calm when he answered, "It was obligatory too. I didn't have a say in it." A flicker of helplessness was there on his face.
'He is too calm. Almost believable... Can't tell if he is lying or not…" She gulped down the wine she had been nursing. "I hate politics…" she muttered to herself.
She didn't like the constant struggle of being on guard, it was tiring for her.
"You drink so well, my queen," he refilled her cup. "As my queen must have already started noticing that I don't have a say in most of the things that happen in this palace."
She didn't react to that, just watched him closely to see past his words. His slim long fingers, his small eyes, his soft and thin downturned lips… nothing showed any sign. His oval-shaped face with big ears was titled to one side as he answered.
"Am I supposed to believe this?" she thought while eating some fried snacks. She didn't want to believe him that easily even though the information he had shared wasn't new to her. She had gathered almost every piece of information as well as rumors, everything about him that Hanna had to offer.
"You don't have to believe me, my queen," he said noticing her eyes narrowed at him. "…not until I prove it through my actions."
His cheesy smile and gaze were making her roll her eyes. "King's words make me laugh…" She would have laughed if her brain wasn't tired after being on heavy duty for that entire day.
"Then my queen should laugh." His voice carried a magnetic allure. "You look even more beautiful when you smile."
'Don't fall for that' she had to remind herself because his voice was so alluring. The intoxication of the alcohol and the scent of the candles were affecting her senses.
"So that you can punish me for treason? It is a crime to laugh at the king," she stated reminding him of the thing that brought them together- politics. The reason he definitely wouldn't agree to but it was obvious after his 'real' place in the palace was revealed.
Maan chuckled, upturning his downturned lips, "Not if the king is laughing with you." his laugh was husky from the wine and from lack of sleep.
"Besides, everyone here already does that. It isn't new to me…"
Jwala was watching and noticing it all, but she was unable to see what he was trying to accomplish. His motive wasn't clear yet.
He said as he poured the aged liquor into his cup, "The only wish I desperately wanted to come true is sitting right here, in front of me."
'Oh! He wants to charm me.' She was smiling cause it was so well done, 'Pretty convincing. Is he trained… If I were to believe every word he says then, this is his I would be swooning all night.'
"Why is that?" She played along, the only thing she could do to find out his motive to marry her.
He innocently stared at her and answered after letting out a sigh, "My queen, the truth is that I was as good as dead if things had gone as planned."
"not because of heartbreak, I think?" she said teasingly.
"No. Not heartbreak…" His eyes were clouded with a past memory, "The selected queen would have been favored by the rightist ministers and as soon as the queen would conceive an heir to the throne, I won't be needed any longer."
'So, a breeding horse was indeed the best way to describe his position in the palace,' she recalled one of the rumors that she had heard about him.
"You guessed it right, I am incompetent but not because I am lacking but because I am not even a real king, only a namesake to occupy the throne and follow orders until they have another namesake to take the throne." He voiced his frustration and weakness.
His honesty was making her doubt her prior judgment about him. 'Is he going to bare it all? Share everything about himself. It isn't a secret so... let's see.'
"Why did you come to the palace then? Wasn't it the desire for power?" she sipped on her wine, waiting for his reply.
Maan's fingers rolled in a fist, "Because I didn't have a choice, it was either death or being a puppet on the throne." He shrugged like it was a casual occurrence to him. His reaction felt natural because it was the reality, everyone wanted to get rid of him for one reason or another, and he knew his days were numbered.
"My mother would have been the late king's third concubine, but she fell in love with his brother, they both got married in secret a few years before the coronation. The then king, my grandfather was furious and demoted her to a servant and my father was reduced to a mere clerk."
He drew a long breath before continuing, "But they were happy together in a small house outside the palace walls but as soon as the late king, my father's brother was crowned the next king, he hunted down my parents… killing my father in front of me. My mother and I ran away to save our lives."
The images from his childhood played before his eyes. His hands tightened on the ceramic cup until it gave up and scattered on the table after breaking into pieces.
…