The forty lashes of the whip were not harsh enough to kill a robust adult man, but they were not a punishment that would allow him to walk home on his own two feet either.

The serf, whose upper body had burst open after being whipped on his bare back and who could neither sit nor lie down after having his buttocks whipped, was carried on a stretcher at dawn to the residence of Cardinal De Mare after causing such a commotion.

In that house was also Lucrezia, who had fainted and been carried home early in the evening. It was a maddening and exasperating evening scene that Cardinal De Mare encountered upon arriving home late after a busy day at work.

Cardinal De Mare summoned the entire family to the first floor living room. This included the groaning serf.

He gritted his teeth and asked the serf:

“I have provided you with shelter, clothing, and food for the past 22 years. So what on earth were you thinking today when you harmed my daughter?”

The serf, who had sobered up completely during the forty lashes of the whip, made a self-justification that sounded more human-like than before in front of Leo III.

“Isabella asked me to do it!”

His intention was to use Isabella as an umbrella to avoid some of the storm, as the cardinal seemed to cherish his eldest daughter the most.

On the other hand, Isabella’s beautiful eyes widened in shock. Has he gone mad!

“When did I ever do that!”

Isabella had no intention of siding with the likes of a serf in front of her father.

“That’s a blatant lie, papa! Serf, you lied in front of His Majesty the King that you never shot Ariadne, and now you dare to use me as an excuse at home?”

Isabella completely forgot about the past when she had flirted in front of the serf, constantly calling him ‘elder brother’ in a honeyed voice, and instead shouted at him in an oppressive manner as if dealing with a subordinate, cutting off his tail.

The serf, bewildered by the unexpected turn of events, confronted Isabella.

“You said, ‘Teach that wench a lesson!'”

This was a distortion in the serf’s mind. Strictly speaking, it was the serf who first proposed, ‘I’ll teach that wench a real lesson.’

Isabella was very pleased, but she had only passively agreed after all. The clever Isabella immediately pointed this out.

“You were the one who said ‘I’ll teach her a lesson’ first. When did I ever ask you to do it!”

Isabella was so upset that she could go mad and jump up and down. This time, there was clearly a part where Isabella had a right to feel wronged.

“Besides, even if you said you’d teach her a lesson, I thought you’d just scold her at home or make her suffer a bit. Who knew you’d shoot a crossbow at a person in the hunting grounds!”

“I shot at the horse, you know.”

It was a crossbow that he had fired thinking it wouldn’t matter even if it hit a person, but the serf had already finished rationalizing this part as well.

Isabella, judging that there was no talking sense into this raving lunatic, turned to Cardinal De Mare and pleaded with her father.

“Papa, papa, I swear I never asked him to do it first. I may be at fault for not stopping him, but I’m not the crazy one who would tell him to shoot something like a crossbow.”

Cardinal De Mare had a slightly different kind of question.

“Isabella. What on earth did Ariadne do that makes you hate her so much? Do you dislike having a half-sister that much?”

“No!”

Isabella hurriedly denied this, fearing that she would be branded as a child ‘lacking in sibling affection.’ Ostracizing one of the siblings because they have a different mother was considered vulgar behavior in the Etruscan kingdom.

In fact, Isabella hated Ariadne because she threatened her own glory, not because they had different mothers. She would have treated her the same way even if she were her full sister.

“Ariadne acts arrogant and rude at every turn!”

“Arrogant and rude? The second daughter?”

“Yes, arrogant and rude! Insolent! Not knowing to fear her cousin!”

The serf, who couldn’t distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate times to butt in, chimed in. He hated the ungrateful Isabella, but he hated Ariadne, who looked down on him, even more.

Isabella was traditionally beautiful, renowned for her beauty, the daughter of a wealthy aunt, and a well-educated capital lady, so the serf thought she was ‘superior’ to him.

Being mistreated by a superior was something the serf could endure.

But Ariadne, who was born from a maid’s womb, grew up on a country farm no different from him, and had only recently become pretty, was clearly someone who should be beneath him in the serf’s mind.

The serf greatly resented Ariadne, who he considered to be beneath him, for defying him. This was intolerable.

With a dumbfounded expression, Cardinal De Mare glanced at Ariadne once, then alternated between looking at the serf and Isabella.

“Just how arrogant and rude was the second daughter that she committed such a grave mistake as to make her need to be rescued by an unrelated man in the middle of Orte Forest! If she had spent the night in the forest, it would have been a fatal blow to her reputation! How great must her misconduct have been for you to do such a thing to your own sister, no, to my child!”

Cardinal De Mare’s voice was gradually rising. The direction of his anger was a bit strange, but anger was anger after all.

Even while managing the Cathedral of St. Ercole, he never raised his voice and handled everything calmly, but lately, he had been raising his voice more frequently at home.

“The second daughter is a child who is always cooped up at home reading books, so what terribly bad things could she possibly do!”

“Papa! She told me, ‘You f*cking b*tch, I’ll drown you!'”

“What?”

Cardinal De Mare doubted his own ears.

“Where did you learn such vulgar language!”

“That’s what Ariadne said! Not me!”

Cardinal De Mare pressed his fingers to his temples.

“Isabella. Are you now even resorting to lies to slander your sister?”

This time, Isabella was truly wronged, but the countless lies she had told in the past were now catching up to her.

Cardinal De Mare thought that Isabella must have asked the serf first to ‘teach Ariadne a lesson.’

This was a reasonable suspicion because Isabella had previously tried to slander Ariadne at the debutante ball.

Cardinal De Mare inwardly reached a conclusion and passed judgment on Isabella.

“Until now, I haven’t interfered with you doing as you please outside. Because I thought you were a child who could discern what is important and what is not. No matter how much you dislike and hate her, your younger sister is a member of our family and a comrade who must overcome hardships together with us!”

Isabella turned deathly pale after reading Cardinal De Mare’s nuance. Cardinal De Mare continued, paying no heed.

“Where do you go around slandering your own sister, even if it’s to a distant cousin! Your father has been keeping an eye on you. It’s not like I’ve only given you one or two chances. But today! You have truly disappointed me.”

He looked at Isabella sternly and passed his sentence.

“You are to stay at home and refrain from going out for the time being. You are not allowed to leave until you have finished reading ‘Tales of the City of Ladies’ and written me a book report.”

Considering that Arabella was frequently confined to her room, eating only dry bread and water while being subjected to forced fasting, it was an extremely lenient punishment.

However, this was the first discipline and punishment Isabella had received from Cardinal De Mare since she was born.

“Papa!”

Despite Cardinal De Mare’s incomparably generous punishment, Isabella began to shed tears of resentment. But Cardinal De Mare didn’t seem to have any intention of reversing his decision once it was made.

Turning his head away from the crying Isabella, he solemnly opened his mouth while looking at the serf.

“And you. I have considered you human trash from the very beginning.”

The serf was startled to hear such blatant words coming from the mouth of Cardinal De Mare, whom he had only known as a benevolent uncle.

This couldn’t be happening. Being appointed as a knight was the serf’s future, but his uncle’s generosity was the only current source of income for the serf and his family.

“I thought it was foolish of Lucrezia to invest in you, but I figured it didn’t matter as long as it gave her peace of mind. But you are not only useless, but also harmful.”

Cardinal De Mare scrutinized the serf with eyes that seemed to be looking at a bug. The serf trembled at that cold gaze.

The despising gaze of a person of high status, whom he had considered to be ‘on par with him’ or ‘noble enough to interact with,’ hurt as much as the whip he had just been lashed with.

“I heard you shot an arrow at my daughter’s back? I don’t believe you were aiming for the horse. You must have shot thinking it would be fine even if Ariadne got hit, at the very least.”

The serf flinched. What, how did he know? Did he look inside my head?

“There’s no way a lazy and incompetent fellow like you would have shot an arrow with the confidence of hitting the horse.”

It was an insight worthy of being Ariadne’s biological father. Shaking his head, Cardinal De Mare soon pronounced a chilling punishment in a thunderous voice.

“Take him away and sever the tendons in both of his arms. That is the price for shooting a crossbow at my daughter. If you sever all the tendons in his arms, then sever the tendons in his ankles as well. That is the price for shooting a crossbow at my daughter and crawling into my house without any shame. If the Rossi family has any complaints, tell them not to utter a word until they cough up the blood money in addition to the living expenses so far!”

If the tendons in his limbs were severed, the serf would forever be unable to hold a crossbow or anything of the sort. He wouldn’t be able to walk properly or work either.

The household men, led by the butler Nicolo, rushed at the deathly pale serf.

Until then, the serf, who had thought he had received all the king’s punishments and had narrowly escaped the harsh storm, had maintained a stiff attitude, but now his demeanor changed to be utterly servile.

“Uncle! Uncle! Please spare me!”

“Who’s your uncle! You insolent fellow!”

At Cardinal De Mare’s shout, the butler Nicolo brutally hit the serf with a club, telling him to look at the master.

“Ugh!”

Leaving behind the serf, who curled up like a shrimp, Cardinal De Mare issued one more order.

“Wait before dragging him out! Have him listen to this as well.”

“Yes! Your Eminence!”

Finally, he turned to Lucrezia. His voice was quite affectionate.

“Darling. You should know how much I have been indulging you.”

Lucrezia, who had been shedding endless tears upon hearing that the serf was about to have the tendons in his limbs severed, raised her head toward Cardinal De Mare.

She seemed to lack even the energy to protest. But Cardinal De Mare didn’t appear to show any signs of compassion.

“I am a clergyman. I cannot start a family. I cannot give you the respectable position of a formal wife either. I don’t know how much effort I put into treating you well instead because I felt sorry about that.”

It was even more frightening because he spoke in a kind and gentle manner.

“Although you are not my official wife, I don’t know how grateful I was to have you lead and manage my family. I thought you prioritized our family above all else. Until today, that is.”

Cardinal De Mare’s dark green eyes looked at Lucrezia coldly.