TSMMT Ch 186

The Mad King (2)

Revius had been his brother-in-arms, a friend forged in the crucible of his mercenary days. They had survived life and death together. Without him, Guiscard would never have claimed the crown. Yet he impassively drove the blade deeper into his friend’s chest and twisted it.

Revius met his gaze and stared into cold, callous eyes.

[Revius] "You... k-kgh!"

Revius opened his bloodshot eyes wide and clawed at the air, desperate to speak.

Listening would change nothing. Blood spattered across the floor.

As life left Revius' body, a bitter wave of self-loathing washed over Guiscard. He had protected his own people and refused to kill them. Yet here he stood, turning his blade against his comrade.

But Revius had to die. He had hidden the truth that Dianna was the one who unlocked Guiscard’s shackles. She may have been a foolish perpetrator, but she had also been his savior.

As he stared down at the corpse, a realization struck him. Revius had deliberately deceived him. How deep did the lies go?

Something was wrong. The Dianna he remembered was no fool. She had never been a fragile girl who merely wept. Had she not managed her family estate from a tender age? Why, then, had she stumbled so repeatedly?

Of course, Guiscard had blamed himself. He was the pursuer of vengeance who forced his victim into marriage and violated her. That was what he had always believed.

A faint clarity seeped through his clouded mind. Or perhaps it was madness. Even he couldn't tell. It might have been nothing more than a cowardly impulse to shift the blame, a desperate attempt to flee the crushing weight of her death.

Yet where had she obtained the poison? How had she learned of Alexa's demise?

Unanswered questions drove him to investigate, and he uncovered everything.

---

Mable, the head maid, recounted every humiliation Dianna had endured. Her account was objective, untainted by exaggeration. No, it was filled with quiet pity.

[Guiscard] "Why... why didn't you tell me?"

The cowardly question slipped past his lips.

[Mable] "Forgive me, Your Majesty. I believed you loathed Her Majesty and wished to keep her at a distance."

[Guiscard] "..."

[Mable] "I assumed... as she did... that you placed her on the throne only to mock her."

[Guiscard] "..."

A sharp bite laced her words.

[Mable] "Furthermore, we believed Lady Levian was indeed pregnant..."

[Guiscard] "What?"

He listened in stunned silence.

What kind of life had Dianna lived?

He had only ever seen the surface. He had always granted her a generous budget, fulfilling any request for Panborough goods without hesitation.

If she showed reluctance, he excused her from public events. He worried the surrounding noblewomen would intimidate her, so he assigned her a minimal court of ladies-in-waiting while swelling the ranks of lower maids.

Levian possessed a talent for keeping up seamless appearances.

Damn it.

Damn it all!

Guiscard dragged a hand down his face in frustration.

He had kept Duke Levian at his side because the man had eventually pledged allegiance to him, and because the duke had reacted leniently to his marriage with Dianna, even if he didn't fully endorse it.

But what if that woman was pure venom? What if Levian had absorbed all of Dianna's Panborough etiquette, dominated high society, reigned as the de facto queen, and dragged Dianna into a living hell?

Dianna had not stumbled out of ignorance or incompetence. She had not clung to Panborough culture out of stubborn arrogance. No one had ever taught her how to navigate Lodbrog.

The nobility had subjected her to relentless mockery, driving her into seclusion. Guiscard had assumed she simply needed to overcome it, believing that enduring such trials was part of being queen.

Her gilded prison was luxurious and beautiful, yet it was a meticulously constructed hell.

Whenever she entered a room, snickers echoed behind her back. Highborn ladies abandoned her side and left her isolated. They paraded slaves before her and snidely murmured that they saw little difference between a captive noble and a bound slave.

They forced her into unwanted luncheons, deliberately introducing Panborough customs only to invite public condemnation upon her. Laughter erupted whenever she tried to participate.

She suffered no physical blows, yet if this systematic cruelty was not violence, what was it?

Dianna had retreated into herself. They mocked her accent and criticized her posture, pointing fingers to declare her inferior to Levian.

When she wore Panborough attire, they vilified her. When she donned Lodbrog gowns, they sneered that the queen was bowing to her subjects. At banquets hosted during his military campaigns, they openly ridiculed her for wearing formal gowns while standing alone.

The knights stationed to guard her turned a blind eye, omitting every indignity from their reports to Guiscard. When assigned to protect her, they feigned ignorance or muttered curses under their breath.

Once, when Levian dragged Dianna along, an arrow shot by Duchess Islag narrowly missed her. The knights withheld directions to safe paths, allowed her to fall into hazardous traps, and held private conversations in her presence while excluding her completely.

When false rumors claimed she had spoken ill of others, public outrage followed. If she spent money, they condemned her extravagance. If she lived frugally, they mocked her squalor.

Dianna existed in the palace merely to serve as a target for their malice.

Levian had orchestrated it all, repeatedly claiming to the court that the queen preferred not to attend royal functions. Who would willingly step into a room full of mocking laughter? Levian had misled Dianna into believing those events were trivial, manipulating her into voicing a refusal.

A sickening realization dawned on Guiscard.

He had normalized the cruelty inflicted upon himself. As a former slave, he was no stranger to disdain. He had endured humiliating slurs, physical violence, and abuse without complaint.

Did I believe Dianna deserved to suffer the same?

How had she survived in that cage? She had been a soul who offered kindness to all, forgiving the blunders of her maidservants and showing gentle grace even to a filthy, lowborn slave.

How had she endured such relentless misery?

He had believed that binding her to his side was her sole punishment. The realization that the entire court had weaponized their malice against her, while she silently bore the agony, shattered something inside him.

Evidence revealed that Revius, alongside Duke Levian and his daughter, had systematically suppressed information regarding Dianna's suffering. Yet Guiscard couldn't place the blame solely on them.

Had he cared to look, had he acted, they couldn't have hidden it. He had intentionally limited his concern for her, fighting to keep his distance. And that distance had killed the woman he loved.

[Guiscard] "..."

Even so... you deserve their remorse. Those who drove you to this must beg for forgiveness.

He gazed down at Dianna, who lay motionless upon the bed.

[Guiscard] "You deserve an apology."

---

[Guiscard] "Look at her. This is my wife."

The gathered nobles turned trembling eyes toward Dianna’s corpse. The faint of heart squeezed their eyes shut in terror.

Guiscard stared down at his wife, his eyes blazing with madness. Gaunt and hollow-cheeked, he faltered slightly, his footing unsteady.

Yet what struck absolute terror into their hearts was his gaze. A violent, suffocating aura of murderous intent, raw fury, and condensed madness radiated from him, threatening to slice through anyone who dared meet his eyes. Even in pitch darkness, those violet eyes burned with a menacing glow, paralyzing the room in terror.

[Guiscard] "The wife you murdered! My wife!"

Yet the object he commanded them to behold was no longer human. The word 'wife' belonged to the living, not to a decomposing corpse. The platinum-haired woman had lost all color, and her flesh was turning a dark, gruesome black. It was a horrific sight.

[Guiscard] "Kiss the back of my wife's hand."

A collective shudder ran through the room. Nobles stared at him in disbelief.

Has he lost his mind?

[Noble] "..."

[Guiscard] "What? You can't bring yourselves to kiss a rotting corpse?!"

Guiscard offered a ghastly grin. A bloodcurdling scream shattered the silence, swallowed by the king's rising, hysterical laughter. Another body hit the floor.

With Revius dead, no one remained in the kingdom to check the king's madness.

From Dianna's ethereal state, she covered her mouth in horror.

Nobles knelt, trembling violently as they pressed their lips against her corpse's blackened fingertips.

Had she possessed a physical form, she would have retched on the spot. The grotesque absurdity of the scene made her bite her lip.

Guiscard had descended into complete, unbridled madness.