Portrait of Queen Berta

I accidentally got pregnant with His Majesty's child

Chapter 20: Similarities

"You take after your mother, don't you?"

At the Kasha's mansion where he was let through, Harold was finally able to catch his breath.

The intense singing of the citizens was seared into his ears as it was in the heat of the moment and the shock produced by it, never left him.
There was a sense of exuberance, somewhat like after a festival.

Afterwards, the group moved to the Kasha clan main residence for the feast, and the citizens were served drinks in the Square and in the city center as it was, literally, a festive occasion.

There are food stalls, like on all festive days, and Berta told him along the way that they are served at half price.
There is no need for the Kasha's family to pay the other half, because everybody celebrates that the prosperity of the clan is what brings money to the city.
Thanks to the commercial's contacts of the Kasha clan, the merchants are sure to recover their money later.

"Everybody says that a lot, but my mother seemed to think that I'm just like my father."

His father, the head of the Kasha's clan, was very different from what they imagined that an important leader of the south would look like.
Also, the other factor for Harold's stupor was, that if you don't know them for enough time, no one would guess that Berta and that man were related.

Putting aside the differences in appearance, if you take that man, a leader-like figure who seems to win the hearts of the citizens with his flamboyance, as a reference, then his daughter Berta is a perfectly still figure.

She never tries to stand out from the crowd, but she is recognized and relied upon by all the people of this land.

Most of the people around Harold, the king's confidants, are eager to show off their abilities.
In that sense, Berta is the type of person Harold had never dealt with before.

(I'm grateful for an existence that is modest, but not overly so. But still, how could the Princess, who was raised by that father, end with this kind of different attitude? I don't think she was trained to walk a step back because she is a woman. In this country where queens have also stood up and ruled, even during the previous dynasty it's nearly a tradition now... No, it's her way of being seems more like that of an administrator.)

Harold is beginning to realize by now that Berta has deviated from the general image of the South Queen since the beginning.

The Southern Petranians are a cheerful people who live and breathe under the thick, blazing sun.
Considering their inherent nature, the chorus of enthusiastic citizens should not have been so startling for them.

Harold and his entourage seem to have been disappointed, because they expected a place that matches with the quiet woman that represents them.

(No, just because she was quiet doesn't mean she wasn't passionate.)

At the very least, Harold knows that she loves her son Louis to the extent that she is offering her own life as his shield.

"How old is he, the Kasha chief?"

Another thing that gave Harold a strong sense of discomfort was the youthfulness of the head of the Kasha.

"He isn't 40 yet. I was born when my father was fifteen, so when you think about it, my father and His Majesty are close in age."

(It's an indescribably subtle feeling. I didn't realize, that I was closer in age to her father than to Berta. And he already has so many children, some of them have already grown up so much... like Berta!)

While Harold was trying to have a child and only seeing all Margarita's pregnancies end in miscarriages, the Kasha's clan was having a mountain of healthy children being born in this same site.

"Does Louis look like me?... "

Berta received Louis from the hands of the nanny, who arrived at the house earlier, and was holding him in her own lap when she heard his words.

"... I thought that the shape of his lips, the color of his hair, and all his face features in general, except his eyes... Louis resembles you. But now that I've seen your family and people, maybe that's also a common trait of Kasha people."

She looked at him a little perplexed as she couldn't understand what was he thinking.

"Your Majesty is a man of many words today, isn't he?"

"Really? Maybe I'm just tired."

Berta paused for a moment and turned Louis' face towards Harold.

"From my point of view, he looks a lot like His Majesty in terms of his eyes and so on, but you may think different. I understand that, I will tell you something, as a matter of fact, Louis' forehead has the same shape as His Majesty's."

She brushed Louis's soft bangs back.
The hairline was a nice hillock, Louis was pouting, because didn't like being exposed.

Harold nodded his head in agreement.

"How do you know what my forehead looks like?"

Berta seemed to want to hide her dismayed face with her usual smile.

"I have seen you asleep, Your Majesty"

"Oh, so, that's why."

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