Crunch……!
The sound of crunching human bones echoed eerily in the air. Agatha, crouched in a pool of blood, shuddered.
It was a night like any other. There had been a series of assassination attempts, and her seventh husband, a brilliant knight, had fended them off with familiarity.
The only difference was that one of the intruders had laid a hand on her.
Dragged from her bed and dumped on the cold marble floor, a gleaming sword raised above her head.
Ouch.
Her husband, now back, sliced through the intruder’s body. It was the first time she had ever been covered in hot, pulsating blood.
From then on, her husband, Enoch Aratus, seemed a little off. A large hand brushed her blood-soaked face, then turned and slaughtered the intruders.
When he was the only one left standing.
He turned again and crushed the throat of the assassin who had dragged her away. Agatha could only stare up at Enoch, dumbfounded.
“I told you I wasn’t like your ex-husbands.”
“……!”
A scar ran prominently across the top of a handsome forehead.
Vivid grey eyes stared at her as if they could pierce through her.
“I will take this opportunity to dispose of your kin, so.”
With an iron clang, the man who had thrown down his sword haphazardly held out his hand to Agatha.
“Come here, Agatha.”
Don’t drive the man mad there.
* * *
Such was the marital history of Agatha Nobilis, heiress to a vast fortune, known throughout the Roxbard Empire and beyond.
Having lost both her parents and two brothers at the age of five, she was married for the first time to Duke Gregory Progus at the will of her godfather, the Emperor.
Agatha still remembers his first words at the altar.
‘Five years old?
‘…….’
‘Wow, that’s over a decade away from adulthood. Well, it doesn’t matter because he’s golden, hahahaha!
It was an arranged marriage, with an age difference of over thirty years.
The Emperor was expanding his borders with this marriage, and she had the added security of another knight from Nobilis’s kin, who were eagerly eyeing the young heiress.
The marriage was going well until Agatha was ten years old.
“Die!
“Ouch!
The Duke’s love of gambling had come to an end when he was stabbed to death in a gambling house and made an informant.
If Agatha failed to produce an heir, the succession would pass to another relative in another country, and the emperor could not bear to see that happen.
Her second marriage was to the second prince of the neighbouring empire of Minyukor. The emperor coveted that country’s succession.
Second Prince Fernand Mainiumconti was young, beautiful, and sexually untroubled.
‘Now, hide! Tonight I will spend the night with women who have not been caught by me!
‘…….’
‘Oh, of course, Agatha is too young. Just sit over there and watch. Understand?’
He was so horny.
When he married Agatha, he already had ten concubines.
And when an illegitimate child appeared, the catastrophe came when an impatient Agatha asked the emperor for a divorce. Agatha was only thirteen at the time.
The third wedding was forced by the emperor’s desire for a new harbour and his determination to go to war.
Her third husband, George Portis, was said to be the best knight in the Roxburgh Empire.
But for all his brilliance, he was a man of great entitlement, low self-esteem, and a man so ugly you could hardly look him in the face.
He could not bear to see anyone look him in the eye.
‘Don’t look at me,’ he would say, ‘I’m ugly, and you don’t think I don’t see you looking at me in wonder!
‘…….’
Agatha wept and ate garlic, and the emperor brokered her third and final wedding before she reached adulthood.
She was quickly divorced. George, an ambitious warrior, had been defeated, and Agatha, who knew from experience that she could always get a divorce if the circumstances were right, went straight to the emperor with her request.
‘I will now look for a husband, and I thank you, Your Majesty, for your care.
‘…….’
She was sixteen years old.
Now that she had come of age and fully exercised her rights as the heiress of House Nobilis, Agatha was not to be messed with, not even by the Emperor.
‘……Good. I will recognise your independence in marriage. But Jim will remain your godfather and master of the empire. The stakes are high for House Nobilis, and you must accept that I may intervene if necessary. Do you understand?
‘Enough, thank you, Your Majesty.’
And so, after eleven years, Agatha was granted marital independence by the Emperor.
At first she thought of travelling to enjoy her freedom.
“It’s a raid!
She gave up when she realised that, as an adult, her kin had taken advantage of the emperor’s diminished protection to send assassins in earnest.
For the first time in her life, Agatha chose her own husband: Henry Incidio, her fourth ex-husband.
‘I love you so much I think I’m going to die.’
Before, during, and after the wedding, her marriage to a man who could bring her the moon seemed to be working out beautifully for a while.
‘Are you sure you’re in love with Agatha Nobilis?
‘What the hell, we’ll kill her after she gives birth, and I’ll be the next head of House Nobilis and live a life of power and pampering myself.’
The fourth marriage ended when Agatha discovered his true intentions.
Agatha, with her wits about her, quickly chose a man to be her sword and got rid of her fourth husband, Henry.
That man was her fifth husband, Leonard Syngerer.
It was an arranged marriage, but the fifth marriage wasn’t so bad.
She seemed to be doing okay.
“Congenital orphan.
“What!
The childlessness test revealed a slight – and major – problem with Leonard.
His fifth marriage was disastrous, as the Emperor fretted over the possibility of passing the succession to another country.
When it came time for her sixth marriage, Agatha was troubled.
“If I marry someone from a family that has everything, at least I won’t die.
And so she accepted the proposal of Theodore Neuta, a young duke of the House of Neuta.
In fact, her sixth husband did not plot to kill Agatha.
He cared for her like a gentleman and ensured her safety through his powerful knighthood.
The problem lay elsewhere.
* * *
Seven months before the raid, in the ancient and magnificent manor of the Duke of Neuta.
Agatha Nobilis strode angrily through the historic corridors, soon coming to her husband’s office, where her knights stood before her.
“The Duchess wishes to see you.”
“Open.”
“Your Excellency, the Duchess is here.”
“Enter.”
A deep voice came from within. The anger in Agatha’s violet eyes deepened.
Her husband, Theodore Neuta, rose to his feet as she entered, somewhat roughly.
“Madam, what can I do for you?”
“I have something to tell you, if you’ll give me a moment.”
Agatha sat down on the couch first and gestured to the seat across from her. Theodore, who had removed his glasses, sat down quietly on the couch.
“What-”
“I can’t take it anymore.”
Agatha stared at her sixth husband.
The handsome face. The high title of duke.
Capable as a foreign minister, young, wealth, power, honour, he had it all, but one fatal flaw.
“I want your aunt, mother, and sister out of this mansion immediately, and we’ll live on our own.”
“Madam, but-”
“Answer me carefully, for depending on your answer, this may be my last favour.”
Theodore shook his head solemnly, though he was puzzled by the sudden demand. He could not turn his aunt, mother, and sister out of the manor.
He had been under the impression that this was a woman’s business.
“Did you say again that your aunt, mother, and sister are Moors?”
“Is that your answer?”
“Agatha. Haven’t you behaved yourself up to now, and this sudden outburst is embarrassing-”
Agatha held up a hand to stop Theodore’s words.
“I’ve coped well; I’ve given back, I’ve put up with it, but I’ve only done it because I thought of them as my aunt and mother and sister, and I’ve decided I can’t do it anymore.”
Was it a mistake to accept his proposal when she had everything she needed?
Her husband’s family did not welcome the five-time divorcee.
“What a tacky dress,” they said, “and where does being married five times go?
Her mother-in-law and sister-in-law looked at her as if she were a concubine of the Duke of Neuta.
“Is it too much to ask for some land?
Her sister-in-law was unhappy that she, with all her wealth, wasn’t giving her an enormous gift.
‘If you’re going to do that, why not just say no in the first place?
After one or two times of accepting, returning, and putting up with it, she was at the point of losing her sanity.
“But I can’t send my aunt and mother and sister elsewhere-”
“Theodore.”
“What?”
It was bad enough to have a husband who didn’t care, who just stood by and let the women do their thing because it was chores.
“We. Divorce.”
Theodore’s face went blank as she smiled brightly.
The greatest heiress in the Roxbard Empire.
This was Agatha Nobilis’s sixth divorce.
