10.30 Chue

T/N: Beghura is the Georgian word for sparrow, which is also what the name Maque (read as Machue) means in Chinese.

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(Previous Chapter)

Beghura had been very happy when she was a young child.

Her dad was a trader who had married late in life. The story was that when he saw her beautiful mum, despite his age it had been love at first sight.

She was a statuesque, curvaceous beauty, with skin the colour of ivory. She captivated everyone, let alone her dad.

Her mum was a foreigner who struggled with the language but was a hard worker. She was always helping her dad out with work. Beghura liked it when they both held her hands as they went to church. During Sabbath, the three of them would pray together, eat out and then go home.

Apparently, her parents had met each other through a coincidence. Her mum had been on board a ship from Sha’ou, a neighbouring country. Her ship had been wrecked in a storm and her dad’s merchant ship rescued her. They had trouble communicating with each other at first. Her dad was good at the Sha’ou language, so he had looked after her mum for all sorts of things.

Her dad wanted to send her back to Sha’ou immediately, but it didn’t work out. Her mum’s husband and child had died in the shipwreck. With no relatives in Sha’ou, she would have had nowhere to go even if she did return.

Her dad may be a merchant, but he was a very good person. His trade was formed by his good reputation, so there was no way her dad would cast aside her mum who had not one relative. Moreover, her dad, over the age of forty and single then, had fallen in love with her despite his age.

“I had planned to adopt a relative’s child sooner or later.”

One year later, Beghura was born. She was a girl, but her dad, who never in his wildest dreams would think he would ever have a child, was so overjoyed that ten days after her birth, he was handing out sweets to everyone who passed by his store.

It was her mum who named her Beghura. Her dad found it adorable, being the name of a small bird. Beghura didn’t resemble her beautiful statuesque mother, but her stocky father. She didn’t have big eyes, her nose was flat and small, and she wasn’t tall either. However, love was blind. Her dad boasted about her to his relatives.

While Beghura’s looks weren’t much to speak of, she had a brilliant mind. She could walk before she was one, and when she turned two, she was a chatterbox. Her dad would smile at her, wondering what she could be like when she turned three.

Beghura had a brilliant mind.

After all, her mum disappeared before she turned three–she also remembered what her mum looked like before disappearing.

Her mum was gone one day, suddenly. Her dad went mad. The employees were shocked, and confused, and they raised a huge commotion wondering what on earth happened.

Every day, he would draw countless portraits of her. Every day, he would go look for her.

What if she had been dragged into some incident? Her dad looked for her mum, but slowly, the inconsistencies revealed themselves.

Information about her dad’s customers was being leaked, it seems. There was no concrete evidence, but they could see oddities in the imports and exports with foreign countries.

Her dad had earned his trade through his good reputation, but that alone wouldn’t keep a business running. Beghura’s well-functioning mind was something she had inherited from her dad.

Her dad didn’t disregard that trifling sense of unease. He reviewed the account books from the year her mum arrived.

It was linked to a certain country.

Li. A country that neighboured Sha’ou. They had no diplomatic relations, but it was a country to the east with Sha’ou between them.

Her mum said she was a person of Sha’ou, but her looks were close to those of the Li people.

“I will most definitely find her,” Dad said to Beghura as he handed her scriptures to study. As she had nothing to do, she took the texts and had a servant read them out to her. “Your mum had a reason for doing this. She surely had no other choice.”

This was the first time Beghura thought that her father was a fool for saying such kind words.

He told her that he might find her in a couple of years. Apparently, he was told that a person who looked exactly like her portrait was seen in Li.

Her dad rejoiced, then boarded a ship bound for Li.

Beghura regretted that she hadn’t reached out to him at the time. They should have considered her mum dead. She could have just lived happily together with her dad.

But that dream never came true.

Her dad never returned.

So what happens to a child who loses her parents? It would have been a different story if Beghura had been a little older. But a child who was not even ten years old could do nothing at all.

Not even a month later, her dad’s riches were plundered and lost. The servants who felt the barest of gratitude towards her dad had left the remaining few gold coins in Beghura’s hands.

If her dad had been sane, he would have surely picked out a guardian for her. Her mum may have been beautiful, but how mad did she drive her dad?

“If anything happens, go to the church.”

Beghura, with the coins tight in her grasp, headed for the church.

The clergymen were relatively honest people. They felt sorry for Beghura and tried to put her into an almshouse. However, Beghura understood that was a bad move. As soon as her coins get discovered, they would end up stolen.

Beghura decided on a goal.

In the church, there was a teacher who wanted to expand their teachings to the East. She heard that he would be setting out on his travels soon.

“Please take me with you,” Beghura said to the teacher, who looked displeased.

“I can’t take children with me,” he replied.

The teacher was a man in his forties. He originally worked as the guard of a teacher from a large church, so he was well-built. Since he was going to a foreign country that was full of heretics, he had to be strong.

Beghura was a child. She had no strength. There was only one thing she had.

“O Lord, art thine eyes upon us?” She had memorised the contents of the scripture that had been read to her countless times. She had them read to her countless times. She flawlessly recited every word, every sentence.

“…”

“Please take me with you.”

If you have no value, no one will look upon you.

To her dad, Beghura was his daughter, so she had value.

To the servants, Beghura was the daughter of their employer, so she had value.

So she demonstrated her value as a useful pawn to propagate the teacher’s precepts. And most importantly, Beghura was her mum’s daughter. She had eastern features.

The teacher gave in after a while in the end. He might have realised that Beghura no longer had a place to belong to. “I will not be responsible for you even if you die.”

“I understand.”

Beghura headed east with the teacher. However, they moved slowly since they were doing missionary work as they travelled. It took them a year to traverse Sha’ou and reach Li. However, it was very challenging to traverse Li.

Amidst their travels, the instructor gave her scriptures written in all sorts of languages.

“Listen to me, it’s the words. Learn your words. Don’t make any mistakes. This is a matter of life or death.”

The teacher was brusque but he looked after her well. He was on edge since they had been chased around by people who were against the church’s doctrine countless times during their journey. Sometimes they were imprisoned and even tortured.

“Damned heretics. I won’t forgive them until they convert.”

It was the teacher’s stock phrase.

While it was curious what made him come to Li, which was full of heretics, it had nothing to do with Beghura.

They may be a group of churchmen, but their treatment of child servants wasn’t that great. It couldn’t be helped since the group didn’t have that much money. It was those times that reminded her who she was. She wasn’t the daughter of a wealthy merchant. She was just a servant brat.

Hence, she had to rack her brain in order to eat. Sometimes, she would cry in front of a nice-looking lady she met in town to get charity. She would make the children laugh from her antics so they would share their snacks with her. And occasionally, she would be treated to food during a celebration, where she would eat enough to make up for the times she couldn’t.

While she travelled alongside a troupe of entertainers, she learnt magic tricks. Openly watching their practice sessions would get her beat up, so she climbed up a tree to hide herself. Showing off her tricks before a rich person would have them give her some coin.

The teacher would get angry when he found out, but as he was sorry that he couldn’t provide her with proper food, he didn’t take away the snacks and coins she was given.

Beghura changed her name to Machue. Acting as if she were a person of Li would increase her chance of survival—as the teacher taught her.

“You said you wanted to go as far as the western capital, right?”

“Yes.”

It seems the teacher would be staying in a town where there was a church, which was large even by Li standards. She was told they would be based there to spread their doctrine.

“Do you have to go that far?”

“I’ll be fine.”

Chue was already twelve years old. She was soon at marriageable age for a girl of Li. Normally, it would considered dangerous. However, she had shaved her hair to a very short length. She couldn’t be considered beautiful with her small eyes and flat nose. She accompanied some merchants bound for the western capital as their menial servant.

When she reached the western capital, a year had passed, so she had turned thirteen. She walked carrying the long-tattered portraits of her mum.

It seems playing a clown was within her nature. During the day, she would perform magic tricks with overblown actions to earn coins, and during the night, she would sleep in the waterways, enduring the cold. She lived like this for a while, and then she heard that there was a person who resembled the portrait of her mum:

“If my memory serves, I saw her at the largest estate. Well, it was just this one time, though.”

Believing their words, Chue headed for the estate.

It was the largest estate in the western capital. Chue would never be allowed entry with her filthy appearance, so she waited at the entrance for someone to come out.

“Big brother, wait up.”

She heard a voice.

A well-built man came out from the door. She called him a man, but he looked to be about over fifteen years old. It was just that his clothes were cleaner than Chue’s. His sharp brows would probably be popular with the young girls.

A girl came right after him. She was the one who spoke just now. The girl was of marriageable age, with sharp eyes, but her face was beautiful. Her dress generously made use of a fabric that must be the silk her dad once had her feel when he was doing his trades. Chue hadn’t touched the material in years.

“Hey! Get right over here! Be thankful that you have Big Brother as your guard. Ahh, if it wasn’t for Grandfather requesting it, he would’ve never done it.”

Behind that strong-willed girl was another girl. She had beautiful red hair and jade eyes. Unless the other girl, this girl had gentle eyes. She seemed to be around the same age as Chue, but why were they also different?

“Yin, control your mouth.”

Chue heard a voice. It was a voice she hadn’t heard of in years.

“You-sama will be entering the inner palace. Think of your position.”

And there stood a statuesque, curvaceous beauty, with skin the colour of ivory.

The girl named Yin got upset. However, Chue brushed it off. She only wondered why the beautiful woman she thought would always be with her was in a place like this.

“I understand, Mother,” Yin said.

Mother—Chue ruminated on the word. It was a word from the Li language she had studied for the past couple of years. The meaning wasn’t different from mum, but she didn’t know why that girl was calling her that.

She heard that before her mum met her dad, her mum had a husband and a child. Didn’t they die when their ship was wrecked?

“Mother.” Another voice joined them. It was a child. Younger than Chue. He was around eight years old. “Please take me with you too.”

“No, you will study with me. How about we go shopping next time?”

“Okay…” The child hugged her mum’s leg.

Chue had no idea what she was looking at. However, what was thrust at her was the reality that the children around her mum were all much better looking than Chue.

Chue’s hair was cropped short and the clothes she wore were something she had for many years. She was a filthy brat covered in dirt who hadn’t bathed in days as she hadn’t been able to stay in inns.

Unbeknownst to herself, she exposed her face from the wall she hiding behind. She took a step, then another, toward her mum.

“There’s something dirty there,” the girl named Yin said. She looked at Chue like she was looking at something blatantly filthy like she couldn’t forgive her existence, let alone having no value. It reminded Chue of how her dad looked when appraising garbage.

“Yin, don’t pay attention to that thing,” the man said. Don’t pay attention—Chue had difficulty judging what he meant by those words.

Chue merely looked at the beautiful woman.

The beautiful woman gave Chue a single glance just like Yin did, then led the children back to the estate as if nothing happened.

Chue had no idea what she should do.

She just chased after her mum. She thought her mum would show some reaction to seeing her.

But she didn’t even notice her.

The years Chue spent chasing after her mum, what was it all for?

Had she wanted a heartfelt reunion between mother and child? No, that wasn’t it.

Chue wanted to know what kind of value her mum saw in her.

That night, Chue sneaked into the estate.

She wanted to make sure at any cost. What did her mum regard Chue as?

Perhaps it was thanks to how she had been chased around by heretics for many years, that she had no trouble sneaking into the estate. She hid herself and moved in search of her mum’s room.

“Rats stink, so it’s natural.”

Someone spoke from right behind her.

She spun around in panic, but she held down before she could turn.

“A street urchin as a thief? I’ll be chopping off your fingers.”

It was a man who held her down. He seemed around thirty years old—she couldn’t see his face since he was holding her down.

“I am not a thief.” Chue did her best to express herself politely. It was something the teacher taught her. But it backfired.

“Are you a foreigner? You have an accent.”

Chue’s face was pressed to the floor.

“You’re young. What country are you from? Sha’ou? No, somewhere further west? What’s your goal?” The man moved Chue to a place away from public view.

“I, I came here, to see, my mum,” she said haltingly.

“Your mum? A mother who has such a filthy brat works in this estate?” he scoffed.

Chue didn’t care how he insulted her. She just took out a dirty portrait from her bosom pocket.

“…What’s this?” The tone of the man’s voice changed. Bewilderment came out. His grip on her loosened. “Are you that one’s child?”

She had no idea who that one was. However, Chue could only aim for the opening stemming from this man’s bewilderment. But it was difficult to break free. Speaking of how she went for the opening…

“Thirteen years ago, my mum was shipwrecked and my dad saved her. I am the daughter who was born at the time.”

“A daughter, I see. Haha, is that how it is? She certainly did have one,” the man laughed. “You are the daughter that woman abandoned for being useless.”

The word useless reverberated in Chue’s mind. “Useless?”

“Yeah. Useless. To return to this estate, she probably had no need for you. A few years ago, she needed identification to conceal herself in a foreign country. That was the value of your existence.”

Was—past tense. Did that mean she didn’t want Chue anymore?

“She couldn’t bring you back. You were an existence she didn’t want at all for her to play her role.”

“An existence she didn’t want.” The impact hit Chue’s head hard.

It was something she had known. Chue should have already known when she abandoned Chue and her dad and left.

“What happened to your father? He must have gotten a second wife, being a successful merchant, right?”

It would be nice if that was what her dad did. Her dad was too good, too nice, and stupid.

“He set off on a trip after hearing that my mum was in Li and died. My house is ruined. I chased after my mum with nothing left to me.”

“Can I have one of the portraits?”

“Sure.”

“Hmmm.” The man seemed to be thinking about something. It looked like he was appraising her.

Chue thought: he was determining her value right now. If she had nothing, he would most likely dispose of her as something unwanted.

“I can speak my mother tongue, the Li language and the Sha’ou language. And I can understand a few others.” Chue recalled the scriptures the teacher gave her and smoothly spoke in a foreign language. “I can do maths too. I lived on water for a week once. I am resilient to pain. And, I have nimble hands.” She showed off the magic tricks she learnt by imitation.

She’d do anything. To survive. To find a reason for being.

“…What a fool. This one is better accomplished, isn’t she?” the man murmured. “Gotcha. Show me your capabilities. If you have value,” he grinned, “I will make you my successor.”

Chue then regarded the man as her master.

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T/N: Why did I randomly decide to translate this chapter? I read the other version on a whim. So, you can thank them.

What chapter should I try out next?

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