Sweet Romance11 min read
I Married the Minister Who Married Me for My Appetite
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I grew up thinking my place in the world was to eat well and sleep better. My father, Edsel Soto, taught me that with a grin and a wave of his fat hand. He was proud of being lazy as if it were a skill. I was his only daughter and therefore excelled at being coddled.
"Eat more," he always said. "If you eat well, you never know when hunger will come."
When Minister Leon Ballard asked for my hand, my father squealed like a child at a pastry cart.
"Carter, did you hear? Leon Ballard himself—come on, that man eats with kings!" he said as he wiped crumbs from his beard.
"Why do you want me to marry him?" I asked that day, thinking of silk and warm beds and never another cold winter again.
Edsel patted my cheek with a stubby finger. "Because he has money, Carter. Because he is important. Because he will feed you."
So I married the minister who said, plain as a bowl of soup, "You eat well." He smiled like spring and meant it like a promise.
"I married him because of food?" I told my new house at first night. "Of all reasons, that is mine."
Leon Ballard reached across the lantern light and touched my hand. "You are simple and honest. I like that."
He had a reputation as a sharp man at court, the kind who could dress a danger in velvet glove and make the court clap. People called him cunning. People called him a minister who climbed in the dark. I called him mine.
"Why me?" I asked once, honest as a child.
He looked at the bowl I was clearing, the way I rolled a dumpling in my palm, and he answered like a fact. "You eat in a way that makes the house look good."
That was the truth. I made the table safe. I ate everything, laughed loud, and cleaned up. It seemed to satisfy him.
Days in the Ballard mansion were a study in surprises. I learned subtle things. How Leon would hum over a pot, how he would sit quietly while I filled my plate, how he would remember that I liked my porridge a touch saltier. He could be all business in sunlight and tender at dusk. He kept the world complicated and kept me simple.
"Do you miss your father?" he asked once when snow pelted the windows like tiny coins.
"I do." I said. "But the table is full here."
He kissed the back of my head like a benediction. "Then stay."
Jealousy came in a woman named Julia Eaton, bright and cold as a winter flower. She walked like she had been carved from ice and polished. She had loved Leon before I arrived, the rumor said, loved him like someone would love a locked garden. I saw her once at the banquet when the emperor threw an ill-tempered feast.
"Show them something," she had whispered to a courtesan near me, and when the emperor leaned back like a man who would enjoy being amused, Leon stood up and said, calm as a pond, "My wife need not perform."
Julia's face flushed like a burned rose. I didn't know then what danger protests could invite.
"You insulted my teacher," she hissed later when we passed.
"She insulted me first," I said, more brave than wise.
He tugged my sleeve, eyes shaded. "Let it go."
But things in the palace are never simple. I learned that the emperor likes to play at thunder. He is at once fond and cruel. One frost morning came a decree like a stone: Leon Ballard was taken in for questioning. The rumor churned into accusation. My world turned like a bowl dropped in water.
"Why?" I asked the guards. "What have you done to him?"
They shuffled papers and looked away. "The court has orders."
I did what no government could understand: I went and kneeled at the palace gate until the snow drew lines across my face.
"Please," I told the red doors. "Please, allow me to see him."
They laughed at first. Then, as the cold ate into my bones, a thin-faced eunuch stepped out.
"Carter Delgado," he said. "You cannot be allowed."
"I will not move," I said, teeth chattering. "I will sit here until my throat breaks."
Edsel made noises in his belly about me being dramatic, but he came and sat with me. He was a coward and a hero at once then—worn but stubborn. He prodded me when I fell asleep half-sobbing. He warmed my hands with the one hand warmer we had.
At last, when my knees wore thin, an old woman named Julia—no, not the ice queen, the actual Julia Eaton—came and lifted me. To the surprise of my heart, she was gentler than her reputation said.
"You will freeze," she said. "Come home. The court will not admit you."
"I will not leave," I said, but she tugged my sleeve until the stiffness in my limbs gave up. "Stay," she said, and for once I did.
That night I begged Edsel to save Leon. "Father," I said, "you are useless most days, but you have friends. Beg. Bribe. Anything."
He stuffed his mouth full of pastry and said, "I can try."
Edsel did try. I watched him fumble with a noble's footman's sleeve and hand over our last piece of ten-li incense. He was ridiculous. I loved him for it.
We were granted one visit. The prison stank like old rice and winter. Leon looked younger in the gray light, his hair uncombed and his clothes thin.
"Carter," he whispered when he saw me.
"I thought you would be braver," I said, sitting by him, ignoring how I cried.
He smiled, a small crooked thing. "You never told me I was not brave."
"You were a minister," I said. "Not a man to sit in straw and shiver under a blanket."
He took my hand and held it as if the skin could anchor him. "If I die here, marry someone else," he said oddly.
"What?" I slapped his arm despite the sadness. "Who would I marry?"
"Someone who will take care of you," he said with the most practical voice he had ever used with me.
"That's cowardly of you." Tears came then, big and useless.
"I am trying to be blunt. I am trying to be useful," he said. "Promise me, if I cannot, you will not be poor."
"I promised to be with you," I said. "Even if it means the cold eats me."
He kissed my knuckles. "Then be stubborn," he said. "Be like a weed in frost."
They released him months later, but not as the man who had entered. The emperor had taken a measure of revenge: Leon's house was fined, half his stores poured into the treasury, much of his silver taken. The court applauded the spectacle of balance. Julia Eaton had been made a state bride to a quiet prince who looked like a painted board—Dalton Blanc. I watched her go with a knot of something in my chest that tasted like betrayal, even though she had once steadied me.
After all the pomp the world left us with one small coin purse and a plot of land. We ate less silk and more barley. Leon, once a man of tall steps, learned to fold wool and mend nets. We laughed a little when we had rice. We joked a lot when we were unhappy.
"I have an idea," I told him one night by the hearth. "You are good with your hands. You learned delicacies in the palace kitchens. Sell what you are best at."
He sniffed. "You mean—peas? Cakes?"
"Pea paste cakes. My mother's peapaste. You remember? The one she made before she left."
He smiled like a man who could be amused. "We shall sell pea paste cakes."
We opened a small stall by the market. Leon rolled paste like a thief learns to pick pockets—with practiced careful makeshift grace. People came because the cakes were different—soft, sweet, and honest. They came because the man who once filled council halls rolled paste with such devotion. They came because I stood behind him with my laugh.
But the court does not bear the taste of humility well. There were men who had laughed when Leon fell and men who had whispered when he rose slightly. Paul Baumann and Andre O'Brien, two ministers who had led the impeachment, watched our small booth like hounds.
"You are singing an old tune," Paul said one afternoon as he stopped by our stall with an entourage. He had been one of the loudest voices when the emperor shouted against Leon.
"Eat," Leon said, simple as always, offering a cake. "Sweetens the tongue."
Paul took a bite and smirked, then spat it into a napkin.
"This," he announced loudly, "is scandalous. The minister should not flog paste. The people should not raise that laughable man."
People around us began to mutter.
I had had enough of men who made fortunes on the backs of others. I leaned out from behind the stall and looked at Paul Baumann directly.
"You put a man's family to the sword," I said, voice small but steady. "You said he was traitor. You took his wealth. You smiled in front of the emperor and called it justice. Where are your proofs?"
Paul's face flickered, a shadow of alarm. "Madam," he said, voice oily. "You are bold."
"I have things," I said, surprising myself. "Letters, a ledger, witnesses. You and Andre wrote memos, forged reports. You took advantage of the emperor's fear. You thought no one would remember."
The crowd hushed. Leon's hand trembled on the rolling pin.
Paul laughed then, a brittle sound. "Do you actually think a market woman can slander a minister and get away with it?"
"I don't think," I said. "I know. Come to the hall. Bring the emperor, or bring the public. Let them watch you eat your words."
He could have struck me. Instead, he did what cowards do when their dinner is threatened: he accepted public theater. "Very well," he said. "Tomorrow, the court. We will have proof. We will show your insolence."
The next day the whole city seemed to have gathered. People came like a tide: merchants, scribes, servants, even old men who had once petitioned the palace. We were in the main square because no hall could be neutral enough for such a spectacle.
Paul Baumann arrived in his formal coat, pompous as a rooster. Andre O'Brien beside him was pale and sweating. They set a table and gestured for the notaries. The emperor's messenger had come to say that the court could watch; the emperor himself would not come, but the proclamation would be read.
"Paul Baumann," I said when the notary finished calligraphy and the scribes had done their work. "You accused my husband of treason with documents you made yourself. You did it for a seat, for power, for the chance to be more than a man."
Paul's lip curled. "You are out of your depth, woman."
"Then watch." I had no script. I had only truth and the small courage of a woman who had once waited at palace gates until her knees gave out.
I called witnesses up—small clerks who had been asked to misfile, a courier who had carried Paul's forged letter and had kept the true copy, a tax farmer who had been bribed. I put them on oath. Each one spoke in simple words, the kind of words a child might use.
"He told me to change the ledger," said one clerk, voice trembling. "He said: 'Make the receipts vanish.'"
"He put a memo in my hand and told me to give it to the palace scribe," said the courier. "But I hid the true one."
The crowd leaned forward like a single living thing. The notaries' ink was barely dry when I produced the ledger with Paul's handwriting compared to the official script. The differences were tiny, like footstep patterns in snow, but there.
Andre O'Brien's smile collapsed. Paul tried to find the arrogance in his mouth and found only fear.
"You would accuse a man of treason to line your own pockets?" I asked, calm now because truth can steady a wild heart.
Paul's face went through color like weather. First, surprise: his jaw slackened. Then denial, fast and practiced, words slick as oil. "This is slander. Fabrication. A market wench cannot produce state documents."
"Then answer these questions," I said. "Did you sign the transfer? Did you order the confiscation? Did you ask the emperor for the house?"
He stammered. People in the crowd began to shout for proof. Scribes unrolled the true ledgers. The courier confirmed his story. The clerk who had altered the receipt begged forgiveness and pointed at Paul's seal stamped in the ink.
"Look!" called someone. A young page held up a paper with Paul's round stamp. It was the same the courier had once carried and had kept as a copy.
Paul's expression broke into a cascade. He first attempted to laugh it off, then barked fury, then flung himself into denial, and finally crumbled, a man whose pillars had been struck.
"Bogus! Lies!" he yelled, but his voice had lost weight.
People began to murmur and spit. A woman in the crowd threw a scrap of bread at his boots. Another man snapped his fingers and hissed, "Shame!"
Paul tried the last desperate thing: bargaining. "I can return the goods! I can—"
"You will restore what you stole," I said. "You will apologize before the public. You will be stripped of your seals and your office. You will answer before the emperor."
"Before the emperor?" He looked around wildly. "You will not be so bold."
At that, the notary called the scribes. They read aloud the public records. The emperor's messenger, who had come to observe, stepped forward. He had a pale face like a man who had seen too much. "There will be a court to try this. But for today, there will be a public admission."
Paul's shoulders sagged like a broken sail. The crowd's eyes seared into him. His allies looked away. Andre O'Brien, who had been cocky, now trembled and left as if led by an invisible string.
They made him kneel on the stone in the middle of the square. It was an ancient humiliation, used for thieves and false men. A city crier read out the accusations. Paul was ordered to recite his crimes and return every coin and document. He had to place his official seal into the hands of the royal scribe. He had to admit his guilt and name those who aided him.
As he read, his voice cracked. He tried to hide behind excuses and slipped. The crowd shouted for him to look at me as he confessed. He could not meet my eyes. The faces around him held everything: anger, mockery, pity, and the hungry joy of those who see a high tree fall.
When the seals were given up, he became a man of nothing. His escort dragged him away, and the crowd followed for a short distance, some jeering, some taking his coat as souvenirs. People I did not know came and slapped his face. A scribe wrote the whole event down and attached it to the city gate with red wax so everyone could read.
Paul's change of expression was a slow ruin. First surprise. Then anger. Then denial. Then bargaining. Then pleading. Finally, emptiness. He begged for mercy with a voice small as a child's. "Spare me," he gasped. "I have children."
No one moved to help. His allies had left. The crowd had a long memory for humor and a short time for sympathy.
Andre O'Brien got a different fate. He had been younger and less greedy. When he admitted his part, he was offered exile instead of beating. He left with his head bowed and his hands empty. He was not dragged; he was led.
Both punishments were public, different in measure but equal in humiliation. The crowd watched both outcomes like a lesson.
Leon watched from the edge, his face pale as a dish. He held my hand and squeezed. "You did that," he said quietly.
"I did what I could," I answered.
He bent and kissed my knuckles. "You are clever," he said. "Like a fox."
"No," I said. "Like a woman who refuses to be eaten."
The market returned to its noisy way after that. Our small stall became busier. People loved the cakes and the story. Some said I was foolish to make enemies of men who could crush a house. Others said I had done the right thing.
Days later, the emperor's anger cooled. He took back what was left of Leon's fortune and placed many of Leon's goods into the national granary as some show of balance. Leon's office was not fully restored, but he kept a small place at court, enough to be called again.
Julia Eaton's life at court was quiet and dutiful. She had married Dalton Blanc as the court desired. She wrote me once a small note. "You were brave that day," it said.
"You were brave because you chose duty," I wrote back. "I was brave because I had no other option."
Time became soft. We sold cakes until our hands knew the measure by memory. Leon would joke and say the palace taught him more than law. I would retort, "Yes, it taught you how to invite trouble."
He would smile and roll a ball of paste in my hands. "You are my good luck," he said.
Sometimes, at night when the moon was right and the tea was hot, I would open the small tin where I kept a scrap of my mother's recipe rolled like a secret. I would take out a thin cake and smell it. That smell was the story: the stubbornness of a girl who would wait at a palace gate, the kindness of a man who once stood tall and who then stood humbly beside a stall, the city's taste for justice that day when two ministers were stripped bare.
The tin sits on our shelf now. It is dented and old. When I open it, I think of my father's crude laughter, Leon's steady hands, Julia's quiet strength, and the day the men who thought themselves above the crowds were made small.
I put the cake to my lips and taste a little of everything—sweet, warm, and like home.
The End
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