Chapter 34

Ariadne and Vincenzo del Gatto, the Porto merchant currently conducting the auction, had almost nothing in common, but now both were thinking the same thing.

“Count Cesare, you lunatic!”

“Stone-cold bastard!”

The Porto merchant immediately stiffened and bellowed at Cesare.

“Why are you thinking such absurd thoughts!”

“Well, how should I know? The little lady who said it would know.”

He calmly examined his well-manicured nails and continued.

“Something about it being a forgery?”

The hall erupted into chaos as if hit by a bomb.

- “Forgery? Did I hear that right?”

- “Are you saying <Victoria Nike> is fake?”

- “Is it real?”

The eyes of everyone in the hall turned to Cesare and Ariadne, who was sitting right next to him. Ariadne wished she could lie down with a wet towel on her head. Over the 14 years of their engagement, or rather, their de facto marriage, Cesare had always been like this. Occasionally, he would cause unimaginable large-scale accidents and then quickly blame Ariadne.

Back then, bound by the name of fiancée, she silently took care of Cesare’s mess. But why now, why should she have to clean up after him?

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Ariadne shook her head and tried to step back. Just as she was about to make an excuse that a sheltered young lady who hadn’t even attended her debutante ball could know nothing, Cesare told a blatant lie.

“The young lady just said it was a forgery.”

“I didn’t say that!”

Ariadne mouthed her protest desperately to Cesare. She wanted him to correct his statement and declare that this young lady had nothing to do with it, but it seemed the content was delayed due to the profanity he was spewing.

“Hey, miss! If you’re going to say something, you have to take responsibility!”

The Porto merchant, breathing heavily, jumped down from the podium as if to grab Ariadne by the collar.

Ariadne quickly gauged in her mind whether she could cry and say, “Why are grown-ups acting like this? I don’t like the tall man next to me or the merchant in front of me! I’m still young and don’t know anything!” to go home. It seemed possible.

At that moment, she saw Prince Alfonso in the front row, looking at her with a shocked expression.

‘If I just leave this mess, Alfonso will end up with that worthless statue, won’t he?’

Unfortunately, the last bid was not made by Count Marcello but by Prince Alfonso.

‘2000 ducats (about 20 billion won).’

It was a large sum, but not so much for a prince. He wouldn’t end up on the street or starve without it, and the prince’s palace wouldn’t go bankrupt.

He could hold a few large-scale events more modestly, delay the palace repairs for a few years, and the king or queen would eventually allocate the budget to cover the shortfall.

But if that happened, Prince Alfonso would lose his popularity.

Naturally, the throne, which had already veered off course, would move one step closer to the lunatic standing next to Ariadne. She didn’t want that to happen.

Actually, even if he didn’t become king, she didn’t want to see Alfonso become a laughingstock and be upset. Ariadne decided to clean up Cesare’s mess one more time for Alfonso’s sake.

“Sigh.”

She took a deep breath, straightened her clothes, and stood up straight. Ariadne, having tidied herself, looked directly at the merchant and shouted loudly.

“Vincenzo del Gatto of Porto. A seasoned merchant in fine art auctions?”

Her clear, resonant voice filled the hall, drawing the attention of the audience. Ariadne stepped onto a wooden footrest on the floor to make sure everyone in the hall could see her clearly.

“Do you really think this statue is the <Victoria Nike> mentioned by Halicardotos in his <Hellenia Travelogue>?”

“It must be, you silly girl!”

The merchant, excited, seemed to have forgotten all about formalities and respect. Ariadne ignored this and continued.

“Halicardotos wrote in the <Hellenia Travelogue>, ‘Her delicate wings, damaged once by the Moorish army that swept through the temple during the Selaphon War, were restored...’ Is that correct?”

The <Hellenia Travelogue> was a common textbook for boys learning Greek. Some noble men had memorized the relevant passage.

- “Yes, that’s the passage.”

- “It says it was damaged and restored.”

The Porto merchant raised his voice hysterically.

“So what if it was restored! Statues are supposed to break and be put back together! It broke in ancient times and was restored in the Hellenia era, so its value as a fine art piece wouldn’t be diluted at all!”

The true latter part of the passage was “It was impossible to restore. <Victoria Nike> had no wings, head, or arms,” but this part had not yet been revealed to the world. She had to try to piece together the situation with the remaining circumstantial evidence.

“Do you know the proverb that says, ‘A broken pot, even when mended, remains a broken pot’?”

While Ariadne was speaking to the Porto merchant, she extended her hand to Cesare, who was standing beside her. Cesare, spreading his hands to ask what she wanted, pointed to the sword at his waist.

- ‘Maybe the sword?’

Ariadne glanced at him and frowned.

- ‘The club. You carry a club, don’t you?’

Cesare, surprised at how she knew, still reached into his waist, behind the sword, and handed her the iron club he was carrying. Ariadne, holding the club, walked from the guest of honor’s seat in the center of the hall to the podium in front.

This was where <Victoria Nike> was displayed. The platform was raised about 2 feet (approximately 1 meter) from the ground, so when she stepped up, she was clearly visible to the audience.

The Porto merchant continued to shout.

“If the broken wings were restored, there would be some cracks. But does that diminish the value of the statue? Is the statue a bowl? Are you going to put water in the statue? What’s the big deal with a few cracks! It’s all from the Hellenia era! It’s the same!”

“Would a broken bowl break again in the same place if it fell?”

“Statues and bowls are completely different! It’s not a bowl you use every day, and it doesn’t hold water or bear weight. A few cracks on the wings are no big deal! It’s all from the Hellenia era! It’s the same!”

Ariadne, ignoring the Porto merchant’s hysterical shouting, walked confidently to <Victoria Nike> on the wheeled platform. <Victoria Nike> was extremely heavy, and the wheels were unusually large to make it easier to move. Each wheel had a diameter of at least half a foot (about 20 centimeters).

She took a deep breath, carefully examined the platform, and raised the iron club high. She chose the front wheel closest to the audience.

- Crack!

She struck it with all her weight.

The club hit the wheel directly. While Ariadne’s strength wasn’t enough to break the iron joint connecting the platform and the wheel, the wooden wheel itself shattered into three pieces.

As the wheel broke, the platform tilted, and the massive statue, losing its balance, slowly began to fall forward.

“What are you doing!!!!”

The Porto merchant, a moment late, screamed in horror, and the guests below the podium screamed as they saw the statue falling.

- “Get out of the way!”

- “It’s falling!”

There was a certain safety distance between the platform where <Victoria Nike> was displayed and the guest of honor’s seats, but the guests still scrambled to their feet and hurriedly moved to the back.

The Porto merchant, grabbing his hair, continued to scream from behind, but strangely, he took no action to catch the falling <Victoria Nike>.

- Creak... Thud!

The remaining three wheels, unable to roll properly due to the wrong angle and direction, made a grating sound, and the marble and wood produced an unpleasant friction sound. As the slope became steeper, the marble statue finally fell from the stage to the ground where the guests were seated.

Ariadne had broken the left wheel. <Victoria Nike> fell diagonally from the left corner, and its left wing hit the polished and solid oak floor of the Chibo family.

The statue fell and the hall fell silent. <Victoria Nike>, which had fallen and shattered the oak floor, was a single, unbroken piece.

“Does this statue really have cracks?”

She added a kind word for the audience, in case they didn’t understand.

“If it had cracks, the wings would have broken again when it fell, but this statue is as smooth as if it were newly made.”

Ariadne, with the shocked crowd in front of her, jumped down from the podium and went to the fallen <Victoria Nike>. She stroked the pink marble and continued.

“It’s not newly made, but someone must have restored it very well, and it must have been preserved very well in the ground. But, do you know the two biggest differences between Hellenia-era statues and contemporary marble statues?”

She swept her finger over the marble. Everyone in the hall was watching her intently.

“The ancient pagans painted their marble statues. They used dyes to make the skin peach-colored, the hair brown, and the clothes colored according to the person’s status. The better the preservation of the Hellenia-era marble statues, the more dyes they retain. This is a well-known fact among experienced fine art dealers.”

Her finger came away clean.

“This statue is very clean.”

The audience was holding their breath, focused on Ariadne.

“But, isn’t this statue a beautiful pink color? With such a rosy pink marble, there would be no need to paint the skin separately. Isn’t that right, Countess Chibo?”

Ariadne asked the Countess Chibo, who was closest to her. She was startled and unconditionally agreed with Ariadne’s question.

“Y-Yes, that’s right.”

“But why did the ancient Hellenians paint their marble statues?”

“I-I don’t know.”

Ariadne, seeing that the Countess Chibo was uncomfortable with the attention, returned to the statue.

“The Hellenians lived at the eastern end of the central continent, where the marble was not pink but a dull gray-brown. Pink marble is a specialty of Etruscan North, specifically the city of Lastera, where this statue was supposedly excavated!”

Ariadne stood tall next to the massive statue and looked around at the people.

“Why would a statue that was well in place in the eastern city of Tibos, or if it had been looted, in the Moorish Empire, or if it had been stolen, in the black market of San Carlo, be found in Lastera, a remote rural area with nothing but quarries?”

She struck the fallen <Victoria Nike>, or rather, the replica of <Victoria Nike>, with the club she still held in her hand.

“Do you have anything else to say, Vincenzo del Gatto!”

“I have one more question for him.”

A tenor voice suddenly rang out in the hall, which Ariadne had taken control of. It was Count Cesare de Como, who had been sitting in the guest of honor’s seats, calmly watching Ariadne’s one-woman show.

“Is your name really ‘Vincenzo del Gatto’?”