Countess Rubina De Como is a minor antagonist in "Sister In This Life I Have Become the Queen". Cesare’s mother and the favorite mistress of the King, she has goals to raise her son higher in the world by any means necessary.
History[]
Early Life[]
Early on in life, Countess Rubina consulted a fortune teller, who predicted that she would bear the King of San Carlo a son. The fortune teller also foretold that who ever possessed the Heart of the Deep Blue Sea, a precious piece of jewelry, would one day rise to the throne.
At some point, Countess Rubina caught the eye of King Leo III, and he took her on as his favorite mistress. Eventually, Rubina bore him an illegitimate son, Cesare, just as the fortune teller foretold, although the King would later claim him officially as his nephew. Although Leo did care for Cesare, the boy’s status as a bastard meant he could only acknowledge Cesare as his son in private.
First Timeline[]
In the middle of marriage negotiations between Crown Prince Alfonso and Grand Duchess Lariessa De Balloa of Gallico, Rubina poisoned her husband’s wife, Queen Margaret, who had been a Gallican princess herself before her marriage. Rubina’s murder was seen as a personal attack on the people of Gallico. Though Rubina insisted on her innocence, no one believed her, and she was put under house arrest before being sentenced to death by beheading.
Second Timeline[]
She learns about Ariadne De Mare through palace gossip after Her Majesty Queen Margaret invited her, Lucrezia De Mare, and Isabella De Mare to the palace. After Ariadne exposes the Apostle of Asseretto as a heretic, defends Cardinal De Mare's honor and position, and receives the Heart of the Deep Blue Sea from King Leo III, Rubina convinces her son to retrieve the jewel by affiliating himself with Ariadne. After Cesare fails to sweet-talk Ariadne, she then has him attend Ariadne's debutante ball as her partner, unaware that Crown Prince Alfonso already arrived to be Ariadne's partner first.
Rubina arrived at Queen Margaret’s banquet uninvited, much to the disdain of Her Majesty and the other attending ladies. When Ariadne De Mare knocked a glass out of the Queen’s hand, Rubina’s dog, whom she had brought with her, licked up the spilled drink and instantly died, revealing that the drink had been poisoned. Rubina protested when it was suggested they perform an autopsy on her dog to see what kind of poison it had consumed, under the claim that she did not want to mutilate it’s body and bury it peacefully, even tearfully begging King Leo not to allow the autopsy. However, Ariadne De Mare convinced the King to allow the autopsy by implying that if he did not take action, he coukd be next. They found arsenic in the dog’s stomach, and they found the same kind in Rubina’s quarters, to which one of her maids claimed that she had helped her mistress prepare the poison for the Queen