Since she was hungry, Millicent did not refuse. She hastily cut cheese with a small knife and placed it on bread.
“My ladies-in-waiting are five spirited ladies,” Queen Jeidalin said.
“They were selected from illustrious families representing the Holy Kingdom of Kinterrand.”
She took only a sip of wine.
“They are also five swindlers who act like sheep grazing in a meadow while being hell-bent on extracting profit through the back door.”
“So you want to kill them?” Millicent asked.
“No.”
Jeidalin slowly stood up.
“Did you know that His Majesty the King returned recently?”
“Yes. I heard he won a great victory in the war.”
The queen dragged her silk slippers and stood before a portrait.
“He declared it to me the moment he returned to the palace.”
Jeidalin gazed at the handsome man in the painting.
Hair black as coal. Gray eyes with a faint blue hue. A splendid hat adorned with feathers. A red leather doublet. A locket necklace crafted from gold…
Perhaps he was indeed the king who spent more than half the year on battlefields.
There was something familiar about the face in the painting, but Millicent was too distracted eating the bread in her hand to place it.
“He said he would soon select a Royal Mistress.”
Had she a letter opener in hand, the queen looked as though she would have long since stabbed and torn that portrait to pieces.
“And he intends to choose from among my ladies-in-waiting, of all people.”
Jeidalin furrowed her brow.
“You mean the King’s official mistress?”
Millicent summoned all her simple common sense.
The king’s foremost favored consort—that is, the Royal Mistress—was a position that signified the so-called “greatest lady of the kingdom.”
Like the queen, she would receive independent quarters within the palace and a substantial pension. She also wielded enough power to intervene in state affairs.
And above all, if the queen should never bear an heir, the illegitimate child born to the Royal Mistress could even be granted the right to succeed the throne.
“Is that not such a bad thing?”
Millicent asked indifferently.
“The Royal Mistress also serves the role of drawing the people’s resentment upon herself in place of the king and queen.”
Recalling the favored consorts of past kings, this was true. When a bad harvest ruined the wheat crops or an epidemic swept through a village, they would be cursed, blamed for having lost divine grace because of the damned whore.
“Anyway, the women of this kingdom are foolish.”
Jeidalin snapped.
“In my homeland, men are not raised with the habit of presumptuously desiring multiple women in the first place.”
The queen’s homeland was likely the Bodegaseu Empire.
She had originally been the eldest daughter of Emperor Valentina of the Bodegaseu Empire. Following the tradition of worshipping maternity and granting succession rights exclusively to princesses, she had even been designated the successor to the throne.
But in the year she turned fourteen, Jeidalin was cast out by her mother. All succession proceedings were halted. Instead, she crossed over to this kingdom and held a wedding ceremony…
There must have been some circumstances.
“If such a worthless wretch existed, I’d whip him with a thorned whip to teach him his place.”
Jeidalin added roughly.
From what she could gather, Millicent surmised that the atmosphere beyond the border was quite different.
“My dear king knows that as well,”
Jeidalin muttered.
“He has no interest in women; he merely made such a threat deliberately to insult me.”
“Are the two of you not on good terms?”
Millicent asked distantly. It had been quite some time since the wedding, yet she had never heard the bells announcing the birth of a prince or princess.
“If the word ‘indifference’ were expressed as a human, it would be your king.”
As if he were not her own king, Jeidalin spoke coldly.
“Of course, I too am a human not much different…”
The queen smiled. It was a hollow sneer.
“I can kill the ladies-in-waiting as you wish.”
Millicent interjected tactfully.
“But if I kill all five of them rather than one or two, Your Majesty the Queen will be the first to fall under suspicion.”
She was sounding her out in case the queen might later try to withdraw the commission and become troublesome.
“That is what I desire.”
Unexpectedly, Jeidalin responded boldly.
“Then everyone shall fear me. They will learn to the bone what becomes of those who challenge my authority.”
The queen bit her lip.
“Our gentle king must also realize that I am not a woman who meekly accepts whatever insults are dealt to her.”
“If suspicion becomes fact?”
Millicent asked.
“If my tail is caught, Your Majesty will also stand in the Holy Church court accused of ordering murder.”
“Then you must never let your tail be caught. Even if you are tortured with needles driven beneath your fingernails, you must keep your mouth shut.”
Jeidalin accepted this easily.
“Don’t worry too much.”
Instead, the queen even smiled brightly.
“Should you be arrested for murder and imprisoned in Cathedral Tower, I’ll kill you myself before you can utter a single word, sealing your lips forever.”
Millicent felt an incomparably cold sincerity in that smile.
“Right, come to think of it… I hadn’t given you the advance.”
Taking it a step further, Jeidalin bound her firmly with gold so that she could not back out.
“Here, your share.”
And it was a considerable sum. The pouch thrown to her was heavy, and when she opened it, gold coins and jewels sparkled brilliantly.
“This much is the advance?”
“Yes. Women of the Empire are known for their generosity. Finish the work cleanly, and I shall give you twice as much.”
Jeidalin scrutinized Millicent’s face with interest.
“You are remarkably expressionless for someone who must be surprised.”
“I have a disposition that does not easily rattle.”
Millicent shrugged.
“…I heard about you from Cardinal Mullery,”
Jeidalin said after her examination.
“You are exactly as I heard. Truly ordinary enough to blend in anywhere.”
“That is a relief.”
“But at the same time, you are conspicuously pretty.”
The queen’s gaze began another scrutiny.
A white hat that covered every strand of her perpetually frizzy hair no matter how much lavender oil she applied. Large, vivid blue eyes. Plump lips. A heart-shaped face. A slender, long neck…
“Your eyes are especially beautiful.”
Jeidalin tilted her head.
“They hold shades like blue waves crashing upon the shore.”
Millicent, who had never deeply considered her own eyes, did not respond.
“…Strangely, you seem somewhat familiar.”
The queen’s light brown eyes narrowed as if piercing through her.
“I hear you are skilled with poison?”
Finally, Jeidalin posed a question Millicent could answer.
“Yes. It is the cleanest method.”
“Clean?”
“I know herbs well. And the ways to leave no trace.”
“Can you handle situations where poison cannot be used?”
“I dislike messes, but knives and ropes are not bad either.”
At the refreshing reply, Jeidalin smiled faintly.
“How many have you killed?”
“I have not counted.”
Millicent shrugged.
She wondered if guilt or the prick of conscience would rush in. But as always, no matter how long she waited, she could feel no such emotion.
“Cardinal Mullery said it was no small number.”
“Then that must be correct.”
At her continuous monotone replies, Jeidalin rather looked intrigued.
“Your name is Millicent, I was told…”
Jeidalin emptied a glass of wine.
“Family?”
“They were witches, so they burned to death long ago.”
She could have made up a suitable lie, but deliberately spoke honestly. She wanted to see the reaction. She wondered if the queen would make the sign of the cross and recoil like others.
“You?”
Surprisingly, Jeidalin was composed.
“Are you a witch who survived by luck, unlike your family?”
“That is correct.”
Millicent also hid her private admiration and replied blandly.
“I clearly burned to death alongside them, yet strangely, I came back to life.”
Unexpected regression, one might say. Millicent thought cynically.
The sensation of being tied to the stake alongside her mother. The shouts of the crowd gathered around to watch. The heat spreading from sparks to flames. The agony of burning death…
Everything was vivid, yet somehow she had opened her eyes to a new life.
“Do I truly seem like a witch who received Satan’s help?”
Well, a good thing is a good thing, Millicent merely shrugged.
“You speak nonsense as if you mean it.”
Jeidalin laughed. It was a brighter smile than before, revealing her large front teeth like a rabbit’s. Uniquely, they were charming.
She had not expected to be believed, nor had she incurred wrath. The queen seemed to dismiss Millicent’s confession as a trivial jest.
It was not a bad outcome.
“Surname?”
“I have none.”
“Indeed, Millicent is likely a false name to begin with.”
Jeidalin raised an eyebrow.
“Very well, Millicent.”
Now the queen seemed inclined to end the conversation before it devolved into trivial chatter.
“Fulfill our contract faithfully,”
Jeidalin said.
“Everything takes place within the palace. Do not forget the reason I brought you into the palace, even going so far as to make you play the part of a maid.”
Millicent regretfully set aside her knife and fork. She cast a lingering gaze upon the biscuits she had not finished.
“…And be wary of the king.”
Suddenly Jeidalin lowered her voice.
“He is a man with a twisted corner.”
“Twisted?”
“I do not know exactly, either…”
Jeidalin made a displeased expression.
“He is not a man easily understood.”
Trying to make sense of such a meager explanation, Millicent was merely puzzled.
“If you had aimed for when the king was absent from the palace, it would have been easier for you. In His Majesty’s absence, Cardinal Mullery and I handle state affairs.”
“So it would.”
“…He said he would be away from the palace for a long time, so why on earth did he suddenly return?”
Jeidalin muttered. It was not a question for Millicent. The queen was looking at the portrait again.
“And why does he speak of selecting a Royal Mistress as if he had been planning it from the beginning?”
It was certainly a question Millicent could not answer. So she offered only a final greeting and took her leave of the queen’s quarters.