The morning of the promised banquet dawned.
Millicent had gone out early at dawn to pick mushrooms. In the lush green forest, she carefully selected pale, pretty mushrooms without a single wrinkle and filled her basket to the brim.
She briefly wondered whether she should take off her hat, but decided it was still right to wear it.
“You weasel, always wriggling out of everything!”
The moment Millicent entered the kitchen with the basket dangling from her arm, Mrs. Galbraith, the head maid of the royal palace, screamed at her.
As expected, the kitchen was in the midst of a war.
The maids were chopping mountains of vegetables with large kitchen knives, thud after thud. The old maid, Tracy, demonstrated the feat of cooking tongue meat while simultaneously boiling sweet wine with cinnamon.
“Hurry over and stir-fry some samphire! We need to make the sauce!”
Mrs. Galbraith, who was suffering from a nervous breakdown, thrust the pot at her as if throwing it.
Women overworked in the kitchen were rather scary. Millicent obediently did as she was told. She tossed greens into the pot and stirred them round and round. While keeping an eye out, she also secretly simmered the mushrooms she had picked from the forest on one side.
Mrs. Galbraith had the air of someone who would promptly strike your head with a ladle if you annoyed her. Yet someone bravely spoke to her.
“Everything is proceeding without delay, I trust?”
It was Rupert, appearing in red clerical robes.
“Yes, Your Eminence.”
Mrs. Galbraith, recognizing whom she faced, curtsied.
“It is a banquet at which the Queen and I are hosting His Majesty the King. There must be no shortcomings.”
“Of course.”
“The lark?”
“The head chef is preparing it personally.”
It was fortunate that Rupert drew Mrs. Galbraith’s attention. In that gap, Millicent secretly disposed of the samphire she had burned black, let alone made into sauce.
“Have you eaten anything?”
Rupert approached Millicent as she was throwing fresh greens into the pot.
“When you’re hungry, your eyes roll back so far you’d put poison in the soup pot without a second thought.”
And before she could even reply, he stuffed a dried apricot into Millicent’s mouth.
“You mustn’t ruin it. I’m covering the costs for this banquet. I’ve poured in every penny I have.”
“Why?”
“It’s a rare chance to win the King’s favor.”
Rupert made the face he always made whenever she asked a stupid question.
“Your hands are badly damaged.”
He pointed at Millicent’s hands as she stirred the pot, as if noticing it anew.
“Are you applying the bergamot fruit properly?”
“I ate it.”
“You ate it?”
Rupert looked flabbergasted.
“Who eats bergamot whole? It’s so bitter that even a beggar who hasn’t eaten for three days wouldn’t dare put it in his mouth.”
“I eat it. There’s no fruit in this world I can’t eat.”
Millicent displayed her pointless pride.
“Oh, please, Milli!”
Rupert took a glass bottle from inside his robes.
“I told you to make oil from the peel and apply it.”
It was bergamot oil he had made himself. After opening it, he spread it over the cracked backs of Millicent’s hands.
“When I first met you, your hands were lovely and smooth.”
“Well, back then…”
“I always remember you as you were then, Milli.”
Rupert said firmly.
“That’s why I help you, even at the cost of my soul’s corruption.”
“I’m corrupting your soul?”
If she didn’t stir properly, the greens would burn again, but Millicent lost interest. She stared at Rupert. He was so tall that to meet his eyes, she had to crane her head back almost as far as behind her.
“Of course. And your own soul as well.”
Rupert’s green eyes looking down at her sparkled like dewy blades of grass.
“My soul has always been like this, Rup.”
Millicent said.
“Since birth.”
“I know. That’s why I always grow sad when I look at you, Milli.”
Rupert whispered.
“For now, you’re still meekly wearing that white hat stuffed stiff with straw…”
He flicked the long dangling hat ribbon tied beneath Millicent’s chin.
“But you’ll stir up trouble soon enough, won’t you?”
Then he jerked his head toward the kettle where mushrooms were secretly simmering in the corner.
“That’s right. For the sake of your soul, I won’t tell you too much detail.”
Millicent pulled her hand free from Rupert’s grasp.
“…Your Eminence!”
Someone else burst into the already bustling kitchen. It was an acolyte who served the cardinal in his office.
With deep red hair and a youthful face, he was said to be the son of some duke’s family who had received permission to enter the palace both for training and to gain a foothold in high society.
“What is it, Clayton?”
“His Majesty summons you!”
“If it were the Queen, I would pay my respects later anyway…”
“No, His Majesty the King summons you!”
The red-haired acolyte shook his head vigorously.
“I must hurry, then.”
At this, Rupert’s demeanor changed completely. His jaw tightened slightly, as if nervous. It seemed the joke that he had joined hands with the Queen because he feared the King was no laughing matter.
“Sauce!”
Right on cue, Mrs. Galbraith also shrieked at Millicent. Her mind had returned after being momentarily captivated by shaking the blancmange to see if it jiggled.
Fortunately, Mrs. Galbraith seemed more or less satisfied with the pot Millicent showed her. She had narrowly escaped the crisis of having the stir-fried greens dumped over her head with a “you eat this garbage.”
When she tried to take up the ladle and pot again, her oil-slicked hands were slippery and troublesome. Millicent wiped them all off on her apron.
“What’s your relationship with the cardinal?”
Tracy nudged Millicent in the side as she caught her breath.
“You two looked quite close.”
“In the past, he took pity on me when I was an orphan begging in the streets. He gave me bread and soup, found me work, and even introduced me to Her Majesty the Queen when she was looking for a maid.”
Millicent mumbled a vaguely touching story.
“Did you work at a butcher shop?”
For a moment, a contemptuous expression flickered across Tracy’s face.
“The cardinal, I mean. They say he looks noble but is actually a butcher’s son, right?”
Millicent held her tongue, knowing what jokes circulated at court regarding Rupert’s origins. Unexpectedly, Mrs. Galbraith came to her aid.
“Millicent!”
She sharply called her name once more.
“I’m stir-frying. I’m making another pot of sauce.”
Millicent replied in a fluster.
“The sauce is fine! They say you know your herbs well?”
“Why all of a sudden?”
“A message has come from Her Majesty the Queen. She says something is needed for a broken leg.”
“Whose leg is broken?”
Mrs. Galbraith glared like an angry hawk. It meant to stop asking questions and move quickly.
Carrying a medicine box, she ran to the Queen’s reception room in one breath.
As on the previous night, the Queen and her ladies-in-waiting were all gathered.
“See to Lady Adriana,”
Queen Jaydalin said. Her own legs were unharmed.
“She fell down the stairs and is in terrible pain.”
It seemed the doctor had already come and gone, for all necessary measures had been taken. Still, the pain must have been severe, as Adriana’s face was streaked with tear tracks.
“Drink this. It will ease the pain.”
Millicent handed over a medicine made from the branches and stems of the spurge laurel.
While Adriana hastily gulped it down, Millicent unwound the tightly wrapped bandages. She rubbed a medicinal paste on the broken area.
“What is that?”
Adriana asked dubiously.
“It is better you do not know.”
There was no lady who would be pleased to learn she was rubbing crushed insect corpses on her own leg.
“How did you get hurt?”
“I missed my step on the stairs.”
It was Charlotte who quickly answered Millicent’s question.
“Someone definitely pushed me from behind,”
Adriana insisted through gritted teeth.
“I felt a hand on my back. It is true, Your Majesty!”
“Did you see their face?”
“A-ah, no.”
“Then did you see what they were wearing?”
“I could not see that either, but…”
“Is there anyone else who witnessed the scene besides you?”
“There seems to be no one.”
As Adriana’s voice shrank, Charlotte quickly cut in again.
“You must have accidentally stepped on your own gown and fallen. It was merely unfortunate.”
“Would it not be better to consider it rather fortunate?”
Elizabeth, a lady-in-waiting with black, gentle eyes like obsidian, said while making the sign of the cross.
“The stairs in the hall are so high. You could have broken your neck.”
“And you are so tall—why wear such high-heeled shoes?”
Charlotte said spitefully, thinking she had received support.
“But… Lady Adriana will not be able to dance tonight.”
The ripple caused by the words she added like a viper was tremendous.
“Lady Charlotte is right. You cannot even stand on your own, can you?”
“I am fine, Your Majesty!”
Adriana tried her best to put on a brave front. But she could not even raise herself halfway before collapsing again.
“In this state, I shall have no face to show your father, Count Arling.”
Jaydalin clicked her tongue.
“If I lose the honor of dancing with His Majesty, my father will be even more disappointed!”
“Enough.”
At the Queen’s command, which could not be defied, Adriana could only bite her lip.
“The banquet is tonight. It cannot be delayed. Another lady must take the role of the Goddess of Beauty instead…”
“I shall do it, Your Majesty!”
Before Jaydalin could even finish speaking, Charlotte stepped forward.
“The role of the Hearth Goddess given to me is minor enough that it can be omitted.”
Jane Grant seemed about to snort and object, so Charlotte quickly drove the nail in.
“It is a banquet that Your Majesty and Cardinal Mullery have prepared with great effort. If flaws appear, we cannot satisfy His Majesty the King.”
Although she would never admit it herself, Jaydalin looked as though she had been caught off guard.
She had given Charlotte a small role out of spite, and yet Charlotte had turned it into a game in which she overruled and bested the Queen.
It was all because of Adriana’s broken leg.
“Lady Adriana’s misfortune has become Lady Charlotte’s good fortune.”
Jaydalin smiled coldly.
At that moment, they were all undoubtedly harboring the same suspicion. The hand Adriana claimed had touched her back—it had become Charlotte’s hand in everyone’s minds. But there was no evidence.
And at court, no one voiced their suspicions rashly.
“The banquet is tonight. It cannot be delayed.”
Soon Jaydalin declared again with a reluctant expression.
“The Goddess of Beauty shall be played by Lady Charlotte.”
A satisfied smile bloomed across Charlotte’s face as she curtsied.
“There is little time left, so everyone hurry and prepare.”
The ladies-in-waiting exchanged glances and withdrew.
“Millicent, when Count Arling’s carriage arrives, support Lady Adriana so that…”
“I wish to at least attend the banquet, Your Majesty!”
Adriana desperately cut off the Queen.
“…My ladies-in-waiting are unusually impudent today.”
A particularly foreign accent leapt out from those frigid words. A sense of intimidation was felt.
“Do you desire the King’s gaze that badly?”
Jaydalin’s rebuke struck Adriana like a whip.
“If you wish to attend the banquet in such a state, do as you please.”
It was a tone that asked why promising ladies sought to make harlots of themselves.
“…In any case, you are all foolish.”
Then she left, trailing her golden gown.
“The Queen cannot understand,”
Adriana muttered.
“She is royalty. She once even had a claim to the imperial throne, and has lived her whole life being revered as the highest.”
“But you are also a noble lady of an ancient house, my lady.”
Feeling awkward just standing there listening, Millicent replied.
“My father only acquired the title,”
Adriana snapped.
“And the kingdom is not what it once was. The King’s power has grown. Even titles and territories can be seized and their owners beheaded at any time with a suitable excuse. It is an uncertain world unlike any we have lived in before.”
She said.
“That is why everyone is trying to push their daughters into the King’s bed. To secure even one certainty.”
Millicent said nothing.
“Hm! You are the maid called Millicent?”
Belatedly realizing she had revealed too much of her inner thoughts, Adriana awkwardly changed the subject.
“I heard from Her Majesty that you know how to tell fortunes with cards. You know your herbs well, too. The pain has eased considerably since earlier.”
“I am glad.”
“But… have I met you somewhere before?”
Adriana narrowed her eyes anew.
“Your face seems somehow familiar.”
“I was nearby when you were practicing the dance for the masquerade with the other ladies,”
Millicent replied flatly.
“I am also often told I have a common face.”
“That is not true. You have quite a pretty face. If only not for that suffocating hat even the abbess of a celestial convent, armored in asceticism, would not wear.”
It was difficult to tell whether it was praise or an insult.
In any case, Adriana quickly lost interest in Millicent due to the pain.
“…That damned Charlotte Brennan!”
Adriana gritted her teeth. It seemed one more person had been added to those wishing Charlotte would drop dead. Thanks to that, Millicent gladly took it as support.