An Unexpected Gift (3)
“Why haven’t we hired more maids yet?”
With only two weeks left until the subjugation campaign, Catherine looked up with weary eyes at my question.
“If I could, I’d hire twenty more right now.”
“Then why haven’t you?”
“Because there’s no one left to hire!”
Maids serving in the prince’s palace were expected to come from noble families. Catherine and I were exceptions—commoners by birth—but we now carried noble surnames, which allowed us to remain at the side of the prince and princess.
“But it isn’t as though only nobles can become maids,” I pointed out.
Exceptions always existed.
“Some of the maids working here right now don’t even have noble surnames. Yet they were all granted special permission by Her Majesty the Empress to continue serving in the Third Prince’s Palace—”
“That was an extraordinary case.”
Catherine sighed, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
“Her Majesty made it clear she would make an exception only once. She understood how difficult it would be to find suitable maids for the Third Prince’s Palace on such short notice.”
“Then we have no choice. We’ll have to send formal requests to the noble houses…”
“I already did.”
Already?
I looked at Catherine in surprise. She had been running herself ragged; I hadn’t expected her to handle this as well.
“Nanny, I am the head maid, after all. I’ve been doing everything I can to recruit more before His Highness leaves for the campaign.”
She let out another long sigh.
“But not a single house gave us a clear answer. Most didn’t even bother to reply.”
I flipped through the letters she handed me. Half were polite refusals, a quarter demanded outrageous compensation in exchange for sending a daughter, and the rest were outright rejections.
‘I thought Edwin’s position had improved after the hunting competition and the Founding Festival.’
Apparently, I had been mistaken.
The noble faction still had the Second Prince as their trump card and viewed the Third Prince as a new rival. The imperial faction, ever cautious, had no reason to abandon the First Prince in favor of the Third.
‘And we haven’t yet shown the neutral houses anything compelling enough to draw them to our side.’
The hunting competition had been meant to catch the Emperor’s eye, while the Founding Festival had been a stage to introduce Edwin to foreign envoys and the nobility.
‘Which means we need to make a decisive impression during this campaign.’
I set the letters down on the desk, frowning.
“What do we do, Nanny?”
Catherine rested her chin on the desk and looked up at me like a hungry puppy waiting for a treat.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I was hoping you might have some brilliant solution.”
She clearly believed I would pull some miraculous answer out of thin air.
As always.
“…If it’s just a matter of hiring new maids, I think I can manage something.”
It would be troublesome, but there was no helping it. When time was short, one had to use every card available.
“Oh my goodness! Really?”
Catherine shot to her feet with a delighted squeal.
“Yes. I’ll do my best to have them here as soon as possible. I’ll need to leave the palace myself during the campaign, after all.”
“Really? Truly?”
She clapped her hands together, then suddenly froze mid-motion. Her smiling face tilted to one side.
“Nanny? I think I just heard something strange. Did I mishear…?”
“No, you heard correctly.”
I had never intended to send Edwin to the campaign alone.
“I’ll be accompanying His Highness as well.”
* * *
Thud.
The sound of an immature fist striking the desk was louder than expected.
“Absolutely not!”
Edwin leapt to his feet and glared at me.
“Do you honestly think that makes any sense? No matter who you are, Rachel, I won’t allow it this time!”
This was unexpected.
I regarded the stubborn prince in silence. The boy who used to beg me to take him along was now the one forbidding me from following.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s dangerous, obviously!”
Edwin stepped around the desk, hands on his hips.
“Even if you’re strong enough to take down a monster single-handedly, I still won’t allow it!”
He had grown again. His eyes now reached my chin. The day I would have to look up at him was not far off, and the thought left me oddly wistful.
“We’re heading into a place where hordes of incredibly powerful monsters appear! They’re huge and vicious—worse than the mutant monsters we saw in Luxen!”
“That’s exactly why I’m going with you.”
I answered calmly.
“I can’t send you into such a dangerous place alone. Besides, you’ll need attendants—”
“That’s already taken care of!”
It is?
When I raised an eyebrow, Edwin lightly tapped his own chest.
“Sir Philip said he would find suitable attendants for me!”
“…Sir Philip?”
That man—what nonsense had he been feeding my charge?
My displeased expression made Edwin’s momentum falter.
“S-So you don’t have to worry! And if you leave the palace too, who’s going to look after Emilia?”
“…I’ve already considered that.”
“What? What do you mean?”
Edwin knew as well as anyone that Catherine alone couldn’t manage Emilia on top of her duties.
“Catherine is busy as head maid. The other maids have their hands full too. Are you planning to leave Emilia by herself?”
The thought of his sister alone clearly unsettled him.
“What if she gets hurt or something happens while no one’s watching…?”
“If the nanny must leave, then we simply fill the vacancy with others who can take her place.”
Edwin’s face twisted.
“What? You’re going to hire a new nanny?”
“Something like that.”
I added, matter-of-fact,
“I’ve already hired new maids.”
Edwin’s eyes widened like saucers.
“You hired new maids? People actually agreed to come?”
“Yes. They’ll arrive before the campaign begins.”
The leader of the Golden Goose Merchant Coalition always kept her word. Thanks to her, the distrust surrounding their origins had been turned into solid trust.
‘Though I did get scolded for not being able to pay upfront.’
It didn’t matter.
In the end, Somnia had promised to send five capable maids within a week.
‘Ten would have been ideal. It’s a shame she refused to send more.’
She was probably sending some of her own maids. Even the wealthiest merchant on the continent had limits when it came to forging noble identities in bulk.
‘It would be difficult to fabricate ten noble backgrounds at once.’
I could already picture Somnia tearing at her hair and cursing my name.
“E-Even so, it’s still no!”
This time Edwin’s voice was firm, as though he had no intention of backing down.
“You’re… you’re a woman!”
So that was the reason. I found it absurd.
I raised one eyebrow.
“…Is that truly your only objection?”
“What do you mean, ‘only’?”
Edwin’s face flushed as he shouted.
“No prince ever takes a woman as an attendant! If you come with me, everyone will say I dragged my nanny onto the battlefield!”
Hmm. He wasn’t wrong.
I considered for a moment before replying.
“Then it won’t be a problem if I’m not a woman.”
“What are you—”
“Have you forgotten how we traveled to Luxen Village?”
Edwin blinked slowly, his large eyes widening further.
“…You’re saying you’ll disguise yourself as a man?”
He had grown. He understood quickly now, and his intuition was sharper.
When I merely shrugged instead of answering, Edwin’s eyebrows drooped.
“Rachel… do you really want to go to the campaign that badly?”
Not particularly.
A campaign was still a battlefield. Who in their right mind would willingly step onto a field where their life was at risk?
‘But this campaign…’
I thought of Ian.
The man who had asked me so casually if I was all right, who wore fine leather shoes and silk clothes, who stood there as though he had never betrayed a lover and burned her alive.
‘Ian said he would accompany the Second Prince as his attendant.’
This campaign would be Edwin’s chance to solidify his position—and perhaps the stage on which I could finally enact my revenge.
‘So I must go.’
I clenched my fists behind my back.
“Yes. I do.”
“…Why?”
“That’s—”
“Don’t tell me…”
Edwin looked at me, chin lowered, his eyes uncertain as they searched my face.
“Is it because you don’t trust me?”