“It might be infected with a dirty disease, so don't come in until you make sure it's clean!”
Lucrezia and Isabella meticulously kept their rants. They locked her in a stable outside her mansion as soon as Ariadne returned from Rambouillet Center under pretext of her quarantine. The funny thing was that Ariadne used her quarantine as an excuse to keep her locked up, while Maletta and Shanca were taken right away.
“Who is this child?”
Lucrezia’s sharp voice echoed through the hallway when she first met Sancha. Ariadne answered calmly.
“This is the child brought from the Relief Center.”
“Are you sane or not? What the hell are you doing taking people from the outside at will?”
Lucrezia looked really upset.
“You are really bold. You say you're sorry, you're wrong, but maybe you're being so selfish every step of the way?”
She shouted, chinning Shanca, who was standing there with her head bowed.
“I can't have this slobber. I don't know what might have been infected, so kick her out!”
As the servants were about to pull Sancha down and approach her, Ariadne took out a handkerchief from her bosom and offered it to Lucrezia.
“Mother, please take a look at this.”
“What is this?”
Lucrezia looked at the handkerchief suspiciously without touching it. The material of the handkerchief was satin gauze decorated with lace at the edges. It was too luxurious for ARiadne’s things.
“No way, did you steak it?”
“It can be!”
When Lucrezia refused to accept the handkerchief, Ariadne held out the side of which ‘AFC’ was embroidered with gold thread and showed it to Lucrezia.
“It belongs to Prince Alfonso de Carlo.”
Lucrezia's eyebrow rose at one. Isabella’s eyes changed.
“I met the prince by chance at the Relief Center. I was planning to take care of this child only while he was at the Relief Center, but the Prince praised Cardinal de Mare for his great benevolence in raising the poor.”
Ariadne looked into Lucrezia’s eyes and finally said.
“Prince Alfonzo thought I was taking this child and giving her a job. I can't bear to say no… Arent you disgracing the name of His Eminence the Cardinal?”
Lucrezia was no longer willing to accept Ariadne’s accident whether she sold Prince Alfonso or Cardinal de Mare. Cardinal de Mare was still looking into his account book, as Lucrezia had been siphoning her money from her family, using her tutor as an excuse. She handed Cardinal de Mare her household account book, which contained the extra expenses she didn't need because of Ariadne, and when she thought of punishing her, she felt a headache and a sudden surge of irritability.
“Only the mouth is alive! Speak well! Get both of you out! Hand in hand, go to the Relief Center! What do you look at me for and be so selfish?”
It was Isabella’s greed that broke the situation where Lucrezia’s anger boiled over.
“Prince Alfonso…? How did you meet him?”
Isabella’s purple eyes were shining with greed. Ariadne chose her words carefully so as not to irritate Isabella as much as possible.
“Since the Rambouillet Relief Center is an institution overseen by Her Majesty the Queen, she must have been inspecting it. Prince Alfonso was present at the food service for the entire Relief Center.”
Hearing that, Isabella immediately looked at Lucrezia, then turned around and began to pertser her.
“Mom! Next week, I want to go to the Rambouillet Relief Center too!”
“Isabella! Where are you going?”
Lucrezia slaps Isabella on the shoulder.
“You see the Prince, there is a grand mass and a tea party! There is no need to go to the Relief Center!”
Isabella seemed a little irritable, but she exhaled deeply, and then she closed her expression and smiled wheatley at Lucrezia.
“Mom, then I won't go, so please take that beggar's child instead.”
“Are you doing as you like now? Isn't this mother so easygoing?”
“Oh, my mother. If you see the Prince at the tea party, you shouldn't have anything to talk about.”
Isabella lashes out at Lucrezia and gets angry.
“Since dad wont let me bridge anything with Prince Alfonso, I’ve been using my head like this! I can't help you!”
While Lucrezia was taken aback by Isabella’s words, Isabella approached Ariadne and pulled her handkerchief.
“I will keep this.”
Ariadne gave strength to the hand holding the handkerchief out of unconscious resentment. Isabella smiled at ARiadne, holding Prince Alfonso’s handkerchief in her hand. Her flaxen hair wayed and her little features glowed like a fairy.
“Great Job.”
Ariadne bit her molars and managed her expression at Isabella’s tone, which seemed to be acting like a subordinate. Isabella’s servant. Following her previous life, it is still the same in her present life.
“No, sister.”
Lucrezia ordered Ariadne to be taken outside to the stable and went inside with Isabella and the rest of the family. Maletta and Sancha hesitantly followed the end of the group. Lucrezia showed her back, and the rest of her family followed her, and as her retinues became busier, Shancha took advantage of the gap and came closer to Ariadne for a while. A small, skinny girl whispered softly.
“Thank you so much for saving me, Lady. I will definitely repay this favor.”
***
Ariadne, who was living in a stable with sloppy planks as walls and straw as a mattress in the sunny weather transitioning from spring to summer, received an unexpected message.
“Miss Ariadne, the madam will come out. Please wash and prepare.”
Maletta brought Sancha, who was still an apprentice, and announced the release of confinement. It was the tenth day of confinement.
“I was prepared for a month, what happened?”
Before Maletta could answer, Sancha with a gun took the lead in answering.
“A carriage came from the Palace! He told me to bring Miss Ariadne specially!”
Ariadne grinned. It was an unexpected opportunity for her to repay Lucrezia’s debt of ten days at the stable. Ariadne, followed by her maids, went up to her room in the third room. In her little attic lay a neat ivory silk dress and a pure white chemise for a noblewoman to wear underneath. It wasn't particularly expensive. But after her return, she had the prettiest clothes she had ever touched. But instead of being greedy for her clothes, Ariadne smiled and looked back at her mountain chariot.
“Hey, let's play changing clothes with me.”
“Yes?”
“Chemise. You wear what I will wear and I will wear what you are wearing now.”
Even the maids were surprised. Moreover, Maletta’s expression contorted when Ariadne pointed at Sancha, not herself, Sancha took off her clothes and handed them to Ariadne. Ariadne exchanged her chemise for Sancha, and put on a dress given by the de Mare family over it. Where the white lace of the chemise should have been exposed, yellow cotton underwear could be seen instead. Ariadne had her hair neatly combed and went downstairs with only an assortment of outing outfits.
***
“Mom, mom! Why did Queen Marguerite suddenly invite us to Mass?”
“She must have been curious about our pretty Isabella’s face after hearing your name!”
Inside the wagon, an excited mother-daughter ‘axe soldier’ parade was unfolding.
“Isn't the Prince coming too? I brought a handkerchief just in case.”
Isabella fluttered a handkerchief with the initials AFC on it. Isabella had just washed and perfumed the handkerchief and kept it. She was Isabella, and she herself was decorating like a porcelain doll. Rouge was applied to her lovely skin to make it blush, her eyelashes were made thick with coal powder mixed with oil, and her flaxen hair was half-tied and wavy, in the style popular in the Republic of Porto. Her dress was an ivory evening dress like Ariadne’s, but she could not compare in its luxury. The already beautiful girl decorated herself with great care. Everything around her seemed to glow with the lights turned off and Isabella alone. According to the custom of the Etruscan Kingdom, a young Lady who has not undergone a debutante cannot use color cosmetics. Ariadne, bare of her face, shut her mouth like a shell and sat on the corner of the carriage as much as she could to avoid being compared to Isabella, enduring her great mother and sister.
Hee Hee!
They arrived in Palagio Carlo, in the center of San Carlo. in a chariot, accompanied by a tourage of horses. After passing through the outer entrance of the palace, the affectionate mother and daughter and Ariadne, who followed them, were greeted by a palace official who got off the carriage that stopped at the inner main gate.
“Welcome to the family of Cardinal de Mare.”
Officials sensibly avoided calling Lucrezia ‘Madam’ or using the word ‘family’ of the clergyman. Instead, with neat court etiquette. The three were escorted to an outside parlor used for Queen Margaret’s wedding. It was a simple but noble little Massadang. At the altar of Somi Shrine, a priest on white robes was just opening his mouth, and a dignified woman around forty with a mass veil on her head, bowed her head reverently in the front row. Behind her, a couple of her maids were about to pray together. The priest was holding a Mass in the language of the Gallic Kingdom.
‘Queen Margaret.’
Ariadne had never actually seen Queen Margaret in her previous life, but she was instantly recognizable by her appearance in the portrait. In fact, even if she hadn't seen the portrait, she would have noticed it at a glance. It was evident at once that she was a noble lady, by the manner of the Queen.
“Uh, what should I do?”
Lucrezia, who had never had an audience with royalty, whispered to Isabella in embarrassment, not knowing what to do. When she had an audience with Her Majesty the Queen, she should be the first to greet her. But it was a great disrespect to speak of her to the Queen in her prayers. It was Isabella who didn't know what to do either. Ariadne glanced at her confused mother, then calmly sat down in the back seat, three or four rows away from Queen Margaret, and began to offer her prayers accordingly.
“Mom!”
Isabella was indeed quick-witted. She began to say her prayers as Isabella pricked Lucrezia’s side so that she would look at Ariadne’s side, and then she quickly sat down next to Ariadne. It was her annoyance that Ariadne got the good spot first, which made her roll her eyeballs once, but for now, this was for the best. When her eldest daughter was seated, Lucrezia also sat down beside her and began to offer her prayers.
“And therefore the Gon of Yesak sacrificed himself and saved the sinners, for they are imperfect yet still his children.”
“So Gon of Yesak sacrificed himself to save imperfect humans.”
“We can only ponder what went through Gon of Yesak's mind when he sacrificed himself for immoral, selfish, dundering ones under his wings. The noble, rich, witful or spiritual ones must care for the others first before saving themselves in order to replicate Gon of Yesak’s way of living. Amen.”
“Amen.”
The voices of the woman resounded together. Isabella’s ‘Amen’ sound, which was used to catch the Queen’s attention, was particularly high and resonant. Did she, Isabella, even understand a single word of the Mass? Ariadne instinctively frowned, but when she realized that she was agitated, she straightened the wrinkles between her eyebrows. It was actually stupid to show up because she wanted to stand out like that. She was Isabella, herself, and if she had been ten years older than she is now, she would never have done that. But even her cruel nemesis, who had been manipulating Ariadne all her life and had finally succeeded in slamming her into the western tower, was now only a 17 year old adolescent. The Lady of Misapo looked back at the particularly ‘Amen’ sound. Her hair was the same brilliant blonde as her son’s. The sunlight that just happened to break through the stained glass window embraced her gentle features. The Queen’s expression was benevolent, but her blue-gray eyes were cold. Her gaze stopped at Isabella, who bowed her head once more in her respect. Realizing that Queen Margaret’s eyes were on her own person, Isabella opened her mouth, following her instinctive need for attention.
“Oh my gosh…!”
All eyes were on Isabella.
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