It was good until she made friends with the Prince and returned home wearing the new clothes the Queen gave her, but it was a problem to deal with that. Unsurprisingly, Cardinal de Mare's residence was a mess due to the rampage of the enraged Lucrezia.
"Miss De Rossi? Miss de Rossi? Queen Margaret is crazy, how could she treat me like this?"
Clank!
A vase thrown by Lucrezia split the drawing room.
"Dirty woman of Gallico Kingdom! Speaking of foreigners, how dare you say such a thing to an Etruscan?"
This time, the letter-opening knife she had thrown away flew off and crashed into the fireplace. Arabella was in the corner of her parlor, covering her ears and trembling, while Isabella was beside her, eagerly encouraging her mother.
"That's right. Who cares if she's the Queen? She can't even fix her accent when it's been 20 years since she moved to the Etruscan Kingdom! I was horrified when she started speaking!"
"She don't even think about adapting, so she can't receive love from her husband! She can't hold on to the King's affection, so she barely sees her husband's face five times a year!"
"Is she legally married? If she is going to live without love, I'd rather just be a concubine!"
"An incompetent bitch is cursing women who know men's hearts well out of a sense of qualifications for no reason because she has no ability!"
The indictment of the two continued to climax.
"Countess Rubina is actually a real powerhouse. Rumor has it that if you wants to put a petition to His Majesty at court, the fastest way is through the Countess.
"You are better than this mother who have no ones to interact with, and oh my dear!"
"How good is Countess Rubina's resourcefulness. They says that this time the King is bestowing the fief of the frontier to Count Cesare, who was born to Countess Rubina."
"If Count Cesare, the son of a concubine, is older than the Prince born of the Queen, who is the head of the household, you have seen everything. Queen Margaret, how is she going to capture the King who she couldn't control ever when she was young! Alfonso hasn't even been crowned the Crown Prince yet! It's all because his mother is incompetent!"
"That's why the Queen just taking out her anger on you, Mom! She's a vicious woman!"
'I heard you introduced yourself well.'
Ariadne had no intention of getting involved in the mess. If she went in now, she would be nothing more than a piece of meat thrown in front of a hungry hyena. Lucrezia in her wrath and Isabella in search of her Mother's kind were sure to tear her into pieces.
'I have to go up to my room quietly.'
To go up from the front door to the attic on the 3rd floor, she had to climb the central stairs, but the 1st floor drawing room was right next to the entrance of the central stairs. Ariadne decided to hide in the hallway on the 1st floor and wait until they broke down and vacated the drawing room and went into their own room. She didn't have a mother-daughter relationship with Lucrezia where she would take care of what time her second daughter came home anyway, so she wouldn't even notice if Ariadne coming home late or not.
"Why isn't this girl coming in!"
'Ah...'
It seemed that Lucrezia was waiting for Ariadne to vent her anger, rather than taking care of time she returned home. As soon as Maletta had left Lucrezia and left the drawing room, she ran into Ariadne who was hiding in the hallway.
"Ah.. Miss Ariadne is here."
'This bitch!'
Ariadne glared at Maletta terribly and cursed inwardly, moving her heavy steps into the drawing room where household goods were falling apart in real time.
Clank.
As soon as Ariadne entered the drawing room , white porcelain flew past Ariadne's face. Ariadne bowed her head expressionlessly, feeling the pottery shattered against the wall and the fragments sticking to her hair and the hem of her dress.
"I'm home, mother."
"Mother? I must have embarrassed you so much at the Queen's Mass because you thought so much of me as a mother!"
When Lucrezia was angry, Ariadne was not allowed to talk back. But Ariadne had always forgotten that part since she was young. She had to answer instinctively.
"I didn't do anything, mother."
"Shut your mouth!"
Lucrezia picked up the poker and threw it at Ariadne. She managed to turn her head to the left to avoid the poker spinning in the air, but it flew in the direction of Arabella crouching behind her and hit Arabella's leg.
"Aargh!"
The 10 years old howled and howled like a beast, but no one paid any attention to the helpless Arabella. Lucrezia consumed by her rage, didn't care that her own child had been hit by the poker she had thrown. All she had was the sobbing Arabella. Ariadne frowned at her, took a step back, squatted down, and took Arabella into her arms. She wonder if her 15 years old's feeble, skinny limbs were of much comfort, but Arabella was a bit sensible, and she rushed into her arms. Human warmth was the comfort not only to Arabella but also Ariadne. But the looming threat was too great to find peace of mind with such things. Lucrezia, standing with her legs spread imposingly in front of Ariadne, who was stoking Arabella, pushed her upper body to her, her eyes glinting.
"You! About the chemise, did you that on purpose?"
'Your sense for a stupid subject is amazing.'
Ariadne calmly shook her head from side to side in admiration for Lucrezia, who had only asserted it without any grounds, but who had accurately touched the truth.
"How could that be? Absolutely not, Mother."
Ariadne bowed her head deeper, pretending to be kind, and at the same time straightened her posture proudly. What Ariadne was wearing was a dress and decorations, except for the chemise that Queen Margaret had sent to her, all of which were cheap items sent to Ariadne by Lucrezia.
"It was really the only clothes I had."
It was a blatant lie. Ariadne thought that right after she said those words, the last joins of her left finger was throbbing. It was a new finger that had rotted away due to the disease that taken Cesare's place, and then returned. Lucrezia's eyes widened as she scanned her surroundings.
"Who is the bitch responsible for this kid's clothes?"
The maids in the room all turned their heads and avoided Lucrezia's gaze. However, Maletta's expression was a bit unusual. The was she looked around her head and fidgeted with her hand seemed to be contemplating whether or not to do something. Ariadne caught her breath. Maletta looked like she was about to do something.
'I'm going to order it in advance...!'
Threat? Appeasement? Maletta, whom Ariadne had seen all her life in her previous life, was the kind of person who risked her life for trivial gains. She wasn't giving the chemise to Sancha. If he would give it to Sancha, she should have given Maletta a hint of future gain, thought was short.
'Please, please just go smoothly...'
As if aware of Ariadne's anxious eyes, Maletta lowered her head, and after about three seconds, as if making up her mind, pointed her finger at Sancha who was standing next to her.
"This maid!"
The lifeless green eyes of Sancha, the freckled girl, widened her eyes to the size of a lantern.
"This is the one who managed Ariadne's clothes!"
Lucrezia's high cheekbones pulled up nervously. Ariadne couldn't help but let out a visceral sigh of relied at the fact that she had escaped and Sancha involuntarily took a step back in fright.
"You must have stolen that bitch's chemise."
"No, no, Madam."
Leaving Sancha shaking her hand, Lucrezia gave Maletta an order while gnashing her teeth.
"If she stole the expensive chemise that the Lady wears because she wanted it, it must be in the luggage of this maid. Maletta, go look for it!"
"Yes, Madam!"
Maletta was very glad to receive the order. Watching the back of Maletta as she quickly ran up to the 3rd floor where the maids lived, Lucrezia growled, threatening the frozen Sancha.
"You, be prepared if that bitch's chemise come out of you luggage."
Ariadne was conflicted over whether she should tell the truth even now. She don't know what thoughts were going through Maletta's little head, but Ariadne was freed from the charge of intentionally slandering Lucrezia.
However, it was Ariadne who proposed to change the chemise with Sanhca. Even if Sncha claimed innocence, there was no way Lucrezia would believe it. Because Ariadne's chemise will indeed come out of Sancha's luggage. She believed it in her head, but if the evidence to support it comes out, that relief cannot be moved.
At this rate, there was no doubt that Sancha would become the victim of Lucrezia. Ariadne, however, did not have the courage to jump in front of Lucrezia and tell her the truth. She thought she had forgotten after nine years of being a socialite ruler in the past, but Lucrezia's growl evoked a childhood fear that was deeply imprinted in Ariadne's bone.
Her mother being whipped by Lucrezia. The memory of Lucrezia kicking Ariadne's mother, who hid the young Ariadne behind her body, and grabbing Ariadne by the hair. The memory of Ippolito, the eldest son of Lucrezia, patting Ariadne's mother on the buttocks. She was a mother who nonetheless never protested. The day when it rained heavily, Ariadne knelt down and cried in front of her mother's wooden coffin, and when she passed by the barn where Lucrezia placed the coffin as a substitute for a funeral hall, she was afraid that she would run into Lucrezia, so she left her mother alone and ran away and hid. The memory of feeling the worst guilt in her life.
Ugh.
The crouching Sancha's back trembled and a cry leaked out. Sancha couldn't even close her eyes properly and shed tears like chicken droppings while suppressing the sound as much as possible with wide-open eyes. Ariadne's heart felt split in two between fear and remorse as she looked at the poor Sancha from behind.
When she pretended not to know because she was afraid, she felt very sorry for Sancha, and when she raiser her voice and stepped forward, her voice did not come out. The guilt she felt that day, when she left her mother's coffin and ran away to the stable alone, hacked through her heart.
Even so, it was never something that she could endure for a second, doing nothing and being frozen like icicle.
Throb!
The left ring finger was hot as if it had been burned. The hot blood that made up the new ring finger was swarming on the skin and expanding its area.
'....It hurts!'
At first, she heard hallucinations. It was a human voice, but not a human voice.
- Golden Rule.
A divine voice whispered, not from this world. The meaning came straight into Ariadne's head, and she couldn't tell what the sound was like.
-Treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated. You were resentful and sad about the betrayal you suffered. Really, have you ever betrayed others and benefited from them?
It was not like a whisper, but it was also like a whisper. While everyone gathered in her drawing room suffered, Maletta returned from her maids quarters like lighting. Returning, Maletta triumphantly took a clean maiden's chemise from her old rag sack, which she held in her hand, and held it out to Lucrezia.
"That's right. This came out from her luggage, Madam."
Lucrezia took the chemise in one hand and threw it in the air, throwing it in the face of the kneeling Sancha.
"Do you have anything to say, you rat-like thief?"
Sancha just trembled with her mouth tightly shut and her hands clenched tightly. Embarrassed, Lucrezia picked up anything she could get her hands on and began tossing it at Sancha. The first thing she threw into the air was a paperweight, and the second thing she threw was an ink bottle.
Boong!
A very blue ink bottle flew through the air and hit Sancha on the forehead. Ink splattered into the air, filling the parlor with blue stains. Sancha's figure, covered in blue ink, with the red hair blue with ink, and green eyes full of resentment and a frown on her face. Lucrezia didn't stop there, picked up an ivory pen with a nib and began striking Sancha as far as her hand could go.
Puck!
Sancha was beaten without even making a sound of pain. But she couldn't hide the fact that her whole body trembled with each blow. Ariadne trembled like Sancha whenever Sancha being hit. Every time Sancha hit, to be precise, every time Ariadne turned away. The scent of blood on the ring finger of her left hand blazed and burned. The red aura was definitely increasing in volume.
-Those who benefit from the suffering of the good will pay the price. That's the curse of the Golden Rule.
"Stop!"
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