Secrets of the Villainous Empress

Chapter Five: Biding Time

“The new rules are as follows.” Mathews, the Imperial Butler, yelled to the confused staff that had been forced to assemble in the morning, “The closed East wing has officially been re-opened for both staff and knights. However, for now, until special permission is issued. only the head maids, Hilda and Johannes, are permitted.”

“They will conduct supervised cleaning and arranging of the Empress’s offices, bedroom, study and the Emperor dowager's bedrooms in the East Wing.”

“Lastly, Countess Estelle?”

“Yes!” a small voice chirped from the back, “Excuse me…excuse..me.”

A petite framed girl pushed her way violently through the staff lined up for the announcements.

Estelle was smaller than most, smaller and louder, but today, she hoped to catch a glimpse of the white-haired man as he passed on his message to her, even if it meant clawing her way to the front.

She had always been good at reading people’s expressions, and with the sudden announcements, it was evident that something was going on with the Empress. Either the allied nobles were getting ready for a scandalous cover-up, like a double, or preparing to announce her death. Either way, Estelle could smell a rat!

“As of henceforth, the daughter of the count is no longer the Empresses’ lady in waiting-,”

“What?” the small, brown-haired girl frowned, “Why?”

-The Empress is likely dead by now, so who the hell was giving such orders?- She wondered.

On the one hand, the retirement of the position was a blessing as she could leave before the Empress’s death is announced….but on the other, how the hell would she save her family from bankruptcy now?

-Wait! Could this be father’s doing?-

“The Empress says she does not need you anymore.” The butler answered.

-So, in short, it's someone higher up.-

The young girl bit her thumb, entranced in thoughts of her drunkard brother, who had gotten himself into trouble with the ‘Anti-Oleander’ faction. Though it was a relief to be out of castle walls before the m******e, what would she do to buy her brother’s safety? She mostly cleared his debt through information, but now what?

If father were to find out about this…still, what could they do with the information?

They were disempowered; in fact, they were more of adventurers, and adventurers, as a rule, stay out of politics, so surely they could not be doing anything that would endanger her…right?

Her thoughts were disturbed by the sudden chatter in the hall in protest to what the butler had said.

“What?” she asked the person beside her, a tall, dirt-covered scruffy brown-haired man with too many injuries to be called a gardener, yet still, he wore the overly familiar yellow overalls. “What did the Butler say?”

“Hmm…? Ah!” the man frowned, “The empress intends to hold council with all the ducal homes in the Empire two weeks from now.”

“So that means we need to get the Central palace ready, that and prepare for a banquet.” He finished.

“What? The council!?” Estelle gasped, “Will she be alive by then?”

The words flew from her mouth before she could stop them, but he had heard her. If anything was proof, it was his look of disgust at her words.

“Have you been spared from death to speak carelessly?” the man asked, then shook his head and moved away from her.

“Don’t worry about Leeroy. He takes care of the topiaries outside in the gardens, so he has it tough with the seminar.”

“Ah..no,” Estelle flushed, “I asked a very insensitive question.”

She said, but truly, she wondered who permitted him to scold her over nothing but facts.

“ ‘I am still alive,’ is probably what the Empress is trying to say to halt all the rumours of either war or, you know, us dying.”

-What a wistful old man.-

“Though it appears that most nobles have been excused from castle walls.” He said matter of factly, then sighed.

Now that her question had been confirmed, she wasn’t sure what to say to the man beside her.

It was true that most nobles working within imperial walls have been ‘excused’ but…even though it confirmed what she knew, she…she couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of turmoil, not because her friends would die, but because if they went bankrupt because of her brother, then…she would lose out on such privileges!

“That is all, end of the assembly.” The butler said, then turned curtly, heading outside towards the knight station.

“I should go pack,” Estelle said to excuse herself, and the older, dirty gardener nodded.

He did not call her out on not knowing how to comfort him; instead, he smiled at her warmly, as though the shadow of death was not attached to him.

The man turned and began walking towards the entrance, where he was set to start working on the front gardens when a deep voice halted him.

“You don’t have to be so friendly with everyone.”

“Ah, Leeroy.” The man smiled in acknowledgement of the man leaning casually beside the main entrance. “I feel a very nostalgic presence. The wild winds of change are blowing by again.”

“Huh? What does that have to do wi-,” Leeroy tried to ask, but the older man interrupted him.

“Let’s begin the preparations for the garden! I hope you know that I nominated you for sculpting last year, so you’d better get started.”

“Hey! Wait, that is too sudden!!” Leeroy tried to argue, but the jolly man had already begun down the path.

  *

  *

  *

Azalea Oleander Cursix

“Pass this letter to the Butler,” I said to Hilda, who was…well, shaking in the corner of my room.

She was next to the door while I was on the other side on my makeshift desk because I could hardly move to Azalea’s main office across the halls.

The envelope was beige with a red wax seal containing an impression of the crown to symbolise the imperial family.

It was a summoning for Fuscia Greene, the female lead, because, of course, the best way to smoke a coward out of hiding is to steal his playmate.

“Y-yes, your imperial highness,” Hilda said, then took the envelope. “B-but to think-k that y-you would b-b-be out of bed s-so soon.”

“Is this you wishing me well?” I teased, then stood from the desk with more struggle than before. I could feel all the bones in my body painfully scrape against each other.

Still, if I tell her that, and a day later, I start practically skipping in the grass, she will get suspicious.

 “It’s not much. I am just exhausted, but, I am sure in five days, I will be able to make a trip to the temple.”

“T-the t-temple?”

“Yes, of course,” I smiled sweetly, then beckoned her to lend me her shoulder so that I could walk to the bed with ease, “to give thanks to the wonderful gods that are speeding up my recovery. By then, you should have fulfilled your task, or your body will be fresh, swinging back and forth in the gallows.”

She whimpered, and I smiled.

-Cute-

She hurried beside me then lent me her shoulder, which I took, and we walked to the bed.

She opened the freshly changed sheets, and I slipped back into the no cold bed.

“By nightfall, there will be knights guarding my door at my request, two of them, one Cyril and the other Luke. Do not come at night if you wish to speak to me, and do not breathe a word of my wellness. I will call you when I need you and if it is urgent, let the butler know that you wish to speak to me.”

“Y-you trust Mathews?”

A memory of me teaching him how to use a knife flashed in my mind.

In one of my previous lives, I was his ‘sister’. We were both orphans in Oakland, a town south of the capital of May Flower. My main role in that life was to save a noble daughter abducted because of her healing abilities. She had been in pursuit for all of three weeks. I mean, her story had a happy ending…with me sacrificing my life so that she and Mathews could have enough time to get away to the forest where some knights were…but yeah, a happy ending.

In all seriousness, Mathews had been hard to miss. He was the ‘older brother’ who took care of everyone, loyal to a fault and a sense of responsibility so deep that I was relieved when he followed Maya rather than force the both of us to die together.

“It is not a matter of trust. Have you heard the saying that a friend in one lifetime can be an enemy in the next?”

“I-,” she began, but instead of answering, she shook her head.

“Don’t worry. I am just tired.” I sighed then slid deeper into the sheets.

“Will, your highness eat?” Hilda asked as she tucked me in.

“Not yet,” I answered, my eyelids half-closed.

 {Engage sleep mode for faster synchronisation and self-repair?}

“You have to eat so that you can get better soon!”

“Hilda, I do not have a cold. I have been poisoned. The poison spreads the more I use my systems, be it digestive, reproductive, cardiac, respiratory….”

“T-then ant-antidote?”

“Don’t worry about it. I will not die.” I said, then yawned, “You should go deliver the mail, lest you forget all about it.”