For once, I was actually asleep during the latter half of the night. I felt so mentally tired by how friendly I constantly needed to be that I simply dozed off as I was just reading a book. As such, I was already dispirited as the three, no four maids entered the room and threw my blanket over my head. Ironically, I had to be friendly now to be unfriendly in the future.
“Milady, it´s time to wake up.” One of the maids said. Unhappily, I pressed my face deeper into the pillow.
“Ugh.” I pressed out and was already close to throwing all of them out of my room. “I don’t need four people to help me get dressed, one is already enough. Hannah, could you help me?”
And like this, the seeds of hatred between the three maids and the elf were sowed. They already disliked her immensely because of her heritage, if I preferred her over the other three now, there was no way they wouldn’t retaliate in some way. I was their silver spoon – little work for more compensation – they naturally would fight with tooth and nails for me.
But they also couldn’t complain while I was around and reluctantly left the room after I sat up on my bed, wore my sunglasses and looked at them for a few seconds, blinking in surprise as they still stood there. I quickly shooed them out and as soon as the door closed again, I tucked myself into the bed again and closed my eyes. My sunglasses got a bit in the way, but it was still insanely comfortable.
“And, how was your first night?” I asked completely disinterested, although I still wore my usual smile.
“Comfortable … just who are you?” She lied timidly.
“I already told you my name?” I said, completely ignoring the new bruises on her skin.
“I didn’t mean that. Why me? What do you gain from hiring me?” She was nothing more than a publicity stunt so far, but that wasn’t something I could admit to her openly yet. “You are the daughter of a duke, you wouldn’t hire someone like me without a second thought.” For someone who trembled this much, she was seriously brave in asking such questions.
“First of all, my father was a commoner and I helped him out with farming. I was born out of wedlock and certainly am new to this noble lifestyle. In short, I´m not like the other girls.” I said proudly.
“My dad once told me that if something is too good to believe, it is usually a lie.” I tilted my head questioningly and scratched my cheek. There was some truth in his words after all.
“That’s a very pessimistic way of living. How about this, if you ever catch me lying in the next three days, I will personally send you back to the elven forest if you want to. In the meantime, you will work as a maid for me.” I proposed.
“It is illegal for elves to come close to the border.” She stated.
“And who is enforcing these rules?” The soldiers stationed at the border obviously. Unsurprisingly, they were mostly paid by Mary.
“Any lie?” She asked in disbelief.
“As small as it may be.” I said and smiled innocently.
“And what if you simply don’t admit to lying, even though I can prove you did?” She was smart, I had to give her that.
“I would never do such a thing.” I would.
“Alright, I accept. What should I do for you?” She was smart but made the mistake of believing me in the first place.
“If you could let in a bath for me, that would be nice. Please heat up the water as well, I absolutely love the feeling of hot water on my skin.”
Hannah nodded swiftly and walked out of the room, awkwardly trying to hide the dagger under her maid uniform. Amused, I smiled about her insecurity and continued to read my book for a little while. Afterwards, I picked out a dress I wanted to wear and strolled towards the bathroom. There was no steam inside the changing room at all, which washed away the sour mood I had while trotting there completely.
“Hannah?” I asked cautiously as I opened the door to the bathroom.
The blonde girl knelt in front of the bathtub and tried to light the wood beneath it to warm up the water. Amused, I entered the room while Hannah looked at me like a scared cat.
“Hey, it´s alright, I like cold water as well.” So far, my plan to lie constantly into her face worked very well, even better than I expected. As untrained as she was, she left the room after begging for forgiveness over and over again, not even thinking about washing me. Well, that was also one of the reasons I wanted her as my maid.
Washing didn’t take too long as well as I barely got dirty if I wasn’t jumping around in the mud and since I washed myself after the fire, there wasn’t much to clean. I didn’t sweat at all and thus, switching clothes was enough to get clean again, at least for the most part. This whole ordeal didn’t take more than a few minutes instead of the usual fifteen minutes my maids tortured me with. Interestingly enough, she didn’t even barge into the changing room as I changed into a white dress, this time without a corset though.
As soon as I stepped into the hallway again I looked out of the window.
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“What a beautiful day it is!” I exclaimed loudly. Amused, I watched how Hannah jerked away from me like a startled cat once again.
“Is … it?” She couldn’t really approve of my opinion as it was raining like crazy outside. In these moments, I was glad I had a roof over my head.
“Yes! The rain gives the plants water to grow and we can drink this rain as well. It is the source of life, along with my beloved sun!”
“And yet you are wearing these strange glasses.” She stated.
“They are called sunglasses. Apparently, the sun doesn’t like me back.” I had a hard time lying to her on this point, although I resolved it rather cleverly in the end. “Anyway, I´m thinking of drinking tea with my mother. Would you be so kind?”
Hannah nodded reluctantly and thus we parted ways. I had quite the terrible time waking Mary up, but after an hour or so we were in her study and did some paperwork together. Hannah was probably lost as she either didn’t know how to make tea or simply didn’t find the way back to the study. For several hours, I didn’t bother with her at all and rather left her to her own demise.
“The other servants don’t like her.” Mary said, completely out of the blue.
“Hey, I made the news that you announced me as your successor a simple footnote in an article instead of being the article itself. Nobody will question your decision, so please don’t question this one decision of mine as well.” I answered.
“I just wanted you to know.” She said, completely ignoring that I knew Hannah was more than hated. She was abhorred for the war, made out to be the problems of everyone and would certainly suffer under the hands of the slum inhabitants if I hadn’t taken her in.
“Thank yo-“ I stopped as I heard how someone was opening the door abruptly.
“Tea is finished!” Hanna said as she barged into Mary´s private space without knocking on the door. Mary was a bit unpleased by the sudden visit, but still stopped the two guards in the hallway from doing anything rash.
“That´s nice.” I commented and watched in delight how Hannah failed at the simplest tasks. First of all, she put the tablet down as if she needed to smash the desk apart. The costly porcelain clinked loudly, but she didn’t seem to fazed by it. Raising an eyebrow, Mary looked at me, just as winked with one eye. She said nothing, already realizing that this was part of my all-encompassing plans nobody, not even this simple elf was saved from.
Hannah immediately started to pour our tea into our cups. Not only the tea itself flowed out of the pot, but also the peppermint herbs she put into it. Smiling ominously, I picked up my cup and started to swirl the contents by moving the cup in a circle.
“Say, Hannah, did you ever drink tea before?” Mary asked the pitiful girl.
“No, your majesty?” I nodded towards Mary as Hannah failed to address her properly, a simple task everyone should know. As I thought, the other maids taught her absolutely nothing or even lead her in the wrong direction, which probably happened with the tea as well.
“Oh, don’t worry.” I took a sip of my tea and savoured the taste. “It tastes great.” I said and gave her the thumbs up while in reality, there was far too much sugar in there.
“I´m … I´m relieved to hear that.” She said, breathing out as if a burden was taken off her shoulders.
“Great, could you tell the chef we would like to eat in around half an hour?” I asked, a smile around my lips.
“I will.” Once again, she left without saying any further words. Mary sighed as soon as the door was closed again and placed her cup of tea onto the tablet.
“You are making this poor girl dependent on you.” I opened my mouth slightly as Mary accurately guessed what I wanted to do.
“I am giving her another life, a better life. What is wrong with that?” I claimed. Comparing the life she had now to starving in the slums, this one was objectively better.
“And how are you benefiting?” She asked.
“Isn´t that obvious? I win a wager with the second prince, become a role model, present the world with the fact that humans and elves can live together and, most importantly, I can finally get rid of the trio that was appointed as my personal maids. Do you know how tiresome it is to deal with them?” I exhaled loudly and put my own cup of tea away. I couldn’t bring myself to drink it any more than I already did.
“Your intentions are more honourable than expected.” She said as I stood up, the tablet in hand and walked to the window.
“I already told you I won´t do evil by using my position.” I opened the window and poured the atrocity she committed out into the garden. May the plants be happy with it because I certainly wasn’t.