If the beautiful Isabella had known what Maletta had said, she would never have taken Maletta’s side.

However, Maletta only told Isabella that “Lady Ariadne hit me,” omitting what she herself had done. Isabella, who couldn’t resist playing the role of a righteous savior, immediately reported this to Lucrezia.

Lucrezia, who had been waiting for an opportunity to get back at Ariadne since the previous incident with the tutor, seized this chance and stormed into Ariadne’s quarters with Maletta leading the way.

The corridor leading to Ariadne’s small attic room on the third floor became noisy with the aggressive footsteps of five or six people, and then the old oak door flew open.

“How dare you, girl, not minding your manners and raising your hand against others!”

It was Lucrezia, wearing her usual revealing, tight-fitting dress, accompanied by Isabella, Maletta, and the maids she always brought along.

Maletta showed her swollen cheek to Lucrezia and pleaded her case.

“I was organizing Lady Isabella’s clothes when suddenly Lady Ariadne hit me for no reason.”

Lucrezia nodded vigorously at Maletta’s words and shouted.

“It is the role of those above to govern those below with virtue, but you raise your hand first without reason. Your temperament is fierce, and this is a serious matter!”

Here it comes.

Ariadne, without panic, bowed her head respectfully.

“Mother, those above have a responsibility to guide those below when they err. Maletta insulted Father and you, so I had no choice but to act as I did.”

“What did you say?”

“Maletta said that Father shamelessly raises all his illegitimate children like noble children, so there was no need to be respectful to me, who am merely a bastard.”

Maletta’s face turned pale. She looked at Isabella, silently pleading for help with her eyes.

Isabella was dumbfounded. She had brought her mother to take Maletta’s side because she was told Ariadne had been violent, but how could she have known Maletta had made such an explosive statement about Cardinal De Mare!

Lucrezia’s face paled as she looked at Maletta.

“Is this true?”

“No! No, it’s not! On the contrary, I told Lady Ariadne that Lady Isabella and Lady Arabella are noble, so she shouldn’t try to be their equal!”

Ariadne cast another bait.

Having simulated this conversation more than ten times while lying in her small attic room on the third floor, she knew exactly what Maletta might say to Lucrezia and how to counter it.

“To be precise, she said that Father’s blood is base and only Mother’s blood is noble, so while Isabella and Arabella, born of Mother’s lineage, are precious, there’s no need to treat me, whose mother was just a maid like herself, with respect.”

While this might have been inwardly satisfying for Lucrezia and Isabella to hear, it was absolutely not something they could publicly affirm.

The fact that Cardinal De Mare was originally an orphan of unknown parentage, and thus had no choice but to start as a priest in the shrine that took him in as a child, was the Cardinal’s sore spot.

If this got back to the Cardinal’s ears, there would surely be hell to pay.

Ariadne threw her trump card in front of the pale-faced Lucrezia.

“She also said that if she bears a child after catching Father’s eye, that child would be of the same status as me, so she doesn’t need to be respectful to me.”

Suddenly, sparks flew from Lucrezia’s eyes. This was a different story altogether.

“What did you say?”

Only then did Maletta realize she was in deep trouble, her limbs trembling like aspen leaves.

Lucrezia turned her head proudly like a black leopard and glared at Maletta. Though it wasn’t a long time, the slow movement of that gaze felt like an eternity to Maletta, who ended up falling to her knees on the floor.

“No, my lady! How could I ever say such things! Lady Ariadne is telling nothing but lies!”

Lucrezia looked Maletta up and down, trying to gauge whom to believe between Ariadne and Maletta.

The maid couldn’t be called a beauty, but she had a plump, sensual figure.

Maletta’s most appealing feature was her body; her chest and arms were generally plump and sensuous, and her waist was slim, making her stand out despite her short, stout limbs and ordinary face.

‘What would my husband think if he saw this maid…?’

Maletta herself was well aware of her assets, having tailored her maid’s uniform to fit snugly. The neckline was quite similar to the dress Lucrezia was wearing.

Realizing this, Lucrezia’s eyes flashed, and she roared.

“How dare this lowly wench eye another woman’s husband!”

She whirled around and barked at the head maid standing behind her.

“Give this impudent girl ten lashes!”

It was a very heavy punishment for a mere slip of the tongue. Twenty lashes often killed older servants.

“Yes, my lady!”

“Ah! No! It’s all lies! Please spare me, my lady!”

The head maid and two or three of Lucrezia’s personal maids rushed at Maletta, forcibly dragging the struggling Maletta down to the servants’ quarters in the inner part of the third floor.

Isabella, despite Maletta being her former personal maid, didn’t say a word in her defense.

While this matter seemed settled for now, Lucrezia couldn’t let Ariadne off easily. This was a matter of her dignity as the lady of the house.

“And you! If such a thing happened, you should have come to me to ask how to handle it. How could you hit a maid without warning!”

She scolded Ariadne with fierce eyes.

“Violence is never acceptable, no matter what!”

− ‘Violence is never acceptable in any situation!’

The words Ariadne had heard from Cesare in her past life after the tiara incident echoed in her ears. Ariadne smiled crookedly.

It wasn’t that violence was unacceptable in any situation, but that those without the power to justify violence shouldn’t use it.

By that logic, wasn’t the violence committed by the Margrave’s soldiers, whom Cesare had brought to the capital, also violence? Was Cesare, who killed Prince Alfonso and hung him on the city walls, as pure as snow?

Was this Lucrezia innocent?

Was there a fundamental difference between throwing a punch directly and ordering the head maid to use the whip? From Maletta’s perspective, wouldn’t being slapped a few times by Ariadne be a hundred times better than being tied up in the basement and receiving ten lashes?

But Ariadne bowed her head politely and knelt on the floor.

“This daughter’s thinking was short-sighted. I dealt with it directly because I didn’t want to burden you, Mother. I was wrong.”

Bowing her head again, she pleaded for forgiveness.

“To reflect on my actions, I will go to the Rambouillet Poorhouse. I will repent for my wrongdoing by serving there for three days and nights.”

The Rambouillet Poorhouse was notorious. It was established by Queen Marguerite, wife of Leo III, to help the poor of San Carlo, but despite good intentions, the queen’s budget was woefully inadequate to feed and house all the poor of San Carlo.

The poor who entered often came out dead.

“As Maletta’s misconduct was also due to my lack of virtue in guiding her, I would like to take her along to bolster her faith.”

Lucrezia looked slightly surprised. The Rambouillet Poorhouse? Voluntarily going to that earthly hell of blood and pus?

But Isabella interjected from the side.

“Wouldn’t five days be better?”

She wore an angelic smile on her face.

“I heard that Saint Asteia of the Holy Shrine prayed for five days and nights after committing a sin and received forgiveness. Wouldn’t following the Holy Shrine’s example strictly yield better results?”

Ariadne knew better than anyone that Isabella didn’t have a drop of faith. This was the woman who had her sister’s blood on her hands in an attempt to steal her sibling’s man. What did she know about the Holy Shrine?

Isabella was doing this purely to torment Ariadne.

But whether it was three days or five days made little difference to Ariadne. She was used to enduring dirty, cold, and dangerous conditions.

“Sister’s words are correct. I will reflect for five days and return.”

As Lucrezia looked bewildered, Isabella whispered in her ear. She had removed her mask in front of her mother.

− ‘Mom! When she returns from the poorhouse, we can lock her in a small room for a month, saying she might have caught fleas or scabies.’

− ‘Won’t His Eminence say something if we confine Ariadne for a whole month?’

− ‘How could Father object to isolating her until she’s clean, in case she brought back a disease from the Rambouillet Poorhouse?’

San Carlo was a place where plague and cholera broke out periodically. The Rambouillet Poorhouse was where the poorest and sickest people in San Carlo went.

Isabella added one more point.

− ‘That new girl, she acts obedient, but there’s something about her I don’t like. We need to train her. Let’s use this opportunity to show her who’s in charge.’

Lucrezia nodded at her precious eldest daughter’s words.

Ariadne packed her belongings that very evening and was set to leave early the next morning for the Rambouillet Poorhouse.

* * *

The De Mare family carriage heading to the poorhouse was a simple, black-painted one.

There was a grand silver carriage that the Cardinal usually rode in, but Ariadne didn’t even think about riding in that. They wouldn’t have allowed it, and even if they had, she would have declined.

In one corner of the cramped carriage sat the maid Maletta, her appearance in shambles from the whipping, nervously glancing around.

Ariadne smiled and broke the ice. She needed a loyal maid. Someone who wasn’t under Lucrezia and Isabella’s influence.

“Maletta. For the next five days, it will be just you and me.”

“…”

“During this time, Isabella won’t be able to protect you. What will you do?”

Maletta’s shoulders began to tremble.

“No, would Isabella even look after you? Didn’t you see when Mother called for ten lashes? If Isabella had said just one word, you wouldn’t have been whipped.”

The ancient Latin Empire general Theodosius said that people can be ruled either by fear or by love. In her past life, Ariadne had failed at both. She was looked down upon by those around her and her subordinates, and she wasn’t loved either.

This time, she was going to start with fear.

“Even at home, you spend most of your day with me, not with Isabella.”

Ariadne leaned her upper body towards Maletta. Her tall stature and perfectly straight shoulders loomed imposingly close, pressuring the round and plump Maletta.

“You might make a wrong judgment at first. You can make mistakes. But when you realize you’ve done wrong, shouldn’t you quickly correct your attitude?”

Maletta drew in a breath.

“I am a generous mistress. I can forget past mistakes.”

Suddenly, the carriage shook violently.

− Neigh!

“We have arrived.”

Fortunately for Maletta, the carriage arrived at the poorhouse with perfect timing.

Ariadne clicked her tongue softly and got out of the carriage.

The Rambouillet Poorhouse was a rare facility on the continent that was run by the country rather than the Holy See.

After unpacking in a cold room, guided by the queen’s administrator who wasn’t sure how to treat the Cardinal’s illegitimate daughter, Ariadne asked to be given work freely, saying she was just a young lady who came to volunteer.

‘I need to go where the poor are gathered. That’s why I brought Maletta all the way here.’

* * *

“Form a line! One bowl per person!”

Ariadne was assigned to the soup distribution line. The soup pot was far away, but even so, ladling nearly 500 times a day made her arms feel like they would fall off.

When the person she was looking for didn’t appear on the first day or even the second, Ariadne asked a low-ranking official working with her.

“I thought there were many more poor people in the poorhouse than this. Why are there so few people receiving food?”

“Those who are very ill don’t have the strength to stand in the food line.”

There was no separate staff assigned to bring food to and feed the severely ill patients, which meant they were being left to starve.

‘She must be there.’

Ariadne decided to go look for her. At this point, Ariadne had no idea that she would meet someone even more important than the person she was looking for.