Chapter 1.8

The tour of the harem began with Valeria. She skipped the bedrooms and drawing rooms, knowing Lucia wouldn’t be interested, and went straight to her own laboratory.  

The room smelled of pencils, and at its center was a large square wooden desk. Scattered across the desk were stacks of drawing paper, rulers, protractors, and various drafting tools. In one corner sat a model of the recently completed Pantheon.  

“Would you like to see what I’m working on lately?”  

Valeria unfolded the blueprints for a lighthouse.  

At the bottom of the blueprint was a neatly written name:  

‘Bartolo Retierre.’  

It was a man’s name.  

“No one wants female architects.”  

Valeria explained.  

“This is the only way to get my proposals accepted.”  

“What happens after your proposal is accepted? Once you go to the site, everyone will know, won’t they?”  

They would know she was a woman and a concubine.  

Valeria shared her methods.  

First, she sent representatives to handle everything. It was one of the privileges of being a researcher for the Emperor.  

Second, if she absolutely had to go, she met the minimum number of people necessary. Those people kept the secret that the architect was a woman.  

“Many people know my name, but few know my face. Besides, once construction begins, clients can’t easily replace the architect. The risks are too high. So even if they find out I’m a female architect, they usually keep it quiet and continue.”  

“Don’t you feel disappointed that you can’t work under your own name?”  

Valeria shrugged.  

“It’s disappointing, but the satisfaction of seeing my drawings transform into actual buildings in front of me is greater.”  

Lucia nodded bitterly.  

“But not everyone does it the way I do. Celeste works under her own name. Right, Celeste?”  

Celeste, who had been hiding outside the door, peeked her head in.  

“Do you want to take over next?”  

Celeste waved her hand.  

“Follow me.”  

***

Celeste’s laboratory looked as though a hurricane had passed through it. The floor was littered with crumpled sheets of music, leaving no room to step. A grand piano, several upright pianos, and a harpsichord dominated the room.  

Celeste sat on the chair of the grand piano, which gleamed with golden engravings.  

“To be honest, I was hoping the new concubine would be someone involved in literature or the arts. But I lost the vote, so there’s nothing I can do.”  

Her candid attitude gave Lucia the courage to ask directly.  

“Don’t you think hiding a laboratory as a harem is strange?”  

“It’s strange.”  

Celeste agreed.  

“When I first received the proposal, I took it as an insult.”  

“Exactly! ‘People don’t like female researchers, so pretend to be concubines.’ It’s absurd.”  

“That’s what I thought, but… it makes some sense.”  

Lucia, who thought Celeste was on her side, swallowed her disappointment.  

“I don’t know about you, Miss Bianchi, but before I came here, I couldn’t publish my compositions under my name. People liked my minuets and waltzes, but when I released sonatas or symphonies, the backlash was intense…”  

Celeste sighed.  

“They said women should be pretty and graceful, playing the piano, not pretending to be composers. They wouldn’t even listen to my music, tearing up my scores instead. Some even claimed I couldn’t have composed them myself, saying I must have paid a poor composer to ghostwrite for me. Ridiculous.”  

Lucia recalled why she had to use an eagle emblem instead of her name on her inventions.  

“This is the first place where I’ve been able to do things my way. And the reason I have that freedom is because I’m the Emperor’s concubine. Now, people might dislike me, but at least they don’t dare touch me.”  

Lucia fell silent.  

This absurd and outrageous lie was beginning to make sense.  

“Anyway, my symphony will premiere in the Skune Empire next month. We’re all going to watch it together. You’ll come too, Miss Bianchi.”  

“I haven’t decided to become a concubine yet—”  

“Wait, say that again.”  

Lucia stared blankly at Celeste, who waved her hand urgently, urging her to repeat herself.  

“I… haven’t… yet…”  

Celeste quickly composed a few bars using the notes from Lucia’s words.  

“Ah, she’s at it again.”  

Julietta, who had appeared beside Lucia, said.  

“When you talk to her, you have to keep your voice monotone and stick to one pitch. Follow me.”  

***

Julietta’s research lab resembled a large theater stage, complete with massive equipment for special effects. She pointed to a smoke-emitting device Lucia had invented last year, saying it had been incredibly useful for a recent play.  

“If we work together, I think our plays will reach a whole new level!”  

“Do researchers often collaborate with each other?”  

“Of course! Not just Celeste; the murder mystery play I recently wrote was done in consultation with Reselda and Thea. How could I possibly know all about the process of corpse decay or the toxicity of lily of the valley on my own?”  

A play featuring lily of the valley?  

That play had premiered last month and steadily received critical acclaim. It was said to be written by an anonymous playwright who disliked public attention.  

Lucia had naturally assumed the anonymous playwright was a man.  

Julietta continued showing Lucia around her research lab. When Lucia complimented the lab, Julietta’s face lit up.  

“Right? Since I can’t go outside, I’ve poured so much time and effort into decorating this place beautifully.”  

Can’t go outside…?  

“There’s no ban on going out.”  

Julietta hastily added.  

“It’s just that, at first, I didn’t like the way people stared at me, so I stopped going out.”  

“I’m honestly afraid of that too.”  

“You don’t need to worry about that! If you want, you can keep your identity a secret for life!”  

Seeing the confusion on Lucia’s face, Julietta explained.  

Aristide, under the pretext of ‘avoiding jealousy,’ kept the identity of new concubines as top-secret. Imperial employees knew the concubine’s identity, but unless they wanted to be executed, they would never reveal it.  

Thus, revealing oneself as a concubine was entirely up to the concubine’s discretion.  

Julietta had confided in her closest friend, only to find gossip about her past male lovers and preferred bedroom techniques spreading across the Empire within a week.  

“Even though people couldn’t recognize my face, I still couldn’t go out for a while. Now, whether they recognize me or not, I don’t care anymore.”  

Lucia felt like she would care for the rest of her life.  

“Enough of the complaints. Want to hear about the script I’m working on now?”  

The play’s plot revolved around a water witch who appeared after thousands of years, absorbing all the world’s water and causing everything alive—humans included—to shrivel up and die. Eventually, the witch herself exploded, leading to the end of the world…  

“Another tragedy?”  

Celeste appeared and asked.  

“Plays are tragedies, no matter what anyone says!”  

“Ending every single one with destruction shows a lack of creativity.”  

“Gasp!”  

Reselda, who had accompanied them, lightly tugged Lucia’s arm.  

“They’re the same age, so they’re close but argue a lot. Let’s leave them and follow me.”  

Leaving Julietta and Celeste passionately debating behind, Lucia followed the fourth concubine, Reselda.  

***

As Lucia entered Reselda’s research lab, her eyes met four corpses lined up on a cold table.  

“They’re dolls.”  

Reselda said, noticing Lucia’s pale face.  

When she unbuttoned one of the ‘corpses,’ the doll hissed as air escaped, deflating flat.  

“It’s unfair, isn’t it? The other concubines can research whatever they want, but I have so many restrictions. ‘Don’t bring in corpses,’ ‘Make sure to wash your hands after dissections,’ ‘Don’t wander around at night wearing blood-soaked clothes’…”  

Lucia wisely refrained from saying those sounded like reasonable rules. Instead, she asked:  

“I heard you often identify yourself as a ‘concubine’, Miss Falco.”  

“Are you asking why I would ruin my own reputation?”  

Reselda replied coolly.  

“It’s because I want to use the power that comes with being a concubine.”  

Lucia didn’t respond, but her expression spoke for her.  

“You’re skeptical, wondering what kind of power a woman who sells her body could possibly have. But the answer is clear, even in the clothes you’re wearing.”  

Reselda gestured to Lucia’s pale blue dress.  

“Why do you think pastel colors suddenly became fashionable across the continent a few years ago?”  

Lucia, uninterested in fashion, couldn’t answer.  

“It’s because the Emperor of the Gbeor Empire’s mistress liked those colors. Even if people despised her, nobles imitated her, and the trend spread all the way here. Is that all?”  

To satisfy their mistresses, emperors gave away their entire fortunes, killed people, and even started wars. 

“I don’t need anything like that. I just want small conveniences in life.”  

Reselda continued.  

Medicines that aren’t sold to ‘women’ are sold to ‘concubines.’ ‘Women’ aren’t allowed into the medical guild library, but ‘concubines’ are.  

“One time, a pregnant woman was bleeding heavily, and the doctors were giving her completely wrong treatments. I said, ‘I’m Emperor Aristide’s concubine. Move aside unless you want to die,’ and saved her. There are times when that kind of power is necessary.”  

Lucia bitterly agreed.