“Ah, I see.”

Malyn wiped the turnip roughly, but some of the grit caught between her teeth, making a crunching sound. She spat out the skin and some dirt onto the floor.

A cruel king was not a rare thing. For people like Malyn and others like her, hearing that a king was ruthless was as common as hearing that it might rain in the summer. It was something natural and unchangeable, almost a force of nature. Some kings were like sunny days – kind and fair – while others were like rainy days, dark and unkind.

The maid, however, did not seem satisfied with Malyn’s calm reaction. She shook her head in frustration and hissed, almost shouting in her whisper.

“The maids who tend to his bedchamber every night come out bruised, crawling like dogs!”

But unfortunately for the maid, Malyn just thought, ‘Whispering as if she were shouting – that’s a strange talent.’

Anyway, that was Princess Layla’s situation. She was the daughter of a concubine, not the queen, and had grown up outside the palace. Naturally, her position inside the palace was difficult. And as she was soon to leave for the kingdom of Veldam, the young maids who had been at her side all wanted to flee.

The mere mention of a witch’s curse was frightening enough, but to accompany her to a king with such a cruel disposition was a terrifying sight.

Still, someone had to stay by Princess Layla’s side. After all, it wasn’t every day that a small kingdom like theirs had a royal marriage alliance. It would be unthinkable to send the princess to another land without a single maid. But Princess Layla’s mother had long since passed away, leaving no one to help her. The queen, uninterested, left it to the head maid to choose a maid. And the one she chose was Malyn.

So no one bothered to give Malyn a hard time. After all, she was the one stuck with a job that everyone else found difficult, annoying and unpleasant.

‘I felt something strange.’

 Malyn thought, scrubbing the turnip on her sleeve. The maid continued.

“If you don’t want to go, you’d better run away now.”

“And if I run, what then?”

“Huh?”

“I don’t want to. I’ll just stay.”

“Look at this girl!”

The maid’s eyes widened in surprise. Malyn avoided her gaze and bit into the turnip. With a crunch, a hint of sweetness filled her mouth.

The laundrymaid’s eyes widened. Malyn avoided her gaze and took another bite of the turnip. A hint of sweetness followed the crunch.

“If you’re unlucky, you might be dragged off to serve that king at night, you know!”

“What’s so bad about that?”

With her mouth full of turnip, Malyn’s words came out as a muffled mumble. The maid looked as if she was about to answer, but hurried away when someone called to her from a distance.

Left alone, Malyn finished chewing and swallowed, then muttered the words, almost spitting out the words.

“That’s supposed to be a big deal, huh…”

At that moment, Malyn thought of the small bundle she had hidden under her bed. Inside were the wages she had saved from her work, along with an apron.

It was the same apron stained with her mother’s blood – the one Malyn had wrinkled but couldn’t bring herself to throw away. Even now, at the age of twenty, she still hadn’t let it go. Whether she was working as a maid in an inn, keeping watch for thieves, begging on the streets to survive, or feeding the cattle, that apron was always within reach.

Malyn had been through it all by now; there was nothing she hadn’t endured. Being beaten like a dog, serving a noble at night—those were far better than freezing to death, barefoot and abandoned on the streets in the dead of winter. She wondered why everyone else was so terrified that they would run from something like that and took another bite of the turnip.

‘Well, I suppose a princess who does not like to show her body might feel differently.’

 As she thought of Princess Layla, Malri realised that the only reason she could be out here munching on a turnip instead of working was because of the princess’s peculiar temperament.

Princess Layla was a thin, frail woman. She was quite tall for a woman, but she always hunched over, and her thin frame made her appear smaller. She ate little, like a bird pecking at seeds, and she did not seem to sleep much either. Malyn always thought that was probably why she had such a pale complexion.

The princess refused to let the maids help her dress. She hated showing her body to others and would not accept help with her bath. Every morning, Malyn would sweat her way through fetching and heating the bath water, only for the princess to wait until it was ready, then enter and close the door. The first time, Malyn had started to say, “The water might be getting cold; if you go in, I could…” but was slapped by another maid beside her, acting on Princess Layla’s signal.

“Don’t interfere with what the princess is doing!”

“I’ve committed a serious offence!”

Malyn hadn’t even thought about holding her swollen cheek; she’d just knelt down. Princess Layla was always like that. She disliked long speeches. Instead, she signalled to the maid beside her to slap someone or make them kneel.

Malyn never dreamed of taking revenge or even holding a grudge. She simply made sure to heat the water less thoroughly from then on.

‘It will get cold anyway. There’s no point in boiling it and wasting my efforts,’ she thought.

The princess was fussy about others seeing her body, but she seemed unconcerned about the temperature of the bath water. Once again, Malyn had heated the water carelessly, poured it in without a second thought and left. It was probably lukewarm, but there were no complaints from the princess in the bath.

‘Would the princess still behave like that if I gave her cold water?’

Malyn looked at the leftover turnip greens after she had eaten them all

‘Should I dry these and give them to the rabbits they keep in the castle backyard, or not?’

In the courtyard of Dion Castle, some rabbits had been released after the knights had brought them back from a recent hunt. One of the rabbits appeared to be pregnant, its belly swollen noticeably over the past few days. Malyn was determined to catch and cuddle the fluffy rabbit at least once, but it was always too quick and managed to escape her grasp.

‘Maybe she’ll slow down once she has her babies?’

Lost in her thoughts about the rabbits, Malyn didn’t notice that someone was watching her.

* * *

The head lady-in-waiting summoned Malyn and secured her promise to remain at Princess Layla’s side for ten years. Naturally, Malyn agreed, being loyal to her duty and the princess.

The lady-in-waiting assured her that in addition to her salary from Veldam, she would send her three gold coins in a separate letter each year at the beginning of the work cycle.

Three gold coins!

Originally, Malyn was only supposed to get one gold coin.Three gold coins! She thought that if she could save up to thirty, she could open a decent general store. Malyn was ecstatic, but she kept her composure and calmly assured the head lady-in-waiting that she would do as she was told.

The lady-in-waiting gave her several sceptical looks, as if she couldn’t believe it, but there was no one else available to take her place. So Malyn began to prepare for her journey to the kingdom of Veldam.

Of course, there was another reason why she could be so relaxed. Malyn’s luggage was indeed small. It consisted of two sets of underwear to change into, ointment for her dry hands, a small wooden water jug and a wooden brush for brushing her teeth, and the wooden bowl she used.

She hesitated whether to take the old clothes she had worn when she first entered the castle, but finally decided to keep only her apron and give the rest to another maid who shared her room. The other maid took the clothes with a smile and said, “Hey, I guess I’ll have to use these as cleaning rags.”

“Look at you, acting like a little girl.”

Malyn teased, pinching the other maid’s arm.