To My Arrogant Master - Chapter 7

They said this and then giggled among themselves.

While most of the servants felt sympathy for Flora, there were naturally those who felt the opposite. Among them, Flora was a particularly irritating maid to Celine.

‘A maid personally brought by the master?’

She was quite displeased with the newly arrived low-ranking maid.

Just as Harriet took great pride in being the aide of the Heinst ducal residence, she too took pride in her status as a maid here.

Flora, who had entered this place without even a letter of recommendation and looking like a beggar, was someone who grated on her nerves every time she saw her.

“Rather than causing trouble for innocent people because you can’t do the work, wouldn’t it be better to go quickly and try to do something?”

Although it sounded like a question at first glance, everyone roughly understood the displeasure contained within it.

But regardless of that, to Flora, who had fought on the battlefield between life and death, the power struggle between women was merely trivial.

“I’ll do that.”

With an unchanging expressionless face, Flora just nodded slightly and left.

Perhaps because of the sharp exchange that had just occurred, the atmosphere had become quite subdued, and several maids, including Mary, left one by one. Satisfied with having sent Flora away, Celine sat down arrogantly in her chair.

From the beginning, Celine, backed by the head maid, tended to be confrontational even among the maids. Pleased to see everyone watching her moves, Celine slowly began to speak.

“I’ve heard something… About Flora. They say she’s a woman brought from the western Filheim.”

Although this was a fact everyone already knew, the tone was peculiar. As if on cue, it was her close friends among the maids who picked up on her words.

“Filheim? That’s the border region, isn’t it? I heard it’s so devastated that even the nobles who lived there haven’t been able to return yet. Where on earth did they bring her from?”

As it was a border area, the nobles of that region had long since left even before the war started.

Seeing the ears of the maids who had been quietly eating perk up, Celine opened her mouth with a snort.

“Where else? If she’s a maid brought from there, it’s obvious.”

Celine, who had answered clearly to their whispered questions, turned her head with a sneer.

“The Filheim military base. There’s only one place there where she could have worked as a maid, right?”

It wasn’t just knights and soldiers on the battlefield. Even there, there were distinctions in status.

As the war dragged on, naturally, maids emerged to take care of the noble-born knights.

But their numbers were few, and many lost their lives in the chaos, so the opportunity to see maids from military units was extremely rare in the capital.

“Well, all the nobles there have come up to the capital, so it’s just the military base. But there…”

Celine, as if she had been waiting for this, finished the sentence for the maid who couldn’t complete her words.

“Does anyone not know what kind of maids work in military bases? At night, they probably served the knights and soldiers in bed too. Right?”

At those words, the rest of the maids who had been listening quietly froze.

In fact, this was completely groundless, but rumors about maids working surrounded by countless men on the battlefield were never good to begin with.

Rumors that started from who knows where had been spreading openly for a long time. Moreover, it was a long war that lasted for 8 years.

Even those noble knights were men with desires, not to mention the lowly soldiers. It meant there were no fools who would remain celibate like saints for 8 years. The reason was obvious just by looking at the brothels that commonly sprang up in villages near military bases.

Given such circumstances, those ignorant men wouldn’t have left alone a maid who was clearly swaying her hips in front of them. Whether willingly or unwillingly, they would have taken her to bed somehow.

Celine, who never dreamed that Flora had served as a soldier on the battlefield, thought that the newly hired maid had somehow caught the duke’s eye with her pretty appearance and came here.

“Hah… How disgusting. She must have slept with this man and that man every night.”

“How could it have been just one or two? And Filheim is where those guys are, you know.”

A look of shock crossed the face of a maid who seemed to have realized something belatedly. Similarly, other maids who had been listening quietly furrowed their brows as if recalling something.

“Those guys are in Filheim. You know, that cruel 12th Division.”

As soon as the words ’12th Division’ came out of Celine’s mouth, silence fell.

Although they had slaughtered enemies for the empire, the 12th Division never gained the awe of the imperial citizens. That’s because their reputation was no better than those rough mercenaries.

The maids, who had never been anywhere near where battles took place, had heard a lot. Among all the plausible rumors, the stories of the 12th Division were bound to attract attention.

“Surely… she couldn’t have been with such terrible men?”

“Have you ever seen prostitutes being picky about men? She must have behaved disgustingly with her body, no doubt.”

Celine raised her chin as if seeking agreement, saying that all those rumors couldn’t be just baseless. A glimmer of disgust slowly settled in the eyes of the maids as they thought of Flora.

Looking over the maids who were starting to be greatly agitated, Celine added with a face full of pity.

“I can’t believe the master. Of all places, why did he bring such a woman… Well, no doubt Flora deceived him completely.”

Unlike his cool exterior, their master was quite generous compared to other nobles. He never whipped the servants carelessly, nor did he intimidate them, but treated them as individuals.

He was certainly different from the previous duke who didn’t even treat those he employed as humans, so the duke’s character was naturally highly praised.

So, they began to believe that the master had been momentarily deceived by the skin of that seemingly delicate woman. This started to be engraved in the minds of the maids who remained there.

* * *

When she went out to the back garden, sure enough, an enormous amount of laundry, far beyond the normal level, was waiting.

“My goodness, what is all this?”

Mary, surprised at the sight of the bedding piled up in the middle of the backyard, cried out.

Her cheeks, which showed freckles whenever she smiled brightly, twitched with anger. Flora was also a bit taken aback by the amount, which was more than expected.

All the backed-up work had fallen into Flora’s hands, as she had been targeted by Celine, who would praise her if she did well and deliberately pass on work if she disliked her. They had even pulled out all the winter bedding when it was far from spring, and dumped it on her.

“That Celine… she’s really mean!”

Mary slapped her skirt at the obvious ploy that anyone could see. However, seeming to think there was no other choice, she rolled up her sleeves vigorously.

“This is absolutely impossible to do alone. Let’s do it together.”

“It’s my work, so it’s fine.”

At the words that she would do it alone since it was her assigned task, Mary suddenly raised her head towards Flora.

The unsociable woman, who only gave short answers to questions, looked puzzled as if she had never received kindness from anyone.

“It’s not fine at all. If you do it alone, you won’t finish even if you stay up all night.”

“It’s my work. I’ll manage somehow…”

Although it was true, as she said, that it was questionable whether they could finish before nightfall even with two people, she couldn’t borrow someone else’s hands.

“Flora!”

“Yes.”

Mary, who had been staring at Flora’s face, who stubbornly used formal speech despite being told to speak casually since they were the same age, let out a deep sigh.

Although she knew Flora had suffered at her previous place, Mary couldn’t understand why she was so reluctant to receive help.

Even though it was obvious that helping Flora would put her on Celine’s bad side, she kept feeling concerned. After all, Celine’s instructions were clearly unfair to anyone’s eyes.

“If this work had been assigned to me, what do you think you would have done?”

“……”

“Would you not have helped me even if Celine had dumped all the work on me?”

Flora remained silent as if her lips were glued shut. Mary, who had been a bit angry, softened her expression slightly and patted Flora’s shoulder.

“It’s natural for maids in the same situation to help each other, isn’t it?”

Mary continued speaking, almost like a teacher patting a child, and showed her usual bright smile.

“Let’s hurry. Let’s finish by dinner time and flatten Celine’s nose.”

Soon, Mary started sorting the thick bedding by color while humming a tune.

Flora stared blankly for a while at Mary, who was moving her hands diligently while singing a work song.

* * *

After finishing her daily routine, Flora sat on the bed with her wet hair wrapped tightly in a towel after taking a refreshing shower. Just from doing that laundry, her body felt as heavy as a thousand pounds.

She couldn’t help but laugh. Even when she had searched the forest for a week without sleeping, she had never felt tired…

When she was about to lie down, Flora suddenly looked around her place.

Clean bedding with a subtle fragrance. The scenery surrounded by ordinary brown furniture didn’t feel like her room no matter how she looked at it.

She got up from her seat and lay down in the middle of the hard floor with a blanket wrapped around her, as she usually did. The cool chill that crept in actually made her feel at ease.

Flora, lying sprawled on the floor regardless of her damp hair, stared blankly at the ceiling engraved with a landscape painting of a green forest.

Fortunately, the laundry that seemed impossible to finish within the day could be completed before dinner with Mary’s help. It would have been impossible alone.

Naturally, Flora was in the midst of mulling over the question Mary had asked earlier.

“Would I have helped?”

To be honest, she couldn’t be sure if she would have said she would help if Mary had been in the same situation. After all, there was no reason for Flora to help her, a stranger.

But the reason she didn’t say that at the time was because she was somehow gripped by a feeling that she shouldn’t. The end of her continuing thoughts was, of course, the duke.

“How long does he intend to make me do maid work? Will I have to do it for the rest of my life?”

A sigh escaped involuntarily. She was aware that she hadn’t been able to do the given work properly.

Flora had been trying to find problems in her actions. After all, she, who had been the most reliable on the battlefield, was being treated as a useless maid in the ducal residence.

Flora turned on her side, curled up. Beyond the fireplace made of dark gray bricks, pitch-black darkness was visible.

The memory of that day overwhelmed Flora, who had laid her tired body down.