Rather be a Lover than a Fighter

Chapter 10: The Maid

When I stepped into my bedroom chamber, I let out a heavy sigh and my maid Charlotte who had been waiting on a chair in the corner of the room watched me with pity reflected in her eyes. I took a bunch of crumbled napkin balls out of my pocket and let them fall into a wooden bucket next to my bed, before sitting down on top of it and starting to untie the long ribbons that had been woven into my braid this morning. Charlotte quickly stood up from her chair and sat down next to me, to aid with untying my hair but I motioned her to start opening my dress instead, so she carefully pealed of the first top layer to reveal the corset underneath. She knew that I liked to take my time untangling and combing my hair to calm down after a particularly stressful day, so she also took her time loosening every loop before slowly taking out the entire ribbon. "Please stand up, your Highness", she said after taking of the heavy corset, which made me sigh in relief and I gladly complied. Before she took care of the bottom layers of my dress though, she took the ribbon from me and wordlessly replaced it with a comb, so that I could finish taking care of my hair. "Did you eat anything throughout the day at all, your Highness", she finally asked when she saw how my shoulders stopped tensing up and my body slowly started to relax while I kept brushing my hair. I opened my mouth to attempt defending myself but the second I did my mind suddenly went blank and I could not form a single word, so I quickly closed it and lowered my head while shaking it with guilt. It was not the answer she would have liked to see but it was to be expected so she simply let out a disappointed sigh and kept untying ribbons that supported the big overskirt I was wearing. 

Charlotte was not stupid and even though I never once dared to show her what I had thrown into the bucket after most family dinners for the last few years, she had figured it out fairly quickly. All of the untouched food trays in my office that I had offered her to eat or share with the other servants were probably enough of a hint for her to realize my relationship with food was not exactly the best. Since my worst battle, food had reminded me of the lives I ended and the blood I had spilled, I could not look at anything edible without puking for days afterwards. Only when it got to the point where my body resisted to move was I able to face my fear, because being incapable to move scared me even more during those times when I started having sleep paralysis. Since then I had been able to digest food every other day or so, depending on the time I was in the battlefield since I was not able to stomach anything the day before or after fighting. "So you even hid your breakfast in these napkins", Charlotte suddenly said while taking of the overskirt that was no longer tied around my waist, "quite risky to do that in front of Prince Voldron, did he notice anything your Highness". I immediately rolled my eyes at the mention of that Prince and let out a small but frustrated sigh, before answering with a with a headshake. "You ate your meal yesterday though", the maid added with a little nudge to my hips in order to lighten our moods,  "I was very glad, your Highness". She knew that I did not eat on the battlefield since she once heard my stomach rumble after I was gone for almost a week, from there she figured it out fairly quickly. While the maid tried to open up the large underskirt I wore, I recalled yesterday evening when that new servant boy brought me my food and said all those things that distracted me enough to actually swallow it. "It was brought to you by that new boy who was hired yesterday, right", Charlotte asked like she read my mind while taking of the huge underskirt and hanging it up, "I think he was around the same age as the two of us, your Highness". I simply nodded remembering that he did indeed look quiet young compared to the other servants in this palace. My maid was an exception because she took over for her mother who was too old to keep taking care of me, other than her most of the servants were double my age or even older than that. "I wonder why the king hired him at such a young age", Charlotte said while entering the small room serving as my closet, "and immediately in a position to serve you, your Highness". She turned around to watch me for an answer but I simply shrugged not knowing the reason either though I was wondering the same thing yesterday as well. My maid sighed probably disappointed by that answer before turning around and taking a very light nightgown from its hanger. The day had been very warm and humid up until now so the night would probably be same which was why I was very grateful for that pick and gave her a small smile. She reciprocated it instantly and helped me take of my last underdress before putting on the prestigious looking nightgown. "He made a lot of other servants curious when he introduced himself to all of us and said he would immediately work for you, your Highness", the maid simply continued the conversation while following me into my office. I turned to her with a raised eyebrow and surprised expression on my face, because if that was the case, it must have been a direct order from the king. "I was shocked too", Charlotte quickly added, "the king must have really liked him to allow something like that, right your Highness". A very thoughtful and slow nod was everything I could muster as an answer, since my mind was already occupied again. Of course the boy was polite, a feature that the king had always held in high regards, but other than that he had seemed rather shy and kind which were not exactly characteristics my father deemed as necessary. 

I shortly entertained the thought of letting this matter go, especially since there was probably a simple explanation for that boy appearing so suddenly, but I quickly decided against it. With a sigh escaping my lips much louder than I would have expected it to be, I sat down on the chair behind my desk. Charlotte just watched silently, while I went through a stack of papers before finally finding an empty one I could scribble on and taking the expensive looking ink pen I usually signed important documents with. Usually I did not like writing down anything I thought about, it seemed to defeat the whole purpose of staying silent most of the time but sometimes when my voice felt like it was stuck and I still had to convey important messages, I used a pen and a paper. My maid stood in the corner and waited with a calm look on her face and to everyone else it might have looked like she was very patient but I have known her for long enough to see her hand fidgeting slightly, showing that in reality she was a very impatient girl. I only wrote down a single word and the second I lifted up the piece of paper, she snatched it from my hand, reading what I could not say. I had only written the word 'Name' with a question mark behind it, but Charlotte immediately knew what name I wanted to hear from her, it was pretty obvious. "He introduced himself as Jonathan Arbore", she answered the written question, "I feel like I have heard that last name before but I am not sure, do you know it, your Highness". I hummed thoughtfully because I also recognized the name but I could not connect it to a face anymore. Usually I was very good at memorizing names and faces since that was one of the many requirements of a well trained Crown Princess, but no matter how hard I thought about it, I could not bring myself to remember. A silent voice in the back of my mind told me to simply stop looking, that it was not worth the trouble to search for a single last name in between the hundreds of names I had to memorize throughout my life, but I decided shut it out. I could not exactly pinpoint the reason why but I wanted to know more about that surprisingly kind boy and where he came from. "We could search through the Archieves", Charlotte suddenly suggested, "if we truly are right and have heard that name before, it probably belonged to someone working in the castle your Highness". I nodded slowly but determind since I realized she was right and it truly was the best idea to search for it in the mountains of papers that the librarians spent hours to sort. If the name had belonged to  somebody of higher status I would have surely remembered and everyone else I knew was or had been employed by the king, who kept records of every servant and soldier he commanded in the Archieves.