The Servant Queen

His Humble Domain

Ani

I remember the first time I ran away from my Master's home. Back then, I left my mask at home and went into the nearby forest. I remember how I heard a loud splash from the stream because boy fell into it. Without thinking, I jumped into the stream after him and pulled him to the shore. He was holding something in his hand tightly. A necklace with a locket. The boy looked at me for a while and suddenly one by one, tears started to dribble down his delicate face. He told me that he almost lost his mom's necklace. After that, I went back to my master who didn't know I left in the first place.

I started going to the forest in the evening just so I could meet the boy nearly every day. Before I knew it, we were close friends that played together and told stories to one another. But he was a peasant boy, and I was a servant girl. And, he didn't know that specific, important detail about me.

One day, my master trailed after me when I tried meeting up with the boy. My master scolded him saying that he, my best friend, has been fooled by a disobedient servant, and then he dragged me away by my arm. I remember the boy's painful expression on his face when I looked back to see him. That was the last time I saw him.

His name was Kei.

"Ani. Did you fall asleep?" said Walter.

I opened my eyes.

"Nope!" I said, lying.

We were in front of a metal gate of a house. Two handsome men in white uniform, who stood by the sides of the gates, opened it up together. Walter rode the horse forward into a large garden.

"Welcome back, Sir Green!" they both said with a cheerful smile.

Walter nodded slightly at them. I saw a large house ahead with a fountain in front of it. On the fountain, there was a stone person with wings holding a jar with with water continuously pouring out from it. Walter got off the horse when we were near the stairs of the mansion. He held out his hand to help me down. Women came out of his house.

"Welcome back, Sir Green!" They were all smiling at him.

One of them took his horse away.

"Your dinner will be done in a hour, Sir," said one.

"Thank you," Walter said.

Inside of the mansion was more impressive that outside. The marbled floor was so polished that I could nearly see my reflection. There were so many exquisite paintings lined up on the wall with golden and silver frames, and the ceilings were so high up. There wasn't a spot of dust anywhere in sight either. The windows were wide and tall that the long hallways were bright from the sunlight that streamed through the windows.

Walter walked into one of the hallways and as I was just about to follow him, he turned to the three women.

"Ani needs to get cleaned up," Walter said to them. "Do what you can to that walking pile of dirt."

Their eyes lit up.

"Yes, Sir."

He turned back and walked away. All three of them rushed over to me and started leading me away the opposite way. I watched as Walter got further away.

"Walter?" I called out.

He didn't turn around.

"Now, now, don't worry about your big brother. We've got to clean you up," said one of them.

I felt so small. They were crowding all over me, chattering away. They brought me to a large bathroom.

"First, let's take your clothes off, Miss Ani."

"I- I can do it."

They didn't listen to me. One of them raised my arms up was they took off my clock and my under clothes. They threw it into a wastebasket.

"Wait, not the cloak!"

I clamped up my mouth quickly. The middle age women all smiled at me as if I was just a little kid. One of them had a lot of freckles, the other had blonde, wildly curly hair, and last one was small in height.

"Don't worry. We're just going to launder it. But, you don't need to wear those clothes anymore anyways. Sir Walter is providing you with clothes," said the woman with a freckled face.

They saw me holding onto my wrist.

"You can trust us Miss Ani too. We know your situation too," she said.

I slowly released my wrist and nodded. They didn't care about the ugly numbers on my wrist.

"Let's get you ready for dinner. It's starting in about an hour," said the small one.

They scrubbed in the bathtub until my skin was raw and red and cleaned out my hair.

"What a nice hair color," said the curly haired one.

"...Thank you, ma'am," I said.

After wiping me down and disinfecting the scratches on my torsos, they brought me a new collared long sleeve shirt, black pants, black boots with small heels, and suspenders.

"We don't have any dresses in this house except the ones that we're wearing currently, so this'll do until they arrive, Miss Ani."

I nodded. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

The freckled one looked at the other two. "I'll bring Miss Ani to the dining table."

As she was leading me to the dining room, she started humming. I looked around, but nobody in the building was wearing masks.

"Ma'am, Walter doesn't have any servants?" I asked.

She smiled at me. "Nope. He believes that people should be paid for the services they provide. And in this case, he's offering you to do something, and the reward happens to be freedom, Miss Ani."

"Ma'am—"

"You can call me Ms. Weatherbottom."

"Ms. Weatherbottom, I don't understand what Walter is planning to make me do exactly. Do you?"

"Of course, I do. Everyone in the house currently, beside Sir Green himself, are his subordinates, and had completely planned for the day of your arrival."

"But, when I asked him, all he said was that I had to act like his younger sister so I can be one of the wife candidates for the prince. He didn't say why I had to spy. I'm afraid to do something that's...I don't know...immoral."

"Sorry, Miss Ani, I don't believe I have the right to say anything critically important to you. But, what you said was the gist of it. And immoral? No. Nothing close to it."

We arrived in front of a tall double door.

"We're here," Ms. Weatherbottom said.

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A/N: Please, please, please, please, tell me if there's something wrong with my story. Grammar-wise or anything else. Also, the first few paragraphs also explains what happened the first chapter of this book.