Dreadful Food
There was nothing of the Empress Dowager about her.
Kalian had resembled the emperor Yeong-ryeong had loved in her past life—down to his gaze, his manner of speech, even his habits. So she had wondered, for a moment, whether his mother, Leona, might somehow resemble the Empress Dowager as well.
But Leona was nothing like the Empress Dowager she remembered.
Then was Kalian’s resemblance to the emperor nothing more than coincidence?
The grudge that seethed in her soul was unmistakable, yet the moment of her death alone refused to come into focus. Perhaps once everything returned to her, she would also understand how she had come to this place.
However it happened, this body has been wretchedly unlucky—in that world and in this one alike.
Yes. Whether this was another world or hell itself, she could not say—but one thing was certain then, and certain now: she had married the wrong man. That her husband’s mother was hell-bent on tormenting her only completed the picture.
The Empress Dowager had persecuted Yeong-ryeong, sneering that she was nothing but a girl from some rootless rabble of a household. Her sole pride had been her noble, beautiful son; the consorts were mere instruments for securing an heir. Neither the daughter of a meritorious house nor possessed of anything useful to an emperor’s woman—nothing but martial skill and a pretty face—she had been a thorn in the Empress Dowager’s eye.
She had endured any number of petty cruelties under that hatred. And yet…
I never once lost to the Empress Dowager. Not in any moment I can still remember.
The corner of Esika’s mouth twisted.
A Dowager Duchess is hardly worth mentioning, then.
There was a reason the consorts had feared her as the most infamous villainess under heaven. Petty cruelty she answered with petty cruelty; insult she repaid with a deeper insult still. And of course, her schemes had been more flawless than anyone’s.
She had dreamed of becoming the only woman of the man she loved. That even that dream had been hollow and futile was a truth she had learned only in her final years.
I don’t care if this place is hell. But one thing is certain…
Esika alighted lightly on the windowsill, slipped into the room, and brushed off her clothes.
They will receive twentyfold everything they have done to me.
Making her enemies squeal like beasts on the slaughterhouse floor might take time—but it would be done. She was no longer the Esika who had known nothing at all.
Hemos had walked straight into the greatest crisis of his life.
Caught mid-delivery of food and elixirs by Emilia, the Dowager Duchess’s maid. Succulent meat, fresh vegetables, and even an orange drink that looked for all the world like carrot juice… Annie’s eyes narrowed to sharp triangles as she looked from the plates to Hemos and back again.
“Just what is the meaning of this, Chef?”
Of course, Leona had never openly ordered that Esika be served rotten bread. She had merely clicked her tongue at the sight of anything decent set before her, calling it insufficiently frugal—and each time that happened, Esika’s meals had grown a little worse. Everything provided to Esika had arrived at its present state through that same quiet process.
To prepare a meal this fine under those circumstances was open defiance of Leona.
“I can scarcely believe my own eyes. I know you’ve been discontented lately, with Her Grace paying the kitchens so little mind—but to raise the banner of rebellion this brazenly…”
The maid’s voice rang out, sharp as a blade.
“It seems the Chef no longer wishes to work for House Klaus.”
Sweat slid down the back of Hemos’s neck. A flicker of regret crossed his mind—all this over a handful of pearls—but the water was already spilled. He called after the maid as she spun on her heel.
“Wait.”
She turned back on him with a cutting look. Hemos held out the cup from the tray. The maid frowned.
“What do you think you’re doing? Drink the Duchess’s carrot juice yourself and keep your mouth shut—is that it?”
“Don’t be like that. Just taste it first, then talk. Come on.”
At the force in his voice the maid flinched, then took the cup. Whatever game he was playing, she would have to try it. She tilted the cup slowly and tasted the carrot juice within.
“….”
She froze—then spat it out.
“Pffah!”
Hemos barely caught the cup before she dropped it. The maid’s face had gone a mottled red and purple. The taste of what she had just sampled defied even the word dreadful. How in the world could anyone call this juice? Juice stamped out of garbage underfoot would have been an improvement. The lingering reek of what had briefly entered her mouth left her gagging more than once.
Only then did Hemos understand what Esika had meant.
Prepare the elixir exactly as the formula dictates—but never taste it. It is more than an ordinary man like you can bear.
He was glad he had listened.
And if anyone doubts the food meant for me, let them taste it. They will doubt no longer.
The maid gulped down water in desperate swallows. Tears had gathered at the corners of her eyes. Just how foul did something have to taste to put a person through that? And how on earth did the Duchess drink it?
Hemos felt a chill crawl over his skin.
“In my entire life I have never tasted anything so bitter and foul.”
The maid spoke with her brows drawn sharp. Hemos, who had been staring blankly, came back to himself and cleared his throat.
“When a person eats nothing but rot every day, they grow used to it, don’t they? So every now and then you have to shake things up.”
The maid nodded, eyeing the food destined for Esika. Like that bizarre carrot juice, those perfectly ordinary-looking dishes were surely every bit as vile.
“Imagine the fun—expecting something wonderful, putting it cheerfully in your mouth, and finding it revolting.”
This was the sort of thing that would earn praise if reported to the Dowager Duchess. She had taken Hemos for a thoroughly dull man; it seemed he was not entirely so. Unlike before, the maid smiled as she spoke.
“I’ll be sure to tell Her Grace all about the Chef’s clever little prank.”
Hemos nodded with an awkward smile.
“Good. And next time, don’t go suspecting people so freely.”
“I’m sorry about earlier. The food simply looked so fine…”
“Care to try a bite of the meat?”
“Ugh—get that horrible stuff away from me.”
When Hemos deliberately thrust a plate at her, the maid recoiled in disgust.
“I’ll be going, then. Oh—and Her Grace means to walk in the garden around evening, so have some cookies baked.”
She turned and left the kitchen. Only several seconds after she had vanished did Hemos press a hand to his chest and exhale in relief. The deception had been perfect. A smile touched his lips. For a while, at least, no one would suspect him again.
“…I see.”
Hearing Sella’s report, Esika allowed a faint smile to touch her lips. She had expected the Dowager Duchess to look into the matter of her meals. The results of her breathing cultivation had left her complexion noticeably improved, after all—and of course, truly fresh food had played its part as well.
In the days when she had filled her stomach with hard, poor-quality bread, she had fallen ill more often than not. Rashes had been commonplace, but she had had no choice if she meant not to starve. There had even been a time she had begged Yuri to exchange jewels for fresh food; Yuri had answered with a show of concern.
“The Dowager Duchess is punishing you… If she finds out you’re trying to escape that punishment, she’ll be terribly disappointed. What if she says something awful about you to His Grace?”
Being hated by the Dowager Duchess, she had told herself, could not be helped. But the thought of her relationship with her husband, Kalian, growing any worse had steeled her resolve to endure even rotten bread. That had been the stupid, naive self who had known nothing—before the memories of Yeong-ryeong returned.
“At any rate, even if a lavish spread is set out from now on, no one will question it.”
Sella spoke as though a weight had lifted. She had fretted herself half to death smuggling decent food to Esika out of sight of watching eyes.
“….”
Esika gazed out the window. The manor’s broad gardens stretched away below. Beautiful to look upon—and always, to her, a prison. A prison that denied her so much as a decent garment or a proper meal. What she had first known as injustice had slowly become familiar, and that familiarity had drained the strength from her.
In all the time since her marriage, she had left the Klaus estate only twice—and only in the earliest days of the marriage, standing like a folding screen under Leona’s watch before being brought straight home again. Beyond that, Leona had never permitted her a private outing. Not even when word came that her father was ill. Not even when a letter arrived announcing that her sister-in-law had borne a child.
“Esika Klaus. Even if it concerns your birth family, to leave this house on private business without my leave is no different from slighting House Klaus itself.”
That piercing gaze, that icy voice—Esika, broken to them, had lived like a sick dog of the household. All the while Leona herself flitted from one Klaus function and party to the next, conducting her social rounds with Esika’s feet bound fast. No—she had skillfully cut Esika down until Esika bound her own feet.
“You want to attend a tea party? A country bumpkin from Prihatz, sitting there playing duchess—how do you think the ladies of other houses would look down on Klaus then? Do you mean to drag our name through the mud?”
Yuri, always at her side, had been no better.
“Esika… the Dowager Duchess is right. The noblewomen of the capital, Torres, hide blades for hearts beneath smiling faces and refined speech. If you, unused to the capital’s forms, fail to catch their true meaning, you’ll only make yourself a laughingstock.”
And so, for all the injustice she suffered, the thought of telling her family or the outside world had never so much as crossed her mind. At some point the shabby rooms and the rotting meals had come to feel like her proper lot; she had grown used to them. Inside the closed world called Klaus, she had been thoroughly broken to abuse.
After a moment’s thought, Esika took up a sheet of paper and began to write. Then she crumpled it and held it out to Sella.
“Take this to Hemos.”