Chapter 2: I Will Call Your Name (6/7)
Diana had brought Mirva along to tea party after tea party. Mirva, who had always relished those invitations, at some point stopped tagging along. She had made friends of her own.
"My lady, you can manage perfectly well on your own now, can't you?"
Mirva still set no store by her actual duties. Wasn't that the precious duke's daughter, parading about with her chin in the air? Whether the girl disgraced herself or not was none of Mirva's affair. Besides, Diana had made no missteps while Mirva was at her side — so if she fumbled now, taking tea with the noble ladies all on her own, wouldn't that only raise Mirva's standing?
Not that she had any interest left in those refined women anyway.
The nobles who had personally invited the duke's daughter displeased her — all that feigned aloofness, that postured dignity, those stiff necks. Mirva had sung their praises when the invitations first came, but circumstances, as ever, were subject to change. She had Duchess Poliana at her back now!
Ah, how small those haughty noblewives looked beneath the name of duchess. And to think they had dared look down on her.
Duchess Poliana was all but the queen of the night. Born a concubine's daughter and married into a dukedom, that woman was the pioneer who led high society through its true nights.
She remembered it still: the refined circles Mirva had ached so desperately to join were simply dull. What was so impressive about people who couldn't enjoy themselves, prattling on behind demure masks?
"Welcome, my friend."
The Duchess ran her casino as a widow. She too had come from fallen nobility, from concubine stock, so her warmth toward Mirva was only natural. She took a liking to the woman and began to look after her.
Gossiping with Duchess Poliana one day, Mirva crossed paths with a noble lady from Diana's tea parties. The envy that had been on the woman's face back then — even the memory of it was a thrill that made her laugh.
The gambling the Duchess taught her was tremendous fun. She lost at times, but winning had its own savor. And the larger the sums she laid on the table, the larger the crowd that gathered to watch her play.
Before long, people began to take notice of Mirva. Lady Linus — the future Duchess Brien. That was what they called her.
She and Duchess Poliana were kindred souls. They knew precisely how much to torment their inferiors, and possessed precisely none of what the world called morals or decency.
"Lady Linus. Have you ever spent an unforgettable night?"
"An... unforgettable night, you say?"
"Asking that tells me you've never once spent one."
As though mocking her naive friend, the Duchess exhaled the mouthful of smoke she'd been holding straight into Mirva's face.
"Whatever do you mean? Madam, I don't know about such things yet..."
"What do you mean — a night with a man, of course! It seems Duke Brien is hopeless after dark."
"What..."
To speak so freely of her nights with the Duke — and yet how the words struck home, sweet and cruel at once. The Duke was hopeless after dark.
"Ah, how adorable. And my friend is the very soul of propriety, too!"
Laughing, the Duchess detached the handsome male slaves who trailed after her and assigned them to Mirva.
"Show my innocent friend what true pleasure looks like."
Mirva flushed at the sight of the men kneeling to attend her. She had imagined such things before. In truth, she had even spent a night with one of the handsome male servants who came into the ducal house. But this... this was, frankly, another world entirely — one she had never even thought to dream of.
Being the old Duke's bed companion was comfortable enough, but never thrilling. He knew neither how to hold a woman past her prime nor how to give her pleasure.
She was always the one expected to satisfy, and so it had been closer to drudgery than delight.
But the night of indulgence Duchess Poliana had bestowed on her like charity was the sweetest, most electric night of her life.
"Ahh."
A man stroked her bare body with scented oil, and at that slick caress her skin flushed hot in an instant. When the male slave trailed his hand across her buttocks, kneading her flesh, she twisted beneath him.
Every man vied to please her, to earn so much as a flick of her fingers. They moaned in rapture under Mirva's hands. Without her wanting it, penetration was not even to be dreamed of. Commanded to lick away every trace of the oil with their tongues, the slaves laved her body from head to heel.
The harder she trembled and cried out, the more they reveled in it.
The one with the exquisite face she allowed nothing but kisses; the powerfully built one she granted her body.
The most skilled of all she kept at work, stoking her body's heat again and again.
It was a truly blissful night. All she had to do was caress one lush-lipped man while singing out her ecstasy at the roll of another's fine hips.
In every position her body could manage, she made her dreams come true!
And then she understood: everything she had scrambled for until now had been worthless. This — this was what being the duchess she longed to become truly meant!
From then on she chased pleasure like an addict chasing the drug.
"Oh, darling. You're working for free over there, you know."
"Working for free, you say?"
"Giving your body, running that entire estate without so much as a title. If that isn't free labor, what is?"
"..."
"The Duke is using you. My sweet friend, it's time you woke up."
That was what Duchess Poliana would tell her. Could it really be true? Shown the wider world, Mirva saw how pitiful her own had been.
"Lady Mirva, the Duke is returning. The meal..."
"Lady Mirva, a maid has quit. We're short-handed in the laundry. We must hire a replacement at once."
"Lady Mirva, Jessie is shamefully lax with the cleaning..."
"The estate's budget is nearly spent. We are meant to manage the household, but..."
Listening to the servants' litany of grievances, she wondered: why on earth should she be the one handling such dreary trifles?
"Let the head maid sort it out!"
"..."
"I told you not to dump every little chore on me!"
How long was she to keep cleaning up after this stifling House of Brien? She was drunk, every night, on the sweetness she shared with the Duchess.
"The butler can handle all the meal preparations, and must I be informed every time a maid quits? Hire someone yourself — you're the head maid, so discipline them yourself! Handle the budget allocation on your own, too!"
"..."
"Just how far am I expected to clean up after you all?"
Mirva exploded. This whole godforsaken household gave her nothing and complained about everything. Wasn't this much within their power to handle themselves?
Grumbling to herself, Mirva swept out of the house. She wanted away from this dreary estate, wanted to see Duchess Poliana as soon as she could. The Duchess loved ostentatious dress, though never quite so loud as to disgrace her. Catering to that exacting eye was a trial — but a rewarding one.
Today's gowns came from the Sardia atelier. Surely the Duchess would coo over how well they suited her.
Mirva passed her days in honeyed delight. She gambled with Diana's mother's fortune and ordered gown after gown. It was only a matter of time before the money ran out.
A ducal house, they said, but the harvest hadn't come in and the accounts ran thin. And so Mirva began borrowing from the moneylender the Duchess had recommended.
Whenever boredom struck, she took a handsome male slave to bed. What use was the Duke at night, anyway? Lovemaking could just as well be had by daylight.
Now and then she even managed the casino in the Duchess's stead. And the occasional night spent with the Duke was nothing short of torture.
"Just what have you been doing, Mirva?"
Somewhere along the way, the Duke's gaze had gone cold. The Mirva of old would have recognized it for what it was — a danger signal. The Duke was a man who could turn mercilessly cruel on those he discarded. It was why the Duchess had died the way she had. And 'that woman' would meet no less wretched an end.
But Mirva had no thought of walking away from that glittering world. The instincts she had once kept keen had dulled past saving, and she never even noticed the moment she stepped onto a road with no return.
That day was no different. Told that the Duke would be away for several days on the King's errands, Mirva was spending a blazing night with five male slaves in the ducal residence.
One she let knead her breasts; several she bade lick her toes.
The slender, pretty one was made to take a whipping from another — and the sounds the pretty one let out set her alight all over again. It was a strange new taste Mirva had only just discovered.
She shoved the toe-licker flat onto his back and, with her own foot, slowly worked the prone man's cock. Sneering at how rigidly it stood, Mirva climbed atop the panting man and began to ride him.
Ah, this is heaven.
"Lady Mirva, grace me too!"
"Ah, please!"
When the last two began to whine, she propped them at either side and stroked them both. Feeling generous, she took one into her mouth and worked it, and the men's groans filled the room.
The night stayed sweet, and she was happy. But the instant that secret chamber burst open, her happiness ended.
"Remnants of Duchess Poliana's faction!"
The knights had come for her. Mirva fought tooth and nail at first, but one look at the kingdom's armor and her gut told her something had gone catastrophically wrong. Knights were storming the Duchess's estate, dragging her people away by force.
The estate was pandemonium.
"Your Grace! We've found that remnant."
Barely a scrap of cloth over her nakedness, she was flung before the commander. The moment she lifted her head to beg for mercy, her face froze white.
"You... how could you..."
Duke Brien was looking down at her.
The King needed to make a stern example of nobles lax in filling the royal treasury. What Duke Brien — the crown's own man — devised was a scapegoat guaranteed not to bite back. Duchess Poliana fit the bill perfectly.
Her duke, a man sworn to the King's service, was dead; she ran a casino, murky enough in all the usual ways; she was debauched. And she had enemies to spare. What better candidate could there be?
A wastrel who shirked even her duty to the realm!
The nobility swallowed the King's hammer blow without protest. The vassals who had long scowled at Duchess Poliana's profligacy turned on her without a second thought.
In truth her casino had been lining coffers rather than draining them — but nothing undoes a woman faster than disgrace.
In the public eye, the Duchess had become nothing but a vulgar thief — for she had never lived cleanly, neither as a noblewoman nor as a businesswoman running her own enterprise.
Duke Brien had come to finish his commission. But why was his own mistress here? One glance said enough: the woman was a wreck, freshly tumbled from some man's arms. Seeing her — not even dressed decently — he swallowed down a rising, burning fury.
"Y-Your Grace..."
The mistress who shared his bed was the closest confidante of the very noblewoman he had moved against with drawn sword. So he heard from the mouths of others — and so it proved. Worse still, it had come out that she had occasionally helped run the casino.
Mirva had been useful. A mere hint that her seat beside the Duchess might one day be hers sent the woman racing to his bed — kissing his feet, toiling away for the estate.
"And here I was, prepared to overlook things for your sake."
Women were all the same in the end. He burst out laughing.
Diana watched as Mirva was hauled into the estate. She didn't expect an execution. In her previous life, too, her father had spared Mirva's life. Whether that came of some last shred of feeling, she couldn't say. To look at her, Mirva seemed to be awaiting a public execution — or else the Duke meant to interrogate her crimes personally, here within the ducal house.
The Duke glared at her with smoldering eyes.
"So this bitch blew through the ducal house's entire budget for the year? Every last coin?"
"...That is correct."
"That isn't all, Father. Mother's keepsakes were stolen."
Diana said, her voice trembling with held-back tears. No tears actually came — but this much, at least, had to be said.
"And how exactly did you manage the keepsakes!"
"I'm sorry, Father. I simply... I trusted that woman."
Good heavens — she had even sold off the keepsakes? The maids shook their heads. The faces of Mirva's inner circle drained pale. Every one of them had sold pieces of the legacy and pocketed a cut.
"That's a lie! The estate fell on hard times, so I spent it on the young lord and the young ladies! Ask the young lord yourself!"
Emil, silent until now, stepped forward.
"Father, Mirva has done nothing wrong! Look how devotedly she has cared for me!"
"Silence!"
The Duke thundered. So Emil was still Mirva's creature. Come to think of it, in her previous life too, Emil had defended her when she was cast out.
"Diana, weren't you the one spending it all, flitting about playing handmaiden to the princess? And now, with everything coming to a head, you're pinning it on Mirva — is that it!"
Diana could only gape at him. Why was Emil siding with that woman now, of all times? What was it about Mirva that had this brother of hers so bewitched? Emil looked up at their father with pleading eyes.
"F-Father. All she did was spend some money. Think about it — hardly a great crime. Forgive her this once."
Mirva gazed at Emil, sniffling back tears, her face the very portrait of being moved. Diana caught it — subtle, but unmistakable: a crack ran across the Duke's expression. Why that look? And then—
"It is true. Lady Mirva stole Lady Diana's keepsakes."
A clear young voice rang out. Diana turned — and there stood Giscard.
"Out of my way, you slave bastard!"
Mirva shrieked in fury. At the slave's intrusion, the Duke turned a puzzled gaze on Giscard.
"Lady Diana was deeply distressed. However, on the day the theft happened, a trading house paid a visit. I cannot read, so I don't know which one, but I heard the word payment clearly."
"..."
"I am only the lady's slave, but I wonder why everyone else keeps silent. Is that not betraying your master?"
Giscard — why on earth was he stepping forward? The maids and servants were all on her side already; he had no need to speak. But at Diana's flick of the eyes, the maids began to come forward one by one.
"Th-that's right! That woman took the late Duchess's keepsakes without a by-your-leave!"
It was the maid whose hand Mirva had once shattered with glass — the very first servant Diana had won to her side.
"She said she needed a great deal of money to visit Duchess Poliana's estate. Nothing was ever spared for the young lord Emil, but for Lady Diana and Lady Alexa..."
The head maid chimed in, oh so casually. Mirva opened her mouth to shriek. The butler, too, heaved a sigh.
"She extorted the household's entire budget. She threatened me — said she would need it all when she became the Duchess."
"When did I ever!"
"You did."
The butler said flatly. At long last the old man's face showed something like relief. One after another, the household began airing Mirva's sins. Diana watched the woman's ruin unfold.
Servants who steal from their master have their wrists struck off — every last one. A fallen noblewoman, a onetime lady-in-waiting, but in practice nothing more than a maid: what would become of this woman?
"But I kept the estate running well, didn't I?"
"..."
"Your Grace, at least spare my life."
Mirva groveled shamelessly. The Duke looked about the estate. She had managed everything, after all — the place had held together this well because of it. And lately, these past two months, it had looked tidier than ever. Diana could see her father wavering.
"With respect, that is not so. That woman drowned herself in debauchery and abandoned the estate's management long ago."
The head maid stepped forward, calm as still water. Mirva could not begin to fathom why the woman she'd counted as her creature was turning on her so.
"So you ran everything yourself?"
Displeased that even now someone was crowing about her own merits, the Duke asked testily.
"Not I, Your Grace. Mine is but the post of overseeing the maids — I needed a proper mistress to give the orders."
"..."
"Had it not been for the young lady, the entire order of this house would have collapsed."
Every eye in the room turned to Diana. The butler raised his voice as well.
"Yes, it's true! Thanks to the young lady, we did not lose the household's budget entirely."
"'Did not lose it'?"
The Duke asked, puzzled. The butler answered, avoiding Mirva's eye.
"For fear that woman would burn through every last coin, we used Your Grace's name as our authority and placed a portion of the budget in the Withers Bank."
"A bank, you say."
A money house founded by the Withers Trading Company — an institution that held deposits, put the coin to work, and paid its depositors interest. A duke as conservative as he would never have gone near such a thing. Diana had known of banks, all this while?
The real reason Mirva had been able to steer the estate was that everyone who did the actual work was on Diana's side. Why else would the woman have cast covetous eyes on Diana's keepsakes? The moment Diana heard that Mirva was feeding money to the tables, she had swept the ducal budget wholesale into the bank.
By then Mirva had long lost any notion of what a budget even was, and never noticed the vault standing suddenly empty.
The loyal servants — the butler above all — had all drawn their funds back out of the bank as needed, and Mirva, for her part, had never given the bank a single thought.
Slowly, patiently, one piece at a time, Diana had gathered everyone under Mirva's command to her side. The butler, too old to want the trouble; the head maid, listless for the very same reason; the clerks who kept the ledgers.
"Mirva will wreck this household with her own two hands. Leave it to me."
At first they had refused to side with her. But once her prophecy came true, they turned to Diana one and all. These were people ground down by Mirva's tyranny until grievance was heaped upon grievance — and people who owed a debt of gratitude to the late Duchess as well.
The budget had been next to nothing, yet the household actually thrived — because not a coin entering the estate was squandered anymore. Provisions for the staff began to be apportioned fairly. Even the lavish dishes cooked every day on the off chance the Duke might return — Diana struck those without hesitation.
What Mirva had burned through was staggering, but Diana's savings alone sufficed to keep the household running. Twelve years old, and already a superb mistress of the house.
Mirva glared at Diana — she couldn't abide the girl soaking up all this notice. And then their eyes met.
The corner of Diana's mouth lifted, cold and thin. Mirva's eyes went wide. Diana's lips moved, slowly, shaping silent words.
Serves you right.
Mirva flinched. That uncanny, alien face — she had underestimated Diana far, far too much. Why now, of all moments, was Diana's talent for running things on display? As if it had all been rigged. Ah — the butler, the head maid — had Diana bought them too?
A badly belated instinct lanced through her skull. Mirva's mind snapped into gear.
Could all of this — no, surely not — be Diana's doing? Hadn't Diana been the one to drive her into Duchess Poliana's arms, to let her rot in pleasure?
Why had Diana suddenly become the princess's maid? Why had Diana — who had so hated and avoided her — dragged Mirva into tea parties and high society?
Why had the noblewoman she met there introduced her to Duchess Poliana? Why? Mirva's power had been the authority to run the estate. Once she had cast it aside herself, drunk on pleasure, that power could never be made whole again.
Ah, that little brat has played me for a fool. Just like her mother — sly, wicked little thing — and against me, of all people!
"I-it was all that girl! All her!"
Mirva went mad, thrashing and howling. When the kneeling woman lunged at Diana, Diana simply stood there. I'll kill the bitch! This was the girl who had always gotten under her skin for resembling the late Duchess more than anyone. The creature who had amounted to nothing beneath her — how dare she, how dare she!
"I'll kill you!"
Arms caught Mirva's waist mid-lunge and flung her aside. The estate's slave.
"Are you unharmed, my lady?"
Diana stared up at Giscard, her rescuer, eyes wide. Why did Giscard save me? In the sunlight, his violet eyes were perfectly limpid.
He offered her his hand, and as though spellbound she took it and rose. His palm was startlingly warm. She snatched her hand back, startled, and glanced around. Her father was watching Giscard with a stunned expression.
Giscard's gaze swept over her. Her collar had snagged on Mirva's fingers; she had nearly lost her footing, but she was unhurt.
Diana, surveying her own state, thought: what a pity. She should have taken at least a bruise. A struck cheek, a seized fistful of hair — that would have made the tableau more convincing. Who gets subdued that fast? Had he caught the thought? Giscard's brow knitted faintly.
"Lock her in the cells."
At the Duke's command, Mirva snapped back to herself and began to wail her innocence.
"Move — it was her, it was all her! Your Grace! This shameless little schemer planned the whole thing! It was all premeditated, I tell you!"
Mirva raged. Diana looked to her father. Mercifully, he did not seem to suspect her — but she would need an account that rang true.
"Father. If I am at fault for anything, it is that I brought Mirva along to the tea parties."
"...Brought her along? Why on earth!"
"She said that since I was still young and clumsy, I needed her guidance."
Under the guise of taming Diana, Mirva had driven her through punishing training. The excuse never changed: so young, so green, so clumsy. Tears slid down Diana's cheeks.
"Her Majesty the Queen was so kind as to invite me... I didn't know what to do. But Mirva pestered the noble ladies with private messages until some of them found it distasteful, and so at some point I began attending on my own. Mirva grew close to Duchess Poliana entirely of her own accord."
At that the Duke ground his teeth. What could a twelve-year-old possibly know? He had known, too — his own people had reported Mirva's clumsy courtship of the other ladies. He had let it lie, meaning to settle accounts later — and this was what she had been doing with her freedom!
"I tried to tell you so many times, Father, but I didn't believe I had any right to curtail Mirva's social engagements."
"..."
"It was the same with Mother's legacy. My devoted slave told me Mirva's maid had been coming and going from my room. But I tried not to suspect anyone. And yet in the end, I could not imagine the thief being anyone but Mirva."
"..."
"So, given how things stood, I was only now coming to report it to you. And she says it is all my fault! The shamelessness! Father, I'm so upset!"
Then, as though she could bear no more, Diana clutched her chest and dissolved into sobs. Scarlet-faced and choking on indignation, she would have fooled anyone. Faced with his gentle daughter's unraveling, the Duke managed an awkward laugh — then let his gaze flick sideways, to the slave standing at Diana's side.
"It seems you've tamed that slave nicely."
"I beg your pardon?"
"He used to carry his head so stiffly."
Wait — why are we suddenly talking about the slave? Diana couldn't puzzle out her father's interest in him. The Duke's eyes narrowed, sly and glittering. Then Mirva screamed.
"Your Grace! Please!"
"..."
"Please! You cannot do this to me!"
At Mirva's desperate, pleading cries, the Duke's face curdled with irritation.
"The reason I petitioned His Majesty and went to such pains to have you brought here is not to forgive you."
"..."
"It is to establish exactly how much more you stole. With you in this state, the underlings who've kept their mouths shut will start pouring it all out."
"..."
"Worth less than a child of twelve. As if your idiocy were not enough, you dared — dared raise your filthy hands against my daughter, to kill her?"
The Duke's eyes detonated with fury. Mirva went cold. Only now did she grasp what she had to do. She had reigned so long as mistress of the estate that she had read the room far, far too late.
"I-I was wrong. I was wrong!"
"..."
"I was wrong, please!"
"Hold your tongue!"
The knights dragged Mirva away. Diana watched not her, but her father, still standing there.
Why did the words my daughter make her chest ache so? Why did it still matter that he was her father? Diana had no way to hide the bitterness. Whatever else was true, her father had chosen to discard Mirva. Twelve years old — and just like that, Diana reclaimed her place.