A gracefully matured tan hand brushed over the embroidery as the brown eyes studied the work. The initials were always embroidered before the design was started so the observer had no issues with determining which work belonged to which princess. They were all decent so far.

“Does grandaunt think we’ll be getting any good honey wine this season?”

“You silly boy, you came all the way here to ask this old lady about honey wine?”

The young man smiled behind the fan at the comment his grandaunt had made, and so did her steward.

The Lady continued observing and put the one she had just examined aside; it was down to the last piece.

“Mid and late spring honey wine is good too, but I prefer darker honey from the colder months and early spring,” she said.

While looking at the work in front her, her face suddenly became puzzled which her grandnephew did not miss. There were very few things that could make her have such a drastic change in her expression.

“Yumma? What’s wrong?”

“This work is quite something,” she answered.

The young man stood up from where he had been lazily lounging and walked over to the table where his grandaunt was examining the embroidery.

The loose braid on his shoulder moved as he bent down to get a closer look. The subject was regular but pleasing to the eye. It was a bouquet of flowers, quite simple when compared to the elaborate scenes that they others had chosen.

“This is quite good even with some mistakes,” he commented.

There were a few places where the continuity of the thread was disrupted or where the thread was cut in a visible area which made the part a bit frayed. The lady ran her hands over the work again.

“Indeed, it’s good, a little too good,” she commented as the magnifying lens hovered over different parts of the cloth.

“What does that mean?”

“The hand that made this is incredibly steady but these mistakes…They were either made on purpose or the person was just too lazy to care. There’s a certain pattern to them.”

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The young man held the fan to his chin and surveyed the work again. He was not expert in such things as embroidery so if his grandaunt insisted this was the case then it must have been true.

Intentional mistakes, that was a first.

What kind of young noblewoman would want her work to be anything less than perfect. He did see something else however in the bouquet.

“Hmm,” he uttered most curiously.

“Did you only now notice the types of flowers?”

The most prominent in the bouquet were the blood red flowers in the work. It wasn’t a common flower in the imperial region to begin with. Amongst the red blooms, the bright purple flowers in the background appeared to be wolfsbane.

“Are these supposed to be bleeding?” asked the young man pointing to the white, dark-centred flowers with veins running through them.

The Lady looked at the work for a few moments before answering.

“This the natural state of black henbane I believe. A nasty little thing on its own but used in quite a few medicines.”

She put aside the monocle. Perhaps she was thinking too much but the subject choice was too unusual, maybe even a little ominous.

“I feel as if it would be quite fun meeting the maker of this piece,” said the young man after a while.

“There you go, causing trouble again,” said the Lady while putting the work aside and taking a sip of her tea.

Her grandnephew was now looking out the window as if in deep thought. She could see that mischievous glint in his eyes as he lightly tapped the palm of his hand with the fan as if he had made a final decision.

“Yumma, I’ve decided to tour the palace for a few days starting today. I’ll be sure to visit some other time.”

“Don’t go making trouble for your grandmother, you hear?”

“Of course not, I wouldn’t want her beating me to death. She’s still quite capable of it,” he said with a chuckle while walking out.

“Does my Lady think we should be concerned?” asked the steward and her lady glanced at the embroidery again. Just some embroidery and there had to be an entire enquiry.

“If we were to be concerned, it should have been a long time ago,” commented the older woman and resumed with drinking her tea.

It was just interesting to find a quiet little cat’s-ear in a field of dandelions.

****

“The Grand Lady Dowager asked to see pieces by the girls?” asked the empress just to confirm and her steward nodded in agreement.

This information was not something that was supposed to be a secret, so naturally it had spread around the palace, but the empress wondered about the reason.

All these years and the grand lady dowager had never said or done much besides accepting the yearly greetings. The only time she had really been involved in palace matters was when she agreed to Johari being married into the imperial family as an empress consort.

Maybe since all the girls had reached marriageable age, she wanted to get involved in the proceedings or possibly have a few matches for them.

Any girl who could get her favour would see herself being connected to a good marriage prospect and a wide network of powerful people even without marriage. The empress just had to wait and see about the intention behind the move.