I circled my finger around the edge of the teacup and leaned back in my seat. Compared to the desk chair in my room, the cushioned high-back chair was quite comfortable. As the other ladies sipped their tea and made compliments to Morgana, excluding Princess Isla who had not touched hers, I continued to trace my finger along the edges of the cup without drinking it.
Noticing my reluctance to drink, Lady Brie apparently decided to comment on it in some sort of mock-insulted tone. “Young Lady Silverwater, is my tea not good enough for you?”
I laughed, though, to my disappointment, it came off high-pitched and young, reminding me once again of my new body's unfortunate age. “On the contrary, Lady Brie. I believe this tea is only suitable for your noble person. I couldn’t possibly drink it.”
The woman stared at me, confusion, insult, and a hint of pride all written in her expression. She stood with a huff of finality. “While I agree with your assessment of the tea’s quality, I am quite insulted that you would use my given name so brashly. I am Lady Ballenci, not Lady Brie.” She turned and stormed toward the exit. On her way out, I blasted her with a fist of invisible heart energy that caused her to tumble into a maid carrying a steaming kettle. Lady Ballenci shrieked in obvious pain as boiling liquid spilled over her arms and face, quickly turning the touched skin into areas of sickly-looking red and white welts.
Everyone stopped drinking to stare at the screaming woman, but other than the group of maids and handmaidens who’d been at her side, no one helped. When I turned back to the table to see why, Princess Isla was staring at the retreating injured woman with a cold look of indifference. With a surge of heart energy in my hands, I deftly grabbed my cup and switched it with the mostly filled cup of the random lady next to me, whose name I couldn't be bothered to know. She was similar to Morgana with her curly brown hair and build, but differed in her brown eyes and a chin that jutted out just enough to make her not a standard beauty. She leaned over to Morgana, whispering something in the Silverwater heir's ear. They both chuckled, clearly on friendly terms. Perhaps even close friends.
I hoped they were.
“Oh dear,” Princess Isla quipped. “It seems you’ve upset Grand Lady Ballenci. How ever will we continue without the precious daughter of a fallen Baron.” Laughs and snickers echoed through the solar despite Morgana’s annoyed expression. Obtaining favor with a royal daughter clearly outweighed two daughters of baronies.
“I should apologize to her,” I said, standing more abruptly than I had intended as an idea occurred to me.
Princess Isla waved her hand. “Enjoy your tea, young Lady Silverwater. Lady Ballenci will overcome her… irritation sooner or later. Do not fret.”
I shook my head. “My apologies, Your Highness, but my conscience will not let this unintentional slight go without explanation to Lady Ballenci.” The Princess just sighed and waved her hand again, this time dismissively. I didn’t bother looking at Morgana as I followed the burnt woman’s trailing maids and handmaidens.
I exited the solar room and started to fast walk toward Lady Ballenci, speeding past the painting of an old woman with eyes that seemed to follow me down the hall. The stones echoed my footsteps which slowly turned into a jog. The sun was high in the afternoon sky still and there was more than enough light to soon spot the group of women hurrying away.
I estimated maybe five-ish minutes before the brown-eyed noble lady back in the sun room whose name I didn't know would drink her tea. “Lady Ballenci!” I shouted and picked up my pace.
One of the handmaidens, the slighter one from earlier, turned my way with wide eyes as she ushered her lady along faster. I stopped bothering with any attempt to appear elegant and took off at a straight sprint until I overtook them and halted directly in front.
I put on a polite and solemn smile. “Lady Ballenci, I wanted to apologize for using your birth name earlier. I hadn’t…” I trailed off at the sight of the sobbing woman, her arms and face covered in blisters. What would someone who cared say? Nothing came to mind and time was running out, so I just cut to the chase and went straight for my accusation. “One of your followers is a traitor. I believe it is one of your handmaidens or maids."
“W-what?” Lady Ballenci rasped, her words coming out in dry gasps. One of her handmaidens with the symbol of a red sun stitched to her garments over her chest reached out toward Lady Ballenci's burns and a warm orange light began to emanate from those outstretched hands. More sweat ran from the woman’s brow than Lady Ballenci’s, a telling sign for healing magic even from my world.
Her. I’m pretty sure she used magic to shove you into the maid, intending to burn you.” I pointed to the slight handmaiden. Technically, it was possible the girl was not a traitor and the poison had been served on Lady Ballenci’s orders, but I my instincts were screaming that Lady Ballenci was not someone who would plan such complex assassinations. I knew killers and the older woman did not strike me as one. "
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“No! That’s not true, my lady!” Lady Ballenci glanced at the pleading handmaiden who’d fallen to her knees. “I swear I didn’t! What she says are lies. Please, my lady, please do not believe her. She’s just a vile girl saying vile things.”
I whistled at the instant begging, not caring whether my accusation was on target or not. It was close enough. I raised an eyebrow at Lady Ballenci. Either the handmaiden was a horrible actress or the Lady was not quite as fond of her handmaidens as I had originally believed and the girl feared a beating.
“What proof… do you have… to make such a claim?” Lady Ballenci said, her wheezing words coming out more emphatic as her healer treated the wounds around her neck.
“Your maid panicked when she saw I was in your seat and gave the poisoned tea to the wrong lady,” I responded with an accusing look toward the small maid girl. At the puzzled look of the maidservant and her lady, I held up a finger. “Just wait a moment.”
Then screaming erupted from the sun room we'd just exited, right on time. The handmaidens looked at me and and the small handmaiden girl in turn with an equal amount of horror.
Lady Ballenci, surprisingly, did not seem panicked. Perhaps it was the burns still marring her face, but her expression seemed more collected than only seconds earlier. More cold. More calculating. Either my understanding of noble ladies had waned over the years or this woman was quite the actress, playing even my senses. The more her body healed and she regained composure, the more I could see the intelligence behind the disguise. Curious.
That begged the question, though, why had she suddenly decided to reveal her real self?
“Who is screaming?” Lady Ballenci asked in a still somewhat raspy voice, clearly almost healed. I could see veins bulging from her healer’s effort to perform a quick healing. It seemed an unfortunate connection between our worlds that healers would live short lives due to the pressure of nobles demanding quick heals. A healer who was constantly pushed to their energy limits, and magical limits too I assumed, would find their life energy quietly drained with it. "Who ended up drinking the poisoned tea? You let her drink it despite knowing it was poisoned? Why?"
"The woman screaming? I have no idea," I lied, shrugging innocently and feigned a worried frown. “How could I, poor, little, and frail as I am, have known about a poisoning?" I continued. "I have always been locked up, after all. Although, maybe I did hear you scheming some sort of revenge on the ladies who laughed at you when I left to apologize… something about poisoning them with your maidservant?" I said, laying a thick innocent tone and smile as I spun the tale that could bury Lady Ballenci in her previous noble society.
Lady Ballenci scowled. “No one will believe you.”
“Maybe not.” I shrugged. “It hardly matters once the rumor is spread even if you could prove it all a lie.” I took a step closer to her and let some of my cold heart energy loose to resume crawling over her skin like ooze. “No one will talk to you. No man will marry you. You will be cast out and your family will be so ashamed of their criminal daughter who, for all intents and purposes, is believed to have murdered another noble girl.”
“Even if you don’t say anything, if your claim is true, all fingers will point at my maidservant anyway.”
“Not true. All fingers will initially be pointed at the poisoned lady’s maidservants who served her tea. And, perhaps, you may want to make that evidence a little more convincing. Your choice.”
“We’ll all tell them you told us this!” one of the other maids hissed. Or maybe she was a handmaiden? It was honestly difficult to tell when they all wore nearly identical clothing separate only by quality. The maid, or handmaiden, sported raven black hair and dark eyes that blended well with her ebony skin.
“Shut it,” Lady Ballenci snapped at the woman, eyes still on me.
I shrugged again. “I’m eleven, uneducated, and have no support. You’d be putting quite a bit of faith in people thinking I’m more intelligent than a whore’s spawn.”
She eyed me suspiciously. “You do not speak like a child of only eleven years. You speak more like my aunt.” The lady paused, raising a hand to run over her neck as other ladies poured out of the solar room in screaming messes. I could hear Morgana shouting from inside for a healer. The healer looked at her lady in exhaustion as if begging not to be sent. Lucky for her, Lady Ballenci was not paying the healer any mind, much less Morgana's desperate yells. “Who are you, really? I’ve met Lilliana before. I cannot believe such a change to occur from memory loss.”
I gave her a toothy grin and a half answer. “I’m the new Lilliana.”
After a few moments of more ladies screaming and guards rushing into the room, she finally sighed. “I still do not believe you are Lilliana, but if my maid is truly a traitor to my house, maybe that will indeed prove beneficial. But why help me at all?”
“I’m not sure I would call blackmailing you helping,” I said with a practiced nonchalance as I made clear her position in our relationship. “It is my understanding that the Ballenci family are quite involved in the information trade. My offer is quite simple. Limit the information traded to Morgana and instead, offer it to me. In turn, I will keep this little event to myself. And who knows? Perhaps my mysterious personality change will positively benefit your information trade.”
It was a gamble on my part, but at the end of the day, I could just kill her later if circumstances necessitated it. I wasn't entirely sure that the Ballenci family were in the information trade and I had no real clue just how deep they might be, but there'd been insinuations in the History of Lysoria during the section on old Lysorian families that the Ballenci family were the original information brokers of Lysoria. I had no idea whether they still were, but it was worth a shot.
“You are quite vicious, young Lady Lilliana,” Lady Ballenci said, straightening her posture and beginning to walk away. “I will provide you with your answer tonight. I must speak with my maid first.”
I had no doubt there would not be much speaking involved.