Just as she was about to snap, Margaret noticed a weight in her bag and remembered what she’d come here for.
“Oh, that’s right! Thanks to you, I nearly forgot my reason for coming here.” A smirk crossed her darling face as she laid the bag down on the ground. “Hee hee, today I’ve brought you a nice snack, since you’re suffering down here in the dungeon without a proper diet.”
Margaret put a mint sachet inside a towel that she’d pulled out of the bag, then used the towel to cover the bottom half of her face. She laughed at Rachel, her voice now muffled.
“Prince Elliott gave me some money, you see, and I went to buy fresh fruit at the marketplace. It’s very nutritious and good for your health, I hear.”
Next, Margaret put on thick gloves and produced an oddly shaped package that was tightly sealed.
“I had them pick out an especially ripe one for me. I’m sure it will do wonders for you, since you’ve been stuck underground in this dungeon, eating nothing but preserved foods.”
Margaret cut into the package with a knife, pulling out the thing inside. An intense rotting smell quickly spread throughout the room and remained as Margaret revealed a spiky yellow object.
“It’s a tropical fruit. A durian, they call it. It has a sliiightly strong odor, but that just tells you it’s ripe. Hee hee, do enjoy the fresh fruit, will you?”
Margaret set the durian down on the guard’s chair, out of Rachel’s reach.
“It has a hard husk, so have Mr. Guard split it for you. I’ll leave it here, so it doesn’t disappear before then.”
Margaret smirked beneath her mask as she looked at Rachel.
Prince Elliott is trying to make her submit. That’s why he uses lukewarm methods that don’t work. I’m just going to go all out with harassing her, whether Rachel apologizes or not. If she suffers, then good. If I just keep on hitting her without overthinking it, eventually she’ll capitulate.
Rachel looked calmly at the durian. “Wow, this takes me back. I used to see them a long time ago, on trips overseas.” She didn’t cringe in the slightest as she looked at the stinking fruit with fascination.
“The smell...doesn’t bother you?” Margaret asked.
“It smells a lot like rotting onions, doesn’t it? The locals say they like that, though.”
Margaret hadn’t counted on Rachel being accustomed to it, and she ground her teeth in vexation.
Rachel opened one of the wooden boxes in the back of the cell and dug through it, searching for something. “Let’s see. I’m sure it was around here... Found it.” Rachel returned holding a large can. “Lady Poisson, let me give you this as a token of appreciation.”
“Huh? What is it?” The can Rachel was offering her seemed to be of foreign make.
“We had this one time when I went on a trip with His Highness, and he was quite fond of it. Although, I doubt he’s ever seen it inside the can. Since I happen to have it handy, you can have it.”
“Is it something unusual?” Margaret questioned.
“You won’t see it often in this country.”
“Hmm...”
It was apparently incredibly valuable. On top of that, it wasn’t available domestically, and it was something that Prince Elliott liked.
Rachel sat the heavy can outside the bars and Margaret picked it up.
“I’ll go open it up right away!”
“I’m glad you like it.”
Margaret disappeared like the wind, leaving Rachel all alone.
“I knew I’d seen her somewhere before. So that was the girl latched onto His Highness like a suckerfish the night of the party.”
Because Rachel had no interest in Elliott and only saw their broken engagement as a means to an end, she’d never troubled herself to check who Elliott’s new partner was. Thinking about it now, that had been a careless mistake. Honestly, the key points of the story had been that Elliott was going to declare their engagement ended and that she’d then be thrown into prison, so everyone other than that buffoon of a prince had been completely inconsequential.
“Lady Margaret of the baronial house of Poisson... From the two times I’ve talked to her, I’d say she’s a man-eater who alters her attitude depending on the gender of the person she’s talking to. She has a simple side to her as well, letting her mask slip the moment she gets worked up. And given that she took a gift her target gave her seriously and brought it back with her, she’s not a particularly deep thinker.”
Rachel brought a hand to her chin, nodding. “To sum it all up, she’s a short-sighted dimwit.”
As Rachel was thinking to herself in the darkening dungeon, the light wavered and the guard came in.
“What?! Are you awake in there, Miss?! What’s that awful smell?!” he asked.
When she saw the guard, who spoke to her like a close friend, Rachel smiled a little, relieved.
“The young lady who came to visit me earlier brought a present, but it seems to have gone off...”
As the prison guard came closer, he saw that the item in question had been left on his chair. He looked really unhappy.
“This thing reeks. How did they not notice when they brought it?! Which idiot was responsible for this?”
“It was Miss Punching Bag. The one who came the other day.”
“Oh, her...”
Oddly satisfied by that explanation, the guard wrapped a rag around the rotten—or so he assumed—durian and carried it out.
Once he’d left, Rachel put on the mask she’d used while painting and looked for the largest plank of wood she could find. She used it to fan as hard as she could, trying to ventilate the room.
Rachel had received rigorous lessons in order to prepare her to become the next queen. Her poker face was second to none.
Elliott was having tea in his office with his associates when Margaret came in carrying a large can.
“Prince Elliott, I got this as a gift. Could you open it?!”
“Margaret!”
When Elliott saw the girl he loved most in all the world had come to visit him, he rose to his feet, grinning. Then he saw the odd thing she was carrying.
“Hm? What’s that?” he asked.
“She said it was something you enjoyed eating on one of your foreign trips!” Margaret replied.
“I ate it on a trip abroad? Hmm, what could it be?”
Elliott had been on several such trips, but there wasn’t anything he’d eaten that he’d liked enough to remember it.
Taking the can in hand, George tried reading the label. “Let’s see... It says soor... Stremming? Strumming? From the picture on the can, I think it’s a fish dish of some sort...” He couldn’t make heads or tails of the instructions.
Grabbing the swollen can from George, Sykes tapped on it lightly. “I’ve seen canned goods before, but I never knew some of them swelled up like this.”
None of them had any knowledge of fermentation.
“What kind of dish is it, Your Highness?” George asked.
“I haven’t the foggiest...” Elliott replied. “In fact, this is actually my first time looking at a can so closely like this. I wonder what it is?”
Sykes laughed at how perplexed they seemed. “We’ll find out when it’s open. I’ll bet my knife can cut through this lid.”
“Oh, yeah? Okay, go ahead and open it,” Elliott prompted.
Elliott, Margaret, and George watched as Sykes held the can down with his left hand and made a big swing with the knife in his right.
Suddenly, it occurred to Elliott to ask Margaret, “Who did you get it from?”
“Miss Rachel.”
“Sykes! Wai—”
Just as Elliott was shouting for him to stop, Sykes’s knife sank deep into the can.