Side Story 2: She Jests at Scars That Never Felt a Wound
Side View: Marin the Maidservant
“AGH.”
Pain shot up my back.
This pain is my punishment for attacking others. For mistaking who the mistress I should be serving is.
Countless scars from the whip covered my back. They would never disappear. I have to bear these for the rest of my life, as I should.
Selena Violette: a person so terrifying it’s impossible to believe she is the daughter of her kind, cheerful, always smiling mother. She is also my mistress now.
She is definitely different.
“Did you hear what Lady Selena did?”
“Oh my lord, yes, I did. You’re talking about how she used a cake knife to stab that poor dog that wandered in, right?”
“I can’t believe she’d do something like that.”
“I know. It’s scary.”
Some of my coworkers had gossiped in the hallway. They’d be reprimanded for that in any other home, but here, the mistress simply says, “Servants are humans too; they’re going to chat.” So we never get reprimanded. Rumors, good and bad, fly thick through these halls, more so than anywhere else.
I did as Lady Rosemary ordered me to and assisted her in insulting Lady Selena. I was whipped as punishment, and afterward, I became Lady Selena’s personal maidservant. It took no time for that information to spread across the mansion, from the servants in the cellars up to the butlers on the highest level.
“Marin, are you all right? Your back must hurt. You should take a little rest,” said one of my coworkers. Thankfully, many of them sympathized with my situation, meaning I wasn’t uncomfortable continuing to work here.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Lady Selena really is terrifying. And it’s all her fault for how she always acts.”
You’re wrong, I thought, then said, “I was lucky. Any other house and I could have been on the chopping block.”
That could have been metaphorical in terms of losing my job, but it also could have been literal.
“Wh-What are you saying, Marin?” said another coworker.
“I mean it,” I said. “This is nothing.”
Their expressions stiffened, and they tried to disagree with me. I felt like I was looking at the old me and couldn’t help smiling with pity at myself.
I had become numb.
No matter what we did, we were forgiven. I assumed that was just the way things were. The people here don’t understand who the master is and who the servants are.
A lenient master is not always a good thing.
“Do you really think you’d be able to do the same sort of thing to any other noble?” I asked.
“Well…”
That shut their mouths. “If you can’t treat any other nobles like that, why do you think we can treat our masters like that?”
No one answered. Nobody had the answer.
They believed their standing, the environment they’d been placed in, was made of solid bedrock, unshakable no matter what happened. That continued unchanged for a long time, but it won’t for any longer.
For better or worse, the Violettes had an explosive inside their home. We don’t yet know whether it will benefit us or not when it explodes.
“You should all really think things through and decide who you should align yourselves with,” I said.
Their choice was between an arrogant former commoner who was happy to cast aside us servants at a moment’s notice or a terrifying noble girl who couldn’t care less about how our lives fell. We had to determine who would keep us from having to crawl through hell. A wrong decision would not be forgiven. One wrong step, and we would find ourselves tumbling into the abyss. I know I have no future.
“Marin seems a little weird in the head these days,” said one of my coworkers as I walked away.
“Of course she is. She’s Lady Selena’s personal maidservant now. That means she’s going to be tortured from here on out,” said another.
I warned them as a friend. The rest is up to them. I’m not going to get involved with whatever happens.