Paige returned seriously injured to the mansion in the imperial city...with Elizabeth in tow.
“Paige! What happened to your arm?! That needs medical attention! Come here!” Westalia cried.
“It’s just a scrape. I’m fine.”
“What about that is just a scrape?” Westalia asked. She had Paige strip off her robe so she could check the wound and found it was quite deep. Paige’s left eye also appeared to be injured, but there was a lot of blood and Westalia couldn’t see the wound clearly. In addition, she guessed that at least one of Paige’s legs was injured, as the woman was moving more sluggishly than usual.
Did the plan not work? Westalia wondered. She’d had Paige help Leonardo’s aide Dion break into Tiberio’s office in order to find out the address of the Elizabeth Pink dye factory. Leonardo’s goal from the infiltration was to get evidence of at least one of Tiberio’s many misdeeds.
Westalia hadn’t been an active participant in case anything had gone wrong in the mission, but since Tiberio was supposed to be away the entire night, she’d been confident that it couldn’t fail.
As Westalia moved to bring Paige and Dion into the sitting room, she found Elizabeth standing next to Paige with a dark look on her face. Her long hair had been messily chopped off.
“I’m sorry, it’s my fault that Paige was—”
“Miss Elizabeth saved us. If she hadn’t unlocked the office window, we would’ve been killed,” Paige interrupted her.
It was possible that Elizabeth was involved somehow in Paige’s injury, but Westalia stopped prying out of deference to Paige’s clear desire to protect the other woman.
“Oh my, is that so? Thank you, Elizabeth. On occasion you can be quite useful,” Westalia said.
“She really saved us. I thought I’d been trained thoroughly in the arena, but I might’ve lost my edge a bit recently,” Paige said jokingly. Elizabeth still looked glum.
Westalia brought them into the living room and sat Paige down in a chair. On the table was a stack of canvases depicting various angles of Elizabeth’s rash, with brushes, paints, and other art tools scattered about. Westalia intended to use them as a case study to prove poisoning by the dye. The painful rash, standing in stark contrast to Elizabeth’s beautiful countenance, made the horror of Elizabeth Pink apparent.
“You’ve got paint right there,” Paige said, pointing to the corner of Westalia’s mouth.
“What?”
“I noticed it this morning, but you’ve got paint on you.”
Westalia quickly grabbed a hand mirror to check and found a thin black line of paint above her lip, like a mustache. This morning she’d been working on the canvases using Elizabeth as a model, and her brush must’ve snagged on her face without her noticing. As it was already night, that meant she’d spent the entire day with this mustache. The blood drained from Westalia’s face as she remembered her earlier shopping trip into town.
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?!”
Paige’s shoulders shook with laughter as Westalia wiped at the smudge with a handkerchief.
“You’re quite good at painting. Was this part of your education in Lhumzia?” Paige asked, picking up one of the canvases.
“Yes. It wasn’t just painting though. It was also sewing, spinning, embroidery, piano, violin, horseback riding, palm reading, wine tasting, magic tricks, miming, ventriloquism, and juggling,” Westalia replied.
“I feel like the latter half of those things have nothing to do with being queen. You’re pretty talented though. Outside of cooking, at least.”
Westalia pretended she didn’t hear that last comment. She pulled out a basin of water, a towel, and a first aid kit and deftly set about patching up Paige’s wounds. The one on her right arm was deep, so Westalia had to sew it up. She put a patch over the wound on Paige’s left eye, although she apparently wasn’t having any vision problems at the moment. Westalia would prepare an antibacterial medicine later, as it would be very dangerous if Paige developed an infection.
In addition, Paige had jumped from the second floor, and although she claimed she had managed to lessen the impact, bones in both of her legs were cracked, and her legs were beginning to swell. After being set, it would take about three weeks for them to heal.
“So, what actually happened in the mansion?” Westalia asked. Paige told her the details and that on some strange intuition Tiberio had come back and found them in the middle of searching his office.
Talk about bad timing, Westalia thought. Paige continued to speak, telling her about the fight with the knights and that Elizabeth’s help in their plan had been discovered. The Reyns must employ some pretty competent knights if they’d managed to injure Paige...or was she covering for Elizabeth?
“That sounds like it was rough. But I’m glad you all managed to make it back safe and sound,” Westalia said.
We can’t do anything else about the situation now, but I’ll have to rethink what comes next, Westalia thought, pinching her brow and letting out a sigh. Tiberio would be more than a little alarmed by the incident. He might have even started searching for the two intruders by now.
Dion returned to Le Chantier Palace to report his findings to Leonardo. Apparently, he’d found the address of the Elizabeth Pink dye factory in the office along with some other interesting letters.
“Let’s visit the factory soon. It’s in the duchy of Reyn, just west of the imperial capital, is that right?” Westalia asked.
“Yes. And that’s the area where the former Marquis of Lanchester... Where my family once ruled,” Paige said.
That was the first time Westalia had ever heard Paige’s surname. The woman wasn’t very keen on talking about her past. Westalia didn’t know how Paige had come to be a slave in the Kingdom of Slidd, or where she’d been before that, and she hadn’t dared ask.
Lanchester. Weren’t they a noble family who had a long history of producing knights? Westalia thought. Paige had mentioned she was from a ruined family of nobles, but Westalia hadn’t expected them to be from Archaites. She had been studying a lot about the nobility in this country, and as she recalled, the Lanchesters had produced excellent knights for generations, but the family had supposedly been abolished five years ago due to a corruption case involving the head of the family.
Elizabeth, who had been quietly listening to the conversation until then, opened her mouth. “The Lanchesters... They were a family with a long history, and they loved the martial arts. Are you, by any chance, the daughter of Gasparo Lanchester?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Paige said.
“No wonder you’re so good with the sword, then; you’re a Lanchester. It all makes sense.”
Being from another country, Westalia wasn’t familiar with the people of Archaites. “What, did you know him?” she asked.
“Who didn’t? He was famous,” Elizabeth replied.
Gasparo had been the deputy commander of the Imperial Guard. He was honest and despised any sort of crooked behavior. At worst, he was difficult and stubborn. However, his swordsmanship was excellent, and he had been regarded as a prodigy when he was young. One day, due to corruption, he had lost his position as deputy commander and been stripped of his title, leaving him deep in debt as he had to pay reparations.