Since Ariadne De Mare had officially been a child raised in the countryside until the age of fifteen, the Latin and mathematics lessons forced upon her were rudimentary at best.
She sat through the tedious session, her mind miles away, fixated on the future.
*What can I do to avoid the engagement with Cesare and survive?*
Her first thought was to marry another man. She quickly dismissed it, shaking her head.
*They wouldn’t just let me go.*
Ariadne had been brought from the farm for one purpose: to spare Isabella from the marriage proposal of Cesare De Como. If she were not to marry him, there would be no reason to keep her at the main estate.
*Should I earn money and run away? They say in the Republic Of Porto to the north, gold coins are king, regardless of titles.*
But wealth was tied to the land. As a woman without a title, Ariadne could neither generate nor accumulate capital. It was an era where commerce remained stifled; only noble men who possessed land and serfs could truly wield money and power.
*…A happy ending where he loves me? That is a delusion.*
The sweet fantasy where she becomes engaged to Cesare, he cherishes her, they marry, and she is crowned queen—Ariadne shook her head. She was not that naive. And above all:
*I will make them pay for their sins.*
A betrayal once suffered could not be forgiven without extracting a price in blood.
Cesare De Como, who had layered sweet promises for fourteen years, only to discard Ariadne in the most wretched fashion for the sake of her beautiful sister.
Isabella De Mare, who possessed neither family affection nor a conscience, treating Ariadne as nothing more than a personal accessory, eventually taking her life the moment she became a threat.
And Cardinal Del Mare, the father who should have protected his children, who instead treated Ariadne as a mere pawn on a chessboard to serve the children he had with Lucrezia.
“I won’t let you get away with it.”
“Ariadne, focus.”
At the muttered determination, Giovanni, whose nose was as red as a strawberry, struck the desk with a wooden rod.
“If you are stupid, you must at least work hard.”
It was an unjust remark. In her past life, as the de facto wife of the Regent, Ariadne had drafted official state documents in Latin. The study materials Giovanni provided were insultingly elementary.
—auctor
“What is the meaning of this word?”
“It means founder or author.”
Giovanni’s brows furrowed.
—officium
“What about this word?”
“Duty or obligation.”
Seeing Ariadne answer with such fluency, Giovanni looked visibly displeased. Ariadne glanced at him and asked, her voice calm.
“Teacher, must ‘divitiae’ always be used as a feminine noun? Is there no way to refer to it neutrally?”
“Don’t talk nonsense. Just memorize the words. ‘Wealth, property, treasures’ are always feminine—when would you ever use it in the ablative case! You idiot.”
The ablative case of divitiae was divitiis. It was clear that Giovanni was someone who had only loosely memorized Latin vocabulary and was entirely illiterate when it came to complex sentence structure.
Ariadne decided to test the waters.
“Teacher, will you continue to teach me when my sisters return in a month?”
Giovanni looked startled.
“I will teach for one month. Once that period ends, I plan to take my payment, play in San Carlo for a while, and head back.”
*So, he’s not from around here.*
His accent carried a faint, rhythmic trace of the south.
“You must be earning quite a lot. To be teaching the Cardinal’s daughters, you must be quite famous, and the tutor’s pay must be substantial.”
She had simply buttered him up, but Giovanni immediately grew excited, launching into a boastful tirade. It was clear he was not a man of high standing or reputation.
“When I return to my hometown, this experience will get me more work. I’ll be treated with respect when I go out. You’re a sheltered young lady, so you wouldn’t know. It’s enough to visit a courtesan in Carampane.”
Ariadne grimaced at Giovanni’s arrogance. As expected, he was not a man who lived his life righteously. Carampane was a red-light district, and a courtesan was merely a polite term for a high-class prostitute. To spend a night with a Carampane courtesan, ten ducats would vanish in an instant. Even for the Cardinal’s daughters, that was an exorbitant sum to pay a beginner Latin tutor.
“Teacher, you are truly amazing. It’s cool.”
Suppressing her disgust, Ariadne feigned ignorance and looked up at Giovanni with wide, naive eyes.
The shell of a young girl was truly useful. Had an adult worn such an expression, they would have been mocked for being disingenuous.
* * *
Dinner at the De Mare Mansion was not as it usually was.
Isabella, whose ankle had yet to heal, ate separately in her room; Arabella was under house arrest; and Ippolito, the eldest son, was studying abroad. There were no other children left at the dining table. Lucrezia usually kept her seat, but today she claimed she was ill and dined in private.
In other words, it was a perfect opportunity for a private conversation.
*Clatter, clatter.*
The only sound was the rhythmic striking of silverware against porcelain. The table was suffocatingly silent. Cardinal Del Mare had little interest in Ariadne, leaving her to break the silence.
“Your Eminence, thank you for providing me with such an excellent teacher.”
Cardinal Del Mare replied listlessly.
“Yes. Are you studying well?”
“Ego habeo, per pax universalis.”
Ariadne, who had blurted out the phrase, beamed as if proud.
“It’s a Latin sentence the teacher taught me. I memorized it. Did I do well?”
The Cardinal’s expression twisted sharply.
“Who taught you such broken Latin? Are you sure you memorized it correctly?”
“No, I really did. E-g-o, h-a-b-e-o…”
“Then the teacher must be the strange one.”
“No! Teacher Giovanni is a famous person. Mother said she spent ten ducats just to bring him here.”
“What? In a year?”
“He says he’s only teaching for a month. He’s returning south after that.”
“What? What is that man’s name!”
“His name is Giovanni. He didn’t tell me his last name.”
Cardinal Del Mare was a shrewd man. The excessive fee set for an illegitimate daughter—whom Lucrezia would usually be stingy with—coupled with the teacher’s pathetic level of skill and his origin from Lucrezia’s hometown, painted a clear picture.
Sensing the treachery, the Cardinal’s face flushed with rage.
“LU-CRE-ZI-A!!!!”
* * *
Telling tales so openly might lose its effectiveness if used too often, but it was perfect for a surprise strike.
*If I had regressed as a five-year-old, I could have exploited this all year long,* Ariadne thought, grinning to herself.
The house had been turned completely upside down. The Cardinal, a notorious miser, had stormed to Lucrezia to demand the account book, and sure enough, ‘Education expenses—10 ducats’ was clearly entered in her ledger.
*I guessed the amount, but I hit the mark.*
“Is it even sensible to spend ten ducats a month on education for a daughter—not for a son, not for Isabella, but for Ariadne!”
“To bring in a good teacher…”
“Does a good teacher not even know how to properly conjugate Latin? Who is he and where did he study!”
Lucrezia stuttered, unable to answer.
“He isn’t even from San Carlo. Who on earth brings in a Latin tutor from the countryside instead of the capital! Who the hell is he! He’s a southerner, isn’t he?”
Giovanni’s hometown was Taranto in the south, the same as Lucrezia’s, and his surname was Rossi—Lucrezia’s maiden name.
In short, he was one of Lucrezia’s own kin. Lucrezia had intended to funnel funds to her family, but because Cardinal Del Mare kept a razor-sharp eye on her, she had hired an unqualified man as a private tutor and set his salary at an absurdly inflated rate.
“Have you lost your mind? Are you insane!”
“Your Eminence… Your Eminence… I was wrong. I will make sure this never happens again.”
“I won’t let this slide!”
*‘Lucrezia’s family was a penniless, fallen noble house, if I recall.’*
I remembered that her relatives had been clinging to her, waiting for Lucrezia—who had turned her fortune around by becoming a priest’s mistress—to provide for them.
*‘If I dig through that ledger, I’ll find a mountain of damning evidence.’*
Given her position, Lucrezia couldn’t simply stop sending money to her family just because she’d been caught once. Her entire clan hung off her like grapes on a vine. The structure was such that these scandals were bound to repeat.
Giovanni was stripped of his salary, beaten with rods, and cast out. Lucrezia was reduced to having every single entry in her household ledger personally scrutinized by Cardinal Del Mare for a month.
*‘I wish they’d just leave me alone after all this.’*
Ariadne felt a desperate urge to have a heart-to-heart with Lucrezia and strike a bargain.
But unfortunately, the family and servants of the De Mare Mansion were not the type of people with whom one could conduct such a pleasant transaction.
***
“I’ve put your laundered clothes in the wardrobe. Change and head down for dinner.”
Maletta, the red-haired maid, had walked on eggshells around Ariadne for three days following the incident with Arabella’s confinement, but she had since reverted to her old self.
I hadn’t recognized her at first, but Ariadne and Maletta were acquaintances.
In my past life, the red-haired Maletta, Isabella’s close maid, had followed Isabella into the royal palace, only to fall into an affair with a married royal official and end up as his mistress.
“Is there a lot of work?”
“Yes.”
The maid’s voice was blunt.
Thinking I would give her one more chance, I asked with a feigned air of innocence.
“Are you not going to help me change?”
It was a task she should have naturally performed as a lady’s maid. But Maletta failed to grasp the opportunity I had offered, instead turning around with a sharp, irritated huff.
“You’re not a child, My Lady—can’t you do something like that on your own? You did it all by yourself at the farm, didn’t you!”
*‘The farm?’*
Ariadne’s patience snapped.
*‘She really looks down on me, doesn’t she.’*
A maid who perfectly mirrored her original master.
Once you are perceived as a pushover, there is no stopping it. That was the lesson my past life had taught me.
Something flew toward the back of Maletta’s head as she grumbled, “Acting like a lady already, even though she’s nothing.”
—Thud!
“Ow!”
What had struck the back of Maletta’s head with a dull thud was the holy scripture I always carried with me.
When Maletta clutched her head and turned around, she saw Ariadne standing there with a cold, expressionless face.
“You must learn your place. Who on earth are you relying on to act so insolently?”
Despite being only fifteen, Ariadne was tall, and her eyes, cold beyond her years, were intimidating.
However, Maletta had her own grievances and a source of confidence.
“Look here, if you were born to a maid, aren’t you in the exact same position as us?”
“Ha?”
“Honestly, your father is a self-made priest, too. Strictly speaking, priests aren’t nobles, so you aren’t even an illegitimate child of a noble, are you?”
Faced with the maid’s hidden contempt, Ariadne stared at Maletta steadily. I wanted to see how far she would take this.
“Go on, keep talking.”
Maletta puffed out her own plump, sensuous chest and continued.
“To put it bluntly, if I manage to catch the Cardinal’s eye tomorrow, what’s the difference between your child and mine?”
Maletta raised her voice.
“Lady Isabella and Lady Arabella are fine because Lady Lucrezia is a noble, but for you, Lady Ariadne, to try to act like you’re their equal—that is what you call not knowing your place!”
*Slap!*
Stars exploded before Maletta’s eyes. Ariadne had struck her across the face. There was no need to listen any further.
“Does that mean you believe my father’s lineage is lowly?” Ariadne barked, her voice cold. “This is the price for insulting my father.”
Before Maletta could recover her senses, Ariadne slapped her on the other cheek.
*Slap!*
Ariadne sternly admonished Maletta, who was now clutching her left cheek after having been struck on the right.
“This is the price for your jealousy.”
Ariadne picked up the fallen holy scripture and used it to strike Maletta one last time.
*Thwack!*
The impact of the thick book didn’t produce a sharp slap, but a dull thud that made Maletta’s skull ring. She stumbled back and collapsed to the floor.
“Furthermore, are you dreaming of stealing your mistress’s husband and taking her place? This is the punishment for a house servant who doesn’t know her bounds and dares to gossip about the private lives of her betters.”
Maletta glared at Ariadne, teeth gritted, clutching her swollen cheeks.
Looking down at the woman crumpled on the floor, Ariadne added with a saccharine tone, “If anyone else had heard the words you let slip today, you would have been ruined. Watch your tongue.”
Ariadne pointed toward the door, ordering the trembling maid to leave.
“Get out.”
Maletta scrambled out of the attic. Left alone, Ariadne finally gritted her teeth.
*‘The fundamental difference between you and me isn’t about blood.’*
Maletta was right on one count. Currently, Ariadne lived only off the prestige of a father who held power in the capital; in the strict terms of the class system, she was little different from a commoner.
But as Maletta had foolishly suggested, it was never a question of who was prettier or who could seduce which man. Life was not that simple. In her past life, she had personally realized the miserable end that awaited a life spent clinging to the luck of a successful man.
*‘The real difference between you and me is the ability to set a goal and endure for it.’*
Ariadne’s jaw tightened.
She would not live like Maletta. She would protect her dignity with her own hands. She wanted a life where she was not encroached upon or attacked—a life where she was respected and, in turn, showed respect. A life where her survival was not tethered to a single man.
*‘This time, I will stand at the top so that I am never trampled upon again. That wretched maid, that wretched household—I will clear them all away.’*