Chapter 6

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: The Younger Sister Who Doesn't Know Her Place
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- Thump! Ariadne stamped her foot. The insolent maid flinched, startled by Ariadne's force.

“Did I not ask for your station?”

The maid, cowed by the weight in the fifteen-year-old girl’s low voice and dignified manner, cautiously watched Ariadne.

“Oh, no, that’s not it. I just thought there was no need for you, my lady, to know the station of someone as lowly as myself…”

“Your station.”

The maid finally recited in a voice that was barely a whisper.

“I am a second-floor maid in charge of Lady Isabella…”

Ariadne looked the maid up and down. She had fiery red hair, was short and plump, and looked a year or two older than Ariadne was now.

“Your name.”

“My lady…”

The red-haired maid’s face crumpled. But under Ariadne’s sharp gaze, she quickly bowed her head and gave her name.

“It’s Maletta…”

“I’ll be watching you.”

Ariadne added one more thing to the red-haired maid, who had tucked her head in like a turtle.

“Mind your manners.”

At those words, the maid, Maletta, bowed her head and hastily bent at the waist before scurrying out of the room. * * * Ariadne changed from her rags into a simple indoor dress and followed a maid to Cardinal de Mare’s quarters. The place she was summoned to was not Cardinal de Mare’s study, but his private drawing room. While he allowed no one inside his study, family members were occasionally permitted into the drawing room. - Knock, knock.

“Your Eminence. I have brought Lady Ariadne.”

The maid, with an almost servile politeness, knocked on the door and announced Ariadne’s arrival to the Cardinal. Ariadne remembered standing in this very spot in her previous life, meeting the eyes of the golden-gilded cherub and turning pale with fear. Back then, the mere sight of it had made her shrink, but the Ariadne of this life didn’t even blink. After nine years as the queen of high society, she had seen more than her fill of luxuries. Ariadne walked confidently through the door held open by the servant. She entered with a light step, adhering to perfect court etiquette, and curtsied deeply.

“Are you in good health, Your Eminence? This unworthy child is overjoyed to see you after so long.”

Cardinal de Mare looked at Ariadne with a surprised expression, raising his left eyebrow.

He was a small-statured man in his mid-fifties. He had a somewhat rat-like appearance. His delicate features, thin frame, and narrow shoulders bore a strong resemblance to Isabella, but these feminine traits on a man his age made him look plain rather than handsome. However, his piercing, dark green eyes spoke volumes of the formidable man he was.

“You’ve had a long journey. You couldn’t have had much opportunity to study while growing up on the Bergamo estate, but this father is pleased that you have grown so well.”

*How grateful I am that you at least pretend to care with your words.*

Ariadne hid her inner thoughts and replied in a clear voice.

“I will learn and study even harder, so that I may bring honor to our family name and not be a source of shame to my parents and siblings…”

“Indeed. You shouldn’t be a source of shame.”

A noblewoman in her forties cut Ariadne off. It was Lucrezia.

“A woman’s virtue lies not in learning and studying, but in serving her parents and siblings in her youth, and in attending to and assisting her husband in her later years.”

Unlike her daughter Isabella, she was a woman with high cheekbones and a long face. But her flaxen hair and amethyst eyes were identical to her daughter’s. She had a rather neurotic air about her. She glared at Ariadne with her upturned eyes and delivered a warning lecture.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. Behave demurely, as a young lady should.”

She was dressed in the style of the Porto Republic. It was a daring fashion that exposed most of her chest, covering it with only a thin layer of lace. Her smooth, fair skin was quite sensual for her age, but she looked more like an excellent mistress than the exemplary lady of a great house.

*There was a time when I thought becoming like that woman was the model of a proper noble.*

Meeting her again after having gained all sorts of experience in society and turning back the clock by more than a decade… she was so vulgar it was embarrassing to even call her a noble.

*What do you call the state of mind of someone who lectures others on modesty while wearing a dress like that?*

Ariadne smiled as brightly and childishly as she could, making sure her rolling thoughts didn't show.

“Yes, my lady. I will do my best to follow your words and become a good child.”

Cardinal de Mare’s eyebrows rose.

“My lady?”

But his sharp gaze was directed not at Ariadne, but at Lucrezia. In the Kingdom of Etruscan, it was proper etiquette for illegitimate children to act as if the legal wife was their birth mother, unless they were registered on a separate family record entirely. It was a virtue for an illegitimate child to be as filial as a legitimate one, just as it was the virtue of a benevolent noblewoman not to discriminate against her husband's illegitimate children. However, an illegitimate child could not presume to call their legal mother ‘Mother’ without permission first. To please her husband, Lucrezia forced the corners of her mouth into a smile to receive Ariadne's greeting.

“Not ‘my lady.’ You may call me ‘Mother.’ I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.”

Her unconcealed dislike was obvious, but the new child and the old husband paid it no mind.

“Thank you, Mother.”

“What a fine sight.”

Ariadne smiled like a picture, and Cardinal de Mare praised them both with a broad grin. Lucrezia had no choice but to force a smile and nod at Ariadne. Just then, a high, clear, nightingale-like voice drifted over.

“Welcome back to the family. If there’s anything you don’t know, you can always ask me.”

It was the exquisitely beautiful, small, and lovely fairy of San Carlo. Isabella. She looked about fifteen years younger than when Ariadne had last seen her in her early thirties. Unlike her past self, who had been as dazzlingly beautiful as a rose in full bloom, the small-statured girl Isabella truly looked like a fairy who had popped out of an old tale. Unlike her mother, who couldn't hide her displeasure, Isabella smiled with utmost kindness and affection.

“We’re sisters, after all. I’ll help you a lot.”

Ariadne unknowingly tensed and drew in a breath. Her beauty was overwhelming.

*I can’t be fooled by that smiling face.*

The beautiful Isabella, who lured her victims with a sweet smile only to stab them in the back. Her hands began to tremble uncontrollably. Ariadne hid her shaking hands by tucking each one into the opposite side of her waist. Then, she put on the most innocent and friendly expression she could muster and bowed her head.

“Thank you.”

She had spent her whole life walking on eggshells, serving and groveling, wanting to get along with this perfect older sister with the sweet smile. She had believed her to be as warm and good as her smile. But on the day she had stabbed Ariadne in the back, she had been smiling just like that. In response to Ariadne's greeting, which suppressed a storm of emotions, Isabella returned her usual radiant smile. She took a step forward, forcibly pulled Ariadne’s hands from where she had hidden them at her sides, and clasped them in her own.

“There are so many things I’ve wanted to do if I ever got a younger sister my age. Having tea parties together, going out to browse the shops downtown… Do you like clothes or jewelry?”

“Oh, no, all of that is too much for me.”

The moment Isabella touched her, Ariadne’s body stiffened as if she were a mouse before a cat. The memory of a lifetime of submission seemed to take control of her limbs. Ariadne gritted her teeth, praying it wasn’t visible on the outside.

“Call me sister.”

Isabella suggested warmly, smiling leisurely with the air of a natural-born ruler.

“Sister, my foot!”

Just then, a sharp voice pierced the air from a corner.

“Why is *she* our sister? I won’t accept it.”

“Arabella!”

Lucrezia neurotically tried to silence the owner of the voice. It was a girl with flaxen hair who looked to be about ten years old. Unlike her older sister, the girl had inherited her father’s dark green eyes, the same as Ariadne’s. The pale hair and dark eyes didn't harmonize well, making her less beautiful than her sister. Her cheeks, still full of baby fat, were chubby. It was Cardinal de Mare’s youngest daughter, Arabella de Mare. In her past life, she had died young during the great plague of 1123. The little girl scowled with a face full of discontent and pointed a finger at Ariadne.

“Does she even look like us? Her hair is jet black. She’s probably uneducated and can’t even play the lute. Does she even know Latin?”

At this point, Lucrezia stopped her verbal attempts to quiet her and, glancing nervously at the head of the household, rushed over to hug Arabella from behind. But Cardinal de Mare’s angry voice echoed through the drawing room before she could soothe her youngest daughter.

“Enough!”

Cardinal de Mare waved his left hand and issued a stern warning.

“Lucrezia, how have you been raising your children? Did I ask you to live so harmoniously that you’d receive a commendation from the Holy See? I’m just asking for the basics, the basics!”

“I apologize, Your Eminence. Arabella is still young…”

“Young? What’s so young about ten! On an estate like Bergamo, a ten-year-old is old enough to do a farmer’s share of work!”

Arabella glared at Ariadne, her eyes filled with hostility, as if to say, *I’m getting scolded because of you*. Isabella maintained a look of profound sorrow, as if this situation had nothing to do with her. Pretending to be utterly good until the very end when someone important was present was Isabella’s alpha and omega.

“Leave!”

At his order of dismissal, the family members, excluding Cardinal de Mare, all began to back away toward the drawing room door. They walked without turning their backs, the same etiquette a subject of the Kingdom of Etruscan would show their king. Cardinal de Mare’s family members were more like his subjects than his kin.

“Oh, and get Ariadne the same Latin tutor as Isabella and Arabella. The rest of her education as well.”

Lucrezia showed no outward sign of her displeasure and meekly acquiesced.

“Yes, Your Eminence.”

* * * Having withdrawn from Cardinal de Mare’s drawing room, Lucrezia spoke to Ariadne through gritted teeth.

“Don’t cause any trouble.”

Outwardly, Ariadne bowed her head respectfully, but inwardly, she imagined herself shrugging.

*What did I do? Your daughter was the one who caused trouble. I haven’t even started yet.*

With a maid standing at attention by the door, Lucrezia went into her chambers first. Only Arabella, grinding her teeth, Isabella, and Ariadne, who stood there blinking, were left in the corridor. Arabella, unable to contain her indignation, glared furiously.

“I won’t accept you!”

The ten-year-old girl seethed, jabbing a small finger at her.

“Raised like a farmhand! Born from some lowly maid!”

Ariadne was more dumbfounded than angry. Where had a mere ten-year-old learned such words? It was obvious her parents, or perhaps her venomous older sister, had whispered them to her. But Ariadne had vowed not to tolerate things this time around, so she couldn't just smile and dismiss it as a child's stubbornness. Besides, her natural disposition was not particularly meek. She offered a single remark, hiding the thorns behind her smile.

“From what Father said, it looks like you’re the one who’ll be sent to the farm.”

“What?”

“He said a ten-year-old is old enough to be a farmer, didn’t he?”

“Y-You—!!”

Arabella trembled with uncontrollable rage, then charged toward Ariadne. Behind her were the stairs.