Chapter 137
“But then again, is it really such a big deal for the Lord to summon a maid to his bedchamber?”
At Robinson’s pronouncements, the people who had lost their mood for whispering secret gossip loosely dispersed. Amidst them, someone stretched lazily and said,
“It’s because it’s our Rosenburg domain that everyone thought it was strange.”
“That’s true.”
“Just cross that one mountain, and don’t they have first-night rights or whatever? What’s a maid? The chastity of all the village girls is in the Lord’s hands, after all. If he’s in the mood, even an old, decrepit Lord can have young, innocent girls, like this, like this.”
The cobbler, whose body was like a beer barrel, said so, mimicking grasping and kneading something. From his words alone, it sounded as if he was criticizing the behavior of a person in power, but his expression and gestures conveyed a different meaning.
“What’s the flaw in that, is what I’m saying.”
“Well, the Lord is so strict that we don’t even have a moment to breathe.”
“How on earth did such a rumor start?”
As their excited mood from the unexpected sensational rumor subsided, those who quickly felt deflated sighed with regret and chuckled.
“Is there even a maid in Rosenburg Castle worth calling to the bedchamber?”
The official maids of the Lord’s castle were, naturally, all affiliated with the temple and had undergone strict training.
They never laughed carelessly nor wore any adornments. The maids who never laughed played a large role in making the already gloomy and cold Lord’s castle even more somber.
“Don’t you think they’d be moaning and chanting scriptures even in bed?”
“Ohhh! Impellias! Ohhh!”
“Just imagining it makes my d**k shrivel.”
Spitting obscenities onto the street like phlegm, the men turned to leave. There was still a long way to go with the day’s labor.
That’s when it happened.
“I saw it.”
A clear voice was heard. The loosely dispersing residents stopped in their tracks.
They looked around, but the owner of the voice was nowhere to be seen.
“I saw it, I tell you!”
Only then did the men lower their gaze. It was a tiny child, reaching only to their thighs.
“What’s this?”
“My name isn’t ‘this,’ it’s Raoul.”
“Ah, yes. It’s Raoul, the milkman’s boy.”
“I saw it. A woman going to the Lord’s bedchamber.”
Raoul said, sucking on a treacle candy. It was a gift the Archduchess had handed out to the children when she visited the domain recently.
“Little one. Don’t lie.”
“I’m not lying!”
“How would you get into the castle?”
“I do get in! After the dishes are done, big sister Marybelle secretly lets only me…”
The garrulous child stopped there. He had suddenly remembered Marybelle’s words, when she gave him bits of leftover food wrapped up, that it was an absolute, absolute secret.
“Anyway, I saw it. A woman followed the priest into the Lord’s room.”
“Did you see her face?”
Everyone leaned in, wondering if it was a woman they knew. This was a closed domain with no privacy. If you named anyone, there was nothing you wouldn’t know by two degrees of separation.
But Raoul, sucking on his candy, shook his head brightly.
“No. She was wearing a black veil.”
“Oh, come on.”
“You saw that woman go into the bedchamber?”
Again, Raoul shook his head. The expectant expressions of the adults gradually cooled.
“No. Just ‘in the direction of’ the Lord’s room.”
“Then you didn’t see anything, kid.”
“I saw one thing! Her skirt was black.”
Upon hearing that, everyone fell silent at once.
“Black…?”
“Who could wear black clothes…?”
People who thought that far suddenly burst into laughter.
“You must’ve mistaken the veil.”
Everyone nodded as if they understood. They all knew the story that to enter the heart of the Lord’s castle, one had to wear a long, dark veil, enough to cover all sinful parts of the body.
“Besides, it was night.”
“You didn’t see anything properly, kid.”
“No, it’s true! Following behind Archpriest Carmen, carrying a big tray—”
“Raoul!”
Just as the aggrieved child was about to blurt out everything he knew, his mother grabbed him by the scruff of the neck with a sharp voice.
“Again! Spreading lies! I told you to scrub the jars, but you’re not working!”
“Waaah!”
The woman mercilessly struck the child’s back and bottom. The child began to cry at the top of his lungs, getting hit by his mother’s hand.
“Just spreading lies!”
The woman emphasized the word ‘lies’ with particular force, quickly rolling her eyes. Her gaze, looking around, seemed somewhat anxious.
Discussion
0 CommentsReactions
No comments yet.