Chapter 5 – Secret Garden
The woman was staring down at her with a bright smile.
“You have to be more careful. Are you all right?” the woman said.
“Ro—” Patrizia almost spoke the name, but she quickly pressed her lips shut. No. That woman’s presence was not yet officially known, and even if she was, Patrizia shouldn’t know her face at this point. She had to stay as calm as possible, and not panic.
“Ro—I was trying to get a book on the Crown Prince Gilde. Thank you, My Lady.”
“Not at all,” Rosemond replied. “I think you mean Crown Prince Rogilde, by the way. There aren’t many nobles who know that name. It’s quite obscure.”
“…I have some interest. It’s a little embarrassing.” Patrizia’s mouth was pressed in a hard line, and she tried to soften it with a smile.
Rosemond’s eyes flickered towards Patrizia’s plain white dress, and Patrizia suddenly felt uncomfortable.
“You must be a queen candidate,” Rosemond observed.
“…I am.”
“But what brings you here? Isn’t time you continue the test?”
“You seem to know a lot, My Lady.” Patrizia quietly turned away away.
Rosemond seemed unoffended, and she gave a beatific smile. “When you live in a palace, you naturally see and hear many things. It’s just something I heard.”
“Are you His Majesty’s lady-in-waiting?” Patrizia asked.
Rosemond laughed inwardly at the young woman’s innocent question. His Majesty’s lady-in-waiting? She was higher than what this queen candidate assumed, but that truth wouldn’t be known by an ignorant woman like her.
“Something like that,” Rosemond answered vaguely. If she told the truth, this innocent queen candidate would probably turn white and faint on the spot.
Something like that. A lady-in-waiting that serviced the Emperor at night.
Patrizia picked up the book on Prince Rogilde and quickly concluded the conversation. “Then I’ll be off now.”
Rosemond looked at Patrizia curiously. “Oh, are you leaving already?”
“Yes. As you said, I’m in the middle of a test. I was just passing by.” In reality Patrizia had planned to stay here for the remainder of the three hours, but the plan had to be changed. She wanted to avoid encountering Rosemond as much as possible, not out of fear, but because intermingling with her would be dirty.
Patrizia couldn’t attack her with revenge. In any case, she wasn’t supposed to know Rosemond at all. Patrizia hurriedly left the library, putting as much distance between her and the concubine as possible.
She wandered around the grounds, her book on Crown Prince Rojilde in her arms. For the time being, Patrizia was perfectly alone, as she was forbidden from bringing her lady-in-waiting as her escort during the test.
Patrizia contemplated on where to use up her time, then decided on the garden she loved in her previous life. It was a secret place that not many people knew. When she would go to the Imperial Palace to see her sister, she would often stop by there to have a quiet think.
As usual, no one else was at the garden, and a tranquility washed over her mind. She preferred this quiet place to a noisy one. After she approached the nearest bench and took a seat, she opened up the book. She estimated that the three hours should be over once she finished reading it.
Prince Rojilde was the previous crown prince of the Mavinous Empire. He was extraordinary in politics, but in his private life, however, he had an atrocious personality and led a life of excessive debauchery. After much pain and consideration, the Emperor, the prince’s father, stripped his son of his power.
Patrizia made it about halfway through the book when her eyelids began to droop. If she fell asleep now, however, she might miss the deadline. If that happened, someone would go looking for her and find her snoring off with a book. The thought of that embarrassed her.
She quickly got up from the bench and patted her cheeks red. The best way to keep herself awake was to move her feet.
She strolled aimlessly around the garden, and came across a pond and bushes of roses in full bloom around it. Patrizia admired the vivid red color of the flowers, before suddenly recalling her encounter with Rosemond earlier.
A woman who, in the previous life, was Petronilla’s love rival, and was involved in the destruction of the Grochester family. There was no exact evidence that Rosemond had done so, but she was the Emperor’s concubine, and was the only one who could have so damaged the innocent Petronilla.
As Patrizia wordlessly took in the beautiful rose bushes, her ears caught the sound of approaching footsteps. Surprise clenched at her chest. Was someone looking for her at this place?
She wasn’t doing anything wrong, but she ducked behind the bushes. Somehow, she had the feeling she was invading someone else’s secret space, as unfounded as that fear was.
The owner of the footsteps came into her view, and she almost gasped out loud in surprise.
“It’s His Majesty…!”
Patrizia shot back behind the bushes quickly clapped her hand over her mouth to catch the unexpected outburst. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t think she should be foundhere. Patrizia pressed a hand against her racing heart to calm it, then slowly turned around to peer at the Emperor. It was not at all surprising that he, the owner of the palace, knew about this place, but she didn’t expect him to be here alone.
But why was he here? It wasn’t necessarily unusual for him to be out for a walk during the three-hour wait, except for the fact that the garden was quite far from where the candidate selection process was being held. Did the place hold a certain meaning for him? Patrizia stared at him with a look of incomprehension.
He simply stood in place for a long time, as if in deep thought. His facial expressions seemed to subtly change from moment to moment. At one point, he frowned as if he recalled bad memories, and then another, he smiled at the corner of his mouth as if he recalled pleasant ones.
Patrizia had no idea what he was thinking—she didn’t want to know, frankly—but the problem was that she had to walk past him to return to where the queen selection process was being held. She bit her lip nervously, wondering what would happen if the time limit ran out.
Fortunately, the Emperor seemed to have his fill of the view, and he disappeared from the garden just in time. Patrizia emerged from the bushes, and breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that no one else was here.
She had hidden even though she had no reason to hide. Feeling awkward, she brushed down her rumpled dress, then hurried back to the palace.
*
All three hours were up. Naturally, Patrizia did not know the answer. She thought that Marquis Grochester must have told her the answer in her previous life, but that was three years ago from her point of view. She decided to give her best guess.
She picked up her quill pen and wrote “Love” on a piece of paper. It was like a lamb when it came to you, a hawk when it brushes by you, and a rock when it passed you. That was love. Soft as a lamb and as swift and sharp as a hawk.
But when one went too far from it, one would suffer pain like a stone. Patrizia had never been in love, but it was the same love Petronilla experienced in her previous life. A first love that came as soft as lamb, then rushed by quickly, and ended in pain.
Patrizia’s expression darkened upon thinking of the memory of her sister.
Duke Witherford inspected each of their answers. “Hmm… only one of you has answered correctly.”
The hall began to murmur amongst themselves. Patrizia didn’t expect to be the one with the right answer. A moment later, the Duke Witherford revealed who it was.
“Queen candidate Tricia, congratulations. You were the only one who was right.”
*
“I thought you’d get it right,” Raphaela said as soon as they returned to her room.
Patrizia smiled. She wasn’t that smart. “Well, Lady Tricia is very intelligent. I knew she would guess right.”
“She is. But who could get that problem right?”
It was a soft as a lamb when it came to you, but it’s as sharp as a hawk it brushes by you. But when you go too far, you end up suffering like a stone. The answer was time.
Patrizia brooded over the answer. Three years ago was a time of peace. The next three years had been a series of events like cutting hawks. Now the memories were painful like stones.
Patrizia smiled wryly at the right answer. “I don’t know who made the riddle, but it’s a good one.”
“I agree,” Raphaella said. “Anyway, the last test will be soon.”
“….”
Patrizia’s lips stretched into a thin smile. After this last test, she could finally return home. However, the opposite could also happen. After all, in her last life, it hadn’t been just Tricia that had gotten the correct answer, but Nilla as well.
But today Patrizia was not right, so it seemed almost a foregone conclusion that Lady Tricia would be selected as queen.
“Only Lady Tricia was right, and her family is the best out of all the other candidates. Barring any surprises, Lady Tricia is likely to be queen.”
Patrizia fervently hoped so. She was tired of this place; of the Emperor, Lady Phelps, and the misfortune of the queen’s seat. Patrizia had volunteered in her sister’s place just in case, but she hoped that fate would pass over her.