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Chapter 270
Startled, Marsha rushed to the window, but Iona only waved her hand lightly, as if to reassure her.
From this height, it was harder to get hurt than to actually fall injured.
Of course, that was only true for someone who had trained their body.
Iona mouthed that she would be right back, then quickly slipped into the back garden.
If she escaped through the nearby alley, she could use the terrain to keep herself hidden as she moved.
It wasn’t exactly a deserted path, but as someone who had once been at the core of the Imperial Knights, Iona knew the palace security system like the back of her hand.
Fortunately, it seemed no restructuring had been done during her retirement, because Iona managed to avoid everyone’s gaze and make it near the Knights’ quarters safely.
From here on, anyone she encountered could be silenced—whether by force or persuasion—so she allowed herself to relax a little.
After all, once she drew close to a brightly lit building, slipping back into the shadows as before was no longer possible.
“Iona? What brings you here?”
Sure enough, just as she was about to reach, Iona ran into a familiar face.
The man was a fellow knight from the same order she had once served in—someone with whom she had neither a particularly good nor particularly bad relationship.
Fortunately, he seemed to feel more genuine joy than suspicion at this unexpected reunion.
Abandoning his inspection of his horse’s leg, he quickly stood and approached Iona.
“Are you looking for someone? I can call them over for you if you’d like.”
“I appreciate the kindness, but I’ll decline. If word of this gets out, it’ll only cause trouble. Please keep it to yourself that I came here.”
“Oh, please, speak comfortably. And really, do I look like the type to go blabbing about something like this? That hurts, hah!”
He waved his hands dismissively and laughed good-naturedly.
The way he spoke to Iona was smooth, like the tongue inside one’s mouth—soft and pliant.
It was hard to reconcile this with the distant, formal attitude he had shown in the past.
For a moment, Iona wondered if he might be the one who had summoned her here. But she quickly dismissed the thought.
His purpose was clearly something else entirely.
“To think I’d get to see you again so close up like this—it fills me with emotion. Since your retirement, it seems you’ve only had good fortune. All of us in the Knights are sincerely overjoyed for you…”
“I appreciate that, but I have an appointment, so if you’ll excuse me…”
“Of course you must go! But since it’s been so long since you visited the Knights, wouldn’t you like to hear a bit about how we’ve been…?”
“I would, truly. But for that, I’ll speak directly with the commander.”
After an exchange of words that looped back on itself, Iona finally managed to refuse him firmly.
The mention of the commander stopped her fellow knight from pressing further.
Instead, he only frowned slightly, as if puzzled.
“So you came to see the commander?”
“…Yes. That’s right, among other things.”
“But the commander left early this evening. You didn’t hear?”
“…What?”
Iona asked back, stunned.
The commander had left?
What kind of nonsense was that?
Dame Saskia—who all but lived inside the Knights’ quarters, practically abandoning any thought of commuting home—had gone back to her house in the early evening?
It was hard to believe.
The image of Dame Saskia, dragging herself to a cot with a face as haggard as a dying chicken, was still etched vividly in Iona’s memory.
Wait… does this mean it wasn’t the commander who summoned me?
Iona cast a suspicious glance over the knight’s shoulder.
It was unthinkable that a commander who had supposedly gone back to her family would instead be waiting for her, hidden in some filthy, rundown storage shed.
Realizing her assumption had been wrong, Iona felt a twinge of unease. But outwardly, she betrayed no surprise.
Instead, she replied lightly, as if it were nothing of consequence.
“Since I came this far, I thought I might speak with the commander too, but it seems that won’t happen. I’ll just finish my business and return.”
Before the man could insert himself into that “business,” Iona gave a neat and final dismissal.
“Could I ask that no one else comes to the stables at this hour?”
The man blinked several times before cautiously asking back:
“You mean… myself included?”
When Iona gave her a look that clearly said who else would I mean?, the knight scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
A man who had once worked in secret for the betterment of the knights’ welfare, he now left quietly, a little crestfallen.
It seemed he had hoped that, since a fellow knight like Iona might one day rise to high office, he should secure some goodwill in advance.
She didn’t misunderstand his motives—but unfortunately for him, Iona already had another appointment tonight.
Watching his back grow distant, she turned away and walked into the stable entrance.
Past the tethered horses, she opened the inner storage room door. Darkness greeted her.
I should have brought a lamp.
Iona hesitated on whether to step inside.
Just then, she sensed faint movement.
The scratch of a match being struck. Soon, a lamp’s glow softly filled the space.
Slowly, Iona reached back and closed the door behind her.
She asked evenly:
“Was it you who called me here?”
It was a middle-aged woman with unremarkable features.
The lamp’s dim glow obscured the details of her face, but even under bright sunlight, it seemed doubtful she would have left much of an impression.
Iona relaxed her grip on the hand resting on her thigh.
It was a common trick for assassins to lull their targets into carelessness with a harmless appearance. But this woman lacked the aura or skill to slit her throat in a single strike. There was no killing intent about her.
“It is an honor to meet you for the first time, Lady Iona.”
The woman bent low in a respectful bow.
Her face, faintly flushed, bore a subtle tension.
Her clasped hands trembled in small shivers.
“I am a laundress. I entered the palace at fifteen, beating and washing linens, and I have done so for over thirty years now. But because of my lowly status, I had no way to meet you except like this. Please forgive my offense with a generous heart.”
“A laundress… So that’s how you had access to my clothes.”
“Yes. I was prepared to wait several more days, but thankfully you checked the note much sooner than I expected.”
Iona kept silent.
She now knew who had summoned her—but not why.
What reason could a laundress possibly have to go to such lengths to arrange this meeting?
The woman, sensing this, seemed to know she had to explain first.
After a brief, steadying breath, she continued:
“Not long after I first entered the palace, I made a terrible mistake. While ironing the clothes of Her Highness the Princess, a spark fell on the fabric. The garment cost no less than ten years of my wages. It would not have been strange if I’d been beaten and thrown out immediately…”
At the words Her Highness the Princess, Iona flinched involuntarily.
In the thirty years the woman had worked in the palace, there had only been one person officially holding the title of princess.
“Her Highness said it was an outfit she had planned to discard anyway, and thus spared me from ruin. Perhaps to her it was just a casual kindness, but from that day on, I swore she was my benefactor. I vowed to live diligently, to repay that grace.”
“That princess… don’t tell me…”
“Yes. It was Princess Teresa.”
Unthinking, Iona bit her lip.
Then, as though drawn forward by something unseen, she stepped closer to the laundress.
“She did not live an easy life, but even amidst hardship, she was always kind to everyone. That is why, even when she was confined within the palace, many still sought to help her. I was one of them.”
“……”
“Before the fire, Her Highness entrusted a letter to a close attendant, as if foreseeing her death. She asked that her affairs be looked after.”
Suddenly, Iona recalled the letter the Archduke had said never arrived.
The Archduke had claimed that the maid entrusted with it had died.
A later search turned up nothing—perhaps she had perished on the way, and the trail was lost.
So Teresa’s last testament should have vanished from the world entirely.
“But Her Highness had suffered too much betrayal. In the end, she chose to be cautious. She decided not to put all her eggs in one basket.”
“……”
“Please take this. It is the last letter your mother entrusted to me, the one she left behind for her daughter.”
With those words, the woman drew something from her bosom and held it out.
It was discolored and aged, yet uncreased—preserved stiff and immaculate, proof that it had been treasured and safeguarded for many long years.
---The End Of The Chapter---
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