Chapter 06

After returning to the Grand Duke’s residence, I changed back into my maid’s uniform and clung to the outer wall of the estate once again.

In the morning, I had cleaned the windows on the western wall. This time, it was the eastern wall.

Perhaps it was because I had gone out to look around the Grand Duchy earlier.

My movements were smoother than they had been in the morning. As if someone had oiled my joints.

“Hehe, Your Highness! There’s a four-leaf clover here!”

“…….”

“I’ve already found five! I’ll make a bookmark for you, Your Highness!”

“…….”

I paused while wiping the window and looked down.

Celine was squatting in the flowerbed right beside the ladder, searching for four-leaf clovers among the weeds.

She had more or less given up on trying to snatch the rag from me.

Tsk tsk. I clicked my tongue inwardly and shook my head.

Poor Celine. How did she end up as the maid of a commoner herbalist pretending to be a crazy princess, and now she has to suffer through all this…?

But I couldn’t stop doing this.

I have to survive, too.

For now, with the Grand Duke away, the thugs from the guild probably couldn’t do anything to me.

But if I neglected my act as a crazy princess on top of that, the disgusting lump of weeds in my stomach might start tearing my insides apart.

Ugh, I don’t want that.

The memory of that pain made my brows automatically furrow.

But then…

I probably won’t even be able to dream of leaving the Grand Duke’s residence for a while, will I…?

Scrub, scrub, scrub—

The rag moved faster across the window.

No, wouldn’t it be great if everyone just kept this a secret and pretended nothing happened?

The head butler, Hendrick, had found out that I had shaken off my knights and disappeared in the middle of the busiest part of the city.

That was because the knights who had been assigned to escort me had immediately run back and reported that I had disappeared.

Of course, I was the one who had shaken them off and disappeared in the first place.

But still.

Did I ask them to keep it a secret just for my own benefit? Huh? I was asking for everyone’s sake! Those inflexible Northerners…

Thanks to that, I had to endure Hendrick’s icy glare for quite some time.

Now that the incident had become known, I had probably been promoted among the employees of the Grand Duke’s residence from simply being a crazy princess to being a crazy princess who could go completely off the rails at any moment.

All right. For the time being, I’ll just quietly climb walls and play.

Oh, right. What was I supposed to do about the herbs I’d bought?

I’d barely managed to buy the herbs needed to make a hemostatic medicine, including crobain, but I had no idea how I was supposed to manufacture it while avoiding the eyes of the employees and my watchers.

I don’t even have the equipment.

In fact, there were several buildings in the backyard of the Grand Duke’s residence, including a forge and various facilities for medical purposes.

One of those buildings was where medicines were prepared and physicians lived.

If I could only use that place, making the hemostatic medicine would be as easy as pie.

But naturally, there was no way they would open one of the estate’s important facilities to a crazy princess from an enemy nation.

What could possibly look more suspicious than an enemy princess laying out medicinal herbs and poisonous plants and making medicine?

They might even get the wrong idea and think that the princess wasn’t actually crazy.

More importantly, there was no doubt that if the guild bastards found out I was messing around instead of seducing the Grand Duke, they wouldn’t give me the sedative needed to calm down the thing in my stomach.

Damn it!

So?! When the hell is the Grand Duke coming back? Why?! Why doesn’t he just stay glued to the mountains of the North forever?! Has he abandoned his residence? Huh? Is that it?! Is it?!

Aaaargh!!!

I screamed inwardly in frustration, gripping the rag as tightly as if I were grabbing the Grand Duke by the collar, and scrubbed the window over and over until it looked like I was going to wear the glass away.

Screeeeech—!

“Wow! That’s my seventh four-leaf clover!”

Celine’s bright voice came from below.

“Is this really all right? No matter how you look at it, even if His Grace did give the order…”

Head Maid Reina cautiously spoke up.

Her and Head Butler Hendrick’s gazes were fixed on the eastern outer wall of the Grand Duke’s residence.

In front of the windows, which glimmered faintly in the winter afternoon sunlight, a woman could be seen standing on a ladder and vigorously waving a rag.

She had been clinging to the outer wall with a rag since morning, then went out around lunchtime to look around the Grand Duchy and caused quite a commotion.

And yet, as soon as she returned, she changed back into her maid’s uniform as though nothing had happened and resumed cleaning the outer wall.

Scrub, scrub, ……scrub-scrub-scrub-scrub!

For some reason, the sound of her rubbing the glass seemed to be getting stronger and stronger.

Or was it just her imagination?

Hendrick stood with his hands clasped behind his back, silently watching the scene.

As always, his reddish-brown eyes were cold and composed, but today, beneath that calm exterior, there was a peculiar weariness.

“Did she not volunteer to do it herself?”

Hendrick’s voice was as dry as ever.

In fact, the princess, who had been running around the Grand Duke’s residence and the busy streets since morning, would not have been surprising if she had collapsed from exhaustion by now.

Yet, if anything, she seemed even more energetic.

She almost seems to enjoy cleaning.

There had been moments when she appeared to carefully consider and deliberate over something before starting her cleaning, but once she settled into a spot, she cleaned with an excited expression on her face.

Despite Hendrick’s calm answer, Reina still looked troubled.

“Even so, her mind isn’t exactly— I mean, she isn’t entirely… sound. If she were to get hurt up there—”

“How can powerless employees like us stop something His Grace ordered and Her Highness has chosen to do?”

Hendrick cut her off.

As it happened, Hendrick was already suffering from a throbbing headache because of the commotion in the busy district.

The knights who had failed to properly watch and protect the hostage princess deserved severe punishment.

But after hearing the news, the princess had barged into Hendrick’s office.

“I was the one who got swept away by the crowd! There was nothing anyone could have done about that. Yes, it was a natural disaster! That’s what happened!”

“Your Highness, that cannot be considered an excuse—”

“If the knights who were guarding me absolutely have to be punished, then I’ll receive exactly the same punishment as them.”

“Pardon?”

“Look at my eyes. I… am being very serious right now.”

“……”

In the end, because of the princess who looked ready to put a knife to her own throat, Hendrick decided that the punishment of the knights would be discussed again after the Grand Duke returned.

Hendrick himself had secretly felt sorry for the knights who had been assigned to escort the princess.

Even escorting a perfectly sane person was no easy task. But he had allowed a stubborn princess who wasn’t entirely sound of mind to go into the busiest district of the city.

He considered that decision a mistake on his part.

Hendrick let out a quiet sigh before speaking.

“She even shook off the knights in the busy district. Is there really anything to worry about?”

“Well…”

That was when it happened.

“What was that?”

A voice colder and heavier than the biting northern wind came from behind them.

Hendrick and Reina turned around in surprise.

The Grand Duke was walking toward them, his dark-blue cloak fluttering behind him.

“Y-Your Grace!”

“Your Grace, you arrived earlier than expected.”

Hendrick calmly bowed to greet Barkan.

He had only just received word that Barkan had descended from the northern mountain range.

Hendrick had intended to check on the princess and prepare to receive the Grand Duke before Barkan arrived at the residence.

But Barkan had returned sooner than expected.

With his brows deeply furrowed, Barkan strode toward them and asked sharply,

“Hendrick. You said she shook off the knights? What exactly did you mean just—”

But as Barkan was asking Hendrick again, his gaze suddenly shifted toward something precariously clinging to the eastern outer wall.

His footsteps came to an abrupt stop.

“What the hell is that?”

“……”

“……”

It was unmistakably a maid’s uniform belonging to the Grand Duke’s residence, but the woman wearing it was an employee he had never seen before.

Her window-cleaning technique looked surprisingly vigorous and practiced, while she seemed entirely unconcerned by the cold weather.

If anything, she looked far too excited about what she was doing.

She naturally drew his attention.

At Barkan’s question, Reina squeezed her eyes shut first.

Hendrick also couldn’t immediately bring himself to speak.

After a moment, Hendrick lowered his head and carefully answered,

“It is Her Highness the Princess.”

Barkan’s eyebrow twitched.

“…What?”

As though he had misheard, Barkan looked at Hendrick and asked again.

This time, Hendrick spoke with an expression that was more composed—and more resigned.

“The Princess who came from Delmar, Your Grace.”

“……”

At those words, Barkan’s head snapped toward the princess dangling from the outer wall.

“That?”

“Yes.”

“Why is the princess wearing a maid’s uniform…”

Barkan asked in disbelief.

Hendrick, however, answered as though the question itself were strange.

“Did Your Grace not order her to do maid’s work?”

“I did?”

“Yes.”

“I never—”

Barkan was about to ask when he had ever said such a thing, but then he stopped.

“Give the princess a rag or something.”

Ah…

Barkan let out a short groan and slapped a hand against his forehead.

“Pull her down.”

“Pardon?”

When Hendrick blinked, Barkan jutted out his chin and issued a cold command.

“Get that cra— …Get the princess down immediately.”

“Yes, Your Grace!”