Chapter 29
Chapter 29
Translation: godsn
"Are you telling me that the Royal Physician refused the Princess's summons, claiming he was treating mere paper cuts at this very moment?"
The maid instantly realized something was amiss with her answer upon seeing the Queen Dowager's expression turn icy.
"......I have committed a grave offense. Please forgive me."
Trembling with fear, she immediately bowed her head and begged for mercy.
But the Queen Dowager's face only grew more severe.
"You will return to the Royal Physician at once. Do not mention my presence here. Tell him the Princess's condition is critical and that every moment is urgent. If you fail to bring him back, know that you will be banished from the palace. Understood?"
"Y-yes, Your Highness!"
Terrified by the sharp threat, the maid nodded frantically before scrambling away.
Watching the flustered figure retreat in haste, the Queen Dowager suppressed her boiling rage.
"What absurdity is this...... Just how is this palace being run?"
Her wrinkled hands trembled uncontrollably.
"......Your Highness, please calm your anger. It will harm your already frail health."
"How dare a mere physician without even a title ignore the summons of royalty?"
Of course, as the Royal Physician, he would naturally prefer to curry favor with the Regent's daughter over the disgraced Princess, even if just once.
The Queen Dowager's expression darkened.
"He must have had his reasons for prioritizing Duke Claudio's daughter over Her Highness the Princess," Lady Pinatelli remarked in a composed tone.
The Queen Dowager understood the human tendency to grovel before the powerful and oppress the weak.
But even so, she never imagined that even the lowliest servants attending to royalty would dare disregard Medeia.
'If this is how they treat her while she still holds the King's Royal Seal, what would have happened had I truly taken it from Medeia......'
The wretched future her granddaughter would have faced flashed before her eyes. The Queen Dowager sighed deeply.
"These are truly the end times."
How much time had passed?
A commotion erupted outside the bedroom door. It seemed the awaited guest had finally arrived.
Before the Queen Dowager could straighten her attire and adjust her seat, the bedroom door burst open.
"Damn it, I'm here. Happy now? Where's the Princess?"
His footsteps were so insolent they practically oozed discontent. The medical bag in his hand was conspicuously bare.
"What's all this fuss over a fainting spell? Hasn't the Princess collapsed plenty of times before? Stubborn as she is, she'll cling to life and stagger back up eventually. Was it really necessary to drag me here like this?"
It was clear he had no intention of examining the patient with any care.
The Royal Physician strode into the bedroom.
"Look at her, lying there peacefully! It's not like she's at death's door! Damn it all, if I fall out of favor with Duke Claudio's daughter because of this, you'll be the ones to answer for it!"
Too busy venting his irritation at the sight of Medeia lying still, he failed to notice the shadow lurking beneath the curtains.
After roughly shaking his head, the physician carelessly dropped his medical bag.
Even now, his resentment at being forcibly pulled away from Duke Claudio's side instead of being allowed to stay there hadn't faded.
"Do you have any idea how foul-tempered the Duke's daughter is? Leaving her to attend to the Princess—what kind of bullshit, absolute bullshit is this?"
The shadow moved.
And then, at last, it swept aside the curtain and revealed itself.
"What's with all this nonsense about currying favor and some damn kite with a cut string—?"
The Royal Physician's tirade froze mid-sentence. His eyes then bulged wide.
"Y-Your Highness, the Queen Dowager, why......."
Why here? Why there? Why now?
None of the questions flooding his mind found answers.
'Oh no.'
Because first, he remembered exactly what he had just been saying. His face turned deathly pale in an instant.
"Y-Your Highness...... Please, kill me."
The Royal Physician abandoned his medical bag and everything else, swiftly dropping to his knees before the Queen Dowager.
"If you wish to die, then die you shall."
But the Queen Dowager's expression was as cold as ice.
"What are you all standing around for? Drag him away. Since serving as the Royal Physician seems so tedious, I shall grant his wish."
"Y-Your Highness! Please, have mercy! I wasn't in my right mind!"
The physician kowtowed desperately, pleading as if his life depended on it.
The Queen Dowager gave him a single glance.
"Throw him out. Not only is he to be stripped of his position as Royal Physician for the crime of disloyalty to the royal family, but the moment he leaves the Royal Castle, he and his entire lineage are to be barred from the capital for life. Never again shall he strut about calling himself a Royal Physician."
"Not that! Please, execute me instead! Your Highness the Queen Dowager, I beg you, show mercy!"
"What are you waiting for?"
The knights entered and seized the royal physician by both arms.
"Your Majesty, please—!"
"Silence. Raise your voice again carelessly, and I'll ensure your mouth stays shut forever."
The Queen Dowager issued her icy warning.
Madame Pinatelli stuffed a white handkerchief into the physician's mouth.
"Y-Your Majesty! Pwease, m-mercy!"
Without so much as a glance at the dragged-away physician, the Queen Dowager turned away.
"Pinatelli, has Lord Hertos arrived yet?"
Hertos was the Queen Dowager's personal physician—a man whose exceptional medical skills had earned him a noble title.
"Yes, Your Majesty. He said he would depart immediately after packing his belongings, so he should arrive shortly."
The Queen Dowager valued Hertos so highly that she forbade anyone but herself from summoning him.
Not even the Duke Claudio's household dared call upon Hertos.
Entrusting her personal physician to treat the princess was tantamount to declaring that the Queen Dowager cherished her as a granddaughter.
Soon enough, Hertos—who knew all too well the Queen Dowager's short temper—arrived at the princess's quarters in a carriage that might as well have flown.
With practiced hands, he took the princess's pulse.
Not a trace of disrespect could be detected in his careful touch toward the royal family's so-called "black sheep."
"Well?"
At the Queen Dowager's anxious query, Hertos shook his head.
"Not good. Her mind and body are as worn down as Your Majesty's own. Beyond her physical state, I cannot fathom how she endured five days in such extreme tension and panic. These symptoms are typically seen only in soldiers returning from prolonged warfare—how a young princess could..."
"......"
"Your Majesty. Forgive my impertinence, but at this rate, it would not surprise me if the Goddess herself came to claim Her Highness."
"Nonsense! You must restore this child to how she was."
Faded blue eyes fixed on the Queen Dowager.
"To how she was? To which time, precisely?"
Before the princess was punished?
Or before the Queen Dowager had turned her venom upon her young granddaughter at the funeral?
Or perhaps—
To when the Late King and his queen still lived?
"......"
The Queen Dowager fell silent.
She knew none of these were possible.
"Grandmother!"
The image surfaced of a young Medeia, long ago, laughing brightly in her father's embrace.
That child could have remained unchanged. She could have protected that girl.
But she hadn't.
"I... I..."
The Queen Dowager staggered out.
After commanding Hertos to personally oversee the princess's recovery, the Queen Dowager departed.
"......"
Lost in thought, she remained wordless throughout.
On the return path, something caught her eye.
"What place is that?"
"Ah."
Madame Pinatelli answered where the Queen Dowager's gaze had landed.
"That is the Cottage House where Duchess Claudio and the Duke's daughter reside."
After her eldest son's death, the Queen Dowager had been so grief-stricken that she kept her remaining second son close, trying to forget the pain of losing a child.
By extension, her daughter-in-law and grandchildren also received the Queen Dowager's abundant affection, and the Duke Claudio's household came and went from the royal palace as if it were their own home.
She had even granted the Claudio women separate palace lodgings, deeming their commute too long.
That was the Cottage House.
For collateral relatives—not direct royals—to reside in the palace was unprecedented in Valdina's history.
But between domestic turmoil and the Queen Dowager's influence, the matter had been glossed over.
"Hah."
The Queen Dowager let out a hollow laugh.
The Cottage House's friendly, humble name suggested not a palace residence but a modest dwelling.
Yet judging by the dazzling light spilling from its windows, wasn't the structure splendid even from afar?
She turned to look toward the princess's quarters.
Shrouded in darkness, the princess's residence emitted only a dim, hazy glow—barely visible.
A stark contrast to the Cottage House, from which strains of music occasionally drifted, the princess's quarters exuded an air of desolation.
"It seems I've shut myself away for too long."
The old woman's belated lament sank into the shadows.
Cuisine was dead.
Having perished in prison while serving her sentence for insulting royalty, a gale of upheaval swept through the palace before her blood had even cooled.
"Find every last one of them! Leave none unaccounted for!"
Under the Queen Dowager's protection, Siseo summoned and hunted down all involved.
A full-scale investigation commenced.