The Butler's Debut
I bowed my head in a light greeting. Then, slowly, I let bloom at the corner of my mouth the smile I had practiced and perfected countless times.
The whole banquet hall, which had been murmuring with unrest, fell silent in an instant — every soul stopped breathing at once.
"It is an honor to make your acquaintance, Marquis Graven. I am Freya, butler to the Grand Duke's household. I hope to serve you well in the days to come."
This, in effect, was a stage the Grand Duke had rolled out for me — the setting of my formal debut as a butler.
He had handed me the opportunity himself. There was no way I was letting it slip.
Marquis Graven likely knew next to nothing about me, either. A butler who had never even graduated from the butler academy — and a woman, at that.
Even with the Grand Duke himself vouching for me, he must have more than a few doubts.
As though I had been waiting for exactly that, I pressed on.
"How did the herbs fare — the ones the Grand Duke's estate sent some time ago? Has the Marchioness's condition shown any improvement?"
"Hm?"
The Marquis's eyes went wide.
"Ah — don't tell me. It was you who sent those herbs?"
Smiling, I gave a single nod.
"I happened to know a little about the illness the Marchioness suffers from. So, after consulting with the Grand Duke's household physician, I composed a prescription of herbs and sent them over."
At that, Marquis Graven turned to the Grand Duke and demanded, "Is that true, Your Grace?!"
The Grand Duke nodded.
"I'm told she handled the matter that way while I was out on the battlefield. I hadn't known she would concern herself with my vassals' affairs as well."
"Of course, every coin spent procuring those herbs came out of His Grace's own treasury."
When I gave a small smile, Marquis Graven burst into hearty laughter.
"And here I've been, sitting blind before my own benefactor all this while."
The Marquis turned to the Grand Duke.
"Your Grace, you cannot imagine how wondrous that herb has proven. My wife hadn't been able to rise from her bed in three years — one dose of that brew, and within two days she was up and out strolling the garden."
Then he turned to me.
"Our household physician tells me the herb must have been no small feat to come by."
I answered, calm and even.
"As it happens, that herb..."
Adding a few fabrications of my own to the truth I knew, I carried on with my explanation.
The fact was, I knew that disease — and its remedy — better than anyone.
The Marchioness has been bedridden for three years, they'd said.
Which meant the timing matched, more or less.
The illness that had felled the Marchioness was no natural affliction. It had been deliberately engineered by Crown Prince Serhin of the Tenasis Empire.
To be pedantic about it, the thing had actually been cooked up by that lunatic of a doctor — one of Serhin's most trusted confidants — but no matter.
Serhin knew that the longer the war dragged on, the wider the gap between his empire and the Cadea Empire grew, inch by inch. He knew, too, that if nothing changed, the Remarte Disputed Territory would be pried from his grasp one day, sooner or later.
"As if the World Tree weren't enough, now they lay claim to Remarte as well. What a people whose greed pierces the very heavens! The withering of the World Tree must surely be divine punishment, sent down upon such insatiable wretches!"
Serhin had raged. And then, together with that madman of a physician, he had drawn up a plan: to bring the Cadea Empire crashing down from within.
The first move was to breed anxiety among the imperial populace. And nothing stoked fear quite like an epidemic with no cure.
"Seeding it in the slums would mean nothing. We test it on a house of great renown within the Cadea Empire. The people must be made to understand that even a family of wealth and power cannot cure this disease."
And by every indication, that plan had run precisely the course Serhin intended — one look at the Marchioness, stricken for three years now and still without a cure, told me as much.
All of it, exactly the picture Serhin wanted.
The moment he was certain the disease could not be cured, Serhin planned to grant it the trait of contagion and set it loose across the whole of the Cadea Empire.
I had watched and heard every step of that plan unfold at his side. And I had simply stood by and let it happen.
Even if it looks like I've gone and wrecked that plan now.
I felt no regret for ruining Serhin's scheme. The truth was, I had never cared for that sort of indiscriminate sacrifice to begin with.
Guilt?
Well. I couldn't claim there was none whatsoever. Not that I had acted out of any towering heroic impulse, either.
In the end, the honest reading was that I had moved entirely for my own sake. Using what I knew of the disease, I had laid the groundwork to earn the Grand Duke's trust — and, beyond him, the trust of his vassals as well.
And if the lady's illness eases into the bargain, well — everybody wins. Simple as that.
That was how I tried to shake off the guilt pressing on one corner of my chest.
But none of this is truly over yet.
There was still room left to maneuver.
I looked at Marquis Graven, my gaze a touch heavier than before.
"My lord Marquis... I hesitate to say it, but as I noted in the letter I sent previously, this is not an herb that brings a complete cure."
The Marquis nodded, heavy-hearted.
"...Yes. I know. Still, what matters is that she rose from her bed at all. So long as it doesn't worsen, that alone satisfies me."
...
And there it was. The medicine that could be made from that herb was incomplete.
Because the final ingredient had become one that could no longer be obtained anywhere in the world.
"Why do you think they say this disease has no cure, Sia?"
"Why? I'd wager it's some kind of deadly poison?"
"To cure this disease outright, one ingredient is absolutely required. And that ingredient can no longer be found. It never can be, in fact."
"And what would that be?"
Serhin gave a smile I had seen from him only on the rarest of occasions — a smile brimming with euphoria as he looked at me, baring his white teeth as though he had never been so pleased with anything in his life.
"A World Tree leaf."
"...Ah."
"The World Tree will never grow another leaf again. Which is why a cure can never, ever exist."
"..."
If, as Serhin had said, the World Tree leaf was the final piece needed to complete the cure — then yes. That cure could never, ever be completed.
Even so, with the Marchioness's condition eased, Serhin would be forced to spend the coming stretch revising and shoring up his epidemic plans.
And that alone bought the Cadea Empire time.
The Marquis, at least, was settled.
Of all the vassal houses sworn to the Grand Duke, none wielded greater influence than House Graven. With the Marquis's goodwill secured, I figured I had cleared one of the largest mountains on my path.
Grand Duke Kadrian Ballot — head of the only ducal house in the Cadea Empire. And Marquis Vincent Graven — the chief vassal who served that house. The influence these two families exerted over the empire defied description in words.
And standing between those two titans was a single woman.
Any run-of-the-mill young noble would have struggled to squeeze out so much as a word in their presence — yet that young woman, a butler of all things, brimmed over with composure.
Not once did her bearing falter, from her flawlessly straight posture down to each flicker of expression as the conversation passed back and forth. The dignity and grace radiating from her every movement drew gasps of admiration. Though she stood alone between the two giants, she looked neither awkward nor wanting.
Eger Doffin, who had found the female butler grating from the start, grumbled under his breath.
"That wench is the Grand Duke's butler?"
At that, his friend Count Viktor Spod moved to cut him off.
"Careful, Eger. Mind your mouth. Like it or not, she is still the Grand Duke's butler." Hadn't he seen the way Marquis Graven had dressed him down earlier? So Viktor chided him.
But Eger was in no mood to hold his tongue.
"Oh, come off it. Did I say anything untrue? A female butler."
Fine — perhaps no one had answered the Grand Duke's call for a butler. But a butler who had never even finished the academy? Absurd.
Tsk, tsk. Eger clicked his tongue and pressed on.
"So House Ballot will stoop to any length after all."
"Eger!" Viktor cried out, alarmed. But Eger, his eyes still pinned on the female butler, merely lifted his wineglass and drained it in one swallow.
"At this point, I find myself curious just how remarkable that butler of theirs really is. Wouldn't you agree?"
Viktor gave no answer. There was something about the smile curling at the edge of Eger's lips that struck him as, somehow, deeply unsettling.
Eger turned to the attendant standing behind him.
"Folken."
"Yes, my lord."
"Find out everything there is to know about that woman. Where she was born, who her parents were, where she's been all this time before showing up here. Every last thing you can dig up."
Folken bowed his head.
"I shall see it done, my lord."
The gaze Eger fixed on the female butler sank darker still.