The Queen's Dirty Secrets

9. They are spying on you.

“Gertrude?”

No reply. Instead, Gertrude rushed away.

Merucia rushed even faster to catch up with her, “Gertrude, you know I’m calling you!”

Finally, Gertrude stood. She turned to Merucia and gave an exhausted, disinterested sigh, “What? How can I service you, Your Highness, before you can go back to your isolated royal life,” she was, clearly, venting. “And from there you can forget that we even exist and completely leave us all alone to deal with all the problems?!”

“I’ve been a jerk, haven’t I?”

“We’ve been dealing with a lot since we…” Gertrude couldn’t continue her sentence. Gertrude was never really emotional around people but the problems she was facing were bigger than her. Gertrude had never taken a life before and now the worst part, Lutho, her biggest rivalry, knew everything.

Now, Gertrude was in constant fear. She wasn’t as calm as she was anymore. She had even avoided facing Bertha all morning through. She knew that Bertha would simply break if she saw Gertrude defeated.

“Oh, really?” Merucia was shocked at how events had turned. Gertrude told her everything.

“I should’ve just listened to Bertha and left it alone.”

“Hey, hey,” Merucia argued in an attempt to comfort Gertrude, “what you did was necessary. At least, we now know who knows. If Lutho knows, then she must be the one to have moved the body. We have to get her to talk.”

But Gertrude was worried that if Lutho was to talk, the only people she would talk to were the law enforcement. It was best to not poke the beast while it was quiet, Gertrude thought. Lutho was silent about the whole situation, she would remain silent if no-one brought it up. Lutho was very good at attacking people with their mistakes. And so, it was best to leave her alone, according to Gertrude.

“Oh, no, Gertrude!” cried Merucia. “That is one thing we are not going to do! What happens if someday, we get on her wrong side? She’ll always hold this against us.”

“Then what do you suggest we do? Lutho is not exactly someone you can ask nicely.”

“I shall use my status as Her Majesty to pressure her into surrendering—”

“Oh, no!” Gertrude warned, “No, no. That is one thing you shall never do as Her Majesty. You must stay far… Far away from Lutho, as a woman who is married to the man that she is having an affair with.”

DUN! DUN! DUN!

It was news. It was shocking to Merucia. Her husband had already started having a passionate affair even before they had met and gotten married. Merucia had to gather herself together after remembering that it was only a contract marriage between Queen Gravier and the King. She also had to remember that she was leading a borrowed life, she was not Queen Gravier. It would be useless to get herself emotionally involved with her husband.

She also had to remember what she had seen one morning when she was asked to clean his room, back then when she was a maid. She learned from there, the kind of man he was.

Suddenly, a shadow flicked. Gertrude saw it far behind Merucia. “Who is there? Show yourself!” cried Gertrude. However, no one came out. Now, Gertrude ran to chase the shadow. She left Merucia standing still with worry.

“I couldn’t find them,” said Gertrude as she returned quickly from her fruitless chase. “I could’ve sworn someone was watching us. I think it’s Lutho!” She proclaimed, “She’s watching me, now.”

Merucia silently battled with herself on whether to tell Gertrude about her own troubles now. Merucia believed differently from Gertrude. She did not think it was Lutho, she believed it was her ladies-in-waiting. Merucia reminded herself that the troubles they were facing, they should be facing them together. She opened up about her strange ladies-in-waiting.

“…and then I caught them listening in on me.”

“First, they can’t tell that you are not Gravier, and then eavesdrop on you… It seems to me that they are pretending not to recognize that you are not her.” Gertrude believed that the two ladies only acted in response to shock. “Being in a new land can be terrifying, especially for young ladies like them.” Gertrude explained what she thought may have been the situation, “This is a Kingdom that is harsher on the feminine than it is on the commoners combined. If the ladies had caused chaos, they might have been hung.”

“So, they are only trying to protect themselves by going along with me?”

“I assume so. They are keeping a close eye on you to find out what happened to the real Gravier. So, you must be careful what you say when they are listening and not listening, from now on.”

It was now obvious that, both divisions had to be careful—Merucia had to be careful around her ladies and, Gertrude and Bertha around Lutho.

Merucia checked in for the night. She was tired and had to go to sleep. She pushed the door to her room open and thanks to her ladies-in-waiting, the candles were already lit. She saw a figure of a person on her bed. Particularly, it was of a giant man. He laid on her bed and posed seductively so. She could not make out his face because the lace bed-net was rolled down. She could see from the thin silk gown that he had nothing underneath. Petrified and in a shaky voice she called out, “Who be there, laying on my bed?”