Surviving As A Maid

Chapter 4

I knew life didn’t have easy answers, but given the situation I was in, I desperately needed one.

Maybe if I look around, I might find others who have experienced something similar. Taking any action seemed better than just sitting around and doing nothing. Yet, as I contemplated my next move, a sense of foreboding washed over me. It was akin to the sensation of mistakenly boarding the last train at night only to discover it was heading in the wrong direction. A warning kept blinking in the back of my mind like I had left something important behind. I had a feeling that leaving this place wasn’t an option yet. Answers were often found close to the source of the problem, and it seemed I needed to uncover a clue within the queen’s palace.

Leaning back in the chair, I stared intently into the mirror at Ash’s face—my face—until it almost felt foreign. But I couldn’t just sit and stare forever. Standing up, I draped the shawl that was hanging on the chair over my shoulders and left the room. Mina had mentioned going to Sev’s room next door. Since our room was at the very end of the corridor, I was sure of where to go. My roommate’s name is Mina, the blue-eyed maid she talked with earlier is Ellie, and Sev is the girl in the next room. But which one of the maids I saw earlier is Sev?

I knocked on the door of the next room and opened it before hearing a response.

“Hi, Sev? Can I join you?”

As I went in, I saw several girls in their pajamas on the beds.

There are four... No, five of them. Now, I just have to wait and see who responds.

An Unexpected Aptitude

Surprisingly, being a maid suited me well.

Why did I even go to a four-year college? I used to agonize over where to send my resume, but maybe this was my calling all along. Just great. Only in this distant world, far beyond any airplane’s reach, do I discover an aptitude I never knew I had in Korea.

Working part-time at family restaurants and hotels during school for extra money had been grueling, leaving my feet feeling like they were ablaze. I had thought such work wasn’t meant for me, but being a maid was quite doable, especially now since it was crucial for my survival. From my understanding, maids were of noble status and had specific tasks assigned to them. After going through Ash’s belongings, I didn’t think she seemed very noble. However, to my surprise, she was indeed a maid but not of noble birth at all.

I could only come up with one explanation for this: Since the queen was neglected by the king, I inferred that she was not in a position to have maids from prestigious families. But whether the personnel department purposely did not appoint any maids here or if the maids’ wages came from the queen’s own pocket was beyond my knowledge.

Among the maids I dined and gossiped with, none were of noble birth. We were unsure ourselves exactly what work we were assigned to do because the tasks we were expected to do changed every day. I would closely attend to the queen one day, do the laundry another day, and clean every nook and cranny of the palace the next day.

Cooking, however, seemed to be handled by specialized staff. A few maids, including Mina and myself, were spared from the roughest tasks because of our neat appearances and soft hands. I wasn’t particularly pretty, but my hands were soft and unscarred, like those of a daughter from a wealthy family. Oh, thank goodness. I guess my efforts in taking good care of my hands paid off.

Days passed, and nearly two weeks had gone by since the birth of the baby prince. In that time, no divine goddess had sought me out, no shadow of a dark lord threatening humanity had emerged, nor did I seem likely to find a magical tome or the founding king’s treasure. The world was at peace, and I was insignificant. And frankly, in my opinion, the king was a real bastard.

“He probably won’t come today either, right?” I asked Anna, who was drying dishes beside me. She was one of the prettiest among us and was often exempt from harsher tasks.

“Even if he does, I doubt he’ll stay for even three minutes,” she replied.

“Still, that seems so wrong.”

“I prefer it when he doesn’t come. It’ll be a disaster if he does.”

Sometimes, children were born without love. This held especially true in royal families, unlike how they are described in fairy tales. But even though the prince was a child born out of necessity rather than love, I despised the king for not even naming the baby and acting like he didn’t exist. Two weeks had passed since the birth of the prince, and he was still nameless.

“It just feels off.” Jessie, patting the knife and fork dry with a towel, suddenly spoke up.

“What does?” I asked.

“I’m talking about that sly fox.”

The male consort, Yurigel, adored by almost every man in existence, was given that nickname by the maids of the queen’s palace. Everyone seemed to prefer calling him that instead of his name. Dropped into this world while halfway through making ramyun, my memory of Yurigel had already become faint after the whole childbirth chaos. What did he look like again? I remember him as a reasonably likable, bright, and pretty young man.

“He’s got a devilish charm.”

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing. I said these plates are heavy,” Jessie replied.

In the novel, Yurigel appeared to be a natural object of adoration. If there were an angel adorned with the brilliance of love and allure, it would have been him. Almost every man who saw Yurigel fell in love with him. The king’s childhood friend, his personal guard, and even a prince visiting from another country all succumbed to his charm.

Even the queen’s brother, who had kidnapped Yurigel in an attempt to avenge his sister for being shunned and neglected until her death from illness, ultimately found himself at the blond man’s feet, begging for his love.

After the queen’s death, I knew the novel would never have a satisfying twist, but I continued reading, clinging to the faint hope that her son, the prince, would someday avenge her. Yet, what followed was just her tragic ending.

“Will it be okay?” I asked, voicing my concern.

“We haven’t done anything wrong...” Jessie responded, casting a gloomy cloud of unease over us.

Although the king hadn’t come to see the prince since his fleeting visit on the day of his birth, Yurigel was different. About a week after the prince’s birth, Sev, who had a brother in the royal palace guard, informed us that Yurigel had been loitering near the queen’s palace.

No harm had been done until yesterday when Yurigel stepped into the palace unannounced and without a messenger, causing a silent uproar among the maids. This situation was especially panic-inducing because it was the king’s lover, and none of us knew what to do in such a situation. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the maids of the queen’s palace were a ragtag group. If I recalled correctly, a maid named Pepe had gone to call the head maid, but Yurigel left on his own after mumbling to himself, and everyone was still uneasy despite no trouble so far.

“We might not have done anything to him, but will His Majesty see it that way?” a maid asked.

“But we really didn’t do anything,” another maid responded.

“Yeah. We didn’t even speak to him,” added a third.

But how could we be rest assured when a man in love never listens to reason?

“Girls, we have a problem!” Pepe burst in, kicking open the door. It seemed she was indeed the one who had gone to fetch the head maid yesterday.

The kitchen was still bustling with people, as dinner had just ended. Those putting away the clean dishes and preparing ingredients for tomorrow’s meals all turned to look at Pepe.

“His Majesty has arrived with soldiers!”

What kind of husband would bring soldiers to his wife’s palace when she’s still recovering from childbirth? Could he be here to take away the prince? But I remembered reading that the queen hadn’t resisted or put up any sort of fight at all when her child was taken away from her. I didn’t understand why there was a need for soldiers. Anxiety filled the kitchen in an instant. We had nowhere to run, not that we had any idea as to why we would need to.

Everyone’s eyes were fixed on the only entrance Pepe had entered from, huddling and clinging to the nearest person for comfort. Soon, we heard the clashing of armor and the shouts of men mixed with the screams of women. We remained on edge in case the soldiers barged in, but their loud footsteps didn’t seem to be searching our area. As time went by, we slowly let go of each other’s hands and separated one by one.

Ah, I remember. Those were the soldiers sent to arrest the queen’s maids. The king had brought them to arrest the maids closest to the queen, but he was so indifferent to her that he had no idea how the maids in her palace operated. The agitated crowd began to cautiously move toward the door and windows. Those who managed to survive in the queen’s palace until now were somewhat accustomed to such incidents.

Pepe, Anna, Jessie, and I inched to the door with our skirts lifted to muffle our footsteps. The palace kitchen, located in the basement, offered a vantage point thanks to Pepe having left the door wide open when she entered. We hung at the top of the stairs like idle mice, catching glimpses of the soldiers and the maids’ legs being dragged away.

“What will happen to those people?” I asked.

“Just the same as always,” Jessie replied.

“What does that mean?”

“Either they’ll be dismissed or sent to serve in another part of the palace.”

“So... nothing changes?”

“Pretty much.”

The king was consistently indifferent to the queen and occasionally upended the queen’s palace. While the queen possessed neither power nor authority, the king would sometimes undermine what little authority she had and cut off her support, possibly out of concern that any careless action on her part could jeopardize or harm Yurigel, whom he held dear.

What builds loyalty in a person? Decent pay, generous benefits, relationships with co-workers, and long-term employment, perhaps? I didn’t know how much palace maids earned, but fostering loyalty was hard in a place where you never knew how long your colleagues would be around or even how long you’d be there yourself. Being human, we could sympathize with the queen’s plight while here, but it was difficult to offer anything of ourselves or pledge loyalty to her.

A moment later, Mina, who had been assigned to sewing duties, cautiously joined us in lying prone at the stair’s edge.

Jessie asked, “Did you hear why this is happening?”

“Yeah. They said it was because we disrespected that fox.”

“Disrespected?!” Jessie exclaimed.

I had been on corridor cleaning duty yesterday and witnessed Yurigel hesitating there. I could say for sure that none of the maids did anything to show even a hint of disrespect. None of the maids had doused him with cold water or insulted him. No one had told him to get lost.

“But nobody did anything!” Anna, who had attended to the queen yesterday, protested.

She should be grateful that the king came today instead of yesterday. Otherwise, she would have likely been among those taken.