Maomao reached for one more spoonful. But the delicious mushroom porridge was snatched away by the shrine maiden's attendant.
"W-what are you doing?!"
"What do you mean, 'what'? I'm testing it for poison."
They had switched to this side's language. It seemed Maomao's Sagoese really wasn't very good after all. That was actually a relief.
"Give me that porridge. The poison testing isn't finished yet. Or are you planning to make the shrine maiden eat the rest?"
"..."
Taking the attendant's silence as an opening, Maomao pressed on.
"Well, normally it wouldn't be, but isn't it quite rare? Poison obtained without leaving any evidence behind."
"On what basis?"
The attendant's face twitched for an instant, but she quickly composed herself. People who could scheme up such elaborate plans certainly had thick skin. The shrine maiden wore an innocent expression as well.
(As expected.)
How easy things would be if they would just confess right here.
"Then would you mind waiting a while? If the porridge I just ate was poisoned, I should start showing symptoms. A single bite may not be enough for the poison to take effect, so give me the rest."
Maomao extended her hand. The attendant refused to hand over the porridge.
"That last bite had at most one small piece of mushroom in it. It wouldn't reach a lethal dose. Give it to me."
"Don't be ridiculous. If it's poison, spit it out."
"No, I won't spit it out."
Maomao pulled a notebook from her bosom.
"What's that?"
"This is the journal of the court lady who served as the shrine maiden's poison taster—"
Yao—
"was her name. She was an earnest girl who taught me that during a poison tasting, if something smelled strange, you shouldn't eat it. Even if"
Lady Airin
"had laced the food with poison, she would have noticed from the smell. She may have been inexperienced, but she was not the kind of girl who would make such a basic mistake."
And the journal contained detailed accounts of the days leading up to the feast.
"It also properly recorded what the priestess had been eating. Before the feast, it appears she was served a congee similar to this for breakfast."
The entry read, "Morning: Congee with mushrooms."
"They must have calculated the poison's effects quite carefully—timing it so she would take a turn for the worse after the feast ended. And perhaps they felt at least a twinge of guilt?
It was an amount that, with proper treatment, would not have been lethal."
She was stable now. There was concern about whether her internal organs might suffer lasting damage, but it seemed her life was no longer in danger.
Yanyan must have been relieved as well.
"Would you please stop saying things that don't make sense? The culprit has already confessed, hasn't she?"
"Yes, she has confessed. I believe we received word today that the culprit had been found and her punishment decided? Which is why she felt safe enough to take her own life."
Since they had to make Airin the culprit, she needed to kill herself only after being found guilty. That was likely why a two-stage poison had been chosen.
Furthermore, once Airin was confirmed as the culprit, there was a high probability that the priestess's subsequent death would be swept under the rug. Actively pursuing the real culprit would only cause problems for both sides.
The two regarded Maomao with calm expressions.
(If they silenced me right here and now, that'd be trouble.)
Raban had been ordered to stand by at the priestess's separate palace. He had sent someone to fetch his father, so he should arrive soon.
(Silencing me would be difficult, but having everything exposed here would be even worse.)
She understood. None of this would benefit Maomao either. The threatening tone she had adopted until now wasn't about uncovering the crime—it was a setup to get them to listen to what she had to say.
"Your Grace. It seems you and Consort Airin are well acquainted."
"...Yes. In the past, as a candidate for priestess—"
The priestess spoke. Her expression carried a hint of sadness.
(Just as I thought.)
Airin had been protecting the priestess. If the priestess had been unilaterally pinning the crime on her, would she have reacted that way? Rather, given the kind of priestesses they were, perhaps they had calculated from the very start that Airin's entry into the rear palace was part of the plan.
"If this continues, she will be sentenced to hanging."
The priestess flinched. Compared to her attendant, the priestess was a poor actress.
If she were going to rattle someone, the priestess would be the better target.
"I'm not sure how things work in Saou, but in this country, assassination—let alone attempted assassination—is punishable by death. And you would simply stand by and watch someone who would stake her life for you die?"
The two of them remained silent.
"Would you really stand by and watch Consort Airin die?"
(As I thought, it's no use.)
While Maomao was considering what to say next, the priestess lowered her head on the bed. Something resembling a sob could be heard.
"P-Priestess..."
"...W-What am I supposed to do?"
The voice that leaked out held no dignity—it was fragile, almost desperate, as though grasping for help.
"From the moment I was born, my way of life was twisted and bent, and I simply lived so as not to resist the current. I had nothing but the role of priestess. That is why I resolved to live as a proper priestess until the very end."
"Priestess!"
The attendant shook the priestess, but the priestess continued her monologue.
Broken Ri and fluent Saou were mixed together.
By the sound of it, Maomao's prediction had not been far off. The royal faction, seeing the priestess as having grown too powerful, had been on the verge of removing her from her seat. Being deposed alone would have been one thing, but if it also meant having her marriage decided for her, that was enough to send anyone into a panic.
"The purpose is to drag the very existence of the priestess down into the dirt, isn't it?"
Whether they had realized the priestess's true identity, or whether they intended to negate the sacred institution of the priestess by reducing her to nothing more than someone's wife—it was impossible to say which. In any case, simply replacing the priestess would greatly diminish their power.
Maomao had not directly stated that the priestess was a man, but her phrasing made it clear she had already figured it out from context. The priestess might have let it slip in a moment of heightened emotion, but Maomao saw no need to point that out.
"It was Airin who broached the subject."
Airin had been well-versed in the affairs of the Ri kingdom. If the priestess died abroad, her remains were to be returned as bones. In Ri, burial was the norm and cremation was reserved only for those condemned to death—a difference in culture. They said that when the priestess was burned by fire, she would return to the sun.
(If she's reduced to bones, no one will be able to say anything about her gender.)
With the priestess's death, Ri would owe a debt to Saou. Whether the culprit was Saouan or not, that much was certain. On the other hand, Saou would have the troublesome priestess removed. That alone, the king would be satisfied with.
"But if the priestess is gone, isn't it ultimately the same thing?"
"No."
The priestess gently looked at her attendant.
"Even without me, there will be another priestess."
(So that's how it is.)
The priestess selects a girl who has not yet reached her first menstrual period. If the attendant returns to her homeland, then that
Head
"I'll become an attendant."
"The next priestess is far more capable than I am. That's why I can hand over the role."
Whether a girl who hasn't even come of age is truly more capable than a priestess in her forties — is there any basis for that claim? Maomao kept that doubt to herself.
"Even without me, there won't be any problems."
But she couldn't help interjecting at the priestess's declaration.
"Are you really certain about that?"
Maomao said, as if pouring cold water on the idea.
"What you've described is merely the ideal script from the priestesses' perspective. Have you considered what would happen if His Majesty were to become angry over this?"
Everything presented here served only the interests of Saou. The Zhao clan, saddled with an uninvited uproar and left owing a debt to Saou, would gain absolutely nothing — even if both the priestess and Airin ended up sacrificed.
A priestess who loved her country, yet her concern for it came at the expense of burdening others.
"What would you have done if Yao had actually died?"
That was the one thing she had wanted to say.
She pounded Yao's journal with her fist. She wanted to ask where Yao's fault lay in all of this.
"Th-that..."
The two of them did seem to feel some guilt after all. She couldn't very well use a weak poison. They needed to see a poison potent enough to make the priestess's death believable. Even though she had adjusted its strength, one wrong step and the woman would have died for real.
"If you intended to bring nothing but disadvantage to my country and then simply wash your hands of the whole affair, I won't keep quiet either."
"Even... even if it means my death?"
"I can't stand the idea of using death to wrap everything up neatly."
Maomao felt a sense of relief having said what she most wanted to say. In the end, wasn't it simply a matter of not seeing things through to the end?
She suddenly recalled the innocent, carefree girl who had loved insects — the girl who vanished into the snow and was never found again.
"After the priestess died, were you certain Saou wouldn't make any unreasonable demands?"
"Well... we were planning to ask them to accept a few of our conditions."
"Such as? The matter of food supplies?"
"Yes, that among other things. The other was that we intended to request the white-haired girl who should be with you be handed over to us."
"The white girl... is that it?"
They couldn't possibly be parent and child. Come to think of it, Airin had been hinting at something like this from the very beginning. What kind of relationship did they actually have?
"That girl was supposed to be raised as the next shrine maiden."
It seemed the shrine maiden was a relative. As a bloodline, it was apparently a family where white-haired children were more likely to be born, but even so, it was still considered rare.
"If I had simply handed her over back then, we wouldn't be in this situation now. As a shrine maiden, with no choice but to cling to my position, I sent the white baby back."
But by doing so, she had caused an uproar in another country and ended up branded a criminal.
"If word got out that there was another white-haired child, it would cause problems down the line. That's what I thought, so I had her raised in secret. But..."
"Why is she in this country?"
"They said someone who wanted to disgrace me used her as a tool. I heard that girl was taken away about five years ago."
The shrine maiden simply lowered her face, grief written across it.
Even if she had never become a shrine maiden, a white-haired girl whose very existence had been concealed had nowhere to go.
"...So in other words, it's all because of you, my lady, that this country has suffered nothing but trouble."
"How dare you!"
Maomao's blunt manner of speaking drew anger from the attendant, who had been calm until now. It was the shrine maiden who restrained her. Whenever one grew emotional, the other would settle down—they had the air of partners who had been together for years.
"Is that true?"
"It is. Then wouldn't you like to spend the rest of your lives making amends over there?"
Maomao had turned the problem over in her mind until she'd exhausted every option, and this was the only proposal she could come up with. If this didn't work, there was nothing more to be done.
"Would you mind dying for real, just once?"
At Maomao's words, the two of them exchanged glances.