Chapter 2 - The Girl with a Brand (2)

The day had been awful since the morning. It was common for Deborah to neglect her homework or insult her tutor, but the tutor’s anger was excessive today. Azriel’s back was covered in blood from having been whipped over 30 times that day. Even after all the beatings, the tutor was still furious and left, fuming.

“Don’t pretend it hurts,” Deborah said, slapping Azriel’s face as Azriel staggered. 

“Are you going to embarra*s me?”

“Yes, My Lady,” Azriel answered.

“…You are such a shame.”

Deborah glared at her in dissatisfaction and left the room. 

Azriel then organized Deborah’s books and writing supplies before returning to her own room, which was a space in the corner of a liquor cellar divided from the rest of the basement by a plank. It was always dark, damp, cold, and filled with dirt. To Azriel—whose body was already weak from constant whippings, starvation, and abuse—it was an extremely harmful environment.

She coughed incessantly as she opened a rusty bottle. The smell of cheap ointment filled the small space. Given that it was such a crude ointment, it did not have much of an effect on her wounds, but it was better than nothing. Azriel undid her shirt and rubbed the ointment on her back, already accustomed to putting it on spots that were normally hard to reach.

As she dexterously treated her back, she focused her ears on the sounds coming from the ceiling. Above her room was the hallway between the kitchen and the pantry.

“Quick, move faster! Do you understand who’s visiting tomorrow? If he doesn’t like you, all of you might turn into frogs!”

She could clearly hear the head maid’s loud voice. The other maids giggled as they busily carried on with their tasks. Azriel had heard about the guest who would be visiting the castle tomorrow. They said that a great wizard from the capital was coming.

In legends and tales of history past, wizards were described as being able to call down lightning, split the ground, turn the tide of war, and even fight dragons. Such stories were fairy tales now. Most wizards these days were more similar in ability to healers or craftsmen—treated with higher regard, of course. Even petty wizards were capable of ‘communicating’. Wizards had the unique ability to send and receive messages to and from one another regardless of the distance between them. Delivering information through the wizards’ communication system was so important to the foundation of the nation that it was directly managed by the kingdom.

The wizard who would be visiting the castle tomorrow was rumored to be in an entirely different cla*s from other wizards. He was closer in ability to the wizards of legend than the ordinary wizards found in every village. Someone like him did not normally visit the countryside, but he must have been coming to investigate the ruins that were recently discovered on the Colte estate.

“What?” yelled the head maid. “Did we run out of butter? What on earth were you doing instead of checking on such basic things?! Maylie, go buy some butter, quickly!”

“Head Maid, you sent Maylie to organize the parlor because they were short-handed.”

“Oh, that’s right. Then, who else is left?”

“We’d all be short-handed even if we had four hands. Oh, isn’t Lady Deborah’s cla*s over? I saw Tutor Carter’s carriage leaving!”

“Look at the time!” the head maid screamed in irritation. “It must have ended a while ago already. Where is that d*mn little girl Azriel idling around at?”

Startled, Azriel sprang up from her bed. She hastily rubbed the rest of the ointment off her fingers and onto her apron as she ran. Hearing the head maid’s steps thumping above her head, she raced up the stairs.

“Head Maid,” she called, “were you looking for me?”

“You!” the heavy-framed head maid frowned at the thin girl at the end of the stairs. “You were messing around again!”

Azriel hurriedly bowed.

“The count took in a slave girl like you, fed you, raised you, and even made you a commoner, yet you don’t know how to be grateful, do you? You can’t do anything right except look for a chance to loaf around!”

“No, I was just putting some ointment on my back…”

“What kind of excuse is that?” the head maid ground her knuckles against Azriel’s head. “Don’t whine about getting whipped a few times, you sloppy girl!”

Azriel relented and shut her mouth. No matter what she said, the head maid would only grow angrier. As the head maid had said, Azriel was no longer a slave, though not because the Count had been merciful. The King of Aucandor had pushed to abolish slavery. When that happened, Count Colte destroyed Azriel’s slave certificate with displeasure. He then instead made a contract of indentured servitude after increasing her ransom dozens of times. 

“You should pay back the money I paid to buy you, don’t you think? The extra is interest.”

Azriel’s debt amounted to a million pels. Since her wage as a commoner was only 500 pels a month, that meant she needed to work for 167 years to pay off her debt. It was never meant to be paid off. Count Colte even said that he would sooner deduct her wages than pay her anything. He had no intention of letting her go or even paying her properly. This kind of practice was now commonplace in Aucandor following the abolishment of slavery.  

The brand on Azriel’s foot, however, still remained. Though she was now a commoner on paper, the mark would not disappear, both from reality and from people’s knowledge.

All the servants employed by the Colte estate were either other nobles or commoners from the village. Azriel, on the other hand, was a slave who did nothing but dress in finery and stand in the young lady’s room while she was in cla*s and the others were working hard. As a result, she was bound to be hated. Since Deborah forbade her from showing her wounds in front of others, few people knew the extent of Azriel’s beatings. Without any apparent injuries, she was undoubtedly detested by others.

The head maid especially hated Azriel.

“Go buy three blocks of butter now, and don’t even think about stealing a single dime, or you will be punished without mercy!”