Chapter 48
Human Enchantment
"Then, Princess, we will see you at lunchtime."
Katarina announced that the morning tasks of the maids had finally been completed.
The maid’s announcement caused Mary to frown internally; a large part of the princess could not help but resent that these maids were going to try and take up a great deal of her time from now on.
They had spent hours paying attention to her appearance and attempting to give her lessons, not just on how to care for her appearance, but on her mannerism, how she as a princess was to act.
If Mary was to be totally honest with herself, she truly didn’t care for it. And certainly not after considering how much of her valuable time would now be spent on such lessons instead of on magic.
It was fortunate then that the princess had created her second mind spells and that they could do much of the theoretical work while she was unfortunately distracted by the interruptions of the maids in the physical world.
Nonetheless, regardless of what the princess really wanted to say, there was only one reasonable response to the maid’s statement, no matter how much Mary might want to wish otherwise.
“Ok, see you then.”
The princess responded curtly, once again barely restraining herself from saying something that would probably be unwise and would definitely be considered rude.
The maid smiled her still distant and cold smile before ushering the other, still much warmer, maids out of the room.
After the door closed behind them, Mary turned her head towards Sylvia, who had opted not to follow the other maids out of the room. And raised an interrogative eyebrow at the quiet battle maid.
Sylvia fidgeted for several moments before she eventually conceded the truth.
“This caught me off guard.”
The silver-haired maid answered the unasked question apologetically.
“I get that; you couldn’t have known that the king was going to die.”
Said Mary, dismissing the apology as unnecessary and instead focusing on what had been disturbing her since the morning began.
“But what was with the total change in attitude? The maids were much friendlier than they had been before.
Sylvia adopted a complex look, clearly struggling to find the words that would adequately explain the discrepancy. Immediately Mary understood that the reasoning behind the change was by no means a simple one.
“It’s complicated.”
The maid said, grimacing.
“For the common maids, it’s a natural occurrence; they’re acting how they wish they could have acted all along.”
Sylvia revealed the truth.
“In the end, commoners don’t believe in the relevant laws, so the way that they are acting is basically an apology. I think.”
Mary twitched at the explanation, uncertain of what part to address first.
{She thinks.}
A second mind repeated disbelievingly.
‘It’s not surprising that she doesn’t know for certain.’
Mary retorts in answer to the internal disbelief, having instinctively moved to defend her personal maid.
Switching focus away from Sylvia's lacking knowledge, Mary instead concentrated on the other part of the explanation: the maid had revealed something that didn’t make sense to the princess.
“What do you mean they don’t believe in the relevant laws?”
Mary asked disbelievingly; it was only a few hours before that the princess had internally thought to herself that maids in the palace should at least be those who believed in the so-called traditional laws that demanded the enslavement of noble women.
How could anything else be true? Otherwise, those maids represented subversive elements in the heart of the kingdom.
No sane government would allow potentially rebellious elements into the core of their power, and yet, if Sylvia was to be believed, that was precisely what the kingdom of Midgard had done.
They had allowed commoners, people who heavily disagreed with an apparently fundamental law of the kingdom, into their centre of power.
‘It doesn’t make sense.’
Mary thought, reflecting on the allegedly mild enchantment that all of the maids had undergone. Surely, this was something that was as easily exploitable by any enemies of the crown?
“As far as most of the nobility is concerned, they’re just commoners. Weak ones at that.”
Sylvia shrugged dismissively, causing Mary to glare at her disapprovingly.
The maid instantly saw the glare aimed at her and moved to explain further.
“There are some protections in place.”
Sylvia stated firmly.
“It’s not just that they have a semi-permanent slave enchantment, one that forces them to be loyal to the Midgardian royal family.”
Mary frowned; a requirement such as that might have made some sense. Except the new king was part of the royal family by marriage. Mary had not done any enchanting as of yet, but it would be logical to assume that it was not totally dissimilar to magic, and if that was the case then…
{A vulnerability?}
Asked a second mind.
{But such an obvious one?}
Another questioned.
“The commoners that get accepted into the palace are all weak; they’ve never done any fighting nor entered any dungeons. Put simply, they’re all low level.”
“The result of that is that they can’t resist low-level human enchantments, such as what they have allowed themselves to be placed under.”
Sylvia continued, despite her princesses' visible disapproval; the maid could not help but let a degree of dismissive disdain clearly peek through.
“I’ve got an enchantment just like it, you know? It’s a requirement to work at the palace as a maid.”
Mary's eyes shot towards Sylvia's own, an adorable look of surprise blatant on her face.
The maid smirks, apparently having sought exactly that reaction.
“I was a B-ranked adventurer; if it was that easy to compel me to do something, then Elizabeth wouldn’t require such specialised and frequent work from a powerful mage now, would she?”
Mary exhaled and nodded reluctantly; internally, she admitted to herself that Sylvia had once again said something to her for sheer shock value, with the intent of getting a reaction.
Most annoyingly of all, this was a habit of the maid who continued to work and likely would continue to do so for many years yet. Ultimately, Mary still lacked knowledge about the world, including Midgard.
Mary frowned in consideration; if she could get a look at that palace loyalty enchantment, she might be able to figure out how trustworthy the maid corps could feasibly be.
“Are you sure that the enchantment is focused on the royal family?”
The princess asked doubtfully, with the former king apparently dominated by the nobility and now the new king being from that nobility himself. Surely, the relative power of the crown would be at an all-time low?
From what Alexander knew of medieval politics, the nobility should be taking heavy advantage of the crown's relative weakness to gain additional rights and privileges; such things had happened historically in England too.
Sylvia looks at her princess in surprise, having not really expected such a question.
“I’m certain. Like I said, I have such an enchantment myself, so I know the terms.”
Mary looked at her personal maid with consideration and ultimately asked her a question.
“Can I see it?”
Sylvia frowned, apparently not understanding why her princess was focusing on what the maid considered a trivial matter.
“Yes, but why?”
Mary shot the maid a disbelieving look; to the princess it should have been obvious how useful learning about human enchantment could be for her.
Even if she wouldn't use such magic on others, she would still want to figure out how to render herself immune to such effects or even gain the ability to free others.
“Many reasons.”
Mary stated flatly; for a moment it seemed that this was all she was going to say on the matter, but she ultimately chose to expand her statement into a full-on explanation.
“If you have the same enchantment as all the palace maids, then finding out the vulnerabilities is important. If they have magically compelled loyalty to the royal family and nobody else, then that opens some possibilities.”
Sylvia frowned in surprise, apparently having not considered that the maids might not be the spies that she had half thought them as.
“For instance, who takes precedence for the enchantment? Is there some sort of hierarchy that we could discover, and what is it? In theory, Mother is a queen regnant that has been forcefully deposed by her consort, and I’m the crown princess, eventually the next queen regnant. What authority, if any, does that give me over the enchantment?”
Sylvia adopts a look of surprise, but Mary could not tell whether it was genuine or not. After a brief moment the maid nods curtly, in apparent acknowledgement of her princess’s explanation.
“And in the end, I want to learn how to stop such things from being used on me.”
Mary ended almost lamely, causing the maids' expression to shift again, this time to sympathy.
“Like I said, I have an enchantment on me, but I’m powerful enough to ignore it.”
Sylvia said again.
“If you want to study it, then I’ll help you however I can!”
Mary nodded thoughtfully and quickly checked in with her second minds before starting to look at enchantments; she would need to ensure she understood the basics.
{Nothing in the collection.}
One of them answers, causing her frown to deepen; instead of worrying about it, she instead immediately asks Sylvia for her help.
“Are there any books in Mother's collection that focus on enchantment? Especially the sort of enchantments that get used on humans.”
Mary asks the maid sharply.
“Hmm.”
Sylvia hums to herself in thought, visibly attempting to recall what Mary has privately imagined – some sort of secret library, with a massive number of well-stocked shelves.
“Yes, for the former. But human-scale enchants are heavily restricted; Elizabeth didn’t have anything to do with them.”
Mary twitched in annoyance, honestly not surprised at the restriction, but frustrated all the same.
Seeing the annoyance in her princess, Sylvia attempts to smile comfortingly.
“But! Her collection of enchanting books is massive! From memory, there are easily over a hundred books on that subject alone!”
Her maids' exclamation does serve to calm the princess down somewhat but still leaves her stewing in frustration.
“I’d be surprised if at least some of them didn’t mention human-scale enchantments. Even if the instructions on how to do them are absent, they’ll definitely get mentioned.”
The maid continued soothingly.
"You're right.”
Mary sighed.
“Can you start bringing them…”
Mary frowned thoughtfully.
“Actually, can you take me to them?”
The princess spoke hopefully, which caused the maid to look at her with consideration.
“For now you’re still restricted from leaving this room.”
The maid said mournfully.
“Well… what if I hid myself from view?”
Mary answered mischievously.
“What do you mean?”
Sylvia asked in surprise.
“I created a light-bending spell a while ago; it should allow me to be invisible.”
Mary stated firmly, and the reveal caused Sylvia to frown.
“Show me.”
The maid said with a shocking degree of force, surprising the princess.
Mary breathed in and grasped the relevant spell from the observing second minds.
For a brief moment, a spell circle appeared with a rune that Sylvia had never seen her princess use before.
The circle disappeared too quickly for her to be certain, but Mary knew it was one of the fruits of her months of labour.
A [Light] rune is created, featuring an attached spell structure designed to bend light around the princess.
Instantly, the princess disappeared where she sat, causing the maid to blink in surprise.
“It’s not bad.”
The former adventurer conceded.
“But it’s only dealt with sight; sight alone isn’t enough when out in the dungeons. For starters, I can still sense your mana; worse, I can still hear your heartbeat, and I can still smell you too.”
Said the maid, critiquing her princess's latest spell.
“But…”
She continued thoughtfully.
“For the palace it should do.”
Sylvia finished with a smirk.
“So we can finally go outside then?”
Mary said with poorly hidden relief.
“Yes, we’ll have to come back quickly, because those maids are going to return soon enough.”
Mary moved to nod but then realised that Sylvia would not be able to see it; instead, she sighed before wearily agreeing.
“Just two hours then. I want to see the outdoors… and mothers’ collection in person.”
Sylvia stared sympathetically at the place where the princess sat, somehow managing to lock eyes with her, despite the invisibility spell that Mary was currently using.
“It’s not that far; Elizabeth had a hidden room in the palace, you see.”
Sylvia said before adopting a mischievous look.
“I helped her build it after all.”