Chapter 2

Back at the residence, the heir ordered me to remove my clothes.

He held a candle close to my back and exclaimed in admiration.

“Beautiful carving. It gives new meaning to the saying that a beauty is nothing but dry bones.”

He asked who had done it.

“My former master, my lord. He carved it into my back with a sword.”

The heir grew interested.

He took up his treasured sword and traced a shape in front of my chest.

“Then I shall carve one, too.”

After a few motions, he clicked his tongue.

“Such fine skin. I’d better practice first, so I don’t waste it.”

Growing sleepy, he told me to help him to bed.

I helped him undress.

As I rose to lower the gauze curtains,

he caught my hand.

“You’re a slave. Surely I don’t have to teach you how to serve me.”

I saw the change in his lower body and was silent for a moment.

Just as I bent my knees to climb onto the bed,

someone knocked urgently at the door.

“My lord! The Third Prince is dead!”

The man who had sat on his left that day.

I had heard the heir call him the Third Prince.

Frowning, the heir threw back the covers.

I picked up his clothes and helped him dress.

Once he had gone, I looked at the powder beneath my fingernails and sighed softly.

Why had it taken so long to work?

The Third Prince had died under mysterious circumstances.

Many of those present that night were questioned.

But I rarely left the prince’s residence.

No one summoned me.

The heir was busy for several days before he returned.

He sat frowning at the table.

I stood to one side, holding the sword.

“Who do you think killed him?”

The question came without warning.

I shook my head.

“I do not know, my lord.”

“As I recall, you sat beside him that day.”

He tapped the table, waiting for my answer.

“I have eyes only for Your Lordship and this sword. I have no time to concern myself with anyone else.”

He smiled, pleased.

He stretched.

“All this fuss over the death of one idle prince.”

A few days later, the son of a minor official who had attended the banquet was convicted.

That was the end of it.

Several nights afterward,

the light in the heir’s room was still burning.

I stood outside with the sword in my arms.

The door wasn’t quite shut.

A sob escaped from within.

Remembering his instructions, I didn’t look.

Only when he called me did I push the door open. Inside, someone sat with her back to me, her clothes pulled down to her waist, exposing her bare back.

It was a young maid.

A cloth had been stuffed into her mouth. Her hands were tied to the armrests, and her whole body shook.

The heir was cutting into her back with a small knife.

At the next cut, her body went rigid.

He paused to examine the mark. Unsatisfied, he cut again, thickening the line.

Blood seeped from the wound and ran down along her waist.

“Don’t move.”

His voice was mild.

She dared not move or even cry aloud. She could only bite down on the cloth as tears fell one after another.

The heir carved slowly and carefully.

After each stroke, he stopped to examine it, as though judging the beauty of his own handwriting.

The flesh of her back gaped open. It was a terrible sight.

He worked for an hour, then straightened and tilted his head to study it.

“Crooked again.”

He put the knife on the table and wiped the blood off his hands with a cloth, apparently bored.

“Come and look. What do you think?”

I stepped closer.

The maid no longer moved. She seemed to have fainted.

“For a beginner, Your Lordship has done very well.”

He smiled in satisfaction.

Then he called toward the door, “Bring another.”

The steward entered. Without even looking at the maid, he briskly untied her and dragged her out.

He beckoned, and another maid came in with her head down, her face pale and her legs trembling.

I moved aside to let her pass.

When the heir came to see me the next day, he was in excellent spirits.

After we had talked for a while, someone came for him, and he rose to leave.

Then he seemed to remember something and glanced back at me.

“That skin of yours,” he said. “I’ll practice properly. Don’t worry.”

I lowered my head and tightened my fingers around the sword in my arms.

“Thank you, my lord.”