“Mother!”
When she saw Ye Tang, Snow White called out sweetly. Then she immediately started coughing, her little face scrunched up, and an unnatural flush appeared on her cheeks.
“Snow White, lie down.”
Ye Tang hurried over and tucked in the thick blanket made of animal fur for Snow White.
Snow White’s nursemaid Brenda had been terrified just a few days earlier when she received the porridge sent by the queen. She had truly feared that the queen had come to ‘take advantage of your illness to take your life’ and deliver the final blow to Princess Snow White.
Now, however, when Brenda saw Ye Tang’s visit, the wrinkles between her brows eased a little.
“Your Highness, you’ve come…”
“Brenda, rest on the side for a bit.”
Knowing that Brenda would never feel at ease leaving her alone with Snow White, Ye Tang instructed the weary-looking Brenda.
Snow White’s body was too weak; even a minor cold had caused her to run a fever for several days, and it had only broken today.
Brenda was not made of iron. How could she not be exhausted and sleepy after caring for Snow White around the clock without closing her eyes?
“Thank you for your concern, Your Highness…”
Seeing Ye Tang wring out a towel to wipe Snow White’s face, Brenda felt somewhat relieved.
In the past, like everyone else in the castle, she had believed that the queen deeply envied the princess. She envied the princess’s beauty, envied the princess’s favor and attention from the king, and spent all day obsessing over making herself more beautiful—completely unlike how a queen should act.
That was why, when the queen had sent the milk porridge, she had immediately sent it back.
But then the queen had personally brought the milk porridge.
“Brenda, I heard the princess can’t eat Cockatrice eggs?”
“How, how did you know the castle had just received a batch of Cockatrice eggs?”
Brenda eyed Ye Tang warily, fearing she wanted to take away the delicacy that Princess Snow White couldn’t swallow.
The maids behind Ye Tang glanced at each other, all revealing complicated expressions.
How could Brenda not know where the Cockatrice eggs had come from? Could it be… His Majesty hadn’t told Brenda?
‘…If it was His Majesty, that was understandable. But the other knights, the servants… not a single person in the castle had been willing to tell Brenda that the Cockatrice eggs had been specially obtained by the queen for Princess Snow White?’
“Brenda, the Cockatrice eggs were obtained by the queen from the forest—”
Ye Tang signaled her maids behind her not to speak. She was basically certain that Osborne I had absolutely not had the chefs prepare the egg custard as she had instructed. Instead, they had only boiled plain eggs for Snow White.
A boiled egg sat at Snow White’s bedside in a little golden chalice. Seeing that not even half of it had been eaten, Ye Tang could imagine how painful it must have been for Snow White’s sore throat to swallow those dry boiled eggs.
Ye Tang wanted very much to sigh.
Osborne I acted as if he cared deeply for Snow White and cherished her greatly, but in reality?
He would rather let Snow White go hungry and suffer than listen to his queen’s suggestion, let alone take the time to verify whether what the queen said was right or wrong.
“Brenda, since the princess can’t eat plain boiled eggs, let her have some porridge instead. This is milk porridge with Cockatrice eggs added. It’s more nutritious than regular wheat porridge and easier to swallow.”
Ye Tang had gone to the kitchen herself but hadn’t cooked it personally—if she had laid a hand on it, Osborne I, whose paranoia ran bone-deep, might have rushed over to accuse her of brewing a pot of poisoned porridge to kill Snow White.
Under Ye Tang’s guidance, the chefs had cooked the wheat porridge very finely and smoothly without scorching the bottom. Then they added milk and Cockatrice eggs.
The milk porridge tasted fresh and sweet with a fragrant aroma, but once it cooled, the fishy smell from the Cockatrice eggs would emerge, which was why Ye Tang had come personally to try to convince Brenda.
“No need, Your Highness. Thank you for your kind intentions. You should keep this porridge and drink it yourself.”
As Brenda spoke, she tried to close the bedroom door, but Ye Tang did not yield an inch.
Seeing Ye Tang’s gaze, Amber and Leni hurried forward and held Brenda back. Ye Tang then had someone ladle out a bowl of milk porridge, drank some herself first, then had the maids around her each take a sip.
Seeing that Ye Tang and all the maids who had drunk the porridge were perfectly fine, Brenda half-believed it. She feared the queen had tampered with the utensils and worried that the queen and her people had taken the antidote beforehand.
Fara, who still had not sided with the queen and continued working in various parts of the castle during this time, stepped forward and took the milk porridge from the queen’s hand.
“Your Highness, if possible, may I try some too?”
Fara couldn’t bow while holding the porridge, so she bent her knees slightly as a salute.
“Of course.”
“Thank you.”
Fara took the porridge to the side and ladled out a fresh bowl. Brenda rushed over to scold her for being reckless, but Fara said, “Female officer, I know you’re afraid the queen will poison Princess Snow White. But look at the princess… If this continues, won’t Her Highness not survive much longer?”
Fara’s words wrenched at her heart like a harsh squeeze. Brenda, who had been by Snow White’s side since her birth and was essentially her foster mother, looked toward Snow White on the bed. The feverish girl was delirious, breathing hazily, occasionally murmuring fuzzy words like “mother.”
Without hesitation, Fara drank a small bowl of milk porridge. Glancing at Brenda, whose hesitation outweighed her suspicion, Fara simply took the princess’s bowl on her own initiative and ladled a bowl of porridge for her.
That day, Snow White, who had vomited up everything before, finally managed to eat a little something. And that night, Snow White regained her senses.
“I feel like I ate something so delicious, so delicious…”
Light returned to the little princess’s eyes, and a bit of color reappeared on her chapped lips.
Brenda weighed her wariness and dislike of the queen on one side of the scale, and the truth along with Snow White on the other. She smiled faintly, hugged Snow White, and said softly, “Your Highness, what you ate during the day was milk porridge specially made for you by Queen Ye Tang…”
“It was Mother…?”
The little princess, held in her nursemaid’s arms, had eyes that shone even brighter.
“Yes, it was the queen. …She even went into the forest to find Cockatrice eggs for you.”
“Cockatrice…? What is that?”
The little princess heard a word she had never encountered before, her eyes full of curiosity. “What’s the difference between Cockatrice eggs and regular eggs?”
Brenda smiled faintly. She was truly afraid that Snow White, whose fever had just gone down, would get excited and spike a fever again. “I’m not too sure about that either… Why don’t you ask the queen another day, Your Highness?”
At that moment, Ye Tang sat by Snow White’s bed, holding an apple in her hand.
The apples produced in Castellion were very red, with firm flesh. Ye Tang peeled the apple’s skin, slicing one side into pieces that she occasionally fed into her own mouth. The other side she scraped into applesauce bit by bit with a small spoon, then fed the applesauce into Snow White’s mouth.
Brenda was always just a nursemaid. She could hold Snow White when she had a fever, but she could never love Snow White from a mother’s perspective. Thus, this was the first time Snow White had clung to someone who could truly be called “mother.”
At first, the little princess was a bit reserved. But children’s innate longing for maternal love soon made Snow White develop a great fondness for her mother.
She touched Ye Tang’s golden hair and said, “Mother’s golden hair is like golden fleece!” Then she stared dazedly at Ye Tang’s face for a long time before saying, “Mother’s eyes are like amber! Like amber trapping sunlight inside!”
Snow White’s innocent purity made Ye Tang dizzy for a moment.
She had once had a well-behaved daughter like Angeline, a daughter full of presence like Claudia, a serious daughter like Gloria, and a virtuous lady-like daughter like Cinderella, but she had never had a daughter like Snow White who showered her with such lavish praise.
The little princess had no idea that looking at people with those pure eyes while endlessly showering them with praise had such devastating power on adults.
If Marinfield could have such a conversation with Snow White, the inferiority complex Marinfield had been brainwashed into might have been instantly shattered by Snow White’s praise.
“Mother,”
“Mother—”
As if trying to make up for the seven years of maternal love missing since birth, Snow White clung to Ye Tang like a koala to a tree trunk, unwilling to let go for even a second.
“Tell me more about the outside world! Are there other animals in the forest besides Cockatrices? Why does a Cockatrice have two heads, and why are the two heads different? Do Cockatrice eggs come out of the snake’s mouth?”
Snow White had never been so endlessly curious about the world as now, nor so excited about things she had never seen before.
She began to feel that those pretty but lifeless dolls weren’t that interesting anymore. She wanted to see living animals, to touch creatures full of life with her own hands.
She wanted so much to see the outside world like her all-knowing mother, to experience the world beyond the castle…
“Finish the apple first. Once the apple is done, Mother will tell you about the outside.”
Ye Tang smiled lightly and stroked Snow White’s little head. Snow White tilted her head up and rubbed it against Ye Tang’s slightly cool hand.
—She liked her mother’s hand with its touch of coolness. Because she knew that even if her mother’s hand wasn’t as warm as Brenda’s, her heart was just as kind as Brenda’s.
“Mm, I’ll finish it, Mother!”
She hugged Ye Tang’s hand and took the apple from it.
No longer needing Ye Tang to scrape applesauce for her, Snow White opened her mouth and took a big “chomp” bite out of the apple.
Apple juice flowed from the corner of Snow White’s mouth, and the apple rolled from her hand.
—Osborne I, who had burst into Snow White’s bedroom, angrily knocked the apple from her hand.
His eyes red, he roared, “What are you eating!? Why are you eating something that woman gave you!?”
“The queen will give Princess Snow White a poisoned apple.”
“That apple is half poison, half harmless. The queen eats the harmless half. The princess will die after eating the poisoned half.”
Those words echoed endlessly in Osborne I’s ears. He drew the sword from his waist, which had become mere ornament for years, and swung it toward Ye Tang’s head.
“What are you doing!? Father!!”
Her petite body stepped forward. Snow White climbed from the bed and blocked Osborne I’s sword aimed at Ye Tang without a word.
“Snow White!?”
Osborne I nearly suffered a heart attack from shock. His hand veered off, the sword slicing through the red satin ribbon on Snow White’s head, its tip about to graze her eye.