Power plays.

Life as a palace maid was incredibly mundane Esme thought as she dragged herself to the dinning room the fourth time in a role. So mundane that it was almost comforting. Comforting in a way that being a member of the Kings Calvary could never be, in a way that being a Kings woman could never be. It was stable, premeditated.

Esme found that despite the hard work she was taking well to it. Mornings with Truyi and afternoons with Delphi. It was easy too easy and that's what snapped her back into focus of what she really needed to do. Four days spent within the palace walls and she hadn't caught a glimpse of Prince Elian or even initiated any conversation in his direction.

The morning after she had found out about the crown princess and her father's involvement in the illegal palace hirings, Esme had been faced with a brief dilemma. She was sitting on information that could split North Chedii's royal court in two. A civil war in North Chedii would destabilize it enough that it would shift their focus from Sukech. But she wasn't a state spy. It wasn't in her job description. She wasn't sworn to the crown but to the king and not any king just the current reigning monarch of Sukech. It meant that for her, his own private worries took precedence over state issues and she was bound to obey any of his orders even those that didn't appear so good for the state. She was only there to extract the prince. Of course when she returned to Sukech she would be milked for information and then she could tell them what was going on in North Chedii courts.

For the moment however, Esme needed to figure out how to go around Nalette Stunne.

She patted the satchel of ground powder in her apron pocket. Such a dangerous thing to carry so casually in the palace. Nobles were overly terrified of poison for obvious reasons and so it was hard to get one into the palace.

Thankfully an intricate lesson in herbs had helped Esme recognise a weed that had sprang out of the hard cement by the constantly wet gutters. The weed on it own was quite harmless until it was mixed with crexan tea leaves. Crexan tea leaves that overflowed so much in the servants kitchens that nobody cared to count them. Even then the mixture was hardly poisonous but it was a good cleanser of the bowel and a little more dose than usual would have anyone attempting to deficate their organs.

She needed Nalette sick the next morning and so tonight she was going to figure out what chunk of leftovers Nalette was most likey to want.

It was a hasty plan and it had holes in it but Esme was willing to risk it.

*************************************************

It was the dead of night.

Silence was punctuated by the croaking of the frogs and the cries of crickets outside the servants quarters.

Esme lay awake on her thin bedding waiting for any indication that she had been right.

Earlier in the evening she had been faced with a dilemma.

The serving table had received leftovers from the Kings table and from the Queen dowagers table.

Usually the Kings leftover was saved for Nalette simply because she deemed herself too high to eat any other persons leftovers.

When the queen dowager had leftovers, which wasn't often, Nalette always had hers instead of the Kings.

Though the King was the most powerful, Chediian culture encouraged the worship of parents and so the queen dowager was the only person to whom it was appropriate for the king to bow.

Not only that, the queen dowager was somewhat of a national hero. As a young widow, she ruled as regent and was successful in putting down rebellions and securing the throne until her son, the current king, came of age to ascend.

It is a common saying in North Chedii that the king is only king because his mother stepped down.

Nalette would have easily chosen the queen Dowager's leftovers that evening except that it was a strictly vegan diet that evening and the Kings leftovers had all kinds of meat.

While sorting through the leftovers, Esme had also faced the same dilemma.

Which meal would Nalette pick.

Would she ignore her prefrences for a display of power or vice versa?

Esme had thought of drugging both meals but it was too risky. If someone else got sick with the same symptoms, it may lead to an investigation.

That was the last thing she needed.

The sound of rushing feet from the floor above her jerked her out of her thoughts.

She listened carefully and then smiled at the distant sound of retching.

She had been right afterall, Nalette Stunne was more power hungry than anything else.

Snuggling deeper in her blankets, Esme closed her eyes to the most discomforting sounds. Yet she slipped easily into sleep.

Tommorrow she would serve Prince Elian.