Madame Elene looked at Sigrid with wide disbelieving eyes, she could not believe what she was hearing.
"I find your words exceedingly hard to believe, crown princess. Surely, you do not mean to rob me of a business that I have worked hard tirelessly to build on my own!"
Sigrid huffed to herself, feeling a little irritated but it was not as if she did not expect the resistance, even if it was her, she would not have laid down casually and handed over a business she had built with two hands.
It was why she had collected all that blackmail material on the Latham’s before she died on earth, she had been unwilling to hand over the law firm whose success was built on her sweat.
"It is not just through hard work that you built this business Elene, it was through criminal means, this brothel may be legal but it is the center of a criminal enterprise. By law, I am obligated to hand you over to the law enforcement bureau for punishment which is execution." She spread her arms out, "But I am not going to do that, instead I am willing to partner up with you to keep this fine establishment going, even after you are dead, one of your children will inherit it. You get to keep your life and have a legacy, isn’t that great?"
Madame Elene’s upper lip trembled, she wanted to hurl insults at Sigrid but she could see Brolin through the side of her right eyes, he had a hand on his sword, ready to put her down.
What legacy? what partnership? Obviously the crown princess was here for a hostile take over.
Her hand trailed up to her hair, touching her bun as she considered her options.
"If you are thinking of using those poisoned needles in that ugly wooden hair pin then I can assure you that the only victim of the poison will be you." Sigrid warned in a lazy voice.
Elene’s eyes widened once more as her hand fell back down, she could not believe that the crown princess even knew about the poison in the hairpin, only two people in the world knew about it, her and her daughter Merida.
"After using it on you, I will pay a personal visit to Merida and give her the same gift." Sigrid said. "Then I will do the same to the rest of your children that you have manged to marry off to titled men by changing their identities and passing them off as children of a baron that you killed, might I add. What is the crime for killing a nobleman Brolin?" She turned her head in the direction of the knight.
"I believe that hanging or if the king orders the mages to carry it out, transformation into an animal like a toad or a dog."
Sigrid opened her fan with a smile. "Now which would you prefer to live the rest of your life as, a toad or a dog? Perhaps a cow, you would still be useful as a cow, you can pull a plough."
"I believe that you are referring to an oxen, a horse, buffalo, donkey or a camel, crown princess." Brolin amended.
Elene’s body trembled, she gripped her hands together by interlacing them to calm herself.
"How..how? You are so cruel and vicious..." she muttered.
"Like you are any different." Sigrid chuckled. "You are a bad egg, you had to be bad to survive, I get it. Eldoria has not been very kind to ordinary women."
Elene nodded eagerly. "So you understand why I have done the things that I have done, the urge to survive is only natural in all of us. I simply played the cards that I was given, why is that a crime?
You noble women have it so easy, everything is provided for you at the snap of a finger, endless dresses and shoes, jewels and pearls, more food than you can eat, dozens of maids at your beck and call, education and a hefty dowry to match the titled men you marry.
Everything comes easy for you all, but what about the rest of us, what do we get? A life of poverty, beatings from our husbands and whoring to make a living. We don’t get to live like the queen because we are not that lucky, but why? Why do we have to live like that?"
She pointed at herself, "Do you think that I wanted to be this, a whore or a madame of a whore house? No, I wanted to be a reading teacher, I had the gift of reading and quick understanding but my access to books was limited and my father had no money to send me to school, he was only but a blacksmith.
I wanted to pursue my dream so at the age of thirteen I chose to work as a servant in the home of Baron Tulip, so that I could be closer to his daughter and have access to the library in their home and for a few years it was good.
My talent was recognized by the Baroness, she could see that I was even more clever than her daughter and she allowed me to sit in on her classes. I got to taste that rich noble life for a short while but then disaster struck.
The baron’s wife and two children died in a carriage accident, he should have been grieving after the funeral but instead he made his way into my room and.....he made me into this. I became madame Elene because of that beast.
I am not ashamed of who I am now, no man controls my destiny, not even the king."
Sigrid closed the fan, while she did feel sorry for the younger Elene, the older one, she did not have an ounce of pity for.
"Speaking of the king, you deliberately let him set his eyes on Rina, didn’t you?"
Madame Elene closed her mouth and Sigrid responded by chortling.
"You are filled with anger, the nobles lived lavishly while you suffered in the pits of poverty. It must have made your blood boil every time you saw the queen’s carriage, her beautiful gowns, the shiny expensive hair pins she uses. She has hundreds of servants, her quarters in the royal castle are bigger than this entire building.
You hate noble women so much that you designed a plan to take down the most noble woman in the kingdom, you basically sent a weapon into the king’s bed."
She paused and clapped her hands slowly, "Elene Greenfield, the woman that ruined the queen’s marriage and turned her into a laughingstock. I wonder what she would do to you if she came to know that you targeted her deliberately."
These things were not mentioned in the novel, Sigrid had deduced them from Elene’s outburst and the bitterness in her voice when she talked about noble women and the loathing when she mentioned the queen.