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Could it be Atalante, grown a beard and trying to sneak past her?
"He looks to be about seventeen or eighteen, but his manner of speech is quite strange."
That didn’t sound like an old acquaintance coming to meddle in the war.
Though Hedy wasn’t keen on having the meeting interrupted, she still asked, "What’s his name?"
"Never heard of him," Dechio thought for a moment before replying. "Niccolò Machiavelli."
Hedy’s eyes narrowed.
The last time she had heard that surname, it was used as an adjective.
—And it was used to describe her.
—
When the meeting was adjourned, the generals who had been reading novels or dozing off were abruptly tapped on the head by Luris Zino, causing them to yelp in pain.
"Dechio, first have someone check for hidden weapons on him, then bring him here," Hedy instructed.
She rubbed her forehead and added, "Make sure to check his shoes, socks, and sleeves too."
Dechio nodded and hurried out, leaving Luris to stay by her side.
The female knight, polishing her new dagger embedded with rubies, raised an eyebrow and asked, "Don’t tell me this is your illegitimate child."
"Of course not." Hedy took a sip of wine and said, "I’ve heard of this name."
She had once been maliciously slandered and insulted by certain media due to her expertise in frequency hopping technology.
Apart from the exaggerated and false depictions related to sexuality, they had also used the name to paint her as a multi-faceted spy.
It meant that an individual used others to achieve their own goals, and the more evident this tendency, the stronger the egoism. The idea was that as long as the goal was right, any means could be justified.
Given that anyone she met in this era could potentially be involved, she had already started considering whether this man was the originator of these concepts.
Luris was focused on polishing her blade, the caw of a raven echoing from the distance.
She waited for the group to arrive, but her mind inevitably drifted back to the past.
She had been attacked by the media and some people as a "multi-faceted spy."
It seemed people weren’t willing to acknowledge that a woman could actively and effectively influence the birth of a revolutionary technology like frequency-hopping communications. Even when her manuscripts were publicly released, they would insist on framing it in a more sexually charged narrative.
All that she had achieved, including the patents and recognition she had received in her later years, was often claimed to rightfully belong to her first husband, a former Nazi arms dealer.
People spoke at length about how she had maneuvered between men, using flirtation and distance like a seasoned player in the realm of romance to gather intelligence. They refused to believe that, as others thought, she could be "honest" and "wise."
It seemed that a woman’s role, aside from spending money on luxury goods, was simply to be used by men to control other men.
She had once wanted to do so much for her country, even using her own kiss to help raise millions in war bonds for the United States, only to be vilified as a traitor to America.
Hedy steadied herself, mentally repeating this harsh label, almost with a sense of irony.
...
She had worked tirelessly for science and peace, and faced the crowds with the utmost grace and goodwill. Yet, in the end, she was still described as a confused, aging egoist.
