Maletta

* Novel
* Comic

Maletta is a minor antagonist in "Sister In This Life I Have Become the Queen".

## History

### Early Life

Maletta and her younger sister Sancha were born into severe poverty and lost both their parents at a young age, driving them to have to live at Rambouillet Shelter for the poor. As the girls neared womanhood, they were visited by Isabella De Mare, the firstborn daughter of the Cardinal of San Carlo, who offered one of them a position as her personal maid. Sancha refused, but Maletta eagerly snatched up the opportunity. She soothed Sancha by promising to use her pay as the maid to get her little sister out of the Shelter.

However, upon taking up the spot as Isabella’s maid, she was quick to forget all about her little sister in favor of her new mistress, Isabella, whom she was certain would one day marry Prince Alfonso and become the Crown Princess. Maletta was also certain that when that day arrived, Isabella would take her with her to the royal palace to become her lady-in-waiting, and Maletta would use that opportunity to seduce and marry a man of high status and elevate her own station in life.

### First Timeline

Not much is known of Maletta’s fate in the first timeline.

### Second Timeline

When Maletta brought Ariadne a change of clothes following her acceptance into the household, Ariadne asked if Maletta would assist her, to which Maletta snarkily refused. Ariadne slapped her across the face in response, which angered Maletta. She launched into a rant that Ariadne was just a lowly bastard child, that she wasn’t even half-noble like her sisters Isabella and Arabella, who received their noble lineage from their mother’s side, whereas the Cardinal himself was a lowborn orphan. Maletta then joked thar if she bore the Cardinal a child, such a child would be no higher than Ariadne, which earned her another slap in the face.

Maletta went to Lucrezia and lied that Ariadne had struck her for no good reason. Lucrezia and and Isabella confronted Ariadne in her bedroom with Maletta alongside them. There, Ariadne told Lucrezia that she had only been defending her father’s honour, as Maletta had mocked the Cardinal for raising his bastard children as of they were trueborn noble descendants, revealing that Maletta had also belittled the Cardinal for his own lowborn origins. Then, she finished off by revealing Maletta’s suggestion of bearing the Cardinal’s child herself. Maletta was terrified, rightfully so, for when Lucrezia heard that last part, she lashed out at Maletta for supposedly coveting the Cardinal for herself and ordered the maid to be whipped.

Ariadne’s punishment for striking Maletta, however justified, was to serve a week at Ramboiullet Shelter. She had Maletta accompany her, so that she could assert her power over the maid and show to her a possible fate should Maletta continue to antagonize her. However, Sancha was still at the Shelter, and spotted her older sister. She begged for her attention, thinking that Maletta had returned to fulfill her promise and save her from the Shelter. Ariadne touched her and saw what had happened in the past, and asked Maletta if she knew who Sancha was. To Sancha’s devastation, Maletta insisted that she had no idea who this girl was. Sancha begged Ariadne to save her from the Shelter, and Ariadne obliged, bringing Sancha back to her father’s household as her own personal maid, since she required someone in the household who was loyal to only her.

When the De Mare women were invited to the palace to attend the Queen’s sermon, Lucrezia ordered Maletta and Sancha to help Ariadne dress into Isabella’s hand-me-downs. There, Maletta witnessed Ariadne order Sancha to try on the chemise and dirty it. After Lucrezia was humiliated at the post-sermon feast by Ariadne revealing her dirty chemise to the other ladies, Maletta lied and said Sancha stole all of Ariadne’s clean chemises to force her to wear the dirty one, to get her sister in trouble with Lucrezia. It almost worked, until Ariadne stepped in and protected Sancha, and vowed to her that she would make sure Maletta was punished for her cruelty.

Soon after Isabella became the subject of ugly rumours at court, pinning her as the secret mistress of Marquess De Campa, she was confined to her room and Maletta was made to pick up other chores during her confinement. Upon learning that Ippolito was coming home, Ariadne, now in charge of the household following Lucrezia’s banishment, had the task of assigning a personal maid to him upon his return fall onto her. She declared to Sancha that she would be giving the job to Maletta, which upset and confused her as to why her mistress was supposedly rewarding her cruel sister with such a coveted position, but Ariadne, who knew better than anyone what happened when a common maid worked too closely with a man of power, asked Sancha to trust her, promising that she would help bring about Maletta’s downfall.

Just as Ariadne expected, it didn’t take long for Ippolito to take Maletta as his mistress, sleeping with her regularly and giving her expensive presents. Maletta came to believe that Ippolito would one day properly marry her. When Lucrezia was summoned to the house for the Cardinal’s birthday, Ippolito introduced her simply as his maid, which upset Maletta that he would not publicly acknowledge her as the love that she believed herself to be to him. At dinner, Ippolito tried to restore his mother to her former position and glory, but Ariadne helped shut that down. Lucrezia blamed Maletta for making her son "weak", and ruined the necklace he had given Maletta as she yelled at the maid and beat her up, while Ariadne watched gleefully.

After Ippolito’s less-than-ideal introduction of her to his mother, Maletta decided that the only way she was going to hold onto Ippolito and become his proper wife would be if she became pregnant with his child. She ate healthily and kept herself in good shape to maintain good fertility, and slept with him as often as she could, until a visit to the doctor confirmed that she had become pregnant. She went to him to tell him, expecting him to be happy and asking when they would be married. Ippolito left the room and told his mother, who had the maids throw Maletta out of the house on the lie that the father of Maletta’s unborn child was unknown, and certainly not the young master.

## Relationships

### Romantic

#### Ippolito De Mare

Knowing that he would cause Maletta trouble should he ever become entangled with her, Ariadne gave her the position of Ippolito’s personal servant, after Isabella was confined to her room as punishment for being the center of unsavory rumors. Between Ippolito, who was used to doing and having whatever he wanted and acting on his every impulse without consequence, and Maletta, who had been planning to use Isabella’s supposed future as the Crown Princess to secure a noble-born husband for herself, the two of them made a ideal couple. Maletta truly believed Ippolito harbored the desire to properly marry her. To secure her fate as the future Lady De Mare, she made sure she slept with him enough to become pregnant, and her efforts soon came to fruition. When she informed him about the pregnancy, she thought he would be overjoyed, only for him to cast her out of his family house.