137 - Servants
After hugging Bart and saying I'm home, I climb into the carriage.
As our two carriages pass through Grenore's city gate, our nostalgic home was soon right there.
As I stuck my face out the small window just as we passed through the gate of the Fortress Lord's Residence, my eyes met the gatekeeper's. The gatekeeper, Pearl, widened his eyes in surprise when our eyes met, so I said I'm home and waved at him.
"I'm home!"
Slipping past Leonardo's arm offered as an escort, I descend the carriage steps. As I hug Tabitha, who came out to greet me, with the momentum of a body slam, a black puppy came dashing out from inside the residence, as if hearing my voice.
"Kokumaro, I'm home too!"
First I try to pick him up, but when I pull away from Tabitha and reach out my arms, he runs away. Kokumaro flees trying not to be caught, but his tail keeps wagging busily, so there's no doubt he's happy. I keep reaching out trying to catch the puppy and missing, over and over, and just as it was turning into a game of chase, Leonardo descended from the carriage.
"Ah, Leo, not yet!"
"Hm?"
With Bart and Kalisa starting to unload the luggage behind him, Leonardo is stopped by me and halts his steps. At the same time, the puppy who'd been running away from me also stopped fleeing, as if understanding the game was over.
"Not yet, please wait a moment."
Saying that, I dash into the entrance. After confirming that Kokumaro follows me in, I close the front door.
"It's okay now. Please come back."
I call out to Leonardo on the other side of the door, and wait a little. Then, Leonardo opens the front door with a confused look on his face and pokes his head in.
"Tina? What's the meaning of..."
"Welcome home."
I greet Leonardo with a face that says I've been properly watching the house, as if to say 'good work on the long journey.' Originally, I was supposed to have spent the winter guarding the residence while Leonardo was away, so it's strange for me to come back together with him. By greeting him like this anew, I try to act as if it never happened.
In short, it's just a child's game.
It seems I'm feeling more elated than I realized, from the sense of release at finally returning to the city of Grenore. Leonardo, suddenly thrust into this make-believe, blinked and froze, but after a moment, he gave a wry smile.
"...I'm home, Tina."
"...Well then, first about Kalisa's room."
As I watch the luggage being unloaded from the carriage, Leonardo shows a slight thoughtful gesture. Since Kalisa is a person who suddenly became available to borrow, she might not have a room. When I asked about it thinking that, it turned out the room itself had been arranged in advance by contacting them ahead of time, so there was one properly prepared in the servants' annex.
"Then what are you troubled about?"
"Well, strictly speaking, Kalisa isn't a servant (Brownie). So I was thinking I should ask her preference before deciding..."
"...Brownie? What's that? At first I thought it was just Bart and the others' family name, but I already know that's not it."
"I see, so Tina didn't know about servants (Brownies)."
After nodding as if to himself that a father who chose to live as a commoner, even if he was a noble, would have no reason to teach such things, Leonardo explained about servants (Brownies). He calls them servants (Brownies), but their treatment is subtly different from regular servants. People with foul mouths apparently call 'Brownies' 'residence slaves' or 'money slaves.' In meaning, they become slaves bought by the residence, slaves bought with money.
"...Leo, did you buy Bart and the others?"
"The one who bought Bart and the others was the lord of the residence several generations ago, and the ones who sold Bart and the others were Bart and the others themselves."
The fact that people buy and sell people was somehow hard to accept, and I suppose I couldn't help looking at Leonardo with accusing eyes. Leonardo made a troubled face and patted my head.
"I don't intend to dig up the circumstances of those times, but Bart and the others work at the residence of their own will. Iridal too."
"Did Iridal also sell himself for money?"
"Rather than selling himself for money, Iridal's goal was more to become part of the residence's fixtures."
"Fixtures?"
I didn't know if they call it albino in this world too, but Iridal, with his white hair and red eyes, apparently has very delicate skin. Just living normally requires an ointment, and earning the money for that ointment is difficult through ordinary means. So he decided to sell himself to the residence, become a fixture, and under the name of fixture management, have the lord of the residence pay for his ointment expenses.
...At any rate, I understood that Iridal is in a different position from what I think of as 'human trafficking' or 'slave trading.'
I was taken aback by words like slave or bought, but according to Leonardo, the sellers of 'Brownies' are the people themselves. The fact that the sellers, who are the merchandise, have the right to choose their buyers is significant.
"Then why is Kalisa different?"
"Kalisa and her sisters... did I mention this? When they were infants, they were abandoned for being triplets, and were picked up and raised by the then-lord of Mandez Fortress."
"...Were they adopted?"
"No. They were just raised after being picked up, they weren't adopted."
If you pick up and raise an infant, I'd think that's a foster child, but it seems to be different. I've never heard of someone being abandoned for being triplets before. If triplets are abandoned, maybe there's a superstition that twins are unlucky or something. I don't know what the lord of the residence at the time was thinking, but the reason they weren't taken to an orphanage probably lies somewhere around there.
Just as I became aware that my thoughts were drifting, the conversation returned to Kalisa and her sisters. Alisa sold herself as payment for the three sisters' upbringing up to that point, choosing to become a residence servant (Brownie). So that the other sisters could go out into the world without worrying about the expenses incurred for them so far.
...In the end, it seems they couldn't find other employment because people disliked them being triplets.
For the same reason they couldn't find work, it seems the sisters couldn't find marriage partners either. Thinking about it, this trip to Grenore was probably a good opportunity for Alisa to get her sisters out. Outside of Mandez City, no one would know that Kalisa, acting alone, is a triplet. In this city, Kalisa would be able to live as Kalisa the individual.
"Um... so servants (Brownies) were bought by the residence, so they can't go against the lord's will. But since Kalisa is a regular servant, her own will is respected to some degree, is that it?"
"Something like that, yeah."
...'Something like that' means this isn't completely right either, huh.
Feeling somehow resistant to thinking too deeply about it, I decide to just swallow Leonardo's words. After all, Leonardo kindly broke things down for a child's understanding. Having things sound a bit nicer is probably better for my mental health.
Just then Kalisa came carrying my bag full of clothes, so I called out to her. I asked about her room preference.
"...Rather than having a room in the annex, I would prefer to be closer to the young lady I serve."
"Near my room, you mean?"
There are plenty of empty rooms. After all, the only residents on the third floor are me and Hermine.
"For a room that could be used from tonight, there's the cleaned room in the attic..."
"That is MY room!!"
I kick Leonardo's shin for trying to give away my room with a straight face like that. Unfortunately, today's shoes were the ones prepared at the Mandez residence, so I couldn't deal much damage.
"Tina, the attic room was originally a servant's room, you see..."
"Right now it's my room."
It was supposed to be a room taken away for the winter under the promise that I could use it again in spring. When I hinted at further attacks on his feet, like if I changed my shoes, Leonardo seemed to give up on stealing my room under the confusion. With a very reluctant face, he handed Kalisa a key, telling her to clean and use a different attic room.
It seems Kalisa will be my nurse maid in Grenore City. Since she was brought here to lighten Bart and Tabitha's workload a little, when I'm receiving lessons from Hermine, she'll help with residence work and clean the attic room.
I give my return greetings and apologize for causing worry to Alf, who's practically become a second-floor resident, and the Silver-White Knights. After that I felt like resting a bit in my room, but since it had been a while, I decided to play with Kokumaro in the living room. Since today Hermine's lessons were also cancelled, even if I sit improperly on the floor, no one will get angry. While I played with Kokumaro, Leonardo started receiving various detailed reports about this winter from Alf. By the time Kalisa came to call us saying dinner was ready, those tasks seemed to be finished, resulting in the rare sight of Alf and Leonardo seated together at the dinner table.
"Speaking of which, we met Ethel-sama and Diet in the city of Lagarette."
Since Leonardo's reports were done, the main topic at dinner was my experiences. First, Alf was surprised that my lisp had been corrected, and belatedly, I also remembered. Surely, in that strange world where I was taken by spirits, the young man whose appearance changed covered my eyes. That was the trigger, I somehow understood. Leonardo said I seemed to have regained a childlike innocence, but for me, it felt more like my self-consciousness had disappeared. At any rate, the self-consciousness that I had to pronounce things correctly, that stumbling over words was embarrassing, vanished. What's a slip of the tongue, what's wrong with stumbling? I'm a child, so making mistakes is fine. I was able to flip my mindset in a good way.
I narrated what happened from arriving in Mandez City to returning to Grenore City, speaking as I remembered. Since I was speaking as I remembered, the timeline was completely jumbled. And at the name Ethel that suddenly emerged from the jumbled timeline, Alf blinked in surprise.
"...Ethel-sama and Diet. You mean Ethelbert-sama and Dietfried-sama? Well now... what troublesome people to have as acquaintances..."
Stopping his meal, Alf massaged his temples. Apparently, even besides Alfred, Alf has had some kinds of hardship inflicted on him by the other royals as well. He looked at me with a complex gaze that mixed sympathy, pity, and consolation.
"They seem like troublesome people, but we probably won't ever meet them again."
"Probably won't ever meet them again... Those people (royals) aren't the kind of people such wishful thinking works on."
"Ah..."
I understood all too well that by 'royals,' Alf was referring to Alfred. Even with just a short association, Alfred was exhausting. Alf, who seems to have known him since almost birth, must have endured hardships I can't even imagine.
"...Tina, you don't seem happy about having royalty as acquaintances either."
Alf tilted his head, saying that ordinarily, someone would be delighted to have gained the best possible connection. An acquaintance with royalty.
"There's no way for a commoner like me to make use of having met a prince."
"Commoner, huh."
At that subtle emphasis, I became convinced that Alf knew I was a noble's daughter. I can't imagine Leonardo would go around spreading it, but the two are friends, and they also share the relationship of commander and vice-commander. It wouldn't be strange for Leonardo to confide some private matters to Alf.
"Tina calls herself a commoner, but as Leonardo's sister, you're practically the same as a noble."
"...Leo is a commoner, though?"
I've heard that Silver-White Knights are treated as equivalent to nobles. But Leonardo is currently a Black Knight. He's not a noble.
"Haven't you heard? It's already decided that Leonardo will become a noble as soon as he retires from being a knight. His achievements from five years ago have been recognized as meritorious deeds."
"...Can commoners easily become nobles?"
"It's not easy, but commoners do become nobles sometimes, and since the orphaned Leonardo himself is the head of the household, his little sister Tina also joins the ranks of the nobility."
The peerage granted for recognized achievements is apparently called a 'Merit Peerage.' Not a Duke or a Marquis, but a Merit Peerage.
...Huh? Somehow, nobility isn't what I thought it was?
Tina's free-spiritedness. Hermine probably would be holding her head thinking she has to start discipline all over again. I was going to talk about this country's noble system but it looked like it would get long, so I'll cut it here. The story didn't progress to Tina's birth family...
I'll fix typos and errors another day. I've corrected the ones I found.