201 - The Wise Woman's Belongings and the Saint's Legacy
I still do not think I can separate emotion and action, but I do believe consciously reflecting on my own actions has been helpful. As for the amount I eat, there is a line I can maintain where I think, if I do not eat at least this much, it will be bad for my body, so I have stopped leaving food behind just because I have no appetite. Mercenary as I am, once my stomach is full, the sorrow gets pushed to the corner of my head by that amount.
By the time the amount I ate returned to normal, I was able to graduate from holing up in the attic.
"... Ah, Yurgen-san."
You called, sir? I thought as I visited Leonardo's room, where he had started working at the residence again a few days ago. Inside the room, which had completely become a workspace, was Yurgen, the vice-commander of the Restham Knight Order.
"Oh? Salisa called me saying Leonardo-san was summoning me, but was it a guest?"
"No, I have business with Tina too. Let us hear it together."
Leonardo beckoned me, and I stepped into the room. In the past, he would have sat me on his lap, but since I told him I was a reincarnated Japanese person, Leonardo's attitude had changed somewhat. Leonardo, who had stubbornly tried to put me on his knee even after I declared I would not sit on laps now that I was ten, no longer offered his lap as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
... Not that I feel a little lonely or anything.
I moved next to Yurgen, and when our eyes met, I smiled brightly and put on some charm. I had met Yurgen several times before, so I felt a little at ease with him. Remembering that the first time I met him was at Aurelia's house, I thought I understood what Yurgen's business was. And why I had been called, too.
"I have confirmed the death and the body of the wise woman of Waiyakku Valley, Aurelia."
Yurgen's business was a report to the Commander (Leonardo) regarding Aurelia's death. Since Leonardo usually presided at Grenore Fortress, when there was something that needed to be reported urgently, people from each knight order likely came to him like this.
"Aurelia's body has been buried next to her predecessor."
... Next to her predecessor, where is that? Can I ask?
Waiyakku Valley was not only where the wise woman Aurelia had secluded herself, but was also said to be the herb garden of the god of medicine arts, Sedovara. Just because Aurelia had died, it seemed unlikely it would become a place ordinary people could easily enter. Even if I said I wanted to casually visit Aurelia's grave, I doubted permission would be granted.
"A funeral or... I mean. You are not holding a funeral or anything?"
I waited for Yurgen's report to reach a pause, then hesitantly asked. I had heard about the burial and the cleaning out of her house, but there was no report about holding a funeral or ceremonial rites.
"Aurelia does not have family... no. Given the location, we could not gather relatives for a funeral, but the Black Knights who handled the burial offered a simple prayer for her soul. Aurelia would probably make a sour face about it, but I think she would forgive us, saying it is better than gathering a large crowd."
"... That is true. Aurelia-san would probably be angrier if there were a lot of people."
I consciously corrected my words as I remembered the day my father died. Back then, I did not know how to hold a memorial in this world, but Leonardo had performed a simple funeral for him. The Black Knights, whose rule was that the strongest became Commander, were all educated so that anyone could take on the Commander's duties. If you were a Black Knight, you could likely all perform simple ceremonies.
"As for the apprentice sent from the Sedovara Church, it has been learned that since she had inherited several prescriptions (recipes) from Aurelia, the secret arts have not been completely lost."
However, only a few had been inherited, and most of the knowledge was gone. Even the ones that had been passed on were truly simple things taught as exercises in compounding medicine, so the complex formulations that had saved many lives had truly been lost. People from the Sedovara Church searched Aurelia's belongings with an intensity that seemed like they would turn the house upside down, hoping to find some clue remaining, but apparently the only writings that turned up were memos left by her predecessor and apprentices, and bundles of letters I had sent.
... Aurelia-san, good job.
I could only be grateful to Aurelia, who had burned the incriminating letters on the spot when she learned of my information leak. If Aurelia had not burned those letters back then, by now the Sedovara Church would likely have known that I could read Japanese. If that had happened, that rude group in white coats would surely have flocked to the lord's residence again.
... Jasper aside, I do not really like the other people from the Sedovara Church.
When Teo was bitten by the Black Dog, they were hesitant about treatment, wondering if he could not afford it. I understand asking for payment since medicine is not free, but even so, there are emergencies. There must be times when treatment needs to begin before they can check whether the guardian has the ability to pay, or it will be too late.
The two apprentices, who lost their teacher in the middle of their studies, apparently each decided their own paths. Paula would remain in the valley to manage the herb garden, and Barbara would take some of the prescriptions and compounding techniques she had learned from Aurelia and set out to improve the Sedovara Church, whose pharmacists' quality had declined.
"And this is a souvenir for the little miss."
A large wooden box was presented to me under the name of a souvenir, but of course I could not carry it. They placed it on Leonardo's desk to check the contents, and I opened the lid of the wooden box.
"These are..."
Inside the wooden box were slightly worn patterns and lace, along with the pillow I had used when learning bobbin lace at Aurelia's house, all packed in. I understood at a single glance. These were Aurelia's belongings.
"The pharmacist Barbara divided up her belongings. She said it would be better to give them to the little miss than to Aurelia's relatives."
Listening to Yurgen's explanation, I checked each pattern one by one and deciphered the weaving methods. I had been taught how to read patterns at the very beginning, so I managed to read them. There were some parts I was not confident about, but I could have Kalisa read those.
"... This one is new."
After a series of intricate patterns drawn on aged paper, the paper quality suddenly changed to new. The patterns drawn on the new paper were all simple designs, the kind Aurelia would not have needed to commit to a pattern at all. I could tell at a glance that these had been drawn recently.
... Yes. These are mine.
Without a doubt, these were patterns Aurelia had made for me. By studying these patterns and Aurelia's works, I would likely be able to carry on Aurelia's bobbin lace.
I thanked Yurgen for delivering Aurelia's belongings and asked Bart to carry the wooden box to my room. Refusing Salisa's help and organizing the patterns by myself, I finally began to cry.
Still under confinement, I had no way of knowing the situation at the Sedovara Church, but information gathered at Leonardo's place every day. Since they understood I was not actually a child as I appeared, the information I could extract from Leonardo and Alf had decreased, but I could just get information from other Black Knights. Extracting information from Black Knights was simple. All I had to do was invite them to tea, accompanied by Salisa, asking them to be my conversation partner on their way back from visiting Leonardo. Few men would refuse to be entertained by the beautiful, big-chested Salisa and a ten-year-old girl who at least looked cute. From the mouths of Black Knights who eagerly accepted my tea invitations, I could hear about the current state of the Sedovara Church.
... It really is a big mess, is it not.
It would be no exaggeration to say that Aurelia's death had sent shockwaves through the Sedovara Church. They were apparently urgently demanding the completion of transcriptions of research materials, their deciphering, and the revival of the secret arts. Even at Jasper's place, many censored letters had begun to arrive. Letters urging him, asking if the transcription was not finished yet.
... Transcription is not something that finishes so easily.
Having helped a little myself, I understood how difficult the work was. Transcribing characters you cannot read was a task that required terrifying mental strength and concentration. And the number of pages was not just one or two books' worth. Research notes, diary-like scribbles, the quantity was enormous in any case. Jasper, who had been shut up in the guest room for over a year now, was hardly playing around.
While deliciously enjoying the baked sweets Salisa had made, I had her wrap up some. I gave the package to the Black Knight who had told me all sorts of things as thanks, but that was a mistake. With the premium of being baked goods made by Salisa, there was no way the mouths of Black Knights working in a workplace with few daily encounters with women would stay shut.
"Now then, Tina. Just what were you investigating by handing out bribes to the Black Knights?"
"Whatever do you mean?"
Bribes, what an unpleasant way to put it, I thought as I put on the mask of a lady trained by Hermine to face Alf, but unlike Leonardo who was easily deceived by women, Alf had lived as a noble from the start, and my makeshift lady-like behavior, which was nothing more than a veneer, had no effect whatsoever. When Alf, with a straight face, interrogated me about what I was trying to find out by giving bribes to the Black Knights, I could not help but answer honestly. Alf, with his well-defined features, had a truly terrifying expression when angered. If I was going to be scolded with that face, it was better to speak honestly while he was still maintaining a straight face.
"I was asking about the state of the Sedovara Church after Aurelia-san passed away."
I quickly raised the white flag in the staring contest with Alf, and brazenly stated that since neither Leonardo nor Alf would tell me anything, I had decided to investigate within my own means. In my case, rather than clumsily hiding things, it was better to speak honestly and ask for advice.
I told Alf exactly what I had heard from the Black Knight, that great chaos continued within the Sedovara Church, and that the backlash had increased the number of letters sent to Jasper. Similar reports must have reached Alf as well, as I could feel him concealing things he deemed fit for me to hear and things not, but several pieces of information were corrected.
... Not being treated completely like a child is a little cramped, is it not.
Information had been hidden from me before too, but I did not think it was as much as now. Things they thought I would not understand even if I heard as a child used to slip through casually, but now I could tell that Alf was thinking about how much to let me hear even as he spoke to me.
"Jasper's transcription research materials certainly do contain compounding procedures and tips, but, well..."
I thought for a moment about whether I should say this honestly. The research materials of Saint Yuuta Hiraga, in which the Sedovara Church had placed its hopes, contained many extraneous strings of text as if they were random jottings. Things like failed experiments might be useful, but they also included dinner menus, opinions on the taste, and complaints about neighborly relations. It was quite damaging to the image of Saint Yuuta Hiraga.
When I whispered this to him, Alf gave a wry smile.
"... I am sorry, but we can only rely on you for that, Tina."
Alf said that since I would likely be reading them someday, I should do my best even if the contents were messy and hard to read. He said that since a summons to the capital had been issued, I would probably be asked to read Japanese, though they could not force me.
"I can read Japanese, and I think I should share the prescriptions, but I do not have basic compounding skills, you know?"
Reading alone would be easy, but I would likely be asked to actually compound the medicines to confirm if the procedures were correct. These could be medicines that would eventually enter someone's mouth. I could not afford to make poison in the name of medicine, like in the days when wise women were called witches. I could not just shirk responsibility by saying I had read the Japanese, so the rest was up to them.
"... In that case, we could borrow a pharmacist from the Sedovara Church whom Tina can trust, and have the pharmacist do the actual work."
"I can only think of about three pharmacists I know..."
I counted on my fingers, but it was still three. Aurelia, Jasper, and Barbara. Aurelia had died, and her apprentice Paula was still just a pharmacist in training, so I felt she should not count as a full pharmacist.
"... Huh? Was Jasper a pharmacist?"
I had heard from him that he was a scholar researching Japanese, but when I had a fever, Leonardo brought Jasper as a pharmacist. When I went shopping in the city with Jean-Jacques, it was Jasper who handled the pharmaceutical supplies. So I had somehow assumed he was a pharmacist, but his own introduction said he was a scholar.
... So is he a pharmacist? Or a scholar?
"Jasper researches Japanese at the Sedovara Church in Grenore, but he is still a fine pharmacist."
Though he was mainly in a research role now, he had apparently fully studied pharmacy as well and had worked as a pharmacist for years before coming to Grenore City. He likely had more experience as a pharmacist than even Barbara.
"Pharmacists of the Sedovara Church can be broadly divided into two types."
Apparently there was the town doctor type, who mastered existing techniques and worked for the people, and the scholar type, who after acquiring knowledge and skills, devoted themselves to researching new medicines to help someone in the future. Jasper, who was researching Japanese, was the scholar type, continuing research to revive the secret arts of the past rather than the future. Both types could work without issue as pharmacists.
"... Could we not hand over even just the completed transcriptions to the Sedovara Church and have them proceed with research?"
"The idea of sending the completed portions to the Sedovara Church first is not bad, but considering future consequences, it would be better not to. I do not think permission from above would come through either."
Time was limited, so I thought if they conducted research on an assembly line basis, the revival of the secret arts might be hastened, but apparently it could not be done through simple rationalism. When I asked why, Alf shrugged and said they did not want to invite strange accusations.
"Have you ever heard what the biggest factor was in the loss of Saint Yuuta Hiraga's prescriptions?"
"The biggest factor?"
"Part of it was that Saint Yuuta Hiraga could only write in Japanese and German, but if that were the case, someone could have simply left prescriptions in this country's script. Even if that someone could not read Japanese, Saint Yuuta Hiraga, who could read and write Japanese, was still alive."
Now that he mentioned it, that was certainly true. I had heard that they needed a reincarnated person who could read Japanese, but Saint Yuuta Hiraga himself, who had left his writings in Japanese, was proficient in reading and writing Japanese. While he was alive, someone could have transcribed things into the words of this world.
"Saint Yuuta Hiraga tried various methods to pass on the secret arts he created. Oral tradition to sages and wise women, disclosure of prescriptions to the Sedovara Church, opening of research materials... I think he probably tried every method he could think of."
Among those various methods, there were naturally prescriptions written in the language of this world. In fact, from his attempts to leave records in multiple languages, it seemed that Saint Yuuta Hiraga placed more emphasis on written transmission than on the oral tradition of techniques by sages and wise women.
"But they are not around now, are they? Saint Yuuta Hiraga's prescriptions written in this country's language."
If such things had survived, the secret arts would not have been lost with Aurelia's death, and there should have been more sages and wise women. There would not have been a need for reincarnated Japanese people either.
"Until Saint Yuuta Hiraga established compounding techniques as medicine arts, the Sedovara Church was merely a place to pray to the gods for recovery from illness."
If you prayed to the gods, illness would be cured. In an era when that was accepted as common sense, he said that illness could be overcome through compounding (human power), and so trouble arose. Within the Sedovara Church, a factional conflict erupted between those who believed in the gods and those who accepted the compounding techniques that could recreate the works of the gods through human hands. The faction that accepted compounding techniques held the advantage thanks to Saint Yuuta Hiraga's clearly effective medicines, but the faction that rejected compounding techniques as blasphemy against the gods until the very end set fire to the archives, and many prescriptions were lost. As such conflicts repeated, eventually even the last book written in the language of this world was burned, and only the secret arts of Saint Yuuta Hiraga transmitted orally by sages and wise women remained, it was said.
"... Are they idiots? They are idiots, right? Was there no one but idiots in the Sedovara Church back then?"
I was so exasperated that I threw away the mask of a lady I had deliberately worn. The words slipped out in my true voice, but anyone who heard this story would have the same impression.
"Faith or whatever... in this case, could they not have just set it aside? Why would they do something so stupid as burning perfectly good prescriptions...!"
"On that point, I completely agree."
Faith was certainly important, but I wished they could have separated it from the value of the prescriptions. To burn them out of such shortsightedness.
"It is recorded that the Japanese research materials remain in the royal family's possession because Saint Yuuta Hiraga sold his research materials to the royal family."
With that money as capital, he produced more medicines and negotiated with the Sedovara Church to create an organization so that even poor families could obtain medicine. The Sedovara Church came to fulfill the role of a city hospital as it did now, which was truly Saint Yuuta Hiraga's achievement. Until then, it was merely a place of prayer, so I believe Yuuta Hiraga truly acted worthy of being called a 'saint.'
"The reason they cannot be handed over until the transcription is complete is because if they were burned again, the transcription work would never end, right?"
"It is also because we do not want the Sedovara Church, growing impatient in the end, to demand the research materials themselves."
If the completed transcriptions were handed over to the Sedovara Church, even if they were burned or lost, it would be the Sedovara Church's responsibility. But they could not let the Sedovara Church, where extremists who would burn precious prescriptions might be lurking somewhere, take the one and only original that truly existed. Even though the Silver-White Knight was watching over things, the royal family might have been reluctant to have Jasper, who belonged to the Sedovara Church, do the transcription work at all.
"Why not take it to the Menhishumi Church and have it printed instead?"
"After Tina translates it, that might not be a bad idea."
Saying you could make more than a small fortune, Alf's eyes were a little serious.
When it comes to religion-related matters, people will calmly do terrifying things that make a third party think, "Are you idiots!?" Even in reality.
Typos and omissions again another day. Fixed any typos and omissions I found.