217 - Handling a Large Fortune
The embroidery painting worth five gold coins had turned into five thousand gold coins. If counting by the number of gold coins, it was five thousand, but converting it to Shivil, the unit price, made it somewhat difficult to comprehend. Calculating it in writing should have been easy enough, but the amount was so large that my mind refused to understand it. When I clung to Leonardo in confusion over the sheer sum, he answered that it could probably build a modest detached palace.
"Are you really sure that is fine, Leonyaldo-san? Will Princess Claudine not get angry if she uses that much money?"
"It seems that it has reached her father's ears and she is currently awaiting a decision on the matter."
"Right? She will get angry, will she not?"
It was supposed to be a bit of a retaliatory price setting, but I felt like it had turned into something outrageous. I never imagined there would be someone who would casually pay such an absurd price.
"Leo, what should I do? The princess is getting scolded by her father!"
"The decision to buy at the offered price was theirs. There is no need for you to worry about it, Tina."
"...But!"
When I tried to insist further, I was told my tone was slipping, so I closed my mouth. I still could not help my natural tone slipping out in moments of surprise.
"Since they accepted the price we set knowingly, there is nothing for Tina to be concerned about."
"That is right. The other party judged that the young lady's painting was worth that much."
...Though the value of those five thousand gold coins lay entirely in Leonardo's naked body!
It was not my skill as a seamstress, nor the artistic value of the painting. To the buyer, the value of that painting lay in the single fact that Leonardo was the model. Princess Claudine had found five thousand gold coins' worth of value in Leonardo's naked body.
...Also, I noticed. These people were not fazed at all by five thousand gold coins.
I was the only one here who was shaken. For Cidur, a merchant who owned such a magnificent hotel in the city of Lagarette, this might have been a familiar amount. But it was strange that Leonardo, who should be a commoner, was not fazed at all. Maybe it was because he handled this kind of money as the lord of the fortress, but even so, I thought it was a huge sum. It was definitely not an amount a child should have.
"Leonardo Big Brother-sama, it is a little early, but happy birthday."
This is a present from me, please accept the gold coins in their entirety, I tried to press the gold coins on him with a lady's smile, but he refused.
"Could I possibly accept such a large sum of money as a present from my little sister?"
...Ah, so he did recognize it as a huge sum. I was a little relieved.
Then Leonardo started complaining that giving cash as a present had no charm whatsoever, so I reflected a little. Certainly, I said it impulsively because of the circumstances, but even I would hate it if a family member gave me a large sum of money saying it was a birthday present. No, I could also understand and sympathize with the rational argument that it was better to receive cash and spend it freely than to get a gift that did not suit your tastes. If it were not for this situation, I thought I would be on that side too.
...But still, there was a limit to how much was appropriate!
It was a completely different amount from receiving five thousand or ten thousand yen from your parents and being told to buy something you liked. The amount was so large it was scary, and I had no idea what I should buy.
"If it is a present for me, could you use that money to buy cloth and make me a shirt, Tina?"
"I am better at embroidery than making clothes, but... I understand. It will be a little late, Leonardo Big Brother-sama, but I will make you a shirt."
With that, Leonardo's birthday present was settled for now.
"...But then, if Leonardo Big Brother-sama will not accept it, what should I do with these gold coins?"
"That money was earned by Tina. You should save it for when you get married."
Leonardo said he would not accept it, but there was no problem with him keeping it safe. Come to think of it, Leonardo should have been earning quite a high salary, but I wondered where he kept his money. There might have been a church that functioned like a bank that I did not know about.
"If I brought such a huge dowry and married a commoner, it would just cause relatives to multiply at my new home and create trouble."
A bride who brought a huge dowry was like winning the lottery. It was a common story that suddenly more relatives appeared, or suspicious religious groups pestered you for donations.
"...Ah, that is right. The money."
I had panicked over the sheer amount of money, but things could be looked at differently. With this much money, there might have been things I could do.
"With this much, could I build a bobbin lace workshop?"
"I think you could build the building, but..."
"That is right. Just having a building would not accomplish anything."
Even if I prepared a building as a workshop, I could not spread bobbin lace just with that. With this much money, I could train artisans and feed them during the period until they could produce salable goods, but I did not have the know-how to manage a workshop. If there were another workshop like it, I could imitate them or teach them how to make bobbin lace, but just having money and a workshop building alone would not solve anything.
I had a prospect for the biggest difficulty, the funding, but there were too many things I was lacking. And I reached the usual conclusion that I had no choice but to spend time spreading it little by little, but today was a little different. Petrona, the merchant's daughter, showed some interest and said she wanted to learn it herself, but Cidur was an adult merchant with know-how and experience unlike me. He gave me some more specific advice.
"...This would certainly be something that noble ladies would want, would it not?"
Saying that, Cidur evaluated the bobbin lace that Salisa had fetched for him. I lined up three pieces: the one Aurelia made, the one Kalisa made, and the one I made that I was struggling with the most.
Wait. There is no ":" in the source here. Let me check... The source uses a period (。). So I need to rewrite that sentence without a colon.
Let me rephrase: Saying that, Cidur evaluated the bobbin lace that Salisa had fetched for him. He lined up three pieces. The one Aurelia made, the one Kalisa made, and the one I made that I was struggling with the most.
"Alf-san taught me that since lace itself is a luxury item, I do not need to worry about the cost price being high."
"That is a correct judgment. If you are going to sell this as merchandise in a shop, there is no need to worry about the price."
...Huh? "If you sell it in a shop"?
I tilted my head, feeling a little caught by Cidur's words. When I looked at Cidur, waiting for him to continue, he gave me a preface of "Did your tutor not teach you this?" and then taught me a way to spread it other than selling it.
"Trends flow from above to below. Never the reverse. You understand that, do you not?"
"Yes. Commoners may admire the clothing of nobles, but never the reverse."
That was how it was, right? I asked for confirmation, and he praised me, saying that was correct. I was not patted on the head like Leonardo or Alf did, of course.
"Leonardo-sama will eventually become a Merit Peer. At that time, if you, his sister, are unmarried, you will also be counted among the nobility."
Cidur said that there was a way to spread it through interactions among nobles after I became a noble. Other than bobbin lace, noble daughters would want it immediately, he said. At that time, being the only one who knew how to make bobbin lace would be a strong weapon. If they wanted bobbin lace, they could not push around a newcomer like me. I would be able to position myself advantageously in noble society from an early age, using bobbin lace as my weapon, he said.
At that time, it did not have to be the noble daughter herself that I taught bobbin lace to. Just as Kalisa, the nurse maid, learned bobbin lace and made decorative collars and coasters for me, I could spread it to the maids and servants serving that household. That would spread bobbin lace faster and wider than if I alone passed it down from children to grandchildren.
"...There are so many different ways, are there not?"
I had only been thinking about producing lots and putting them on the market. I never thought of using the technique itself as a social weapon, rather than selling things.
...Well, I had no plans to become a noble, though.
I had no plans to be absorbed into my biological father's family, nor to wait for Leonardo's retirement from knighthood and become the sister of a Merit Peer. My vague future goal was to live an ordinary life as a commoner.
"If you need someone to use their head, use Nils," Cidur said as he left. Nils had no business acumen, but he was good at thinking, he said. I gave a vague answer and saw Cidur off.
I asked Leonardo to manage the far-too-large sum of five thousand gold coins. To be honest, my true feeling was that since it was probably originally based on tax money from the people, I should return it. But when I consulted Leonardo and Alf, and even Hermine, they all said I should not return the money. They agreed with the idea that it would be better to return it, thinking of it as the people's tax money, but said that would cause trouble afterward.
...Certainly, now that they mentioned it, if I went and said "This is the people's tax money, is it not? Please do not waste it" and returned it, I would be afraid of the king taking a liking to me.
I had heard he had issues with his personality, but he was a king who ruled with good governance, valuing the people. If I went to return the gold coins based on righteous logic and my own integrity, I had a chilling feeling he would take a liking to me, calling me a rare honest person. Not a premonition, but a chill.
...Maybe I should consult Alfred-sama too, once?
He would probably come to the city of Grenore again at least once more. Last time he came with a summons for me, but with the sudden news of Aurelia's passing, he ended up turning back mid-conversation. There had been no contact since then.
...I did not want to get close to royalty, but I wanted to return that money.
That was truly a price set just to be spiteful. No matter how I thought about it, receiving five thousand gold coins was too much. I wanted to recover the material costs, the labor wages, and the cost of the cloth for Leonardo's shirt, but really only that. As long as I was being supported by Leonardo, I did not need large sums, and I could earn my own allowance little by little by taking on embroidery work. Honestly, unless I were to build a workshop, it was money I had no use for in my life.
...A large sum of money that made it so you did not need to work. When it was actually right in front of you, it was scary and no good.
I thought if I truly never worked for my whole life, I would go bad as a person. I wanted to find a good excuse and return that money somehow.
Cidur said something about going to see Nils's face, so I waited a few days before visiting the Menhishumi Church. I thought I should not intrude on their private time between parent and child, but when I asked Nils, he said Cidur really just looked at his face and went home. When Nils greeted him with "It has been a while, Father," Cidur just answered "Ah, you are alive," and apparently the parent-child conversation ended there. I wondered a little if they were a distant parent-child pair or if there was some discord between them, but I decided not to pry. It was another person's family matter. It was not something I should stick my nose into.
As I talked about the advice I got from Cidur on how to spread bobbin lace, I also borrowed Nils's wisdom, and he came up with a different opinion. Nils, who belonged to the church bearing the name of the god of knowledge, Menhishumi, suggested not making a workshop or me becoming a noble, but making a book. He said I could print a book on how to make bobbin lace and patterns, and spread it by selling that. Not making a workshop and supplying goods to merchants, nor training artisans from scratch. It was a method of leaving it to future generations in the form of a book, while simultaneously nurturing artisans who bought the book and tried their hand at bobbin lace.
...Cidur-san's advice to use Nils when it came to using one's head was really the best.
With Nils's proposal, I felt like various problems could be cleared up. As a use for the gold coins I planned to return most of, it might have been just right. It would be hard until they could make products of merchantable quality, but there was the possibility of nurturing multiple artisans at the same time.
...I should consult with Kalisa.
If I was going to make a guidebook, I should consult with Kalisa, who understood bobbin lace better than I did. Kalisa had returned to the Mandez residence now. I wanted to write a letter or meet her directly to discuss it.
Since this is a continuation of yesterday's, it is short.
Typos and omissions again another day. Fixed any typos and omissions I found.