22 - The Wise Woman and the Witch
When I woke up in bed, the inside of my mouth was sweet.
Last night I'd gotten into bed intending to rest a little before dinner, and it seems I fell asleep as I was, so I shouldn't have eaten dinner.
...In my dream, I feel like Aurelia-san baked scones for me.
I remember eating them so eagerly because the freshly made jam and the scones baked right there were so delicious, but I wonder if that wasn't a dream. Aurelia being so accommodating is too unbelievable for it to be anything but a dream, but I felt like the sweetness of the jam lingered in my mouth. Perhaps it wasn't a dream after all.
...The scones were delicious.
Thinking about such things, I got ready and went to the kitchen, where Leonardo, who is usually making vegetable soup, was having a staring contest with the oven. A truly rare sight.
"What are you baking there? Cookies?"
I spotted dome-shaped baked goods, baked golden brown, sitting on a plate, and I guessed at the contents of the oven. Had Leonardo finally grown doubtful of the vegetable soup heavy rotation and embarked on developing a new menu?
"No, since you were happily eating them yesterday, I learned from Aurelia and tried baking scones, but..."
...So eating Aurelia-san's scones... that wasn't a dream after all.
Told that what was baking were scones, I turned my gaze back to the scone-like objects on the plate. Now that he said it, they did look like scones, but the baked shape was different from what Aurelia had made. Aurelia's scones had risen vertically in the oven, with cracks splitting from the sides, and were crispy and delicious. But the scones made by Leonardo sitting on the plate, far from rising vertically, were dome-shaped with the center only slightly risen.
"Want to taste-test?"
Leonardo handed me one and I tried it. There was a crisp bite to it, but it was completely different from Aurelia's scones... those light, crispy ones that crumbled and melted in your mouth.
"...Did Aurelia-san teach you?"
"Yeah, the ingredients and method are the same."
I wonder what's different? Leonardo tilted his head as he also brought a scone to his mouth. Since he himself found the results unsatisfactory, he must have had me taste-test them.
...I heard something about this once, a long time ago. That scones are the one confection the British can make better than the Japanese.
The trick is to knead the dough roughly, and it's conversely difficult for Japanese people who end up working too carefully.
...I made them using a mix in my previous life, and I remember being incredibly uneasy about following the recipe.
If I recall, there was a guide for how many times to knead the dough... ten or twenty times... and an explanation that it was just right when flour still remained. Is it okay not to knead until the flour is gone? Uneasy as I was, I followed the explanation and made scones that baked up picture-perfect, the kind that made you want to shout, "Now this is a scone!" with a wonderful crispy texture. Hard as it is to believe as a Japanese person, it really was just right with some flour still remaining.
...But there are scones like this too, right? Flat ones with dried fruit inside. Ah, that's it!
Suddenly struck with an idea, I set up the step stool. I remembered that on the upper shelf there were what seemed to be raisins kept for preservation.
I took out the raisins and chopped them into small pieces. I mixed them into the remaining scone dough, rolled it out with a rolling pin, and cut it into triangles. All that was left was to bake them. Better to have something with at least some flavor rather than a mountain of failed plain scones.
Beside Leonardo, who was glued to the oven, I made the usual vegetable soup. I do think I'm tired of the heavy rotation, but I also feel we're getting a lot of nutrients from the vegetables, so it's a menu I hesitate to drop. Above all, the fact that you just take stock from meat, cut the vegetables, and simmer them... the lack of effort required is a major factor. Until I discover a seasoning beyond salt and pepper, I'll have to endure the vegetable soup heavy rotation just a little longer.
...We have potatoes, so I could probably make something like potage soup, but.
In the body of a little girl, I want to avoid anything too labor-intensive, and in the first place, while I can imagine how to make it... "if you do this you'll probably get potage soup"... I couldn't think of a seasoning method that would taste good at all.
...I should have done more proper cooking in my previous life. With just mixes and retort pouches, you can't make anything when it really counts.
Once breakfast was done, I began watching over the large pot again today, alternating with Aurelia. The pot has been on the fire for the past several days, so we've been consuming firewood at a heavy rate. Because of that, today Leonardo took separate action from Aurelia, and after finishing breakfast he went out into the forest to gather additional firewood. Aurelia, as always, has gone out somewhere to search for medicine ingredients.
...Let's see, it's been a week since we came to the valley today?
I counted on my fingers, recalling the events of the past while. I counted again, and there was no mistake... today marks one week since we came to the valley.
...If I were infected, I'd probably be in bed with a fever around now, wouldn't I?
I didn't feel any particular physical sluggishness, or fever, or any such abnormalities.
"Tina, you'll be out of firewood soon."
When had he returned? Leonardo brought a bundle of firewood. Acting before I even asked... a wonderful big brother figure.
"Leonyaldo-san, today, home. With Aurelia-san, together, not go, okay?"
"Aurelia's medicine arts are kept secret, after all. Even if we go together, Aurelia searches for the ingredients alone, and I can mostly only carry luggage."
What... I had thought they always went out together, but apparently Leonardo's job was only carrying luggage. Now that he mentioned it, it was always only Leonardo carrying a basket on his back every time they returned.
"Why, secret? Why? Everyone make medicine, faster, lots."
If they rely on Aurelia's medicine arts calling them precious, why keep them secret? If they spread them widely instead of keeping them secret, there might not have been a need to hole up in the valley in the first place. There would be no need for Aurelia to go out somewhere every day and gather ingredients alone.
"Aurelia's medicine arts are, in any case, made by a precise... a very difficult method, and it's hard to fully learn them."
I could tell he had softened his words partway through so that even a child could understand. I could see Leonardo was troubled over what and how much to explain.
The explanation, broken down for a child, was something like this. In the era when the saint Yuuta Hiraga was alive, there were many wise women and wise men who were able to receive direct instruction in the medicine arts from Yuuta Hiraga himself. Many of them reliably inherited the techniques and flourished as pharmacists in various regions, but as generations passed... their apprentices, their apprentices' apprentices... the correct procedures and the required precision of the work were neglected, and several medicine arts were lost. If they were merely lost that would be one thing, but among the shoddy products that resulted, some had effects completely opposite to medicine, and claimed the lives of hundreds of people.
It is because of this era that wise women came to be called witches as well.
With incidents of people drinking what they thought was medicine only to find it was poison becoming frequent, even the Sedovara Church, which worships Sedovara, the god of medicine arts, could no longer leave wise women and wise men unchecked. It seems this led to the Sedovara Church beginning to manage wise women and wise men. They would send talented pharmacists recognized by the Sedovara Church as apprentices to wise women and wise men who had reliably preserved their techniques, and have those techniques accurately passed down through the generations. However, the medicine arts created by Yuuta Hiraga, while highly effective, are so precise that they are difficult to create, and even with talented successors prepared, they are gradually being lost. One person who can accurately make the medicines decreases, then two decrease, and as generations passed, it seems it ultimately came down to Aurelia alone.
"...Aurelia-san, alone. Hard. Very hard."
And on top of that, Aurelia is already at an age where she can be called an elderly woman. If she doesn't train an apprentice quickly, the techniques will be completely lost.
"It seems the Sedovara Church has been sending several apprentices with the succession of generations in mind, but..."
The instruction is too strict, and the apprentices flee before they become any good. If you think about it simply, it seems like easing up on the instruction a little would solve it, but you can't cut corners in passing down techniques that hold people's lives in their hands. After the results of lax instruction and half-hearted succession led to the era when wise women came to be called witches, there's no going back to that.
"...It's difficult."
If you ease up on the instruction, the succession won't be done correctly, and if you're thorough in the instruction to ensure correct succession, the apprentices flee and succession itself becomes impossible. I said "difficult" in that sense, but Leonardo seemed to take it in a different way.
"Aurelia's hard to deal with, after all."
Leonardo let that slip with a sigh, but I couldn't agree. Though I'd only known her for a single week, I never thought of Aurelia as hard to deal with.
"Aurelia-san, not hard, deal with?"
"Well, that's because you've never had anything like a real conversation with her."
In places where Leonardo is, Aurelia only uses English. So for me, unable to understand English, it means conversation with Aurelia is impossible. At least, in Leonardo's mind, that's how it must be understood.
...When Leonardo-san isn't around, she talks with me quite a bit, you know, Aurelia-san.
Things like the heat of the pot or the trick to using the mortar... she never makes idle chatter, but. I think we have conversation to a reasonable degree.
"A little more, you know... idle chat, or joking, or... only saying the bare minimum is a problem, I think. When moving in squad units, conversational exchanges like small talk become important."
"Talking, important, understand. But, not suited, people, exist."
Getting to know each other through the communication of conversation is good, but there is definitely a certain segment of people for whom that method is fatally unsuited. For example, me. Perhaps because I have the memory of having been Japanese in my previous life, I still struggle with excessive physical contact. I've gotten used to kisses on the cheek and forehead from my parents, and I could even initiate them myself, but I can't do the same to Leonardo. Yet Leonardo, perhaps being of a disposition that's fine with physical contact, kissed me on the forehead with a natural gesture even when we had just met. Individuality, or what you'd call it... truly, everyone is different.
It would be troubling to demand the same level of communication ability from others that Leonardo has.
"Speaking of talking, Tina, you can talk quite a bit. Though when it gets a little long, your tongue can't keep up and it turns into 'nya' and such."
Leonardo pointed out that in my sleep-talking, though he can't make it out, I chatter on and on.
"Sleep talk, listening? Leonyaldo-san, pervert."
"No, that's not being a pervert. You're the one talking in your sleep, Tina, and me hearing it is an act of God... wait, that's not it."
I tried to divert the topic, but Leonardo splendidly blocked it.
"If you can talk even when your tongue can't keep up, you should talk properly all the time. Eventually your tongue will keep up properly."
"No. Can't talk proper, baby talk cute, Leonyaldo-san, saying mean things."
I puff out my cheeks and protest... until I can speak perfectly, I don't want to, because I'll be laughed at. Leonardo, who has laughed at my baby talk any number of times, can only fall silent at this rebuttal.
"...On that point, I was in the wrong. I won't laugh ever again, so let's practice talking."
Let's start by imitating how I talk, Leonardo persisted in coaxing me, so I did as he said and imitated him. Every word, carefully. Leonardo's masculine speech.
...As expected, he stopped telling me to imitate how he talks.
A mysterious infectious disease is supposedly lurking outside the valley, but I wonder if it's really all right to be this leisurely. I do think that, but the days in the valley pass slowly. Most days are spent making ingredients and gathering firewood.
In the end, neither I nor Leonardo ever came down with a high fever, and ten days passed since we came to the valley. Perhaps having gathered a certain amount of ingredients, Aurelia began to shut herself up in the workshop built into a side cave in the cliff, just like the storehouse. Aurelia's compounding of medicines is confidential, they said, so neither I nor Leonardo can enter the workshop to help. We simply continued helping within the scope of what we could... grinding sand into powder in the mortar as instructed, simmering pots into which Aurelia had put prepared things. For us, who are not Aurelia's apprentices, that's about all we can do.
I want to eat scones. Pancakes, even more so.
Chapter 2 is planned to end in four more chapters.