334 - The Autumn Hat and the Luxuriously Bound Book
I had come to have tea with my aunt Sofiya from time to time. Though when I say have tea, it was not that I visited Sofiya's residence or invited her to the detached palace, but rather that we held tea parties at Siegwald's residence with Mikaela as our center. Recently, Aristalf had started joining that circle as well, provided his health permitted it. It seemed Sofiya and Aristalf had been permitted to meet lately. Bertrand was the one who had unilaterally driven Sofiya out and taken Aristalf away, but unknown to him, family relations seemed to be gradually improving. I hoped Aristalf and Sofiya would find happiness like this.
"I have prepared a gift for Christina-sama today."
"Oh my, what could it be? I am delighted."
Calculating a balance between childlikeness and ladylikeness, adding them together and dividing by two, I accepted the round box, as large as an armful, that Giselle had inspected. This box, I could tell what was inside. A round box large enough for an armful was a hat box. To prevent the hat inside from being bent or crushed, it had to be placed in a sufficiently large box, so it inevitably became a grand box of an armful.
"Oh my, how cute. The nuts are so autumn-like and lovely."
"Hehe. It will be autumn soon, will it not? I cannot very well go out wearing a flower hat forever."
The flower hat referred to the hat with cat ears that Sofiya had given me at the Spring Flower Festival. As an autumn replacement for that hat, this was a hat decorated with nuts, but the decorations were not limited to nuts alone.
...These ears are a bit unusual this time. What animal are they from?
They were neither cat ears nor dog ears, but something resembling fluffy ears had been firmly attached to the autumn hat as well.
...At least it is good that they are an autumn-like crimson. I need to match them with my clothes. I can always say "It did not go with my outfit, so I could not wear it today."
The pity was that Leonardo's trademark colors were black and crimson. To ensure there was no dissonance when I acted alongside Leonardo, a certain number of my clothes combined crimson and black. To save face for Sofiya who had given me the hat, wearing it two or three times would be more than enough.
"Oh my, that looks lovely, Tina-san. Might I also have a look?"
"Yes, of course, Mikaela-sama."
I handed the box containing the hat to Mikaela. Peering into the box, Mikaela smiled beautifully, but she seemed to have something on her mind.
...Huh?
Her expression was, as expected, composed and unreadable, but she was reacting to something inside the box. What could it be? I tried recalling the contents of the hat, but I could not think of anything that would provoke a reaction from Mikaela.
"I have been inspired by the autumn hat."
Saying this, Mikaela lifted her face from the box, and the reaction from earlier was no longer visible. Smiling as though nothing had happened, she closed the lid on the box and turned back to me.
"I have had a small idea. Tina-san, might I borrow this hat for a little while?"
"Yes. I have no objection, but... would Sofiya-sama be all right with that as well?"
"Huh? Oh, yes. I shall look forward to seeing what wonderful idea Mikaela-sama has come up with."
The box containing the hat was handed to a maid of the residence, and the tea party resumed. Today's sweets were mont blanc made with chestnuts. I had thought the same when I first went shopping in the city with Leonardo, but mont blanc was mont blanc. When the reincarnator who brought the mont blanc recipe had released that recipe, I wondered how they had explained the word "mont blanc." Munching on the delicious mont blanc, I pondered such trivial things. The cooks at Siegwald's residence seemed to have a thorough grasp of my taste preferences. Or perhaps more likely, Mikaela was the one who understood my preferences. Understanding a guest's preferences and quietly preparing their favorite foods was a skill required of a lady.
"Has Leonyaldo Big Brother not returned yet?"
As I savored the mont blanc, scooping the chestnut cream with my spoon, I thought about how autumn it felt. Spring was for planting, autumn for harvest, and I had heard that summer was the most dangerous season, but summer had already passed. Yet for all that, I had heard no news of war beginning or ending.
"...Oh my, if it is the skirmish with the Kingdom of Saenard, it should already be over by now."
"Eh? Over... you say? When did it even begin?"
The sudden news of the war's conclusion threw me into confusion. I had been fretting about when the war would start, but apparently it had ended without me even knowing.
"This year, there were fewer Silver-White Knights participating in the summer martial arts tournament, were there not?"
"Yes. Prince Alfred participated in their stead, did he not."
"The Silver-White Knights who did not appear at the tournament must have left the capital and gone to Lugmilama Fortress. A decrease in the number of Silver-White Knights in the capital is one indicator of whether a war has begun."
Mikaela, the wife of Siegwald who had long served as Commander of the Silver-White Knights, and also the mother of Timon, the current Commander, could apparently discern to some extent that a war was underway somewhere just from the number of Silver-White Knights in the capital. It was certainly not that Siegwald or Timon were leaking classified information at home.
...But if the war had already started long ago, someone could have told me.
I thought that, but I also understood why those around me had not informed me. Telling me about the outbreak of war would have been meaningless, and would only have caused me unnecessary stress. They might also have been concerned that I might carelessly wish upon a spirit and fly off to Lugmilama Fortress.
"Could it be that the unreasonable demand Felicia-sama made at the end of summer was because of the war?"
Felicia might have kept me busy to ensure that no troubling news reached my ears by any chance. Thinking about it that way, the unreasonable request from Felicia, who had never made such excessive demands before, seemed to make sense.
"Oh my, what kind of sweet request did Felicia-sama make of you? Come to think of it, Sieg did mention that you seemed to have called for some merchants."
...So "unreasonable demand" is "sweet request" in Lady Language, is it? Noted.
I filed away this newly acquired Lady Language translation in my head and explained the content of Felicia's... sweet request. In essence, Felicia's request was to move up the schedule.
"I had originally intended to have it printed after returning to the city of Grenore, but..."
I exchanged a glance with Solana, and had her place a book and a box in front of Mikaela and Sofiya. The book was a guidebook on bobbin lace, which had just finished printing and binding the other day.
"Felicia-sama taught me that 'it is better to spread trends from the capital,' so..."
Felicia had wanted to read the bobbin lace guidebook, which I had originally planned to print after returning to Grenore. If she only wanted to read it, I had the manuscript, but Hermine later explained to me that "wanting to read it" did not literally mean that. In my mind, I had thought to distribute it only to those who wanted it, like doujinshi in my previous life, but apparently, since I was putting it into book form, I needed to arrange for sales and other formalities. It was a good opportunity to learn this under Felicia's supervision, and Hermine also recommended I learn thoroughly before making books for commoners in Grenore. So I had a small number printed for nobles and had some fun with the binding.
"Oh my, the cover is Christina-sama, is it not? Is this bobbin lace? It is very delicate."
"I asked the artist who did the explanatory illustrations inside to also do the cover, but it embarrasses me a little."
The face on the cover was a silhouette, so it was not actually my face. I received it gratefully as something like Sofiya's compliment, but let it slide.
The cover Rannvald had drawn for me was a silhouette of a girl's profile. The ribbon tied in her hair was done in bobbin lace, with colored ink used to make it leave an impression. I planned to use multi-color printing for the commoner version as well, but since this was a luxurious edition for nobles, the title lettering was in an ocher color that could almost pass for gold. Adding a black shadow somehow made it look like gold lettering.
"My, how lovely. There is a lace bookmark inside."
"Since this edition only has a small number of copies, I had bookmarks made and inserted so that people could understand what actual bobbin lace is like."
I had worked hard to spark interest with actual bobbin lace. Since making bookmarks with complex patterns would have been too difficult, they were simply short strips of a slightly intricate geometric patterned wide ribbon. I worked on these together with Kalisa, Rebecca, and Petrona. Each person's quota was five, but Kalisa and Rebecca made seven each. Those two were, how should I put it, at a level far beyond ordinary when it came to the speed at which they rolled their bobbins.
Incidentally, I only intended to include these bobbin lace bookmarks in the luxurious edition for nobles. The reason was simple. Since everything was handmade, it was nearly impossible to prepare a large number.
"The explanations are thorough... and there are even easy-to-understand diagrams."
"I feel like even I could make this. ...And what about this box?"
"That box contains a special edition, five copies that are even more special."
Inside the box were bobbins already wound with thread, pins, and a small cylindrical pillow. I had called merchants to have these made. I had drawn inspiration from that familiar series from my previous life, where you could start right away after buying the book.
"How delightful. So you can start right away."
"But with this number of bobbins, would it not be insufficient for a complex pattern like this one?"
"The starter set is purely for practice and trying it out. So if you wish to begin in earnest, I thought it would be better to call a merchant and have your own bobbins made with your preferred materials and decorations, based on the design plans included at the end of the book."
I had actually thought of including advertisements for merchants' shops on the pages with the bobbin and pillow design plans, but Felicia stopped me. She said a merchant might incur the resentment of other merchants, and if a flood of orders from nobles came in and they could not handle the workload, they might lose credibility and their business could collapse.
...It is dangerous to thoughtlessly adopt things from my previous life on a whim. I had even considered using advertising revenue to cover the printing costs.
Sofiya showed more interest than I had expected, so I took the tools out of the box and demonstrated in front of her. It was a simple pattern that was almost just weaving a surface, which I had also done for finger practice. I yielded my spot to Sofiya and peered at Mikaela's hands as she also began to try it. Though she had taken out the tools, I thought Mikaela was the type who preferred to read through the guidebook first before starting.
...Still, making a luxurious edition for nobles was unplanned, but Felicia-sama really is thorough, is she not?
I had thought we would just print it like a doujinshi and be done with it. But it was not that simple. If it was just a book distributed within a truly personal circle, that would have been fine, but apparently it was necessary to register it with the Menhishumi Church to prevent unauthorized reproductions and low-quality fakes. With registration information, if fakes or poor-quality copies were made, you could prove "this came first" and "this is the genuine article," which apparently served as a deterrent that could be used to punish the other party. The reason she recommended printing in the capital was so Felicia could oversee my first registration process, and registration in the capital was faster than doing it in Grenore. It was all out of concern for similar products and low-quality imitations.
"...Tina-san, which merchant will be handling this book?"
"Unfortunately, between my own copies, the ones to be sent to Basilia-sama, the ones I have gifted to Mikaela-sama and the others, the presentation copy to the Menhishumi Church, and the copies for my lady's maids, Felicia-sama has purchased all the remaining copies, so there are no merchants handling it at present."
"My, so Felicia-sama will be promoting it? Then it will spread quickly among the nobility."
Mikaela said it was truly beautiful as she gazed at the bobbin lace bookmark in her hand. I had thought Felicia might have bought the stock because she had pushed me to make it in a hurry, but it seemed she also intended to promote bobbin lace. Hearing these various intentions from those around me made me keenly aware of my own narrow perspective. When Felicia first told me to print it, I thought the royal eccentricity had finally surfaced, but Hermine pointed out that she probably intended to teach me the registration procedures, and when I tried to include the names of shops with experience making bobbins as advertisements, she stopped me saying the shops could go under, and when I thought she was buying the stock because she had made me produce it, it turned out she intended to promote it. Mikaela's question about which merchant would handle it was probably also because she intended to help promote it. Mikaela's network was quite extensive as well.
...I am still such a child. I can only see what is right in front of me.
As I realized this anew, I recalled Mikaela's reaction earlier. She had clearly reacted to something when she looked inside the box.
I was able to understand the reason by asking Giselle about it in the carriage on the way home.
"The animal ears attached to the hat? Those are the ears of a small animal called an ushiri. It has a fluffy long tail and stores nuts in its cheek pouches... it is a cute animal, but..."
...Ah, yes. I see. So that hat was discreetly taken away out of consideration for me, after all.
This was Mikaela, who could tell whether there was a war just by looking at the number of Silver-White Knights. She would have also remembered the name of the animal that had carried the source of the Words Disease outbreak from several years ago. If she knew that I had lost my parents to the Words Disease and had been taken in by Leonardo, she might have quietly kept a hat with ushiri ears out of my sight. By the time that hat came back, its ears would probably have been changed to those of a different animal.
Once I started playing around with the binding, I could not finish even staying up until 3 AM. A new pattern, carried over into the afternoon.
Will fix typos and errors at a later date.