43 - Alf's Invitation
I had Tabitha pack sandwiches into a basket and headed out to the backyard. I could go to the front gate, but cutting across the front yard is a bit too far. This was just a little outing to eat lunch outside for a change of pace, so I did not want to walk that distance. The only place nearby where I could find someone to chat with to kill time without leaving the grounds was the back gate I found the other day. The gatekeepers at the front gate apparently get to talk with visitors and passersby now and then, but basically no one goes near the back gate. So the back gatekeeper is bored all day long.
...Leonardo-san did say I should remember the gatekeepers' faces and names, after all.
On days when Leonardo is away, one of the gatekeepers stays at the mansion as a night watch. Also, to make sure I do not mistake them for thieves and cause a big fuss, I need to memorize their faces in advance.
...I have memorized quite a lot. Gatekeepers work in pairs, three shifts a day. With reserve personnel included, there are fifteen in total.
I do live in the mansion they are supposed to protect, but I wonder if it is really okay for me to know their shift change times too. Well, at this point I am a bit of an information expert on the back gatekeeper.
"It is Tina. Can I open it?"
I knocked on the wooden door, signaling the gatekeeper guarding the back gate on the fortress side. Normally this makes the gate open and a bored-looking gatekeeper pokes his head out, but today, even after waiting a bit, the door did not seem to open.
...Huh? Is no one there?
Finding it strange, I reached for the handle. As I opened the door with a creak from the hinges, there stood Alf with a pleasant smile on his face.
"...Huh? Alf-san?"
"Hey, Tina. Long time no see."
Come to think of it, it felt like I had not seen Alf's face in a while. Counting on my fingers, it had been over a week since we parted ways at the fortress on the day I arrived in the city.
"It has been a while, desu...?"
It had been a while, sure. But why was Alf at the back gate? I looked around. That is when I saw two gatekeepers doing squats with intense focus in the spot where they would normally be standing at attention.
...Why squats?
I tilted my head in confusion, but Alf blocked my view. Apparently it was something I was not supposed to see.
"Tina, did not the gatekeepers tell you you are not supposed to use this gate?"
...Ah, so that is how it is.
It seemed I was about to get scolded. For using the back gate without permission.
"I am not using the gate. I am just talking with the gatekeepers here."
I tried a little bit of sophistry. I had opened the back gate and talked with the gatekeeper before, but I had never actually passed through it.
"...Did it ever occur to you that you might be interfering with their work?"
"Sorry."
When he put it that way, I could not hide behind sophistry anymore. In terms of passing through, I had not used the gate, but talking with the gatekeeper would still be a disruption to their work. Even if the gatekeeper himself had stopped me to chat because he was bored.
"Vice Commander, I am the one who stopped Tina-chan to..."
"Add fifty more."
"Yes, sir!"
There was no getting around it, it seemed. Alf's voice was firm as he added more reps without even turning around.
"...So why were you at the back gate, Tina? You heard from the gatekeepers that you are not allowed to use it, right?"
"'Cause I am bored every day."
"Bored? There is a study in the mansion, is there not? You could read a book there... come to think of it, Leonardo did mention you cannot read yet."
He paused there and made a thoughtful gesture.
"...So that idiot is leaving Tina alone in a situation where she cannot read, cannot go outside, and the only people in the mansion are the servant couple?"
...When I think about it, I really am a neglected child, am I not?
It is a high-class arrangement with three meals, afternoon naps, and even snacks, but being left in the house with nothing to do and nothing I am allowed to do is a problem. The attic cleaning is already finished, and it is not like they would let me clean other rooms.
"If you are bored, want to work at the fortress?"
"Huuh?"
I was so caught off guard that a weird sound came out. Leonardo had talked about hiring a nursemaid or a tutor, but me going out to work was never an option.
"Actually, the infections in the city have been calming down, but we are short on hands to tend to the infected patients quarantined in a section of the fortress. No one wants to tend to them because they are afraid of infection."
"Is it really okay to leave that to me?"
Just because no one wants to do it, is it really okay to push this job onto a little girl? That is what I thought, but strangely, I felt drawn to it. Sure, I am scared of getting infected too. But now there is Aurelia's medicine. Leonardo said at first there was not enough to go around and they could only give it to the knights, but they should have enough stock by now. I have also heard that if you catch it early, it is curable.
...I am scared of infection, but the medicine can cure it, and maybe a little...
...Maybe a little, this guilt might fade.
I felt like I heard a voice in the back of my head. Of course, it was not a real voice.
...This is my true feeling.
What a nasty true feeling. If I could read Japanese, I could read the research materials left behind by Saint Yuuta Hiraga. I might even be able to make a cure for the infectious disease currently quarantined in the fortress. And yet, for the sole reason that I do not know how I would be treated if I were found out to be a reincarnated person, I am staying silent to protect myself. Even though this disease has already killed so many people, enough to wipe out an entire village. I suppose I want to soothe that discomfort, even just a little.
"You lived in Meyu Village, did you not, Tina? And you managed to avoid getting infected, right? I was thinking that if others copied your lifestyle habits, we might be able to prevent some infections too."
He probably found it strange that I had not said no. Alf added a little more.
"...I did tend to them. But everyone in the village died."
...Ah, my voice is a little stiff.
The village had more bad memories than good, but leaving it like that did leave me with some thoughts. Back when I was at Aurelia's house, I had so much to do every day that I did not have time to think. But Leonardo's house is no good. There are servants who handle all the housework, and there is no work for me to do. When I am experiencing new things, I can forget, but during idle time I end up thinking about all sorts of things, and it gets hard to breathe, and I cannot move. I am scared of that, so I wander around the mansion under the guise of exploring, even though there is nothing to do.
"We could not make it in time for Meyu Village, but now we have Aurelia's medicine. The ones with strong constitutions are recovering properly."
So do not worry, he said, patting my head. His touch was gentle, but I deliberately shook my head roughly to mess up his hand. With my vision swaying back and forth, I felt my mood lift just a little.
...Even as a Japanese reincarnated person, I cannot come forward.
If there is something I can do with my current abilities, I want to help within the realm of possibility. That is also true.
I brought the sandwiches in the basket back to the mansion, and while I was eating in the dining hall, Alf was talking with Bart and the others. It was about Alf taking me under his wing for a while. Tabitha objected to sending me to a place where an infectious disease was quarantined, but apparently she relented on the condition that I would be back by evening. Alf was handed a mountain of child-sized masks and gloves, when did he even prepare those? After changing into the clothes I used to wear at Aurelia's house, easier to move in, my preparations to head to the fortress were complete.
"Tina, are you sure about this?"
"You are the one who invited me, Alf-san. There is no backing out of helping now."
Putting on my mask and gloves, I entered the fortress through the back gate. The quarantine facility I was led to was a section of the north wing. There were windows for lighting and the curtains were not closed, but for some reason it felt dim. Peeking into a few rooms being used as sick wards, I followed Alf down the hallway.
...It really looks just like the same disease from the village.
The symptoms of the people lying in the beds in the sick wards I peeked into resembled the symptoms I once saw in my mother. There were red swollen pox and scratch marks on their limbs, with blood seeping at their fingertips. The patients in the ward I had heard had relatively mild symptoms did not have pox, but they were groaning with high fever.
...The smell is awful too.
The air was thick with a distinctive stench of blood mixed with exudate, along with the smell of sweat and ammonia. Alf said no one wanted to tend to the sick, but was there no one doing laundry either?
...It feels sort of unsanitary. Like, I am sure they are cleaning and doing laundry, but it is nowhere near keeping up?
With conditions like this, even a curable disease would not get better. That is how unsanitary it looked.
"For now, Tina, observe this section and let me know if anything catches your attention. I am sure you understand, but do not take off your mask under any circumstances."
As for the other explanation, the first floor had people suspected of being in the incubation period, those given medicine in the early stages, and the people tending to them. The second and third floors were apparently full of people who had already developed symptoms and were bedridden with high fever, or fighting against intense itching.
"...Also, there is a basement here, but do not go near it under any circumstances, Tina."
"Why, absolutely?"
"Especially severe critical patients are isolated there."
Alf did not mince his words just because I was a child. Maybe he thought it was better to tell me clearly rather than hide things, so I would listen properly.
...He is right. If someone explains the reason something is not allowed, I will listen too.
Still, I thought. Keeping critical patients in the basement... it feels like even a curable disease would not get better down there. In terms of containing the disease, it might be the right call, though.
...Does the basement have proper ventilation and all that?
There were other things I was concerned about, but first, as Alf said, I decided to observe the quarantine section.
When talking to a little girl, most characters end up with the same tone of voice, and that is no good... orz
I only learned today that the name for the clear fluid that oozes out when you are injured, the one that turns yellow when it dries, is called exudate. In my house, my mother calls it yani. Is that a dialect? Is it the correct word? I am glad I looked it up...