The Guildmaster’s Granddaughter
A little before third bell the next day, Lutz and I went to the plaza and began waiting for Freida. It was at that moment that I realized I hadn’t heard anything about Freida to help me recognize her — not the color of her hair, not the way she carried herself, nothing.
“What should we do, Lutz?”
“She’ll probably just find us herself. That hair stick of yours sticks out like a sore thumb, and worst comes to worst, her grandpa’s right over there. He knows what we look like.” Lutz pointed at the nearby Merchants’ Guild and shrugged. I was sure that things would be fine, now that he mentioned that.
“Hey, Lutz. How did yesterday go for you? My family was like...”
Yesterday, Lutz and I went home with money for the first time after selling paper to Benno. They were stunned at first, but after I explained how I had made paper with Lutz, they heaped impressed compliments on me. On top of that, they added the money I brought home to their winter preparation funds, which they planned to use to buy a little extra honey this year — a luxury for the winter.
“What about you, Lutz? Do you think they’ll accept your dream to be a merchant now?” Lutz and I had completed the paper, which meant that Benno would accept us as his apprentices. But would his family? Would they recognize his passion for this and let it happen?
Lutz gave a bitter frown and shrugged. “...I dunno. They were happy about me earning money, but they’re still not okay with the merchant stuff. When I told my dad I made paper with you, he said I should just become a paper-making craftsman. ‘A craftsman’s what you want to be,’ he said.”
“It really does seem like your dad wants you to be a craftsman.” It was clear that they were proud of their lives as craftsmen and that their expectations for him were different from what he wanted himself. Finding middle ground wouldn’t be easy.
“But I don’t want to be a craftsman. I want to leave this town and do business in other cities like Benno. You don’t want to spend your whole life making just paper either, right Myne?”
“Uh huh. Once we get the mass production of paper going, I want to leave it all to other people and move on to making books. I won’t be able to own a bookstore if there aren’t a lot of books, and just forget about being a librarian.” Producing books would need a lot more than just the mass production of paper. Without a doubt, I would need to figure out printing. I couldn’t let myself be happy about piling a bunch of sheets of paper on top of each other. I still had a long, long way to go.
“I’d be fine running a bookstore with you, Myne. Y’know, I thought about this yesterday after seeing the bookshelf in the Merchants’ Guild, but it’s gonna be rich people who want books, right?”
“Mhm, I think so.” There was no way the commoners of this city, nigh-universally illiterate as they were, would want books. They’d probably ask if there was any way to eat the books before even thinking about reading them.
“That means a bookstore’s gonna need to go to all sorts of cities and sell to the nobles there, right? Like that neighboring lord’s place that was on the map.” Considering the demographic that bought books, that was probably true.
As I blinked in surprise on the inside, impressed that Lutz had been planning out his future while quietly looking at the map in the Merchants’ Guild, I heard soft footsteps in front of me.
“Are you Myne, pray tell?”
“Bwuh?! Ah, yes! That’s right. Are you Freida?”
“That’s right. Nice to meet you.” Freida smiled and I saw that she was an adorable little girl with brown eyes, a peaceful smile, and light rose-colored hair as fluffy as it was soft-looking. She spoke with a mature air that implied either quality child rearing or strict training, but in contrast to that she looked short and young for her age. Not that I was one to talk, but still, there was a sort of imbalance to her.
But no matter how I looked at her, she didn’t look like the guildmaster. Apparently that rumor had been total nonsense. I’m glad Benno was worried for nothing.
“And you are Myne’s companion? I would have liked for this meeting to be a girls-only event...” said Freida while looking at Lutz, her cheeks puffed out slightly in a sort of pout. It was true that I thought the idea of having a girls’ talk alone with her sounded fun, but I had to save that for people I could relax around. We were going to the guildmaster’s house here, after all. You couldn’t pay me to go there alone.
I took Lutz’s hand, who was looking peeved at Freida’s wording, and smiled. “I’m really weak and pass out all the time, so I can’t go outside without Lutz. I’m not even allowed to enter Benno’s store without Lutz, so if he can’t come, then I’ll just...”
Before I could finish with “go home,” Freida interrupted me. “You collapse with such frequency that you are at risk without constant watch...? Do you perhaps suffer from the devouring?”
“Wha...? The devouring?” The unfamiliar phrasing made me tilt my head in confusion.
Freida placed a finger on her cheek and tilted her head in the opposite direction of mine. “Oh? Are you unfamiliar with the phrase? Let’s see... is there perhaps a heat in your body that acts independent of your will?”
“There is! You know what I’m sick with?!” Information about my disease came from the most unexpected of places. Lutz and I both leaned forward eagerly, waiting for answers, but Freida gave a worried smile.
“...I was once sick with the very same disease. You can tell from the small size of my body, I imagine.” Apparently my small size, lack of growth, and tendency to pass out all had their roots in the disease known as the devouring. I compared my own body, which could easily be mistaken for belonging to a child two or three years younger than me, to Freida’s and gasped.
“How did you cure it?!” Freida’s wording had been past tense. She was once sick with it. Which meant she had cured it. Lutz and I exchanged glances and I immediately asked her for details.
Freida’s brows curved in regret and she let out a quiet whisper, mixed with sighs. “...It cost a fortune.”
“Oh no, I’m doomed...” The daughter of a family as rich as the Merchants’ Guild’s guildmaster considered the cure to cost “a fortune.” My family would never be able to afford it. As my shoulders slumped in sorrow, Freida gave them a gentle tap.
“But you still seem very lively to me. As long as you remain dedicating your all to a singular purpose, you will be fine. Just be careful when your spirit shatters, or you lose sight of your goal. That’s when it will rise in strength.”
I see. I’ve been healthy lately since I was working to reach the forest, and now working to make paper. I almost died when I gave up on the mokkan, after all. But, wait... doesn’t that mean I’m like a tuna that’ll die if I stop swimming?
I let out a “hmmm” while trying to process all this new information. I was sick with a disease called the devouring. In order to remain healthy, I needed to have a goal in mind and keep working toward it.
“If you’ve come to terms with this, shall we go to my home?” Freida guided us to the guildmaster’s place and it too was a multi-story building with a store on the first floor. His store was fairly large and closer to the inner wall than Benno’s store. Honestly, “closer” was probably a poor way to put it. His store was basically right next to the wall in such a high-class position that the temple was in sight from the front door.
“You see, I quite like to watch the baptism proceedings, so I always watch them from my window. The hairpin you made last summer stuck out so much it caught my eye.” There was no doubt that she could easily see the children going into the temple from the comfort of her own home. “I had never seen such a hairpin before, but when I asked my grandfather, he could find no information on it. I was so confused when the style had not spread throughout the city by the fall baptism ceremony...”
“They’re a bit time consuming to make, so we usually only have enough time for them during the winter.” According to my mom, I added silently.
“I see...”
“If things go according to plan, then girls should be wearing these hairpins starting next spring.”
“Oh my! Does that mean I will be the only one wearing one this winter ceremony? Consider me excited.” The sparkle in Freida’s eyes finally made me understand what Benno had been talking about — by selling her a hairpin before anyone else, we were making it into a premium item that felt special. Nobody but her would be wearing one at the winter baptism ceremony. Well... If it’s a premium item, I guess it’s not ripping her off? I hope so...
All floors in the building Freida lived in were being rented to employees and members of the family, no outsiders. I was stunned when she guided me to the second floor of her home. There was cloth everywhere. I had thought the same thing when I went to Otto’s place, but only about the parlor. Here, there were tapestries and cushions everywhere, making every inch of space a rainbow of vibrant colors. There were shelves with animals carved out of stone and metal statues. I could tell at a glance that hers was a wealthy family, holding power close to that of nobility.
“Enjoy, my lady.” Once we reached the parlor, a servant brought us drinks. She poured a red liquid into a metal cup that looked much more expensive than the wooden ones I had grown used to.
“Thank you. This beverage is made of fallold juice thinned with water and sweetened with honey. It’s quite sweet.” The fruit known as a fallold heavily resembled raspberries, so the drink would probably taste like raspberry juice. Or so I thought, but after taking a sip, I was surprised by how sweet it was. It was so rare for me to taste sweet things here that I could feel a grin forming on my face.
“So sweet! This stuff is great, Lutz.”
“It really is. I love it!”
“I’m glad that you two like it. Now then... might I ask how this visit came to be arranged?” Freida tilted her head a bit. What exactly had the guildmaster said to her? I had no idea, but I figured it was best to start from ground one.
“The guildmaster hired us yesterday to make a hairpin like this for your baptism ceremony.” I took out Tuuli’s hairpin from my tote bag and showed it to Freida, who nodded.
“I know that. But I would have expected my grandfather to order one without consulting me.” Well... Bingo. She knows her grandfather well. He was planning to order one in secret and surprise her with it.
“Mmm, he said something like that, but I thought that you would be happier if you could choose your favorite colors and have it match your outfit, so I asked to meet you.” Freida had light-pink hair, so an ornament made for Tuuli’s green hair wouldn’t have fit her at all. Red flowers would be a better pick, or maybe white and green flowers to really drive home a tidy image.
“I see. I thought that maybe Grandfather had been surprisingly considerate, but in reality, you saved him from himself.”
“If possible, could I see what outfit you plan to wear at the ceremony? I would like to know what color the embroidery is.” I was trying to avoid confirming her thoughts directly, but when I changed the subject Freida giggled as if seeing right through me. She really did act and speak more maturely than I did. At the very least, she lived in another world from the kids we went to the forest with. Maybe all kids from a rich background act mature like this?
“Wait just a moment. I’ll bring them out now.” The moment Freida left the room, Lutz let out a comically loud sigh. He circled his shoulders and bent his neck around, making it clear that sitting still had been very uncomfortable for him.
“Are you okay, Lutz?”
“I just can’t handle conversations like that. I dunno what colors fit which clothes and I can’t talk all fancy like that.”
I nodded. While speaking to Freida I had subconsciously been using more polite wording than usual, which probably made Lutz afraid of saying the wrong thing and being rude. “You should probably learn how to talk politely once you start working, but I’ll take care of things today. It’ll be hard staying quiet for so long, but stay with me, okay? I’d be scared alone.”
“Right.” Just having an ally nearby gave me plenty of strength. As I let out a sigh of relief, Freida came back.
“Sorry to keep you waiting. Here is the outfit.”
“Wow, they’re amazing!”
Freida had brought in the outfit that she would be wearing for her baptism ceremony. It was similar to Tuuli’s in that the primary color was white, but that was all that was similar. The thread in Freida’s was thicker with fluffy wool, making it warm just to look at.
I fell into thought, thinking back to my own winter clothes which were just layers and layers of clothes piled on top of each other. Since the summer baptism ceremony required light clothes, the quality of one’s outfit relied more on the maker’s skills than their financial circumstances. But during the winter, the difference between rich people’s and poor people’s outfits was stark.
“Freida, do you like these colors?”
“I do. Would I have asked for the clothes to be made this way otherwise?”
I looked at the red thread embroidering the white clothing and compared it with Freida’s hair. It seemed very possible to make a hairpin that matched both her hair and clothes.
“Do you have any leftover thread that was used for this embroidering? I think a hairpin with flowers of the same color would look the best. If there is leftover thread, could I have some of it? I’ll try looking for thread of the same color.”
“I believe there was. One moment, I’ll be right back with it.”
I asked for some of the thread, which I would show to Benno so he could look for thread of the same color. He was charging such a rip-off price for the hairpin that getting expensive thread should be fine.
“Will this be enough?” Freida returned with a clump of thread large enough that you could probably embroider another outfit with it.
“That’s more than enough, but...”
“Then please do have it all.” She handed me the clump of dark-red thread, leaving me at a loss for words.
...If she just gives me the materials, won’t the price be even more of a rip-off?! Either way, I couldn’t bring myself to say something like “Mr. Benno is ripping you off, so I’ll discount the price a bit to cover the thread.” That would just make his relationship with the guildmaster even worse, which I didn’t want. Not to mention that I just heard Benno lecturing me in my head: “When you get the chance to earn money, take it and profit as much as you possibly can.”
As I softly groaned to myself and thought of how to avoid ripping off Freida, my eyes fell on her hairstyle. She was wearing her hair in two bunches, what I would have called “twintails” back in Japan.
“Freida, how are you planning to wear your hair on the day of the baptism?”
“The same as I am now?”
Twintails would need two hairpins of the same type. A single one would just look unbalanced. ...Holy cow, I’m glad I came here. Mainly, I’m glad I stopped the guildmaster from trying to keep this a secret. If we had made one just like Tuuli’s, not only would it have not matched her hair or outfit, she would need to change her hairstyle for it or risk looking silly. That would have been a nightmare.
“In that case, won’t you need two hairpins?”
“...I suppose so.” Freida blinked, as if the thought had never occurred to her until now. This was the perfect opportunity to make this less of a scam. I let out a sigh of relief and Freida put a finger on her chin as she began thinking with a somewhat serious look on her face.
“It seems that we’ll have to pay you twice as much now.”
“No, that’s fine. This thread alone can cover the cost of the second one.” I wouldn’t be able to bear ripping them off twice as hard, especially now that she had given me the thread to use. It’d make my stomach hurt.
“Oh, but that simply won’t do. We have a deal that established the price of the hairpin. That is not a deal I intend to break. We will pay double.”
“But, but! You gave us the materials we need, asking for double the money would just be too much...” An endless loop of back and forth was beginning to develop between Freida and I, when Lutz suddenly broke his silence and suggested something while scratching his head.
“Why not just make the second one half price?”
“What?”
“Myne, you want to give the second one away for free due to the free thread. Freida, you want to pay full price to avoid any trouble happening between the guildmaster and Benno. Let’s cut a deal and make the second one half price.”
“Lutz, you’re a genius! What do you think, Freida?” I immediately threw my support in for Lutz’s compromise. I turned around and saw that Freida was looking at me with a puzzled expression.
“That’s fine, but... don’t you know that when you get the chance to earn money, you should take it and profit as much as you possibly can?” said Freida, in complete contrast to her cute and dainty appearance. It seemed that Freida was most definitely the daughter of a merchant and the granddaughter of the guildmaster.
“Um, is that like, a famous merchant saying? I feel like Benno said the same thing once...”
“Oh? I believe that is just how commerce works.” Freida tilted her head as if that was the most obvious thing in the world, but I just shook my head.
“I think there’s, like, a limit? Products have a proper price that’s fair, and... Well, we found a compromise, so it’s fine.”
“You two are something else,” giggled Freida. And not derisively, either. Her laughter was friendly and natural. It wasn’t exactly like a friendship born from a heated argument, but it was like we felt an odd sense of solidarity as kids on other sides of the same fence.
I couldn’t puff out my chest with pride and say I’d done some fine business, but we had settled the details on the hairpins. The thought crossed my mind that we should be leaving, but seconds for the juice were brought out and Lutz went from wanting to leave as soon as possible to having his eyes locked on the cups. I too found myself tempted by the sweetness and let things shift into some casual chatting.
“Oh, so you go to the forest all the time to pick up nuts, fruit, and firewood. Kind of like a daily picnic.” Well... A little less relaxed than that, since we depended on the firewood for survival. Really, I was more interested in Freida’s daily life, since she didn’t have to go to the woods constantly for firewood.
“What kind of things do you do, Freida? The children of merchants don’t go to the forest, right?”
“My favorite thing to do is... Ahaha.” After a pause, Freida giggled and continued. “Counting money, perhaps?”
Wait... What? Did I imagine that? Are my ears going bad? For a second there I thought I heard a cute, precious little girl say she had a pretty insane hobby.
“Oh, I’m sorry. That’s not entirely accurate.” Freida shook her head and corrected herself as I sat there, taken aback. Oh, she just said the wrong thing, I thought to myself in relief, moments before disaster. “It’s not just counting money that I love, but saving it up as well. The weight of a bag of money fills me with joy and no sound is more pleasant to the ears than that of coins rubbing together, don’t you agree?”
“...Ahaha, well, maybe. I also like seeing my savings go up,” I said, forcing the words out before shutting my eyes. ...It wasn’t my imagination. Who brought up hobbies here? It was me! I’m so stupid! I thought her hobby would be like, making candy, or sewing, or some other fancy lady thing, not hoarding money... I didn’t want to know that...
“My, my! You understand my hobby?!” Pleased by my agreement, Freida began talking about just how much she loved money. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved the glint of gold coins more than anything else. My greatest joy is counting Grandfather’s monthly earnings with him each month, tallying up each gold coin.” She’s... She’s not even thinking about coppers or silvers, just golds. Curse you, rich people!
Freida continued her impassioned speech as I shook my fist at her on the inside. Her eyes were wet with bliss, her cheeks were flushed, and I could see her lips trembling with utter joy as words regaling the splendor of commerce and counting money passed through them.
“As of late, my heart has jumped with joy as I’ve thought about how to increase my wealth and pondered what would make for a good product to sell.”
Oh no... This girl’s really weird. What a waste of a real cutie.
“You know, Myne.”
“Yes?” I said, hurriedly sitting up straight since I had been drifting off. Freida took my hand and squeezed it tightly, her eyes shining.
“I think I’ve come to like you quite a lot.”
“Um, thank you?” Please ignore that my voice cracked while I said “you.” Not even I understood what she liked so much about me. I could only tilt my head in confusion as Freida, with her adorable face right up close to mine, smiled.
“Would you work with me?”
“No!” Before I could react, Lutz immediately turned her down.
“Oh, but why? Our store is larger than Benno’s, and has a more storied history. We would accept her unconditionally, of course. She hasn’t been baptized yet and is not officially Benno’s apprentice, so she could easily switch to our store. But in any case, I am asking Myne here, not you.”
...Um? I feel like this same thing happened yesterday. “I appreciate the offer, but I owe Benno more than I can ever repay him, so...”
Before I could finish my sentence, Freida smiled and interrupted me. “Oh, that’s no issue. I can just repay him for you.”
“Bwuh? Ummm...” I had intended for that to be a firm rejection, but she was still going. The rumors were all true. Benno’s fears hadn’t been unfounded. .. She is just like the guildmaster! She’s saying the same things, just in a different tone!
Lutz’s mood plummeted as I wavered beneath the force of will contained within Freida’s smile as she listed off reason after reason why joining her store would be a good idea.
“Myne, you gotta be firm, like yesterday.”
“Freida... I, I-I, I decline!” I was afraid that a firm rejection would make her cry, given that she was a little girl, but her eyes remained clear. Or more accurately, her eyes narrowed a bit, as if her competitive spirit had been inflamed.
“Oh, that’s a shame. But there is still plenty of time until your baptism ceremony, Myne, and as you are temporarily registered with the Merchants’ Guild, there will be many opportunities for us to meet. Ahaha. I’m looking forward to that.”
Hmm. I wonder why it feels like I’m a mouse staring down a snake. I wonder why it feels like all my escape routes have been blocked off. Hmmmmm. Cold sweat ran down my back. ...Benno, I’ll stop whining about you ripping people off, so please save meeee!
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