Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 2.2 - Chapter SS1

The Attendant of an Apprentice Blue Shrine Maiden 

“Rosina, you mustn’t let such emotions show. You must always smile beautiful, composed smiles. Emotions should be used to enhance your art. When you are sad, play a haunting harspiel refrain. When you are moved by beauty, capture it in an illustration. When your heart trembles, express yourself with poetry. Your heart will calm as you channel your emotions,” explained Sister Christine with a composed smile of her own. 

Sister Christine was an apprentice blue shrine maiden who was taking refuge in the temple from her father’s first wife, who despised her. She was such a night owl that even when I took my time after second bell dressing myself and doing my hair, it was a struggle to get her out of bed. 

“Rosina, what shall we play today?” 

When Wilma turned her troubled smile from our unwaking master to me, the other attendants began suggesting various songs. I selected the one most likely to please Sister Christine and began to play. Sometimes I played the harspiel, sometimes I played the flute. The instrument depended on my mood that day. It was routine for Sister Christine to awake at the end of the first song and request another with a smile. She would be changed by her gray shrine maiden attendants while I played the music she desired. 

At third bell she might be visited by a tutor or she might return to her home in the Noble’s Quarter, so I often worked with attendants sent from Sister Christine’s family. We cleaned her room while she was busy, asked gray priests to replenish our art supplies, and handled letters or documents which needed her signature given to us by gray priests. 

When the time for learning and chores ended, with a lunch thrown in the middle, it was time for an early bath. One of her gray priest attendants would bring hot water, allowing her to take a relaxing bath. Then, once we finished supper, it became simple to turn away visitors by stating that Sister Christine had already prepared for bed. 

The highlight of our days with Sister Christine was the period of time that followed preparing for bed and bedtime itself. We would all amuse ourselves by composing poetry, drawing art, and playing music until Sister Christine grew tired. 

“I learn enough when visiting home and studying with the tutor. I would like to spend my time in the temple enjoying myself. Gray priests can handle all the chores. That is why they are here.” She said that gray priests were there to handle the chores of the chamber and blue priests were there to handle the chores of the temple, whereas blue shrine maidens and their attendants were there to dedicate themselves to beautiful art. Their job was simply to enjoy themselves each day. 

“Look only at what is beautiful, listen only to beautiful sounds. Hone your artistic senses. Look at this, for instance. Is it not beautiful?” So Sister Christine would always say while showing us rare, new things she brought back with her from the Noble’s Quarter. Her chambers were filled with sheet music for all manner of songs, more paint and parchment for art than they could ask for, and several strange magic tools which only nobles were permitted to own. 

...Why could Sister Myne not understand that such was the proper life of an apprentice blue shrine maiden? Sister Myne, who had recently joined the temple as an apprentice, had a pretty face. She was energetic and cute, with her expression changing on a dime, but her movements lacked dignity and grace. She knew no proper manners and her language was stiff. Despite loving to read, she did not appreciate art, which made her a far cry from Sister Christine. 

It was for this reason that the High Priest ordered me to educate Myne. To use my experiencing serving Sister Christine for her benefit. And yet, despite my purpose being to educate, I was told I needed to do chores, and for some unfathomable reason I was criticized for playing the harspiel. 

“Think of your answer by tomorrow morning, Rosina. Will you return to the orphanage, or will you accept that serving me will not be the same as serving Sister Christine? No matter what happens, I cannot become Sister Christine for you.” 

I could not immediately understand the implications of what Sister Myne said. But given that she demanded an answer by tomorrow, she seemed to be serious about sending me back to the orphanage. 

I smiled gracefully to hide the panic in my heart, as taught by Sister Christine, but nonetheless my emotions were evident in the speed of my walking as I went to the orphanage and knocked hurriedly on Wilma’s door. 

“Please come in.” 

I went inside and saw Wilma pause her drawing of karuta art on thin boards to turn to me. The moment I saw her forever-peaceful smile, I lost control and burst into tears. 

“Wilma, please listen. Only you who have served Sister Christine can understand how I feel.” 

Wilma set aside her tools and turned her chair to face the bed. I sat on the bed to face her, then bemoaned the cruelty of Sister Myne’s attendants. There was Delia who, not content to just be uneducated and completely ignorant of art, insulted my harspiel playing as annoying. There was Gil, who sided with Delia and always spoke in the most crude of manners. And finally, there was Fran, who demanded that I do the work of a gray priest despite the fact I am clearly a gray shrine maiden. 

“I merely lived as was natural for the attendant of an apprentice blue shrine maiden, but they make no effort to understand me even though they have never served one themselves before. They simply do not understand that I must play my music, discuss the beauty of poetry, and draw captivating art like I did in the past so that Sister Myne can learn to act more like a proper blue shrine maiden...” 

The High Priest had received assistance with his paperwork from other blue priests in the past, so there was no need for Sister Myne to involve herself with it. Furthermore, she could entrust matters of the orphanage to Wilma, and matters of the workshop and lower city to Gil and the Gilberta Company. Sister Myne did not understand that the proper life for her was one where she dedicated herself to art, not books or libraries. 

“Sister Christine said that joy in life was best found by understanding the beauty of art and loving it. Surely you understand that, Wilma.” So I said, but Wilma just lowered her shapely eyebrows a bit, looking at me like she might look at a troubled child. 

“I understand that there is joy to be found in dedicating oneself to art, but children of that age would rather sleep than listen to music late into the night. I would be disturbed as well if you were to play music in the orphanage where children are trying to sleep.” 

I blinked in surprise, having not expected Wilma to disagree with me. But why? I thought, and Wilma put a hand on her cheek. 

“Sister Christine was quite slow to wake, but in Sister Myne’s chambers everyone wakes up early like we in the orphanage do, no?” 

I lowered my eyes, thinking back to how Delia had begun knocking on my door shockingly early to wake me up. It was not graceful to be busily skittering around so early in the morning. However, everyone said “This is when we awake in the temple,” and would not budge. 

“What did Fran say? As a former attendant of the High Priest, surely he offered an unbiased opinion unlike the young children.” 

“Fran trusts Sister Myne just as she clearly trusts him, but he understands nothing of how a blue shrine maiden and attendants must behave. Despite being a gray priest, he would not do as I instructed. In fact, he even ordered me to do things despite failing to do the manual labor expected of him. He is a very troubling fellow.” 

It was unfathomable for an attendant priest to give orders to an attendant shrine maiden. The duty of a priest was to do labor while the duty of a shrine maiden was to offer her artistic talents to her mistress. And yet, for some reason, Wilma blinked in surprise. 

“Is it not natural for Fran to give you orders, Rosina? He is Sister Myne’s head attendant, and you are an apprentice attendant who just began serving her.” 

“But the harspiel...” I began to protest, but Wilma interrupted me with a slow shake of her head. 

“Rosina, Sister Myne and Sister Christine are not the same person. You cannot ask the same thing from them and expect similar treatment.” 

“...To think that you would say the same thing that Sister Myne did, Wilma,” I murmured in disbelief. Wilma let out a sigh. 

“What else did Sister Myne say, I wonder?” 

“She instructed that I stop playing harspiel after seventh bell so as to not keep others up at night. She said she understood how valuable I considered my hands for playing instruments, and so asked me to write in her place rather than do physical labor. And finally, she asked me to help Fran with working through the financial ledgers of her chambers, the workshop, and the orphanage so as to lessen the load on him.” 

As all attendants were taught to read and do math, I wasn’t completely incapable of assisting Fran. But chores of that kind were for gray priests to do. While serving Sister Christine, we gray shrine maidens had competed in calligraphy and poetry, but I had no experience whatsoever with writing business letters. I had no talent for math, either, and would prove to be of little help. I truly was an attendant who had been trained solely in the arts. 

“If she wishes to lessen the load on Fran, why does she not just hire more attendants...?” 

“Sister Myne is not a noble like Sister Christine. She is a commoner and lacks the funds necessary to support ten or more attendants at once. To be clear, she is the kind of person to teach kids in the orphanage to work for themselves if they want to eat their fill of food.” 

Wilma’s words gave me somewhat of a shock. I couldn’t immediately understand the prospect of an apprentice blue shrine maiden lacking the funds to hire more attendants. Were blue shrine maidens not defined by their ability to get whatever they wanted? 

“But regardless of her commoner origins, she is a blue shrine maiden. How could that be...?” 

“The blue priests that remain in the temple all have five attendants at best, no? Sister Christine was just a special case.” 

Sister Christine had two attendants sent from home, six gray shrine maidens to appreciate art, four gray priests to do chores and manual labor, and multiple cooks, helpers, and tutors to satisfy her every need. I had never realized that it wasn’t right to consider that as standard. 

Sister Myne was a commoner, and she wasn’t like Sister Christine. But up until now I had thought that her way of life and such was all due to a difference in her upbringing. I thought that it was my duty as her attendant to teach her to live just as Sister Christine had. I never considered the difference that their funds would make. 

Wilma, looking at me quietly with her bright brown eyes, let out a sigh. “Rosina, dear. Do you think that perhaps you are just not equipped to serve Sister Myne?” 

“...She asked me to draw a conclusion before tomorrow. I may choose whether to return to the orphanage or accept that she will not be just like Sister Christine was.” 

“I see. Then it is all up to you, Rosina. I believe that Sister Myne will be as accommodating as possible for you. If you are not satisfied with serving a master even after they have gone out of their way to accommodate your needs, I imagine that you will not survive as anyone’s attendant except Sister Christine’s. In that case, it would be best for you to return to the orphanage before you cause any more trouble.” 

Wilma’s words cut me deeply. I had not expected her to be so harsh despite having served Sister Christine herself. 

“Wilma... Don’t you think it’s wrong to make a shrine maiden do the work of a priest?” 

“I do not. It is normal for shrine maidens to do chores and labor outside of Sister Christine’s chambers. If any other blue priest here had taken you as an attendant, it is likely that you wouldn’t even have an instrument. Your job might have been to offer flowers, even. Are you still unsatisfied with serving Sister Myne with all that in mind?” 

A gray shrine maiden protesting to a blue priest that she wanted an instrument, or that educated shrine maidens shouldn’t be forced to offer flowers, would naturally be ignored entirely. I likely wouldn’t have even been able to disagree, as they would accept no disagreement in the first place. 

...I had known that different attendants were trained in different areas to suit the needs of their masters, and yet still I never fully understood. I had worked hard so that I could potentially serve a blue priest without suffering, and yet I had never truly been ready. 

I closed my eyes as tears streamed down my face. I had tried to change my mistress, Sister Myne, so that I could regain the life I had lost when Sister Christine left. I thought only of making her into a blue shrine maiden I was familiar with, never once thinking that it was I who needed to change. 

What Sister Christine needed was different from what Sister Myne needed from her attendants. That was so obvious, and yet I had been too stubborn to notice it. I simply did not want to accept that no matter how much I wished it, no matter which blue shrine maiden I served, I would never regain what I had lost. 

With my eyes still closed, I thought back to the time I spent with Sister Christine. The sound of harspiels. The music everyone was playing together. Graceful laughter filled the room as we spent elegant time absorbed in art. That had probably been the happiest and most fulfilling time in my entire life. 

I then thought back to my unhappy days in the orphanage, after being sent back there when Sister Christine returned home. I felt nothing but sorrow at the lack of instruments, the scarcity of food, and the damage done to my hands by doing labor. I spent each day imagining myself playing the harspiel, imagining the music in my otherwise silent life bereft of beauty. Not once did I wish anything but to be serving a blue shrine maiden again. 

...Should I learn to do chores under Sister Myne, or should I return to the orphanage without a harspiel? My answer came the second I remembered how emotional I had gotten after playing the harspiel once again. I had sighed from the comfortable weight of the instrument and smiled at the firm touch of the strings, feeling so much happiness from the music that I came close to weeping. Learning chores would be nothing compared to giving up a life of music once again. 

“Wilma, I would like to have as much music in my life as possible. I will therefore serve under Sister Myne. And thus, I will learn to do chores.” 

“Sister Myne will appreciate your efforts to improve, just as she rewarded those who worked hard in the orphanage on that first day. There is not much more I can do for you than listen to your woes, but I wish you all the success in the world.”

Ever since that day, I began studying to do paperwork as Sister Myne’s attendant, facing my mathematical fears in the process. All so that I could serve as her attendant, rather than continue to strive to be Sister Christine’s attendant. 

The first thing I learned was that Sister Myne was abnormally good at paperwork. Despite her young age she was vastly superior in mathematics to me, and she was more useful when helping Fran than I could hope to be. The paperwork would be manageable with Sister Myne’s assistance, but she had religious matters to attend to, not to mention her education and training as an apprentice blue shrine maiden. Fran told me that I had to work hard so that Sister Myne could have more time. 

“Rosina, please give these to Wilma.” 

“Understood.” Unlike Sister Myne, who was not used to hiding one’s emotions and reading the expressions of others, Fran could to some extent see through my facade and tell when I was beginning to grow exhausted from work. When those times came, he sent me to the orphanage or the workshop on errands, or otherwise gave me a break by teaching Sister Myne about the gods. 

I put away the pen and ink, then headed to the orphanage. It was my first time going to the orphanage since resolving to change myself to serve as Sister Myne’s attendant. I would need to thank Wilma for advising me to change my own way of thinking rather than try to change Sister Myne. 

“Is Wilma here, by chance?” I asked Lizzie, who was by the door to the orphanage. She pointed to further into the dining hall and replied that she was watching the children eat. 

First, blue robes such as Sister Myne ate, then their attendants ate. The food was taken to the orphanage, where once again the food trickled down according to status: the adults ate first, then the baptized children, then the pre-baptism children. This meant that the youngest children were the last to eat. Much time had passed since I’d had lunch, but it seemed that the children were just now beginning to eat. I could see Wilma sitting at a back table with six children. 

“Does everyone have their food? Good, then let us praise and thank the gods for their divine blessings. O mighty King and Queen of the endless skies who doth grace us with thousands upon thousands of lives to consume, o mighty Eternal Five who rule the mortal realm, I offer thanks and prayers to thee, and do take part in the meal so graciously provided,” chanted Wilma, and the young children all chanted back before throwing themselves at their lunch. 

They ate quickly, likely due to having empty stomachs. Wilma had already eaten, so she spent her time instructing them on table manners while cleaning up their spills, but it seemed that taking care of six children at once was a bit too much for her. 

“The food is always so good now. I love this soup,” said one child. 

“Judging by all the neatly cut vegetables, I guess Lizzie was cooking?” said another. 

“We can make this soup thanks to Sister Myne teaching us the recipe, taking us to the forest to gather food, and buying the rest of what we need with the money earned by selling the paper she taught us to make.” 

“That’s what you always say, Wilma. Let me finish for you. ‘You all need to thank Sister Myne,’ right?” laughed the first child. 

It was thanks to Sister Myne that the pre-baptism children could happily eat in the dining hall together without being stuck starving in the cellar. It was also thanks to her that even on days with few divine gifts, bowls of soup could be lined up on the tables. 

Sister Christine never even looked at the orphanage, and if she had seen the starving children in the cellar she likely would have just scrunched up her nose and left, not wanting to look at ugly things any longer than she had to. She never would have thought about rescuing them, much less acting on those thoughts. 

I began to notice the good things about Sister Myne after trying to change myself. I had once thought that her connections to the lower city, her operation of the workshop, and her efforts to improve the orphanage were all just getting in the way of her art education, but both I and those in the orphanage had been saved by her actions. 

“Oh my, Rosina. How did things go after all that?” Wilma noticed me and stood up to walk this way. I smiled while handing her the boards Fran had given me. 

“I have been learning to do the math I hate ever so much. And... Sister Myne has praised the gracefulness of my speech and behavior, saying that she wishes to work hard to mimic how I act. Did you ask her to say that, Wilma?” 

“All I said was that you had spent longer with Sister Christine than anyone else, and would be a better example to learn from than anyone in the temple.” 

One of Sister Myne’s finer points was her willingness to ask to be taught things she did not know or understand. I myself always hesitated before asking Fran questions. 

“Wilma. I have begun to think that it is good of me to work to conquer my flaws, and in the orphanage director chambers I have found some small joys.” 

“Oh my. Small joys, such as?” 

“Perhaps because Sister Myne is a commoner, she knows many songs and lyrics that I have never heard before.” 

I would occasionally see Sister Myne singing a song I had never heard before, while bobbing her head to keep the beat. She often hummed or sang in a quiet voice that made the song itself hard to catch. But when I heard the song, I would find myself subconsciously stopping my work to listen, much to Fran’s bemusement. 

“Furthermore, Delia seems to have grown interested in harspiels, and at times she watches me play.” I was allowed to play music until seventh bell. As of late, I had begun to spend the time before bed with Delia, playing music. I found it somewhat distasteful that she aimed to be a concubine, but she was a hard enough worker to agree with Sister Myne’s assertion that Delia was quite dedicated to improving herself, regardless of what end that improvement was for. 

“I see. I am glad to know things are going so well. I find your dedication to conquering your flaws quite beautiful, Rosina. I am sure that Sister Christine would try to preserve your efforts in art,” said Wilma with a giggle. My efforts would not be preserved in art, but in the end they would be preserved in Sister Myne’s paperwork. 

“I’m sorry for worrying you, Wilma. But I will be quite alright now.”