Both Sides of the Story
When I returned to my chambers, I could already hear Delia inside yelling “GEEEEZ!” Wilma and I looked at each other. Delia had generally been in such a good mood since Dirk had come along that neither of us had heard her this hysteric in a while.
“I see you can hear Delia too.”
“I wonder what happened?”
“Let’s hurry back, apprentice,” Damuel prompted with a guarded expression. I power walked as fast I could to my chambers, where I found Fran and Delia arguing.
“The High Priest can’t be trusted!”
“He is trustworthy.”
It seemed less like an argument and more like Delia gnashing her teeth at him, but still, it was a rare combination to see. I couldn’t help but blink in surprise.
“Fran, Delia, what is going on?” I said. It seemed neither of them had noticed me before then as Fran’s eyes opened wide. He hurriedly apologized, welcoming me inside.
“Welcome back, Sister Myne. I apologize for my unsightly behavior.”
In contrast to Fran, who had quickly composed himself, Delia ran over and gave me a sharp glare, yelling “Sister Myne! What’s the meaning of this?!” I had no idea what she was referring to.
“Erm, whatever are you talking about?”
“Delia! You must not speak to your mistress like that,” Fran rebuked, but Delia just tightly gripped my shoulders.
“I’m asking what all this business about having Dirk be adopted is about!”
“As I have repeated many times, Delia, Arno said that the idea has already been rejected. Let go of Sister Myne.” Fran detached Delia’s hands from me without letting his calm exterior falter, but I still had no idea what was going on. I was completely out of the loop.
...Could someone... please... explain?
It seemed that I wasn’t the only one at a loss here; Wilma was also blinking in surprise at Fran and Delia’s behavior.
Umm, what am I supposed to do in situations like this again? Right, right. I need to listen to get both sides of the story. Recalling what the High Priest had told me before, I was able to get a handle on the situation just a little better. I looked around, then first spoke to Wilma.
“Wilma, thank you for walking me back. You may return now. If you stay here until I have listened to them both, problems may arise in the orphanage.”
“As you wish,” replied Wilma, but she turned back to look at Fran and Delia several times on her way out of my chambers.
“Sister Myne!”
“I will listen to you both on the second floor, Delia, so for now just prepare some tea.”
I climbed the stairs with Fran, hoping on some level that Delia would calm down during the process of boiling water and carefully making tea.
On the second floor we found Rosina, who was sitting in front of a harspiel with a sleepy look on her face. We made eye contact, and while wavering a bit she stood up to greet me. “Welcome back, Sister Myne.”
“Rosina, do you know what happened?”
“No. Delia woke me up, but I did not listen for the details.”
It seemed that Delia’s shouting had woken her up during her afternoon nap. Rosina, speaking less eloquently than usual, was making her displeasure apparent even if it didn’t show on her face.
“You may return to your room to rest a little more, Rosina.”
“I believe I will.” Rosina swayed as she returned to her room.
I sat down in the chair Fran had pulled back for me, and decided to hear his side of the story first. “Sorry, but I couldn’t understand a word of what you two were saying. Could you explain the circumstances, Fran?”
“On her way back from the orphanage, Delia bumped into Arno, who was carrying a message from the High Priest, and the two of them came here. I was in the middle of my rest, but Delia called for me and I got dressed at once to meet with him.”
It seemed that not only had he been forced awake during his nap like Rosina, but he had been pushed into meeting with Arno and listening to Delia’s angry ranting at the same time. Had I been there, I could have dealt with Arno on my own.
“I apologize for my absence.”
“It is nothing to worry about,” Fran said with a dismissive shake of his head. “Even when you are here, I would like for you to call me when Arno visits.”
It seemed he felt the need to hear any messages from the High Priest whether I was there or not.
“Furthermore, if Arno had truly only been here to pass on a message, this would not have been a problem at all. I did not expect Delia to explode with anger like that.” Fran glanced toward the kitchen and sighed. His frustration was clear on his face, which was rare for him. That told me more than enough about how harsh Delia had been.
“What was Arno’s message, then?”
“That the High Priest did look for someone to adopt Dirk, but that the search was as difficult as expected.”
According to Fran, the High Priest had looked for someone to adopt Dirk, just like I had first asked him to. Arno came to tell us that although they hadn’t found anybody, it would be best for me to keep my spirits up and continue raising him in the orphanage.
I had pretty much given up on the adoption when the High Priest had said that baby boys were rarely if ever adopted, instead switching my focus to signing a contract with Dirk when I myself was adopted by a noble. To be honest, I had almost entirely forgotten about asking the High Priest to search for someone to adopt Dirk.
Wow, now that’s what I call integrity.
I was impressed after hearing Fran’s explanation, but Delia had just come up with the tea and hearing that had reignited her wrath. She set the cups down in front of me rather hard and then glared at Fran. “Why would the High Priest of all people be talking about someone adopting Dirk?!”
Judging from Fran’s explanation, neither he nor Arno knew that Dirk had the Devouring. As it stood, Delia’s wrath was entirely focused on the point that people had been talking about Dirk being adopted outside of her knowledge.
I lowered my eyes. The High Priest had told me to hide that Dirk had the Devouring. How could I explain to Delia that we had been searching for someone to take him in and save him from his own mana?
“The High Priest must have made a hobby of ripping families apart! First he did so with Sister Myne, and now he’s trying to do the same with me and Dirk!”
“How many times have I said that the High Priest would never take joy in this?! He must have his own reasoning.”
It seemed that in Delia’s head, the High Priest was a villain who ripped apart families whenever he got the chance. One could hardly blame Fran for getting a little angry when someone he respected was being badmouthed like that.
“Delia.” I exhaled slowly, like I was taking deep breaths, then looked at her. “There are no gray shrine maidens here equipped to raise a child. To that end, I asked the High Priest to look for someone who may wish to adopt him, as I thought he may be happier that way.”
Delia’s anger turned straight toward me. “What?! You wanted to tear us apart, Sister Myne?!”
I shook my head and corrected her. “No. You didn’t even want to look after Dirk at first, remember? I didn’t think anybody would want to.”
Delia seemed to at least remember what she had said back then. Her eyes opened wide, and she faltered a little. “W-Well... that was only when he had just arrived.”
“Yes, and it was when he had just arrived that I consulted the High Priest.”
Delia fell silent, her anger cooling down.
“There are no gray shrine maidens who have raised babies before, and none of us know how best to look after him. There are no wet nurses who would be willing to visit the temple, Fran and Rosina are barely getting any sleep due to having to watch over him at night, and ultimately, I thought someone adopting him might be the best solution to everyone’s problems.”
As it was now, Fran and Rosina were at least taking naps during the day, and Delia was watching over him more than she said she would, but for those first few desperate days, Dirk really had been an immense burden on everyone. Delia remembered that, so while she did give me an unsatisfied pout, she just grumbled without saying anything.
“I requested that the High Priest look for someone to adopt Dirk, and he diligently did so. I didn’t have much hope since he had told me from the start that he would be unlikely to find anyone, but he nevertheless looked to the best of his ability.”
“...Oh, I see. I understand now,” Delia said with a nod, her tense shoulders loosening up.
“I did not expect you to look after Dirk as eagerly as you have been; now I am glad that no one was found to adopt him. Arno did say that we should continue raising him in the orphanage, did he not?”
“He did. The High Priest said to keep our spirits high and do our best raising him,” Fran added, which made Delia blink in surprise for a minute. She then peered at me, as if wanting to remove the last trace of doubt that still remained in her mind.
“...So you won’t rip me and Dirk apart, Sister Myne?”
“Of course not. I know how much you care for Dirk, Delia, and I know all too well the pain of being separated from one’s family.”
“...Thank goodness.” Delia pressed a hand to her chest and sighed in relief. “I never want to let Dirk go. He’s the only... the only family I’ve ever had...”
Ten days later, Johann had finished making the iron. It was the first thing he had completed out of everything I had ordered—perhaps because it was the simplest to make, or maybe because it stimulated his creative mind the most. Thanks to the timing, I decided to try strengthening the stencils with wax before we started printing for the second picture book. The wax being a little thick wouldn’t matter given that we weren’t using a file yet.
“We should be able to print loads more using this!” I proudly puffed out my chest at the wax-strengthened stencil, whereas Lutz just crossed his arms and cocked his head.
“...Hey, Myne, didn’t the High Priest say not to print too much? Is printing loads more really a good idea?”
“Waxing the paper will let us reuse the stencils, which means we can print over a longer period of time.”
“Don’t dodge the question!” Lutz yelled, but I had no intention of giving up my picture book stencils. I would eventually be using movable type printing for text-heavy books, but illustrations had to be remade.
“This is to lessen the load on Wilma. Isn’t being able to reuse stencils just better in every way?”
Lutz, knowing how much work it was for Wilma to draw the art then cut out the tiny lines, grimaced and rubbed his forehead. “Just the art stencils, alright?”
I waxed exclusively the art stencils, which I then gave to Gil. All the printing was now done by him and the gray priests in the Myne Workshop.
Lutz had a little more time on his hands thanks to Gil taking care of workshop business, and as a result, Lutz, Damuel, and I were able to spend our days alternating between going to the workshop and Gilberta Company, and going to the temple. The Italian restaurant was close to being done, its doors and window sills in the process of being installed, so I was actually pretty busy going there with Benno and visiting the ink workshop to record research results from Heidi, among other things.
“Myne, why’d you fall silent? Thinking of something?”
“Uh huh. Kamil.”
“Again?”
Despite my busyness, my mind was always dominated by thoughts of making toys for Kamil. According to reports from the orphanage, Dirk loved the wooden rattle I had made, but whenever he tried to hold it himself he’d drop it on his face and start crying. I felt bad thinking about a toy falling on Kamil’s cute face and hurting him, so if possible I wanted to make something that would be less painful.
“Lutz, I think I want some little bells.”
“What for?”
“I can use them to make a rattle small enough to squeeze.” There were a lot of bells and other metal objects that made noises here, but I hadn’t seen any that looked like cat bells, the tiny round bells you might find on an animal collar. It might be hard to get them to make a pretty sound, but the design itself was simple enough that Johann could probably make them if asked.
“Okay. Let’s go to the smithy.”
The smithy wasn’t far from the ink workshop, and I eagerly started making my way there.
“Morning.”
“Welcome, welcome. Heeeey! Gutenberg! Lady Myne’s here!” A smith who I had never seen before turned and casually shouted for Gutenberg without even a flicker of a smile on his face. Apparently they had gotten so used to the name that it wasn’t even a joke anymore.
Johann came to the front of the workshop and weakly muttered for the smith not to call him Gutenberg, but was very casually ignored.
“Lady Myne, what brings you here today? I haven’t finished the styluses yet.”
I had actually ordered a wide range of different styluses for writing on the wax paper, which meant the job would take him longer to finish.
“Well, you could actually have some apprentices do this work instead, but I want some bells like these.” I started drawing the schematics for the cat bells, which Johann peered at with great interest. As expected, he had only ever made larger, more traditionally shaped bells, never small and round ones.
“Lady Myne, are those notches just for decoration?”
“They’re important for producing the right sound. The notches don’t need to look exactly like this, but please don’t exclude them entirely. They need to be narrow enough that the balls inside won’t fall out.”
Bells would apparently make different sounds depending on the size of the notches, the thickness of the metal, the size of the balls, and the materials used, but I didn’t remember the details for all of that. All I knew was that if you put metal balls inside of a larger metal ball, it would make a noise when shaken. Once they were ready, I’d have him put the smaller cat bells into a larger metal shell; there needed to be two layers so that the noise would still be audible when put into a stuffed animal.
“...Yeah, these won’t be too hard to make. Are these for printing too?”
“No, I want to use these for baby toys. Even I order things unrelated to printing sometimes,” I said with pursed lips.
Johann beamed a wide grin. “Hey, this is the first time you’ve ordered something unrelated to books or printing. I thought books were the only thing you cared about,” he said, a clear sense of relief in his voice. Right now my head was full of Kamil, but in general I only cared about books. That said, I didn’t feel the need to correct his misunderstanding. He could be happy while it lasted.
Or so I thought, but Lutz went ahead and shot him down. “You were right. Myne only cares about books. If you think you can escape your fate as Gutenberg, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“I know that. Can’t you at least let me have a little hope?” Johann said with an exaggerated groan. Lutz slapped his back and said he needed to get used to me as soon as possible, which was the nail in his coffin.
“Yup. And Lutz, don’t forget you’re my oldest, most respectable Gutenberg,” I said, which for some reason made him slump over just as sadly as Johann.
Why? I was just trying to give him a compliment. So strange.
“I’ll just be going straight home today,” I said to Damuel after leaving the smithy. But at that moment, the chime of bells sounded out through the city—bells signaling an emergency. Seconds later, a red light shot into the sky from the east gate. It was someone calling for aid using a magic tool.
As a knight, Damuel was the first to react. He glared at the red light by the east gate with a hard expression while picking me up on the spot.
“Let’s go.”
That was all he said before running straight to my home. He advanced down the roads and through side alleys with confidence, having possibly memorized them all while following me around the lower city. Lutz was running close behind him all the while, despite blinking in utter confusion.
“I know the roads by now. Lutz, you can go home or to your store. Whichever works,” Damuel said, still running. He normally dropped me off at the well in the plaza, but this time he raced up the stairs with me in his arms before rapping a fist against our front door.
“Yes, who is it— Myne?!” Mom stepped aside to let Damuel in, who quickly set me down. Mom blinked in surprise as he looked between me and her, a hard expression on his face.
“Something happened at the east gate that made them call for the help of the Knight’s Order.”
“The east gate?!”
“It was a thin light, not a thick one, so I would guess it isn’t anything violent. They likely just need us knights to make a firm decision on some noble matter. That said, I will remain here until the apprentice’s safety is secured.”
Mom was stunned by the sudden visit from a knight, but she grasped the circumstances and nodded quickly. “Please keep Myne safe.”
Damuel stood by the front door so that he was ready to react on the spot if something happened. Kamil had started crying so Mom went into the bedroom, while I got Damuel a glass of water since he was a little out of breath.
“Ah. Thank you, apprentice.” Damuel gulped the contents of the cup down in one go, then took a few deep breaths to collect himself. I knew I would just be in his way if I stuck around any longer, so I went to the storage room. I wanted to know what cloth we had for the stuffed animal rattle I wanted to make.
“There’s a lot of white, so maybe I’ll make a rabbit?”
After finding some cloth that felt nice, I started getting to work on making stencils at the kitchen table. All of a sudden, a white bird like the magic ones I had seen before phased through the wall and came flying this way. It surprised the heck out of me, popping out of nowhere like that, but Damuel just casually extended his arm toward it. The bird settled on it and opened its mouth.
“Damuel, after delivering the apprentice shrine maiden to the temple or her home, regroup with the Knight’s Order.” The bird repeated the order three times in a low, gravely male voice before crumbling and turning into a yellow feystone. Damuel made his gleaming wand appear from somewhere like the High Priest usually did and tapped the stone while chanting something. Whatever he did made it turn back into a white bird.
“The apprentice shrine maiden is safe at home. I will return at once,” he said before waving his wand. The bird flew through the wall and disappeared. “Apprentice, I’ll be regrouping with the Knight’s Order to get briefed on the situation. Under no circumstances should you leave the house before I return. Understood?”
“Understood.”
After emphasizing that I wasn’t to even go outside to the plaza, Damuel left. I had no idea what kind of emergency it was, but if he was being called away to regroup with the Knight’s Order, it probably had something to do with me.
“Myne, did the knight just leave?” Mom, having finished feeding Kamil, came out of the bedroom wearing an uneasy expression. It seemed she had found comfort in Damuel, a knight, being here with us. At the moment, there was only me, Mom, and Kamil still inside; nobody would be able to act if something happened.
“He was summoned back by someone in the Knight’s Order. If they don’t think Sir Damuel needs to stay here with me then they think I’ll be safe, which means it’s either already over or nothing too serious,” I explained.
Mom gave a faint smile, looking just a little relieved. “Oh, he left because it’s over. That’s a relief.”
In the end, we didn’t even have to wait for Damuel to get back with an explanation, since Dad came home with one first. He had started working at the east gate in spring, and had been at the center of today’s ruckus.
“Dad, what in the world happened over there?”
“Yeah, guess I should tell you about it, Myne.” After dinner, Dad explained what happened while slowly sipping away at his beer. “A noble from another duchy kicked up a fuss when trying to enter the city.”
The emergency incident had been an outsider noble trying to force their way in. Just like the High Priest had told us before, the rules regarding nobles entering and leaving the city had been changed in the spring, and one of those rules was that nobles from other duchies couldn’t enter the city without the archduke’s permission. The letters of introduction that had been customary up until now would no longer be accepted. The nobles of Ehrenfest knew this since they had heard it directly from the archduke during the winter gathering, but nobles from other duchies didn’t know the rules had changed. The result was a noble getting blocked at the gate by a commoner guard, and ultimately exploding with anger.
“The higher-ups must have predicted something like that would happen. They had everything ready for the Knight’s Order to move in if any nobles started causing problems at the gate.”
“Wow. The archduke sure thought things out, huh?”
Apparently, it had been Dad himself who had used the emergency magic tool given to the gate by the Knight’s Order to call for help. It was composed of two pieces: a hammer-shaped tool with a red stone inside, and a second, separate red stone. To make the beam of light shoot up into the air, all one had to do was strike the second stone using the hammer-shaped tool. The one Fran had used in the carriage back during Spring Prayer was probably of the same kind.
Nobles could act however they wanted to commoners, but when nobles of the city were involved, those from other duchies were at a disadvantage. The outsider noble had apparently left grumbling after the Knight’s Order had explained that he would need the archduke’s permission to enter.
“Problems caused by nobles are best solved by nobles. Honestly, I’m real glad they came to help.”
“Still, he had a letter of introduction from a noble here, right? Why did someone send him a letter of introduction if they knew that he wouldn’t be able to enter without the archduke’s permission?”
“Who knows.”
Maybe it was a letter of introduction he had been given before the spring. I tilted my head in confusion, despite the answer being impossible for me to know, when Dad looked at me with a serious expression.
“Myne, you need to be real careful about staying safe. Remember what the High Priest said? Nobles from other duchies might be coming after you,” he warned, and I gave a slow nod. “I’ll protect the gate and call the Knight’s Order the second any dangerous noble tries getting in. You just be sure not to go anywhere without your bodyguard.”
Dad promising to protect me made me so happy that despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help but smile.
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