The High Bishop’s Exclusive Business
“...In short, the Carpentry Guild has been ordered to furnish the monastery recently built in Hasse with everything it needs. The new High Bishop wants it done as soon as possible—in two months’ time at the latest. Her representatives are Gustav the guildmaster and Benno from the Gilberta Company, and it seems they’re willing to pay any price to make up for the tight deadline. They’re also talking to the Construction Guild about this, but we’re not gonna lose to them when it comes to furniture and other interior furnishings. All workshops, put everyone you can on this.”
These were the words of a higher-up in the Carpentry Guild, having summoned every foreman in the city of Ehrenfest who was a member. They all stood up, shouting out with motivation, but I merely sat there in a daze.
Hey now, hey now... What’s this supposed to mean?
I supposedly had the High Bishop’s exclusive business, but she hadn’t mentioned anything about building a new monastery in Hasse. And she definitely hadn’t talked about bringing such a large-scale order to the Carpentry Guild.
The normal process was for a client to bring business like this to their exclusive workshop, then have that workshop bring it to the guild. The two would then cooperate to distribute the work while considering how much money needed to be used. And yet, not only had I not been informed of this job, but I also hadn’t been listed along with the guildmaster and Benno as representatives.
Do I not have the High Bishop’s exclusive business after all...?
I had done several jobs for the High Bishop ever since the Dostal Workshop, which worked for Benno, sent her my way. She had wanted me to make the printing press for her, and we had handled the wood that the orphanage used for winter handiwork.
The Gilberta Company had told us as an intermediary that she was satisfied with our work, and the foreman of the Dostal Workshop kept saying that he wouldn’t have sent the girl our way had he known she was gonna become the High Bishop, so I’d assumed that I had her exclusive business.
Was I wrong...? Or did she drop me at some point for not doing a good enough job?
A cold sweat ran down my back and I could feel my hands trembling. It was like someone had dunked a bucket of ice-cold water over my head. My workshop was the youngest of all those in the Carpenter’s Guild, and its status would change dramatically based on whether or not I had the High Bishop’s exclusive business—especially since she also happened to be the archduke’s adopted daughter. Without it, my workshop’s future would be shrouded in darkness.
“Hey, Ingo. You’re up next,” the guild representative said.
I stood up to hear what my share of the work would be, at which point he instructed me to build the windowpanes for the monastery. At that, I responded with a nod and exited the guild.
The sky was bright and the sun radiant, shooting down summer rays that were hot enough to burn the skin. There were plenty of carpentry workshop foremen out in the street, excited about the large jobs they had been given.
One of them, the foreman of the Dostal Workshop, noticed me and came walking over. He gripped my shoulders, brought his face up close, and whispered: “Ingo. You weren’t named as a representative up there, and you weren’t divvying up the work with them, either. What happened to you having the High Bishop’s exclusive business?”
He had pretty openly voiced the fears stirring in my heart. I wanted to call him an idiot on the spot and say that of course I had her exclusive business, but with everything that had happened, I wasn’t so sure myself anymore.
My hesitation to respond turned into an answer itself, which earned me a nasty grin from the foreman. “Alright. Guess that means this job’s my big chance, huh?”
By the time I had realized my mistake, it was too late; he had already concluded that my workshop hadn’t done satisfactory enough work for the High Bishop, which had in turn led to me losing her business. All the foremen in the guild would now be vying for her business themselves, whether I liked it or not.
I returned to my workshop and told my craftsmen about the work we would be doing for the monastery. “There’s a large-scale job starting right now, and they need it done quick.”
Two of my leherls let out excited cheers. Under any other circumstances, a big job for our workshop would be something to celebrate, but I had to shake a bitter hand to quieten them down.
“Linus, Dimo—this isn’t anything to be happy about. The High Bishop gave this job to the Carpentry Guild. She didn’t speak to me about it beforehand, and I wasn’t listed as one of her representatives. We might’ve lost her exclusive business.”
The smiles were immediately wiped from their faces, but my wife Annika simply laughed off my concerns. “Why get all gloomy about that? It’s not like she actually said you’ve lost her business, right?” she said.
“She didn’t, but there won’t be any opportunities for me to ask her what she thinks about our workshop, and there’s no one I can really send to her, either. She could drop us out of nowhere and we’d have no idea.”
Annika was right that it wasn’t a done deal, but as a commoner, I couldn’t just visit the High Bishop any time I wanted. Checking with her would certainly be for the best, but she was beyond the reach of a mere craftsman like me.
“Oh, you’re such a worrywart. There’s no reason to fret when she’s loading orders onto you as much as she is. When she calls you over to make her next order, you’ll know for sure. All you need to do in the meantime is finish the job you’ve been given. Do good enough that you can puff out your chest with pride and show the other workshops why it is that the High Bishop trusts you,” Annika said, slapping me on the back with a hearty laugh. She was on the smaller side, but she had the energy of someone twice her size, and seeing her broad smile was enough to brighten my mood a little.
“Aren’t ya being a little too optimistic?”
“You think so? You only lose exclusive business if you do bad work, and all we’ve ever done is satisfy the customer, right?” she asked, peering at me with her gray eyes.
I knew well enough that she was just trying to ease my anxiety and cheer me up, and I definitely couldn’t let my fears get the best of me with Annika and the leherls watching. And so, I straightened my back and kept my chin up.
“You’re right. Agonizing over this won’t change anything. But yeah, back to the matter at hand—we’re gonna be living in the new monastery to get this job done. There’s a meeting at the Merchant’s Guild for all the workshops that’ll be staying there, so I’ll be attending that as well.”
The explanation was being held at the Merchant’s Guild rather than the Carpentry Guild for three key reasons: the guildmaster was one of the High Bishop’s representatives, they were delivering the down payments, and foremen from the Construction Guild would be participating as well.
I looked around at the crowd on the second floor of the Merchant’s Guild and noticed there were quite a few unfamiliar faces. We were told that they wanted multiple foremen to essentially take turns sleeping in Hasse’s monastery to do work, and that we would also need to bring women—our wives, daughters, or hired servants—along with us. There were plenty of rooms for us to stay in at the monastery, but there weren’t any doors or windowpanes yet, and we would need to drag in mattresses and other daily necessities ourselves.
...So they’re sayin’ we can’t even sleep there until we’ve made the doors and windowpanes? We’ve gotta hurry and make ’em fast so that we can leave.
“Your daily necessities will be brought to the monastery by wagon,” the guildmaster began, “and since it’s bad for business to have foremen away from their workshops for an extended period, you will take turns staying there overnight. Those of you gathered here today—your workshops will be leaving first.
“Your respective guilds have selected their fastest workshops for this, and while the workload will no doubt be strenuous, I trust you all to succeed. And naturally, your pay will vary according to the quality and quantity of your work. We won’t hesitate to pay extra to cover for the abrupt nature of this job,” he concluded, flashing several small golds to the crowd as encouragement.
The foremen all grinned at the sight.
“This job’ll be easy, since the ivory buildings nobles live in all use the same measurements for their windows and doors. Let’s make a ton of ’em here, and then a ton more once we’re in Hasse,” one said.
As for food, the Othmar Company was apparently distributing the work among various eateries that would be bringing their foodstuffs to sell at the monastery. We had also been told to buy things from Hasse and the surrounding farmers, alongside several other warnings about living there.
With the explanation finished, the foremen all started to return home. That was when Benno from the Gilberta Company called out to me.
“Ingo, could you c’mere for a moment?”
I went over, ignoring the prying eyes of the other foremen, at which point Benno continued.
“Don’t forget you’ve got exclusivity with Lady Rozemyne. You’ll be staying at the monastery from beginning to end, so don’t slack on your preparations.”
As it turned out, they needed someone on site to give instructions, directing which workshop’s products would be going where, and I had been chosen for that role. It was a bit of a relief to know that Benno thought I still had the High Bishop’s exclusive business, but I still had to make sure.
“Hey, Benno... Do I really have her exclusivity?” I asked carefully, wanting a clear answer. But Benno just returned an ambiguous shrug.
“I know she counts you as one of her Gutenbergs, but, what, has she never mentioned you having her exclusive business? That’s news to me. Had I known that, I wouldn’t have listened to the Dostal Workshop complaining to me day in and day out about having missed their chance.”
“Don’t need to know about that. What I’m saying is, if I really have got her exclusive business, why wasn’t I told about this? A job this big must’ve been in the works for months.”
All the carpentry and construction workshops in the city were being mobilized, and the project needed to be finished in a month or two at most. For a job that required the movement of this many people, it had to have been planned well in advance.
...Or so I thought. Benno simply grimaced, shook his head, and raised three fingers. “Nah. This all started three days ago.”
“Say what?!”
Benno gave me a quick rundown on the situation: Construction of the Italian restaurant jointly financed by the High Bishop, the Gilberta Company, and the Othmar Company had been completed, and a lunch had been scheduled prior to its opening with the archduke himself due to attend. Apparently, at the table, she had asked to build orphanages outside of the city to increase the number of workshops she had available.
“The High Bishop’s been talking about wanting more orphanages for a while now, and at the time, she hadn’t intended to make it an ivory building. She was going to talk to some construction workshops and then ask some carpentry workshops for the interior decorations—y’know, build it like commoners would. Basically, the plan was to hire lower city craftsmen once we’d gotten permission from the archduke to build an orphanage there.”
“Yeah, I can’t even imagine starting something like this before you’ve secured permission from above.”
Benno’s story made sense to me; you couldn’t move forward with a big project like this without the archduke’s permission. But in that case, how had things turned out like this? I crossed my arms, encouraging Benno to continue, and he looked up at the sky, a distant look in his eyes as though he was remembering the day it all happened.
“Lady Rozemyne mentioned this all to the archduke, hoping to get his permission, and the very same day they used some kind of magic to build the entire monastery. Then, they ordered us to have it furnished quickly enough that the orphans can live there and start work in the workshop by the Harvest Festival.”
“Now that’s just crazy talk.”
“Everything’s crazy when you deal with nobles. The guildmaster and I are representatives for this just because we happened to be eating at the Italian restaurant as its financiers. If you want to be a representative too, just go and ask Lady Rozemyne.”
“Really?!” I exclaimed, leaning forward. Getting myself recognized as a representative would make the greedy looks on all the other foremen’s faces disappear in an instant.
Benno nodded with a grin. “Yep. We’re still openly recruiting representatives to help pay the Carpentry Guild and the Construction Guild for their work ahead of time. There’s a lot of money we’ve gotta scrape up, since the deadline’s so tight.”
“...Never mind. Forget it. That’s too much for me.”
My workshop needed to be saving for winter prep, so we didn’t have any cash to dump on other guilds. Big stores like the Othmar Company and the Gilberta Company were in another league from us when it came to investment power, and while spending this money would be the easiest way for me to establish the Ingo Workshop as having the High Bishop’s exclusive business, it just wasn’t a feasible option for me.
...Guess I’ve just gotta prove myself with the quality of my work instead. For now, I’ll stay at Hasse and do what I can there.
And so, I moved to Hasse with Annika and stayed in the under-construction monastery, focusing on work all the while. Craftsman after craftsman came to the monastery, and since I stayed there from start to finish, I ended up learning all of their names and faces. Since so many Ehrenfest workshops were being mobilized, there were quite literally crowds of workers at a time, with even carpenters from neighboring cities and towns coming over. It really was a shockingly large-scale job.
We weren’t quite able to finish in a single month, but the monastery was ultimately furnished without any significant problems. As far as I was concerned, the Ingo Workshop had done a good enough job that nobody could accuse us of having lost the High Bishop’s exclusive business.
With the job done, the Gilberta Company’s apprentice leherl, Lutz, came over to ask about winter handiwork.
“Ingo, sorry to bring this up right after the monastery business, but can I place an order for some more work?” he asked, bringing us the usual request from the High Bishop.
Annika beamed and puffed out her chest with pride, her gray eyes practically shining. “See! What did I say? It’s all fine. You haven’t been dropped at all.”
The job request was a huge relief, especially now that the leherls could relax and focus on work. We soon finished up the winter handiwork preparations for them, at which point Lutz came to us with yet another job from the High Bishop. This time, it had to do with improving the printing press.
“She wants me to talk to the priests actually doing the work in the orphanage workshop and then make improvements based on their input. I’ve got her exclusive business for sure,” I declared, bringing the work order to the Carpentry Guild. But the guild representative’s suspicious look didn’t change even as he glanced over the sheet.
“Doesn’t the fact that the printing press needs to be improved mean that you didn’t do a good enough job the first time?”
“Nah, the first job was to get the bare minimum of parts together to make it work. We were planning to improve it from the start.”
Just like the monastery, it had been a job where time was of the essence. But explaining that didn’t change the doubt in everyone’s eyes. The guild representative raised an eyebrow as he looked between my determined glare and the work order.
“Say what you will, but this is still an improvement job. Try getting a signature saying that you have her exclusivity once you get this done. Then nobody can doubt you.”
I grit my teeth and restrained myself; there was no point in pushing the subject. All I could do now was finish the job and bring back some kind of proof. If my workshop’s reputation kept plummeting like this, it could risk impacting the jobs we were getting from other customers, too.
“Hey, Lutz. You were talkin’ about how Lady Rozemyne can’t go to the lower city now that she’s the High Bishop, yeah?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. She can’t just up and visit commoners like that anymore. Lady Rozemyne really misses the time where she could just go and do what she wanted, when she wanted.”
Lutz was taking me and my leherl, Dimo, from the Gilberta Company to the temple.
“Can she visit the workshop in the temple’s orphanage, since that’s not in the lower city?”
“Yeah, kinda. She sometimes visits in the afternoon to watch us work for a little bit.”
The High Bishop had used to visit the lower city workshops herself to get what she wanted, and it was pretty likely that she would come and double-check the work I was doing. That meant there was a good chance I could speak to her, and with that thought in mind, I looked down at what I was wearing—the same work clothes I always wore at the workshop. There was nothing else I could really wear, considering that I was going to work, but something told me that it wouldn’t be a great idea to meet the High Bishop like this.
It’s already kinda bad for a foreman to be walking around the north part of the city...
“Ingo, what’re you looking at your clothes for?” Lutz asked curiously.
I raised my head. He didn’t seem to know the position that the Ingo Workshop was in, though there wasn’t much helping that; merchants would usually go to the Merchant’s Guild rather than directly to the carpentry workshops.
“Don’t sweat it,” I replied. “I was just thinkin’ about this job.” There wasn’t any point in me talking about my crappy circumstances to someone who didn’t know about them.
Once we reached the temple, I looked up at the gate. There was a gray priest standing there, serving as a guard. Lutz shrugged, then went over to talk to him.
“Nolte, this is Ingo the Gutenberg and his apprentice, Dimo, here to improve the printing press. Lady Rozemyne has permitted their entry.”
“Hello, Lutz. Gil told me about this visit. You may pass.”
Unlike when religious ceremonies were being held, only the side door to the gate was opened. We passed through, and the air around us changed in an instant. The busy clamor of the city faded as we were enveloped in an abrupt silence that pronounced each footstep. It was so quiet that I hesitated to say anything at all as we walked to the boys’ dorm where the workshop was.
“Ingo,” Lutz said, his tone and attitude changing the instant we were inside the temple. “We invited you here to improve the printing press, but the esteemed Lady Rozemyne wishes for you to first discuss matters with the gray priests, basing your improvements on what they believe will make it easier to use.”
He sounded just like the priests in the temple. The fact that a kid who wasn’t even ten years old could change his tone so suddenly left me stunned. I was also working hard to absorb the habits and language of my customers so that I could work my way up and do business with richer customers, but I had gotten my beruf certification by focusing on my own skills while only making lehange contracts, and the foreman I worked for at the time had never taken me anywhere. It was only when I first delivered the printing press to the temple’s workshop with the Gilberta Company that I learned they completely changed how they spoke and acted when visiting nobles.
...Guess I should expect as much from an apprentice working for a big store that does business with nobles. Who knows what kind of training he’s been put through?
The orphanage’s workshop was in the basement of the boys’ building. I had brought Dimo with me, since he had been there when we delivered the first printing press, but I could tell how nervous he was.
“Attention, everyone. Please state your thoughts on the current printing press,” Gil said. “Lady Rozemyne wishes to improve it with the aim of making it as quick and easy to use as possible, so that it might print more goods.”
Gil was the boss of this workshop, and given that he was about the same height as Lutz, they were probably of a similar age. But even though he was still a kid, he was one of the High Bishop’s apprentice attendants, meaning he had the most authority out of anyone in the workshop.
The gray priests nodded, then lined up in front of me and Dimo before smoothly stating their opinions.
“I would appreciate it if placing the typesetting board on the press could be made easier.”
“The closer we can keep the ink to the press, the better; placing it further away would create more mess. Could you add somewhere for us to put ink-related goods, preferably around here?”
While the priests all wore the same kind of ragged clothes, they spoke in a polite manner completely unlike the craftsmen in the lower city as they listed their desired improvements.
“H-Hold on a second. I gotta remember all this. Make it easier to put down the typesetting board, add a place to put ink stuff...”
“It will surely be difficult to memorize the opinions of so many people. May I suggest writing them down?” one gray priest suggested, holding out a pen and what appeared to be a botched sheet of paper.
He had a point, but the extent of my writing experience was putting together work orders for the Carpentry Guild, and even then, Annika was always the one who did the math. Aside from the things I was used to writing as part of my job, the words just didn’t come to me. That said, he was being kind here, and it would be flat-out impossible for me to memorize everything otherwise, so I went ahead and took the pen.
“...Excuse me, but you’ve misspelled that word,” one gray priest noted, having received one heck of an education despite being an orphan.
I scratched my head awkwardly. I couldn’t correct my mistake because I didn’t actually know how to spell the word, but I couldn’t just say that while working for the High Bishop.
As I stood there, grimacing with the pen in hand, one of the gray priests spoke for me. “Gil, please write in Ingo’s place. I believe that his time would be better spent focusing on the printing press, observing the aspects we find inconvenient and how we wish to improve them.”
“Fritz is correct. Please practice using the printing press yourself,” Gil said, snapping me back to reality as he took the pen and paper from me.
I knew that the gray priest named Fritz had helped me out, knowing that I couldn’t write properly. I raised a hand to express my thanks. He nodded with a smile and whispered something to Gil, who then turned to another gray priest.
“Bartz, please prepare the printing press and go through the process with Ingo and Dimo. The writing shall be done by Fritz.”
“Understood.”
That brief exchange made it clear that the workshop wasn’t being run entirely by Gil; there were adult gray priests helping out as well, which made a lot of sense considering that he was still a child. In lower city workshops, only those with technical skills and experience were allowed to become foremen, so inexperienced kids without a good grasp on the work that needed to be done were never put in charge of anything. It was weird to me that the adults in the orphanage’s workshop obeyed Gil and Lutz when they themselves were stronger and more experienced.
This is apparently just how things are in noble society, but damned if it doesn’t still feel weird.
“Ingo, Dimo—this is the typesetting board, and this is how you print using the press,” the priest named Bartz explained.
Dimo and I both tried it out ourselves. Since the printing press was just a slight modification of a normal press, the process required a lot of arm strength, just like juicing things did. There was a stand nearby for holding the ink and paper, but it didn’t take me long to understand why they would want something that was actually on the press itself.
“So, you’d want the paper around here, right?” I asked, touching the press.
Lutz promptly reached out from the side and pointed at one area in particular. “Rather, could you put a thin box at a slight diagonal angle around here? The paper is all roughly the same size, so it would be ideal if you could make it with this in mind.”
“Hm, alright. That’d make it easier to print from this angle.”
I imitated the act of putting the paper into place to get a feel for it, all the while impressed at Lutz’s ability to give a concrete explanation of what he wanted.
“The tool for applying the ink could be put here,” Lutz continued, going on to list out a bunch of suggestions.
I nodded, still impressed, but each improvement made me more and more confused; he was being bizarrely specific. Though I let him continue, I was increasingly suspicious that he knew more than he was letting on. I needed to satisfy the High Bishop, and the more suggestions he had, the better.
“The work will apparently be a lot easier and need less power if you make a slidable stand that has the paper and lettering on it. That way, all you would need to do is push it beneath the press, and then pull it out again...” Lutz said, speaking as though he had suddenly just remembered. But the fact that he’d said “apparently” made it pretty clear that there was someone who already knew what a finished printing press would look like, and they were just giving him directions.
“Hey, Lutz. Someone knows exactly what we need to do here, don’t they?” I asked, glaring at him and Gil. “If someone knows that stuff, then there isn’t really any need for me to listen to what the gray priests think; I could make the printing press the High Bishop wants just like that.”
“Er, but...” Lutz trailed off, conscious of everyone around us. He was definitely hiding something and it ticked me off. I needed to do a perfect job here to satisfy the High Bishop and save my plummeting reputation. I was in dire straits and didn’t have time to play around.
“If you want the printing press improved, then let me speak to the person who knows what the finished product should look like! You planning on wasting our time with pointless trial and error or something?!” I exclaimed, causing the gray priests to jolt and take a step back.
I hadn’t said that much, but the air in the room had very blatantly changed. The calm on the priests’ faces immediately vanished, and they looked at me with guarded expressions.
Huh...? I was yelling at Lutz, not them.
I furrowed my brow as the priests exchanged uncomfortable glances. Even though I hadn’t said anything to them, the atmosphere was unusually off now.
Lutz looked around the workshop, then scratched his head with a sigh. “Look, Ingo—we’re from the lower city, so we’re used to people yelling at the drop of a hat, and I understand that this is seen as normal there. But here in the temple, violence is forbidden; nobody yells or gets up in anyone else’s face. All that does is scare people. Should we step outside? I’m sure you’d rather talk like we’re in the lower city.”
Violence is forbidden? Nobody yells? The heck kind of a place is this?
This place had a culture entirely unlike the lower city—I could feel that in my bones. Lutz’s explanation had made it clear that we were the odd ones here, not the priests.
“Sorry Gil, but could you collect and summarize everyone’s opinions? Ingo and I shall finish this talk outside.”
Lutz directed me outside, even asking Dimo to accompany us when I tried to leave him behind.
“Only Gutenbergs are allowed inside the workshop, to protect the orphans and stuff. We can’t let you stay in there alone.”
“...You mean I’m not a Gutenberg anymore?”
“It’s not my place to say,” Lutz replied as we left the temple and returned to the bustle of the lower city. I was finally back where I belonged.
Lutz had said that we could continue our discussion at my workshop. The Gilberta Company was closer, but Dimo and I weren’t wearing good enough clothes to enter a northern store.
When we eventually arrived, Lutz spoke up the moment I closed the door behind us. “I get that you want to speak to the person who knows what the finished press should look like, Ingo, but that’s Lady Rozemyne. She can’t just up and talk to lower city craftsmen anymore.”
She had been baptized as a noble before becoming the High Bishop, so her status wouldn’t allow her to casually speak to lower city commoners anymore.
“That can’t be true! You’ve been speaking to the High Bishop! And you said that she visits the workshop every now and again!” I shouted, hitting the table.
Lutz raised an eyebrow. “And that’s true. But, what, do you think a craftsman’s going to be treated the same as a merchant from the Gilberta Company who’s used to dealing with nobles? I dunno what’s ticking you off so much, but the temple’s full of nobles; status decides everything there.
“Plus, Gil’s an attendant of the High Bishop. He’s basically her representative in the temple—not someone that a craftsman like you can just yell at for being unreasonable,” he said with a sigh. “All you should’ve done was smile and write down the opinions you were given. You’re lucky the High Bishop isn’t a more heartless noble, otherwise you could’ve been punished for your insolence.
“The problem here isn’t that she can’t come and see you if she wants to, it’s that rude commoners like you who don’t understand status would tick off all the nobles around her. That’s why she just avoids meeting them at all—for safety’s sake. If you annoy a noble, you could be killed where you stand. And it’d be your own fault, too. What I’m trying to say here is give up on meeting the High Bishop in person.”
I gritted my teeth. “I get that I messed up there; I didn’t know how things worked in the temple. But I can’t back down that easily. I need to improve the printing press so that my workshop doesn’t get shut down,” I said, explaining to Lutz that its reputation had been plummeting ever since the monastery job. “I don’t expect a merchant to get the struggles that we craftsmen go through, but things aren’t easy for me right now. The future of my workshop depends on this.”
“Nah, I get you. My father and oldest brother work in construction, and my other brothers are carpenters. They all deal in carpentry, actually. My dad, Deid, went to Hasse for the same monastery job.”
I knew Deid. We had worked together at the monastery. And his son Sieg was a lehange apprentice at the Dostal Workshop. The fact that I actually knew who he was talking about left me stunned.
“...Why’s the son of a carpenter working as a leherl for the Gilberta Company and serving as one of the High Bishop’s Gutenbergs?” I asked, blinking in surprise. Even if he aimed to be an apprentice at a big store, there didn’t seem to be any connection here.
“It’s a long story,” Lutz replied, refusing to give any more details. He then looked at me with his green eyes. Somehow, it seemed like his sight was fixated on the future. “I get that your position in the guild is important for your workshop. Lady Rozemyne caused the problem, and I get that. I also get that improving the printing press is more important than anything right now. I’ll tell Master Benno what I know about all this, including your perspective as a craftsman, and see whether he can create some circumstances for you to meet her.”
“I owe you one!”
I negotiated with Benno through Lutz. He sympathized with the plight of the Ingo Workshop and agreed to take me to the temple, albeit under three conditions.
One: I had to pay an intermediating fee to the Gilberta Company.
Two: I could only speak when Benno gave me his permission.
Three: I had to be emotionally prepared for the possibility that the meeting would end in my death.
“Isn’t this fee kinda high? Three large silvers just to go to the temple once? Really?” I began, trying to barter the price down. But Benno flashed me a glare with his dark-red eyes.
“You kidding me? We’re putting a hold on store business and greeting nobles in the Noble’s Quarter, all so you can visit the temple. If you don’t like the fee, I can stay right here and focus on my own work. Go by yourself, for all I care. I’m sure a craftsman who doesn’t know a single noble greeting will do juuust fine.”
I faltered. Benno was right; that really would go badly. I didn’t know how to deal with nobles at all.
“...Alright, alright. I’ll pay. Happy now? Gah... This is why you don’t deal with big stores...”
I paid the crazy-high fee and endured a lecture on what I should wear on the day of, among other things. Maybe the price wasn’t that high after all, given that it included warnings and advice on how to deal with nobles. I wasn’t sure why that last condition was part of the deal, but getting a chance to meet the High Bishop was certainly more important.
And so, I steeled my resolve and headed to the temple, accepting the likelihood that this might be the last thing I ever did.
“Whew. It’s finally over...”
Once I exited the temple, having been looked over by knights and priests from head to toe in that stifling room, I let out a sigh of relief. As I looked over the familiar lower city, the tension drained from my body. I had finally secured the contract saying that I had the High Bishop’s exclusive business—the thing I had been agonizing over since the monastery job was first mentioned.
I’ve gotta get back and talk to the others about this.
When I had originally brought up that our workshop might’ve lost the High Bishop’s exclusivity, both Annika and my leherls had responded with optimism, but I knew they must’ve been just as worried on the inside. Her new order was something pretty weird—she wanted me to discuss my work with smiths, but that was something to think about later. Right now, I just wanted to tell them what had happened and put an end to all the worrying.
But while I was enjoying my brief repose, Benno shot me a look, starting to unslick his hair. “Idiot. Nothing’s over yet. In fact, this is where the actual problems start. Different professions are going to have to work together on this, and that’s not gonna end anytime soon. You’re gonna be sharing this work from here on out.”
“Nah, that can’t be right. This is just a one-off.”
The High Bishop had only brought up this crazy idea because she was a noble who didn’t know how craftsmen worked; no other customers would suggest we do anything that was this much of a pain. Everything would be fine as long as we could survive this one job.
Lutz shook his head. “Come on. Do you really think Lady Rozemyne’s gonna do this once and then never again? No. Now she’s gonna think this is normal and do it every time. You might as well expect every job you have from now on to involve you working with people from other professions,” he said, a world-wise look on his face. Those were the words of someone who knew Rozemyne a lot better than I did.
As the worry suddenly started rushing back to me, Benno slapped me on the back. “But now that you’ve accepted it, you’ve got no choice but to keep it up. You’ll need to talk to the Merchant’s Guild and all the other guilds involved, then drop by Zack and Johann’s workshops to introduce yourself. You should head to the smiths tomorrow, and I’ll send out a meeting request to the guildmaster for you. If you sent one, it wouldn’t even get read in time for the delivery date.”
“R-Right.”
Benno listed a bunch of things that I needed to do all at once, but I didn’t really understand the groundwork that merchants always did. He must have noticed that from the way I was blinking at him, because he glared at me with narrowed eyes.
“Get your head in the game, Ingo. You’ve gotta finish all this before the smiths are due back in the temple. This is something you’d normally have to do on your own without me. This sure is a big mess now,” Benno said, crossing his arms. But even then, I still hadn’t truly realized how bad things really were.
It wasn’t until I was running around the city to greet everyone involved that I finally understood.
“We finally completed that cursed Hasse job that required us to mobilize every carpentry and construction workshop in the city, and now you’re starting some other grand mess?!” the guildmaster exclaimed. “A printing press built through the cooperative efforts of workshops from entirely different professions? Enough. Settle this matter among the other experts with your grand title, whatever it was. Don’t get me involved with this.”
His desperation to not get involved was what finally made me understand what an unthinkable mess I had gotten myself wrapped up in.
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