The Abandoned Duchess Seems to Want a Peaceful Life - Chapter 34

Chapter 34: The Harvest Festival and Plans for Brewing

Once the serving had settled down, farmers and laborers who had been delayed joined in one after another, and the square grew livelier.

Someone began tapping a barrel to set a rhythm, and whistling and singing rang out in time with it, and the clamor of dancing spread here and there.

"Oh, it's Lady Melfina!"

Children had arrived from the former serfs' settlement too, and the moment they spotted her, she was swarmed.

"Hey, Rod, Lena, stop pulling on me."

"Lady Mel, hurry, hurry."

"Everyone's been waiting for you, Lady Melfina!"

Perhaps because the children's urging was so charming, the people sitting on logs set out in the square in place of chairs and drinking ale, and the couples dancing to the rhythm, were all smiling.

"Lady Mel! Dance with me!"

"I'm first! Lady Melfina!"

"I'll dance with each of you in turn! Honestly, help me, Marie!"

"If I got between you and Lady Melfina, they'd hold it against me."

Marie, laughing as well, was invited to dance by a village boy and lifted her skirt to curtsy.

Her graceful bearing was something that even Melfina found herself watching in admiration.

"Lena, did you eat until you were full?"

"Yes! My belly's all stuffed."

"What about you, Rod?"

"I ate four big flatbread sandwiches!"

They were growing children, indeed. He had grown taller and sturdier than when she first met him at the beginning of spring.

"Dad and Mom said we should thank Lady Melfina for being able to eat this much and be full."

"It's food that we all worked for and harvested together. You should thank the sun and the earth and everyone!"

The three of them danced to the rhythmic music. There was no form to it, just stepping to the beat, yet it was strangely fun.

In Melfina's life, there had never been a time when so many people thanked her, laughed together with her, and shared a meal with her.

She felt something warm being poured into Melfina's once empty heart.

"Lady Melfina! Me next!"

"Then I'm next!"

"Wait, let me rest."

After dancing as they pleased with several children, she finally managed to slip out of the circle, worn out.

Marie was talking about something with the heads of the villages and settlements, like Lutz and Nid. Since autumn began she had handled various negotiations with them on Melfina's behalf, and they seemed to have grown quite close.

"Good work, Lady Melfina."

"Good work to you. The children's stamina is bottomless."

The children had helped with the farm work again this morning, yet they kept dancing cheerfully.

"That's part of it, but I think they are simply excited by the special atmosphere, because they never get to play together like this."

Cedric handed her a wooden cup, saying, "Here." The cup gave off white steam, and a gentle, pleasant smell of corn rose from it.

It seemed that a house nearby was making tea and serving it, and when she looked, everyone was holding the same drink.

"Barley tea was delicious too, but this corn tea is nice as well. It smells wonderful, and it warms the body."

"Since we started drinking barley tea and corn tea, I feel fewer people have been upset in the stomach."

Nid and Lutz spoke one after the other, and Melfina nodded.

That was probably also thanks to the water having been boiled once.

A river with clear water flowed nearby, and the village used wells and that river for its daily water, but there was no way to say the water could never be contaminated by some chance, and it was hard to tell whether water that had been drawn and stored had gone bad.

Heating was the quickest and safest measure in this world.

"A festival is a fine thing. If only there were liquor, it would be perfect."

"The manor's ale was gone in no time. We should have come first thing in the morning."

Nid, who said he had managed two cups, still murmured with a regretful air.

"I see. If we have some leeway next year, shall we try our hand at brewing liquor?"

"Lady Melfina, it will still be some years before grapes can be harvested."

"Wine is very easy, but you can make liquor from things other than grapes, too."

Wine could be made simply by crushing grapes into juice, putting it in a barrel and leaving it, so it was a very common alcoholic drink made all across the continent. But since grapes were a fairly expensive fruit, it rarely reached the mouths of commoners.

Then there was mead, but honey was likewise an expensive item that took effort to collect. Ale, which could be made with just barley and water, was the liquor within the reach of commoners.

"You can even make liquor from corn."

"You can make liquor from corn!?"

"I've never heard of such a thing."

Bourbon, one of the most famous whiskeys of her previous life, was a liquor made from corn.

You boil crushed corn mixed with rye, add barley to produce malt sugar and saccharify it, ferment that into alcohol, then distill it, and the result is filled into barrels charred on the inside and aged.

Compared with ale, which could be made with nothing more than minimally sprouted barley and water, the effort involved was in a completely different league, but the greatest merit of distilled liquor was its high alcohol content.

Wine and ale lacked the strength to keep, so they turned to vinegar or spoiled, and though easy to make, they did not last. Local production for local consumption was the rule, and some nobles even built villas to be near the famous distilleries and breweries of distant places so they could drink their wine and ale.

Whiskey, by contrast, once made, could with luck be stored for decades. A liquor that could withstand long-distance transport would be a sort of revolution in this world.

In the game, too, there was an episode where Maria tried brewing liquor, I remember.

The story went that a cheap, poorly made brew had worsened public order, so she decided to make better-tasting liquor! Walkthrough sites and analysis blogs had described it as an episode of washing liquor with liquor, in a humorous tone.

"However, liquor from corn takes a while to complete. It has to be aged for at least two years, so even if we started this winter, we would only be able to drink it in three years."

"In that case it's no different from waiting for grapes to be harvested, so it might actually be faster."

"Brewing liquor has a certain romance to it!"

"Liquor from corn... if it came true, it might become a specialty of the village."

Their reactions differed slightly, but Marie, Nid and Lutz all seemed ready to lean forward. She was a little overwhelmed by their enthusiasm.

"Do you all like liquor that much?"

"Well, up to now homemade ale was all there was, but once you've tasted the ale the lord brewed... I think it will be hard to drink the usual ale starting tomorrow."

"That ale was truly delicious."

"Do the villages that have a temple or a monastery all drink liquor like that?"

"Of course not. You can drink liquor like that nowhere else on the entire continent but this village."

When Cedric declared it in a solemn face and tone, the villagers let out sounds of admiration, "Ohh...".

Luxuries such as liquor, cheese and sweets were, for the most part, made at temples and monasteries in various places.

To obtain them, one needed donations and gratuities to the temple on top of the price, so they naturally tended to be expensive high-end goods.

Liquor made by private hands might be worth a try, she thought.

Thanks to the deal with the ducal house, the profit from the corn would come in at least until the year after next, but it would be better to have some specialty that could earn foreign currency beyond that as well.

"...Shall we try it, brewing?"

"Let's do it!"

"That's the spirit!"

Toasting with tea, they were already in drunken spirits. As she watched the lively scene while sipping her corn tea, someone plopped down heavily on the crate opposite.

"You seem to be discussing something interesting, Lady Melfina."

The man, a bald, middle-aged man for whom "squat and stocky" was the perfect description, was Ricardo, the master of the Building Guild dispatched from a nearby town.

"Ricardo, good work. How is the progress on the work?"

"We should be able to finish before the withering winds start to blow. That said, at this hour it has already gotten quite cold."

"The Enkar region is at the very north of the country, after all. I hear Lake Moltre even freezes over in midwinter."

"Right now I could use a strong liquor to heat me up. By the way, is brewing in the Enkar region something you're serious about?"

"Yes. I don't know whether it will go well, but I'm thinking of giving it a try. Having something to hope for is a good thing."

"Yes, I believe Enkar Village is probably the most hopeful place in this country right now."

Hearing Ricardo's words, a smile rose to her lips naturally.

Melfina sincerely wished it would be so.