The Abandoned Duchess Seems to Want a Peaceful Life - Chapter 29

Chapter 29: Those Driven Out

"I see, so this in ceramic."

"It's quite a large piece, but we're in the dry season, and if there's no decoration it shouldn't take that long."

So saying, the ones looking over the design Melfina had drawn and already trading remarks like specialists about the height and the thickness were the three craftsmen Ricardo had introduced.

The three gave their names as Lewis, Roy, and Carl. All were in their late twenties to early thirties, quite young for craftsmen.

Lewis specialized in pottery, while Roy and Carl were blacksmiths who had studied casting and forging. All three had been vouched for by Ricardo as having unquestionable skill.

"If you're going to put charcoal in it, it should be thicker overall, and the outer wall especially should be about as thick as the bottom."

"It'll be heavy for being sturdy, but... no, if you're using fire, that's better."

While Lewis and Roy nodded to each other, Carl was silently staring at the specifications.

"Lord, I heard this will also be used for simple cooking."

"Yes. This area gets very cold in winter, and going to the communal kitchen just to cook is quite a bother. I thought it would be good if it could also be used to warm up breakfast and dinner."

"In that case, you should put metal fittings inside to support pots and kettles. Just having that makes it stable. If a pot is accidentally knocked over, the heated ceramic might crack or burst."

She nodded at Carl's words.

Burns tend to be serious, and there was also the worry of fire. With anything involving fire, there was no such thing as being too careful about safety.

"It will have charcoal in it all winter long, so wouldn't the metal deteriorate?"

"It would be better to put it in and take it out only when you're cooking. How about making three protrusions inside the hibachi beforehand and hooking it on them?"

"We should make a sample once and fit the size exactly," said Lewis, and Roy and Carl nodded. Though their fields differed, they were specialists who worked with fire, and there seemed to be something that connected them. It was very reassuring.

"Still, a cold-weather tool using charcoal... I've never seen anything like this rather than a fireplace. Was this your own idea, Lord?"

"I just remembered something written in a book I read long ago. I hear that across the sea in the east it's used every day."

"Warming with charcoal is a good idea. It costs more than firewood because of the processing, though..."

"We're opening up forest, so timber isn't a problem, and charcoal production has already started. If you don't mind, would you check the quality of the charcoal?"

All three nodded, and Ed brought in a wooden box of freshly burned charcoal.

The craftsmen each picked up a piece and shook or tapped it lightly. All wore serious expressions, and eventually Roy murmured, "That's good charcoal."

"Lord, do you already have a charcoal burner here?"

"No, the settlers burned it."

"I can't believe amateurs burned this. It keeps the original shape of the wood perfectly, and the sound is clear. It shows the timber's drying was good and the temperature was well controlled."

"It's almost a waste to use it for warmth. You could forge good steel with it."

The craftsmen were chatting excitedly around the charcoal. It seemed that even to their eyes the quality had no problem, and Melfina breathed a sigh of relief.

"This year, being the first attempt, we're producing continuously in rotation with seven earthen kilns. For the first three years I'll supply it free to the craftsmen, so please use as much as you need."

"Really?!"

"That's a great help. All that's left is for orders to come in so we can focus on sharpening our skills."

While Roy and Lewis raised joyful voices, Carl's expression remained downcast. He put the charcoal back in the box and stared at the design for the hibachi.

"Is something wrong, Carl?"

"No, I'm truly grateful to be employed on such good terms."

It was a heavy expression, which could not be all there was to it. "Hey," said Roy, nudging Carl lightly with his elbow.

"You're the one who has to be most grateful to the lord."

"I know. I'll repay this favor with my skills, without fail. But..."

He began to say something, then closed his mouth and bowed deeply.

An awkward silence fell.

The craftsmen seemed to know the circumstances, and Lewis and Roy exchanged glances, troubled, or with a hint of anger.

\* \* \*

To an invitation to a modest lunch to celebrate the new residents, Carl left with thanks, saying he wanted to check his workshop early, and went out of the lord's manor.

Lunch was the familiar dish of corn flatbread filled with vegetables and chicken and topped with sauce. The sauce was a walnut paste mixed with butter, devised by Eli, tossed with roasted nuts and aromatic vegetables, and it had an autumnal flavor.

The women of the village kept coming up with sauce flavors one after another and offering them to the lord's manor, so the recipe collection had grown quite thick. Good ones were combined from among them, and the taste was gradually being refined.

It was a dish called tacos in her previous life, but before long it might truly become established as a local dish of the Enkar region.

"I haven't eaten this much till I'm full in a long time. And it's so delicious."

"This ale, too, isn't it something? It's a little too light, but it slips right down your throat, I could drink forever."

"I'm still working through the recipe and adjustments for the ale. This one hasn't aged enough yet, it'll be ready to drink in about a week, but it's the only ale the lord's manor can serve right now. If you like, when the aging is done, please let me invite you again."

Entertaining craftsmen, who also did manual labor, with ale was a matter of course in this world. Depending on the circumstances it also had the aspect of paying in advance.

"I'll be looking forward to it!"

Roy seemed to have taken a real liking to the flatbread and the ale, and was in a splendid mood, beaming.

Lewis, next to him, on the other hand, held his tankard with a stern expression.

"Lewis, is something the matter?"

When she called out, Lewis looked startled, and then bowed his head to Melfina with a jerk.

"Lord, please forgive Carl's discourtesy."

"It isn't for you to apologize. I know craftsmen are often difficult people, and I don't think Carl was discourteous to me."

"That too, but he has various circumstances. Could I explain them to you?"

At that, she hesitated for a moment.

Circumstances meant personal information. Was it all right to hear them without Carl's permission?

She shook that thought off immediately.

This was a drawback of having memories of her previous life.

The environment where "I" had lived in her previous life and the world where she lived as Melfina differed completely in how they placed human rights and pride. The difference was so large that sometimes she tried to bring her previous life's sense into the present.

A lord, in this feudal society, was the person responsible for governing the land. She had no intention of lording it over people with brute authority, but the inflow of craftsmen was a necessary measure for the Enkar region, which lacked everything. While improving the environment so they could work, she needed to know about any trouble that might arise.

"I'll listen."

"How much does the lord know about the craftsmen's wandering system?"

"I understand it as the stage just before the final exam to become a master. Someone who aims to be a craftsman in a field enters a workshop as an apprentice while young, learns the skills over several years doing odd jobs, becomes a journeyman, and sharpens his skills under a master until he is fully qualified. After that, he travels, working at workshops in various places, absorbing and spreading techniques, and after several years of wandering, returning to a town where he holds citizenship earns him the right to take the exam."

Lewis and Roy let out sighs of admiration.

"You know that much... For craftsmen, accumulating wandering years is an essential step to become a master. A craftsman who cannot become a master cannot have a workshop of his own, and can't take on work except through the workshop he belongs to."

"Experiencing various techniques through wandering is important for a craftsman. But... sending someone out to wander also has the aspect of a master driving a talented craftsman out of his hometown."

The number of masters in each town was strictly set by the guild. For one craftsman to become a master, one master had to retire; that was the situation.

Craftsmen could not take work except through a master. In the craftsmen's world a master's position was extraordinarily powerful and he did not retire easily, and when one did retire in old age, it was a natural course for him to want to hand the position to his own child or the son-in-law he had taken in as an apprentice.

In other words, being a master was at present close to hereditary.

What would happen if a talented craftsman was born into that, one whose skill was clearly better than the master's?

It was common for artists and people with excellent skills to gain patrons.

Then cases would arise in which a wealthy merchant, or in some cases a noble, would approach a craftsman who was not a master and specify, "Have that man do this work."

"Many craftsmen who are disliked by their masters because of their excellence are told to go wander. Traveling is dangerous, and there is no guarantee of finding a good workplace on the road. Some are attacked by bandits after the money and tools they carry, and some run out of travel money, cannot pay the town entry tax and cannot get into a town, and die by the roadside."

"And even after finishing their wandering after such hardship and returning to their hometown, there are many cases where there is no place for them in their old workshop. In that case they do odd jobs as unlicensed craftsmen, or earn daily wages as laborers while the skills they had honed dull, and they cannot return to being craftsmen. There are not a few like that."

Both Lewis and Roy said that when they returned from their wandering, they were told the workshops were already full of craftsmen and apprentices and had no room to take them in.

A craftsman raised at another workshop was never hired as a craftsman by another workshop. The two had been at their wits' end when Ricardo called out to them.

"...That's terrible."

"If you're in the master's good graces, you can often be rehired as a craftsman. It seems we weren't, much."

"Is Carl in the same situation?"

It was Roy who shook his head at the question.

"He injured his leg before he went out to wander. A senior craftsman beat him."

Roy clenched his fist, speaking as if to contain his anger.

"Carl and I were at different workshops as apprentices, but since we were the same age, we often met and talked when running errands. The smith workshops are clustered around the town's outer wall, so the workshops themselves were close. We became craftsmen the same year, and we dreamed of competing, once we finished wandering, over who was better at the master exam."

In short, Roy and Carl had probably been something like childhood friends who aimed at the same path. Anger lodged in the corners of Roy's eyes, which had looked nostalgic as he recalled the past.

"The craftsmen's world is rough. Many are short-tempered, and some even think that young craftsmen being hot-blooded is better. Carl has always been quiet, and liked to face his work sincerely. He's the kind of man who'll hammer iron or copper until he's satisfied and makes something good. In the workshop, there were quite a few who didn't like Carl for that."

Roy prefaced that he did not know how it came about, and furrowed his brow deeply.

"There's no problem with forging iron or casting. Even now I'll guarantee that his skill is first-rate. But because of the injury to his leg he can no longer walk for long. The pain is especially strong in winter and gets in the way even of ordinary walking. —The one who injured Carl was the master's son-in-law. If you can't wander, you can't become a master. In his hometown he couldn't work at any other workshop. He was being pressed to choose between being kept for life as a drudge under the man who had hurt him, or giving up being a craftsman."

"I see..."

"Craftsmen who don't belong to the guild are unlicensed, and their pay is beaten down to less than half of those in workshops. When Ricardo asked me whether I wanted to work in Enkar Village, it was I who begged him to take Carl as well. If he falls behind in work because of his leg, I'll work and make up for him. So please—"

She stopped the words he was starting to say with an outstretched palm.

"I understand the situation. I don't mind. If he works honestly within what he can do, without overdoing it, that's enough for me."

A pioneer village had no craftsmen to begin with, and for building houses and making tools they either called craftsmen from far away or amateurs muddled through. It was originally a blessing in itself that skilled people had come to a poor village that didn't even have a guild.

"Thank you for telling me, Roy. And Lewis, I'm counting on you to do good work, too."

"Lord..."

"Leave it to me! I'll make sure to do good work!"

"And if you ever feel the craftsmen are short-handed, you may call on your acquaintances. The Enkar region still has few people, so there may be times when I'll ask you to do work outside your specialty, but I promise I will never treat craftsmen lightly."

She had heard that apprenticeships began from before the age of ten at the earliest.

In her previous life, that was a time when most children were protected by their parents and spent their days without thinking about the future.

In this world, craftsmen were people who spent childhood and youth on acquiring skills to become fully qualified.

Melfina thought that way of life deserved respect.

If such people had lost their place, they should come here.

Roy and Lewis looked caught off guard, but then bowed deeply.

"We'll work with everything we have!"

"Me too! I'll surely do work that satisfies you."

"Thank you. First, with the hibachi, please help us get through winter as warmly as possible!"

After that, with talk of the products they had made so far and the things they wanted to try, they ended the pleasant luncheon.

\* \* \*

"...Another follower of Lady Melfina has been added."

"She does it unconsciously."

No one other than the two heard the quiet voices of the bodyguard knight and the secretary.