The Abandoned Duchess Seems to Want a Peaceful Life - Chapter 33

Chapter 33: The Harvest Festival and the Unveiling of the New Ale

After finishing the morning's work, Melfina decided to have lunch at the stalls at the festival grounds, and she arrived at the venue accompanied by Marie, Cedric and Rad.

Ed, Cliff and Eli had been sent ahead from the lord's manor to prepare the lord's treat.

Ed in particular, whose cooking skills were improving by leaps and bounds, was by now a first-rate asset of the lord's manor. If she taught him a recipe and showed him how to make it once, from the next time on he was almost more efficient than Melfina.

Maybe Ed has a "talent" too, she thought.

Once winter is over, I might plan to take the other children who are showing glimmers of talent to visit a church and a temple in a nearby area.

When she reached the square, it was already bustling with residents. Everyone seemed to have dressed up a little, and they exchanged greetings with bright expressions as she made her way to the manor's stall.

"Good work, everyone. How are the preparations?"

"Good work, Lady Melfina! We can start any time!"

In the two large pots, the warmed soup gave off a delicious aroma. Riding on pure white steam, the smell spread across the entire square.

"Lady Melfina, where shall we put the barrels?"

"Over here, please. Bring them up one after another."

At Rad's question, she pointed to the space beside the lord's manor's stall. Rad and Cliff, who had worked as porters, steadily stacked up the barrels they had brought on a cart.

They were the ale barrels that had been aging until this morning in the cellar built near the lord's manor. She had asked a skilled cooper to make them from heavy, sturdy oak.

"It's finally the unveiling."

"Yes, I hope everyone likes it."

As the barrels, the product of her recent repeated trial and error, piled up, and with the good smell of the soup mixed in, the villagers gathering around kept glancing in their direction.

"Lady Melfina, everything is ready."

"Yes, then shall we begin the festival?"

Prompted by Lutz's son, she was escorted by Cedric to stand beside the altar of harvest offerings set up in the center of the square.

The square had been neatly cleared, and the villagers and the former serfs who had gathered looked toward her with bright faces. A smile rose to her lips naturally.

"Everyone, thank you so much for your work from spring through summer. Thanks to you, the Enkar region has been blessed with a tremendous harvest. New residents are gradually increasing too, and I believe we will keep developing more and more."

When she looked up at the sky, it was clear, just as one would expect of autumn.

The air was full of good food smells, pleasantly stirring the appetite.

"I am truly happy to be spending my first autumn since coming to the Enkar region with all of you like this."

Melfina had come here in early spring, when the thaw was only just ending.

Her only companions had been a burning anger at fate, and Marie and Cedric, who were there to keep watch over Alexis's interests.

And now she was surrounded by so many people.

"Today, let us give thanks for the blessings of spring and summer, and eat, drink and dance plenty to prepare for the winter ahead. I now declare the Enkar region's harvest festival open!"

Cheers went up, and applause rang out. Suppressing her embarrassment, Melfina stepped down from the platform and went straight back to the lord's manor stall.

"Everyone, please have the ale that Lady Melfina made! Bring your own cups and take turns!"

"Soup too, please! Get your bowls ready! We made plenty, so there's no rush!"

Because disposable cups and dishes could not be prepared, participants had been asked to bring their own. Cliff and Rad handled the line that formed in front of the ale barrels in rapid fashion, while Ed and Eli served the soup.

"Marie, Cedric and I will go buy everyone's lunch."

Although the festival had been announced beforehand, some people were late because of work, and some of the former serfs' settlements were far from Enkar Village, where the venue was, so it took them time to arrive.

She had made it known that they could gather loosely and enjoy meals and company, yet it was quite crowded. People sat on crates lined up in the square and spread out dishes brought from their neighborhoods, and here and there were people already livening things up with their own homemade ale.

"Wow, that's good!"

"Hey, the lord's ale is good!"

After that first voice, like a stone thrown into the surface of water, the words spread outward in ripples, and Melfina exchanged glances with Marie and Cedric and grinned in triumph.

"It's really bitter... but the aftertaste is clean."

"And it's so, how should I put it, like water. It's clear."

"I could drink it by the gulp... I'm going back in line for another."

"Me too!"

It felt embarrassing, yet good, to hear what she had brewed being praised. She got soup for herself and the others and sat down with Marie a little away from the stall.

Cedric was on bodyguard duty, so he stood behind them.

"The reception seems excellent, as expected."

"Adjusting the bitterness was quite a struggle. I'm really glad hops turned up."

From the cold climate of the Enkar region and the rich vegetation of the Forest of Moltre, she had held high hopes that hops would exist, but she had been thrilled when they were actually found: the hunter Godot, who was also training the dogs, had been asked to collect them if he saw any while in the forest.

With their strong bitterness and refreshing aftertaste, and their powerful preservative effect, hops were an indispensable ingredient in the beer of her previous life.

There had even been an era when it was decreed that beer must use nothing but water, barley and hops.

When she drank the ale that had been set aside beforehand, it did not quite reach the crispness she remembered from her previous life, but it was a thoroughly delicious result.

It had the mild, nourishing flavor that had been called craft beer. With the aroma of the hops, she thought with deep feeling that beer really did need this.

In this world, a combination of medicinal herbs and aromatic herbs called gruit was used to flavor ale.

The finished taste varied greatly depending on the blend.

Frankly, it could hardly be called refined, and the yeast used differed depending on the brewer and the place, and some yeasts produced terribly musty ale.

What had been most useful in selecting yeast for this batch of ale was Melfina's "Appraisal."

She chose yeast by combining her previous-life knowledge with "Appraisal," and then repeated actual brewing. Ale itself was made by a very simple process, so she brewed several kinds at once, tasted them at the lord's manor, and finally settled on the yeast that tasted best.

And at last the aging was done, and today was the day of the unveiling.

"I think this is a taste that will overturn the notion that ale is a drink for commoners."

Marie seemed to like the new ale very much as well. Her cheeks were a little red, and she looked delighted.

"I rushed to get it done in time for the harvest festival, but I think it could be refined further."

"Even more than this? Somehow it makes me feel... very extravagant."

"Eating and drinking delicious things and having fun is probably the greatest luxury of all."

As a marquis's daughter who had been exposed to the finest of everything, Melfina knew her share of fine cuisine.

Even so, she had never felt more happiness than at the lord's manor, fiddling with ale and gathering around the table with everyone.

This time too must be a very luxurious thing, she thought.

She watched the unbroken line for ale for a while, but since it only kept growing, she decided to divide up the barrels and let people pour for themselves.

It was a festival today. It would be a waste to spend it only on pouring ale.

"Even all those barrels we made will probably be empty today."

"We can just make more."

Once the circulation of money became commonplace, they would be able to sell it as the lord's manor ale.

Imagining such a prosperous future, she felt very happy.