Chapter Three Hundred and Twenty-Four: Common Ground
“Just as you wished, Lady Karen, they study in the morning, have lunch, and work in the afternoon. They are given three meals a day, finish work at the fifth bell, and go to bed at the sixth bell.”
“And what time do they wake?”
“Half a bell after the first bell, they are woken and given breakfast. After a short rest, their lessons begin at the second bell.”
Karen was doing her rounds, observing the children’s daily routine. Guiding her were Harald, who supervised the children, and Sara, who managed the annex of the Ehlertt family’s estate, which they were borrowing.
It was afternoon, and the children were working. The expensive furniture that had filled the main hall had been moved out and replaced with children’s chairs and long tables. The children—mostly girls—sat side by side at the long tables, sewing sachet bags.
“Children who weren’t good at sewing were assigned different work. Just as you instructed, Lady Karen, I tried to match each child with tasks suited to their individual strengths and weaknesses.”
The children worked in a warm salon bathed in the afternoon sun. At the very least, none of them were hungry or shivering from the cold.
“I wonder if this is really enough…”
“I share your concern, Lady Karen. I do think we may have been a little too lenient with the children.”
Harald immediately agreed with Karen’s hesitant remark. But Sara leaned forward and said:
“Harald, I believe Lady Karen means the opposite, if anything.”
At Sara’s correction, Harald’s face went stiff with shock.
“What…? Surely not… you mean something is still lacking…?”
“Well, they don’t have any days off, do they? Working every single day without a break—wouldn’t that wear them down?”
“It seems I was the lenient one, Ms. Sara…”
Sara gave Harald a sympathetic pat on the shoulder as he looked up to the heavens. Karen, left out of the moment entirely, pursed her lips.
“I will say without hesitation that this is already a dreamlike situation for every single one of those children. It vexes me that there should be any child here who fails to show gratitude to you, Lady Karen.”
With that, Harald cast a sweeping, stern look over the children working on the sachets. Karen could sense them tense at it, and she promptly ushered Harald out of the room.
Harald had reproduced Karen’s broad wishes for the children’s care with impressive faithfulness. …Though Karen couldn’t help worrying about how his deep devotion to her showed through here and there.
Could he really be like a son to me? Karen wondered, her expression somewhere between bemused and troubled—and Sara, as if reading her thoughts, spoke instead:
“Those children are likely wary precisely because of how different this treatment is from what they have known. Understanding their own low standing as they do, they cannot help but search for a hidden meaning behind being treated so well. It is entirely understandable, Lady Karen.”
“You heard her, Harald. What do you think?”
“I do not deny that such a side to the situation exists, as Ms. Sara says. Even so, they should still be grateful to you, Lady Karen. Am I wrong?”
“In the end, I agree as well.”
“So you both came to the same conclusion.”
After the New Year Festival, Helfried, Alise, and Sieg had returned to the royal capital. Karen had gone back once herself, then packed her things and returned to the capital of Ehlertt territory together with Julius. Throughout that time, Sara had remained in the Ehlertt capital as a liaison. For Harald, who had been rather abruptly left behind at the earl’s residence, having Sara—a familiar face—there must have been a great comfort.
Somehow, the two of them seemed to have grown closer than before.
“Naturally, every one of the children ought to be grateful to you for saving them, Lady Karen. In fact, I believe most of them felt a deep sense of gratitude. …However, fears buried deep within one’s heart are not so easily erased. In time, your character—and time itself—will resolve this problem.”
Sara spoke with the solemnity of a prophet. Karen suddenly realized something.
“Come to think of it, Sara—you mentioned before that Sieg saved you, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Master Sieg found me when I had nowhere to go. He took me in, helped me, and said he wished to keep me by his side. At first, the lord and lady of the house quite naturally tried to keep someone of unknown origin like me at a distance…”
Helfried and Alise? Karen found that hard to believe for a moment. Karen herself was often scolded by Natalia for being too soft-hearted, and yet even by her standards, those two were people she’d worry about for being too kind. Still, it was true that most people wouldn’t agree to take in a stray child simply because their own child had brought one home.
Karen found herself returning to a question she had wondered about before—why had Sara been left with nowhere to go? Sara had told her about her past once, but that had been the part of her story that began after meeting Sieg. Everything before that, Karen had never heard.
If Sara didn’t speak of it, it was because she didn’t want to—and so Karen had never asked. But it wasn’t difficult to guess. At the very least, Sara had no parents, no one to protect her. That was why she would understand how the children here felt—and it was part of why Karen had felt she could trust Sara with their care.
“It happened that Master Sieg fell ill with the Bloodline Blessing right around that time, and it seems both of them felt they wished to grant him whatever he asked. At his request, I was taken on as a maid and permitted to serve the household. Naturally, I felt profoundly grateful, but it was only much later that I truly came to trust the people of the Ehlertt Earldom and could express those feelings openly.”
“To rise from such a position all the way to the side of the Ehlertt heir—that could not have been achieved without extraordinary effort.”
Harald said it with heartfelt admiration.
He had no intention of prying into the past Sara chose not to speak of. Or perhaps he simply had no interest in it.
“Indeed. At first, I mostly handled odd jobs. Only much later was I allowed to serve Master Sieg closely.”
“I find that fascinating. I would very much like to hear more… I want to hear the tale of how someone with neither family nor support climbed all the way to becoming her master’s most trusted aide.”
Harald’s peculiar eagerness made Sara let out a small laugh.
“It was quite simple, really. I volunteered to taste Master Sieg’s food. In other words—I took on the most dangerous work available. After collapsing several times from poison administered by those who saw Master Sieg’s illness as an opportunity to dispose of the Ehlertt heir, I earned their trust.”
“I see. The most dangerous work. That’s very instructive.”
Rather than feeling any sorrow for Sara’s painful past, Harald received it with an air of enthusiastic personal application.
At his rather peculiar response, Sara blinked—and then burst into cheerful laughter.
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