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Chapter 40
Helena spoke pitifully.
“We have to catch her.”
Wesley’s gaze hardened as well.
“Ms. Merara would want to return to Burwood too. She’s someone who loves her hometown.”
“Then we must bring Ms. Merara back, no matter what.”
“As expected of milady…!”
In front of the deeply moved Wesley, Helena picked up a caramel and popped it into her mouth.
I thought it was strange how, for a poor backwater count’s estate, sweets showed up so often.
Most of the sweets made by Jones, the count’s cook, were rather rustic in appearance, but they had an exceptionally refined sweetness.
She had assumed it was because he was skilled despite lacking formal technique, but it turned out it was the ingredients doing the work.
A sugar plantation, huh. Even a small one would bring in more than the taxes of an average fief. We absolutely have to catch her.
Just as Helena straightened her back, burning with resolve, she suddenly clutched her stomach and groaned.
“Hngh….”
“M-Milady! Are you all right?”
Her stomach hurt badly enough to bring tears to her eyes, but dignity—damn that thing.
As the lady of the count’s household, Helena had to force herself to say she was fine.
The next morning.
Helena received an absurd gift.
“I picked it up on the way.”
Picked up what, exactly?
Benjamin—clearly just back from outside, judging by how he had thrown a robe over his nightclothes—held out a single cluster amaryllis, damp with morning dew.
“What is this…?”
She took it out of reflex, but Helena frowned as she looked down at the flower. The thing looked like a monster; the more she stared at it, the creepier it seemed.
“Eat it. The dew.”
“What?”
Cluster amaryllis (Lycoris).
A perennial bulb plant of the amaryllis family. It is poisonous and is also called poison amaryllis.
Faced with such a brazen assassination attempt first thing in the morning, Helena let out a shriek and hurled the flower at Benjamin’s face. It struck his handsome nose and fell to the floor.
“Have you completely lost your mind?!”
Benjamin yelled back.
“You’re the one who’s insane! I went to the trouble of thinking about it and picking it!”
“That’s a poisonous plant! You knew that and still did this?”
At her words, Benjamin looked startled, picked up the flower rolling on the floor, and threw it out the window.
Then he asked,
“Wasn’t that a rose?”
“You… are you actually stupid? How does that look like a rose to you?”
“It’s red.”
“So anything red is a rose now?”
“Isn’t it?”
“No!”
Her lower abdomen throbbed, her body felt heavy, and Benjamin was acting like an idiot he never used to be.
Helena screamed.
“Get out!”
After washing herself with hot water, Helena returned to bed.
“Anything red is a rose? How can someone be that stupid?”
She filled a large teapot with lightly brewed herbal tea, sipping it noisily as she examined the documents Jo had brought.
Holding the stack of papers and gauging their thickness, Helena grumbled.
“Distribution, my foot. I just want to finish everything quickly and rest.”
But it seemed impossible to get through all of this today.
Especially in her tired and irritable state, tackling headaches like taxation and military service was simply too much.
“This needs to be reviewed slowly.”
Lying face-down on the bed, she sorted the documents.
Urgent ones, ones that could wait, and ones that needed to be thoroughly dissected while hearing others’ opinions.
Fortunately, none of the urgent documents were difficult. She had Jo bring the ledgers she had written, compared the payments, and signed them.
That allowed her to finish the urgent matters by morning.
“Freedom, at last!”
As she cheered, Jo asked,
“Milady, shall I draw the curtains so you may rest?”
“No! I need to do some overdue shopping. Bring me the catalogs.”
“Yes, milady.”
Soon, Jo returned with catalogs and candied fruit.
Lying on the bed, Helena used a slender fork to pick up pieces of preserved fruit while flipping through dress catalogs.
Chewing on chewy, sweet fruit while gazing at catalogs full of beautiful dress illustrations—what a luxury.
She was happy.
“Ah, how long has it been since I’ve had time like this?”
She liked shopping. No—she loved it.
In the north, the most prosperous city after the capital, Elarion, was Diras, the city with the Gate.
Diras had a famous shopping street called the Golden Road, a place Helena visited at least once a week.
“Whew… it’s almost time for the midwinter new arrivals to pour in…”
The northern cold was harsh, but the cold on the Golden Road wasn’t the kind that froze your body or made you lonely.
It was a perfect excuse to buy expensive furs, and to choose several pairs of softly tanned lambskin gloves.
That feeling of satisfaction when sliding your hands into new gloves lined with soft fur…
From the warm, fragrant air inside shops drenched in perfume, to the witty jokes of familiar clerks, the sheen of velvet, the way lambskin fit snugly in your hand, the breathtaking warmth of fur, and the cool radiance of gemstones that shone even more beautifully in winter…
She missed all of it.
In the end, Helena cried out,
“Ah, I want to go shopping!”
The catalogs brought by southern merchants were thin and uninteresting. Even the few illustrations were so literal that there was no fun in looking at them.
“Who would order anything after seeing this?”
After thoroughly flipping through even that meager catalog from beginning to end, Helena ended up choosing nothing and set it aside.
She felt foolish for having stared so intently at such a boring catalog just because she wanted to buy something.
“Hah… I want to go back north already.”
She missed the days of losing track of time while changing dresses and trying on furs.
And when she was exhausted after visiting several shops, there was also the familiar tearoom she would head to as if by routine.
If someone she knew happened to be there, she could never just pass by.
As they sat together chatting, more people would gradually gather around the table, and when someone suggested going to a banquet somewhere, that would be a day she never went home.
Those dazzling yet fleeting days, like champagne bubbles, ached in her heart.
As Helena lay on the bed absentmindedly reminiscing, she heard the sound of several people talking loudly.
“What is it?”
She rose weakly and staggered toward the window.
People were gathered in front of the entrance, staring in amazement at something loaded onto a cart.
“What is that?”
Curiosity won out over annoyance.
Helena draped an indoor gown over her shoulders and went down the stairs.
As soon as she stepped outside, a strange smell hit her full force. Musty and rotten, yet at the same time fishy.
It was a smell she had never encountered in her life.
Startled by the stench, Helena covered her nose and moved forward.
Three laborers were pulling something down from the cart. The strange odor was coming from it.
With her nose tightly pinched, Helena shouted,
“What in the world is thaaat?!”
Her cry was close to a scream, but because she was holding her nose so tightly, it came out nasal and muffled.
At her voice, Benjamin—who was also reeking of the same fishy smell—approached and said,
“It’s a gift.”
“A giiift?”
Her intended sharp retort of ‘A gift? You brought this pile of manure as a gift? Are you insane?’ didn’t quite come across properly when delivered in a nasal voice.
Indeed, Benjamin spoke with an awkward expression, like someone who had brought an overly enthusiastic present.
“It’s a wild boar. I wanted you to eat something good for your health. I’ll have it served at dinner.”
Still holding her nose tightly, Helena widened her eyes.
Just as Benjamin said, what the laborers had unloaded was a gigantic wild boar.
But she had never seen a wild boar this huge and grotesque.
That’s… a wild boar?
She had seen wild boars before. They were a popular quarry at every hunting festival, and were often caught in Hodlin’s hunting grounds.
Northern wild boars weren’t very large, and their long black fur made them not particularly horrifying to look at.
In contrast, the wild boar before her was as massive as a bison. Its foul-smelling brown fur was filthy with blood and mud, and from either side of its broad snout protruded enormous tusks like an elephant’s ivory.
You expect me… to eat that thing…?
Dizziness washed over her. Helena staggered.
She knew wild boar was edible—she had seen it at hunting festivals.
After weighing and measuring the captured prey, the men would have servants light fires and roast the boar, then hack it apart with knives and eat it.
It was less like cooking and more like an execution by fire—a savage spectacle.
