Deni's Treasure

The loaves inside the crinkling, see-through paper came in every shape and color. Dong-hui picked one up and peeled the wrapper back to show him how. The butler could not get over the transparent paper; he had never seen such a thing in his life.

“You tear it open like this and hand it over. This is all we have for now, so start with the children. When the cart comes from the castle, hand the rations out in order, the old and the sick first.”
“Yes. I understand.”

The bread the lord had handed him gave off a very sweet smell. Forty years and more a butler at the castle, and he had never once tasted bread this fine. He swallowed without meaning to and set to peeling wrappers in a hurry, and the knight standing beside him lent a hand as well.

The knights guarding the carriage kept stealing sidelong glances at the bread. Watching them lick their lips, she felt guilty for no good reason.

“The moment we are back at the castle, I’ll see the same bread handed round to the knights who came out with us today.”
“Th— thank you!”

Broad grins spread across the knights’ faces at Dong-hui’s words.

— Pop! Pop! Pop!

One word from Dong-hui, and red hearts came shooting up over the knights’ heads, thick and fast. Some of them sent up dozens apiece, and the popping went on without a break for a good long while.

I haven’t even given them anything — I only promised, and they’re this happy.

By the time the wrappers were all off, a murmuring crowd had gathered around them without her noticing. Starving as they were, their eyes glittered as though they might come rushing in at any second. Anyone might have been rattled by it, but the butler must have been used to this kind of thing. Drawing himself up straight, he stepped forward and raised his voice. He looked to have no strength left in him. Yet she had never expected a back that bone-thin could look so dependable.

“Her ladyship will be handing out food to the village of Morta today.”

The butler’s words landed, and the people who had been glaring at the carriage broke into a murmur. She had thought a cheer would go up straight away; there was none. If anything their faces only tightened further, everyone busy working out what she was up to.

“First, only those with a child of five or under in the house are to come forward.”

The bread the lord had given him was nowhere near enough to go round every child in the village.

At the butler’s shout, adults with small children in their arms began edging forward. Even as they came they seemed unsure of it, a few steps and then a look back over the shoulder, again and again. The fierce bearing of the knights standing beside the butler frightened them. This was plainly their first time going near a carriage with a noble in it, and it had them on edge.

The first to reach the front of the carriage was a young woman holding a child of about two. Twenty or thereabouts, and as bone-thin as everybody else, she had the courage to step out first and a hard resolve in her eyes.

Dong-hui stood at the front of the carriage and watched her closely as she came. She held the child tight and kept a wary eye on the knights and the butler by turns, every spine up like a hedgehog’s. For that child she looked ready to throw herself bare-handed at an armed knight.

“Here you are. Take this for now, and come back for grain in a little while.”

She had come braced for trouble; instead the bread was held out to her, with nobody raising a hand to stop it. Her eyes went round.

“Are— are you really giving it to me?”
“Take it with you.”

The butler pulled the bread out of its plastic wrapper as he spoke and held it out.

Once they saw the child’s mother carry her bread away unhindered, the others with children in their arms began to come forward, one and two at a time, and the space in front of the carriage was crowded in no time. What bread was left ran out fast, and all around the carriage parents were busy tearing off pieces and putting them into their children’s mouths.

Not one person tried to take bread off a child’s parents, perhaps because the knights were standing guard with a sharp eye on everything. It helped, too, that the parents kept close to the knights while they fed their children, just in case.

A woman who had been giving her child an empty breast broke her bread in half, put one piece in her mouth and held the rest out to her husband. He shook his head and fed it back to her instead. Just watching his wife eat seemed to be enough for him, and a bright smile came over his face.

— Ding. Ding. Ding.

The sound of the estate residents’ favorability figure changing came at her from every direction at once, until her head swam. Over nothing more than a loaf of bread apiece, hearts large and small kept rising over the people’s heads and bursting with a pop, the way soap bubbles do.

Just now, though, she had no great wish to check the figure. Her face heavy, Dong-hui watched in silence as the people made the bread vanish before you could blink.

“My lady, it is time you were heading back.”
“Already?”

It did not feel as though they had been there thirty minutes, but there the butler was at the front of the carriage, saying it. Chloe’s startled face flustered him, and he stumbled over his words.

“Ah… i— it is only that other times you have set off straight away. Would— would you care to stay a little longer?”
“Mm. I ought to see the cart come in. And I have to check that it gets handed out properly.”
“I see! Yes! Very good!”

Visibly delighted, the butler went off at a run toward where the people were sitting.

A little later, a temporary distribution post went up at the entrance to the village. A few tables and some old chairs hurried over from the village hall were the whole of it, but there was hope in the people’s faces.

“The cart’s coming in!”

Somebody’s shout went up.

“Hurraaaaah!”

Only then did a cheer ring out through the quiet village.

The butler urged her to wait in comfort inside the carriage; Dong-hui dug her heels in and sat down on a chair set out at the temporary distribution post instead.

“That chair is uncomfortable.”

He fretted over it as he brought out a chair with neither cushion nor back.

“It’s fine. It’s comfortable.”

The old chair had loose legs and rocked from side to side at the smallest movement. Dong-hui balanced herself well enough on it, sat bolt upright and gazed straight ahead.

In a plain navy dress, with the barest minimum of ornament on her, the lord looked as though she were sharing in her people’s suffering in earnest. To the butler, who knew Chloe’s gaudy taste better than anybody, today’s dress made a deep impression as well.

“If you are uncomfortable, you have only to say so at any time. I will see you to the carriage.”

The butler bowed his head and said it with real feeling, and instead of an answer Dong-hui gave him a bright smile and a nod.

Delma had come out with the cart carrying the grain, and she kept to Chloe’s side as well. From the moment she arrived in Morta she had been in floods of tears and had not stopped once. At first Dong-hui put it down to the wretched state of the villagers, until she caught what Delma was sniffling under her breath and found it was something else entirely.

“To think our lady has finally begun to look after the estate. I could die now with nothing left to regret.”

What Delma wept over was none other than Chloe Grace. The childish lord who had never thought of anyone but herself had finally begun to take an interest in the lives of the estate’s residents. Dong-hui, embarrassed, had no idea what to say back and kept her mouth firmly shut.

Up ahead the food distribution had already begun. The villagers carried off grain that came to very little and thanked Chloe over and over as they went.

How long had she been sitting there? Her back and her tailbone had both begun to ache stiffly on the hard chair. Happily, the distribution was almost over.

“I think you may stand up now.”

Delma, pressed close to Chloe’s side, said it with a look at the little that was left of the line.

Dong-hui had been wondering whether to get up anyway, and she rose from the chair with the air of someone giving in.

And that was when it happened.

A boy who looked about five came shuffling hesitantly over.

“What is it?”

Dong-hui asked, looking at the child standing in front of her. The ankles showing under his high-riding trouser hems were as scrawny as twigs, his nose had gone pink, and yellow snot ran freely out of it.

The boy scrubbed his nose quickly with the back of his hand and held something out to Chloe. Whatever it was, the grubby black fist hid it from view.

“What’s that?”
“It’s… a present.”

Shyness and nerves mixed in the boy’s voice, and it trembled faintly as he answered.

“For me?”
“Yes.”

Dong-hui glanced once at Delma beside her, then bent down and held out her hand. Overjoyed, the boy set what he had been gripping tight in both hands onto her palm.

“What is this?”

The boy had handed her a white pebble about the size of a 100-won coin. He must have held it a very long time; even in this weather it lay warm against her palm.

“It’s my treasure, but I’m giving it to my lady.”

For a treasure it was a poor, very ordinary thing, but the smooth shine on it told her how lovingly the boy had handled it.

“Are you sure you can give me something this precious?”

Instead of answering, the boy nodded with all his might.

“Mom said so. She said if my lady hadn’t come today, my little sibling would have died. She said I can go hungry a while longer, but they couldn’t have held out much more. They had the bread my lady handed out today, boiled up in water, and got their strength back. Mom said she’d boil me some porridge too, with the grain we got today.”

She had put him at about five, but to hear him talk he was older than that.

“How old are you? What’s your name?”
“I’m nine. My name is Deni.”

Deni’s thin cheeks flushed red as he introduced himself.

“Deni is a fine big brother. Deni’s little sibling is a lucky one.”

Dong-hui took off the cloak she was wearing and handed it to Deni.

“This is my thanks for the present. Put it over your sibling.”

She had a feeling he would refuse it if she gave it to him for himself, so she made a point of saying it was for his sibling as she handed the cloak over. Deni took it with a dazed look on his face.

“It’s going to turn cold soon.”

Dong-hui added it when she saw him hesitate.

“Thank you!”

At the mention of the coming cold, Deni bent at the waist in a quick bow. He had not washed in a long while, and the smell of him was musty.

With that he was off home at a run, and Dong-hui gazed after him a while before turning to look the village slowly over.

The moment she was back at Grace Castle, Dong-hui opened the status window and checked the favorability figure before anything else.

“No way!”

The favorability figure that had been past minus two hundred thousand had climbed by close to thirty thousand points.