Not The Work Of Human Hands

Belly bulging out in front of him and his round chin folded double over itself, he took one look at the lord of Grace, heaved a great sigh, and shook his head as though she were putting him to no end of trouble. Every time he moved, the ornaments hung about his clothes clinked and jangled.

“My lady, that pearl necklace you took off me last time — I gave you a truly fair price on that, I did. Anywhere else they would charge you twice as much for it. It is because I know how things stand here that I knocked the price down for you especially.”

Irritation showed through every word he spoke, and it was plain enough how little he had wanted to come here. Listening to him spit it all out point-blank, without so much as a greeting, Dong-hui felt her annoyance surge.

The woman she used to be could never have let what she felt inside show on the outside. People are creatures of adaptation, they say, and Dong-hui really was adapting to her present situation in a thoroughly animal fashion.

“What was it you said your name was?”

Dong-hui creased her eyes a touch and tipped her head a touch, as though the name would not quite come to her. There was no small arrogance in that languid voice.

“Pardon?”

The lord of Grace had never once behaved like this before, and the jewel merchant stared at Chloe with a baffled look in his eyes. Has she lost her mind? That was exactly the face he wore.

Let him think what he liked. With the unhurried expression of a woman who had become Nero of Rome, Dong-hui put it to him again, short.

“Your name.”

Acting arrogant, it turned out, was something you got better at with practice.

He twitched one corner of his mouth for a moment, as though the whole business were absurd, then answered indifferently.

“It is Gold Rich.”

“Pfft!”

It was a name made for a jewel merchant.

Dong-hui did not even try to hide the laugh that burst out of her, and asked, grinning all over her face.

“Is that your real name?”

The whole thing had the look of an alias cooked up for the jewel trade.

“My family has run a jewel business for generations. You know all this perfectly well, so why act surprised now? It is my real name. Surely you did not drag a busy man out here on account of my name. Why did you send for me? There is no chance Lord Grace means to buy jewels. Don’t tell me — you are not thinking of selling back that pearl necklace you bought off me last time, are you? For a necklace you have already worn I absolutely cannot give you full value. I will give you half of what I sold it for. Not one coin above that.”

Gold Rich, who had got through his introduction, his argument and his conclusion before Dong-hui could get a word in, waved a thick hand and shook his head. The gold bracelet jammed tight around his fat wrist flashed and glittered, and that slime of a chin of his wobbled every time his head moved. He was such an eyesore that she wanted to take hold of the thick chin-flesh and stretch it right out.

“I do mean to sell. But not that cheap pearl necklace you sold me.”
“Ch— cheap, you say?!”

Gold Rich’s sallow face flooded red. He was a man with enormous pride in the jewels he sold; he had, granted, overcharged the lord of Grace a little, but they were absolutely not cheap goods, and so he was furious.

Someone else was red in the face with rage, and she felt perfectly comfortable about it. A genuinely marvelous thing. Holding back the laughter that kept trying to get out, Dong-hui waved a hand about as though it were nothing worth mentioning.

Gold Rich’s face went as scarlet as the inside of a watermelon.

“Shut it. Just take a look at this necklace. What will you give me for it?”

Dong-hui set a necklace with a great ruby in it on the table and watched Gold Rich’s face. He had been looking on with an expression that said, what worthless thing is she pulling out now, and the instant his eyes landed on the ruby necklace they went so wide they looked ready to pop out of his head.

“Th— this—!”

It must be the delicate craftsmanship, the sort they cannot do here.
The gap in technique must be enormous.

Judging by the standard of the pearl necklace Gold Rich was supposed to have sold the lord of Grace, she had already guessed that jewel-craft in this place was not especially advanced. But he had jumped as though struck by lightning, which put the gap far wider than she had expected.

Dong-hui snorted a laugh and laid out a sapphire, a diamond and a gold necklace on the table, one after another. She had not noticed while she was frantically sweeping them into the Inventory, but now that they were out, Borimdang had held rather more expensive-looking pieces than she had thought. However small the place might be, a jeweler’s was still a jeweler’s.

“I have a fair few like these. Well? Will you take them?”

She crossed her legs at her leisure and put it to the gaping Gold Rich, her posture tilted back a good deal further than a moment ago.

“Th— this— whose work is this, exactly?”

He asked it in a trembling voice, and his eyes were full of awe. Nothing was left of the man who had been putting on airs a moment before. Looking at necklaces worked by a craft this world could not so much as glimpse, he had actual tears standing in his eyes. At the very least, he was plainly a man in earnest about jewels.

I rather like that.

Dong-hui straightened her slouching body upright, brushed her sleeves down with a pat, pat, and answered as though it were nothing much.

“There is a route only I know. Which of course I cannot go blabbing about.”
“Th— then my lady will go on trading these goods, exclusively?”
“Mm. Only me. It is a secret trade nobody else can do — only I can.”
“This is not the work of human hands!”

Gold Rich, who had reasoned it out entirely for himself, said it in a dreamy voice, like a man who had just understood something.

Does that mean things that aren’t human live here too?

Dong-hui had any number of questions, but she smiled a knowing smile and added to the air of mystery. Now was exactly the right moment to drive the price up.

Honestly, it was not even a lie.

They won’t have been 100% handmade, so it isn’t only human work.
I have never told a lie.

Dong-hui repeated it to herself and looked at Gold Rich.

“So. Will you buy, or won’t you.”
“O— of course I will buy! How much shall I give you! I will pay however generously you like!”

Gold Rich had come a good deal closer than a moment before, and he answered fast, desperation all over his face. At the sight of him hurrying as though he had a competitor somewhere, Dong-hui’s mood got better and better.

“You have a good eye.”

She nodded and put on an unhurried smile for show, but inside she was rather stuck. She had no idea what jewels of this quality traded for, never mind what the unit of currency here even was.

Her mind working hard, Dong-hui called in her most solemn voice for Butler Scrooge, who had withdrawn. When it came to money, she felt certain, he would know better than anybody.

“You sent for me, my lady.”

Scrooge came in at the summons plainly displeased. He had heard talk of jewels being sold and had not been able to believe a word of it. Impoverished Grace Castle held nothing worth selling to a greedy Gold Rich, and still less did it hold money to buy jewels from him with.

He carried that sour look into the drawing room and kept it until he spotted the jewels laid out on the table, and then his face crumpled all at once. Crumpled up like that, a face that already had wrinkles to spare was nothing short of a silkworm pupa.

However much the feckless lord threw a tantrum demanding money, Scrooge was determined he would never open the door of the vault. If it got him thrown out of the castle then and there, so be it. He owed the late Marquess that much, one last act of loyalty.

His mind made up, Scrooge drew his stooped shoulders straight.

“I mean to sell these to Gold Rich.”
“That is absolutely out of the ques—… Pardon?”

He had not needed to hear her out; she would be telling him to fetch money, obviously, and the answer he had readied leapt out ahead of him. Scrooge whipped his head around to Dong-hui and blinked his wrinkled eyes.

“I said I am going to sell these to Gold Rich.”

But as the lord’s words belatedly sorted themselves out in his head, Scrooge’s firm expression collapsed in a single stroke. Dong-hui, busy watching Gold Rich, missed the change that swept over his face in that instant, and gestured for him to come closer.

Wondering whether he had heard right, Scrooge edged hesitantly toward the lord. When he had come close, the young lord gestured him closer still. She meant for him to bring his ear near, it seemed. Stealing glances at Gold Rich, who could not take his eyes off the jewels and was drooling freely, Scrooge slowly leaned in toward Chloe.

He still had no idea what was going on.

“You are bound to know this sort of dealing better than I do, so watch from beside me, and if that fellow tries to beat the price down, stop the deal at once. Understood?”
“Pardon? Ah… yes.”

Scrooge answered blankly, going half out of his mind all the while with curiosity about where those expensive things had come from. But her ladyship was not alone, and he could not bring himself to ask. His heart was in his throat at the thought that the lord might have gone and stolen them from somewhere. Even if she had, he must not let it show in front of that man, so Scrooge feigned composure and nodded slowly.

Ah, my lord Marquess. What am I to do about this?

With no idea that Scrooge was wailing on the inside, Dong-hui gave a satisfied smile. Everything was going exactly as she had planned.

Meanwhile Gold Rich, who had finished putting a price on the jewels, spoke in a voice that trembled and yet was careful.

“Twenty gold for the one ruby necklace, ten gold for the pearl necklace¹, forty gold for the diamond necklace, ten gold for the gold bracelet. That is what I will give you.”
“Eighty gold?”
“You have finished the reckoning already?”

Seeing Chloe give the total the moment the prices were named, Scrooge and Gold Rich were both startled out of their skins.