Go Dig Me Some Dirt

This is all because my body’s gone weak.

That was the conclusion Dong-hui had reached after seeing the apparition of a man who looked like a hairtail. The parade of LOLs the status window had thrown up straight afterward nagged at her, but she used the expression plenty herself, so the uneasiness did not last long.

The status window would carry on as though it meant to help her with all its heart, and then, out of nowhere, behave like a mischievous little sibling getting in the way of her homework. Perhaps that was why she kept ending up squabbling with a status window that was not even a person.

“Ugh, I don’t know either.”

She had never been the sort to brood over anything for long in the first place. Perhaps it was a habit picked up from a life spent scrambling to deal with whatever problem had landed in front of her at the time. Dong-hui had urgent problems to spare.

Outside the carriage window the sky was steeping in orange, little by little, and watching it, Dong-hui nodded off again.

By the time the carriage arrived at Grace Castle the sun had almost gone and the light had turned dim. The coachman who had driven all day, the horses, and the lord who had been riding inside the carriage were all equally worn out.

“Shall I have the bathwater drawn?”

Delma, who had come out to meet her, asked it as she walked quickly along at Chloe’s side. She could not say how startled she had been when the coachman told her they were late because they had stopped at the village of Enol on the way. It had not been on the schedule, and the horses and the coachman both looked utterly spent. If it was this bad for everyone else, her ladyship might well keel over on the spot.

But the lord’s reaction was nothing at all like what Delma had expected.

“No. Instead, would you bring me some Tiestone powder and some Komo tree sap?”
“I beg your pardon? Just like that? Without so much as resting?”

Chloe’s skin, glossy that morning, was rough and dry with fatigue. She must have dozed against the carriage wall, because loose strands had worked their way out of her neatly dressed hair and stuck up every which way.

With the Chloe Grace of before, such a thing could never have happened. Her ladyship had once been satisfied with nothing less than being prettily got up like a doll every moment of the day, and here she stood behaving as though the state of her hair were nothing to her at all. That she had grown up was welcome, but the suddenness of the change kept startling Delma, again and again.

“There’s something I have to check, urgently. I’ll bathe as soon as I’ve checked it.”
“How long do you think it will take?”

Delma asked, unable to take her eyes off the lord’s tangled hair.

“Well, I won’t know until I try. It’s late today, so it shouldn’t take long.”
“Yes, my lady. Then shall I have the Komo tree and the Tiestone brought up to your room?”

“No. To the kitchen.”
“Ah… yes.”

From somewhere came what sounded like the head cook’s wail of anguish.

Dong-hui’s laboratory was the kitchen. Fire and water and bowls of every size were hers to use as she pleased, and the splendid marble worktop never turned a hair, no matter how hot the pot set down on it might be.

“What are you going to do with these?”

She had brought them because it was the lord’s order and there was nothing else for it, but doubt was written all over Delma’s face. She knew from Handsome that the lord had mixed Tiestone powder and Komo tree sap in the shade garden and made something out of them.

And that wasn’t the end of it?

Wondering what her lady kept meaning to do with things that could neither be eaten nor be made into anything, Delma was worried sick.

“I don’t really know either.”
“Pardon?”

She’s been behaving so sensibly of late that I fetched the things over gladly enough — and it seems I trusted her rather too far.

Delma barely swallowed the sigh rising in her and took her place at Chloe’s side. Pathetic her lady might be, but she was her liege, and if she could help when help was needed, that was enough.

Dong-hui took one pale gray piece of Tiestone in her hand, turned it this way and that, and dropped it into a mortar with a light thud.

— Tok, tok, tok.

That was the sound of Tiestone being pounded in a small mortar. Soft rock to begin with, it had barely been struck a few times before it turned to a fine powder.

Next came the Komo tree. To draw the sap out, Dong-hui cut a branch and held a small bowl underneath it, and the moment the knife went through, a thick, sticky liquid quickly filled the bowl. She had been through the process once already, so she went at it without hesitating.

Delma watched in wonder as Dong-hui made powder and drew out sap with the grave expression of an alchemist. She was a lady Delma had watched since the day she was born, and yet this was the first time she had ever seen her like this.

She was dying to ask whether her lady knew what it was she was making, but she bit it back hard. Whatever it was she was doing, there was something endearing about the sight of her concentrating, lips pursed into a point.

Her ladyship mixed the Tiestone powder and the Komo tree sap in equal proportions, filled several bowls of the same size with it, then stirred it round and round with a wooden spatula, as though she were making bread dough.

Unbidden, Delma pictured the head cook finding the ruined wooden spatula tomorrow morning and pulling a face fit to cry. That spatula, she rather thought, would have to be thrown into the fireplace or the hearth tonight.

Ten bowls of thick gray liquid stood in a row on the marble worktop before she knew it.

Watching what the lord was doing as though bewitched, Delma suddenly remembered the letter tucked in her breast, drew it out, and held it out to Dong-hui.

“What’s that?”

Dong-hui, staring hard at the bowls laid out in a line, glanced at the envelope Delma held out.

“A letter from Viscount Patrasche, my lady.”
“Patrasche? What, has it got pistachios in it?¹”

Dong-hui cackled at her own feeble joke and then met the eyes of Delma, who was doing nothing but blinking. Delma’s face said, plain as day, “There her ladyship goes again, whatever is it this time.”

“What is a pistachio?”
“Nothing. Never mind. What does it say?”

Dong-hui’s lips stuck out further than usual as she asked it. The joke she had delivered with such ambition had not got through to Delma in the slightest.

“As it is a letter addressed to my lady I cannot open it first, but I would guess it is most likely a letter saying they will be visiting Grace Castle before long. That letter always used to arrive around this time of year.”
“Does it?”

Dong-hui shrugged and tore open the envelope. Her hands were still spattered with paste from the stirring, so the envelope ended up in a ruin, and she had to draw the letter out with her fingertips and wipe her hands off on the torn paper.

Delma saw it, was aghast, and held out a handkerchief, but Dong-hui declined, saying it would only get dirty.

“Wow, would you look at that handwriting! Anyone seeing it would think it was printed.”
“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing. I only meant the handwriting is good. But the person who sent this letter isn’t Pistachio.”
“Ah! Then it must be Lady Eileen who sent it.”
“Eileen?”

She had never heard the name before. Letting on that she did not know it seemed the worse course, though, so Dong-hui pressed her lips shut and only glared at the letter.

The letter said that her father would be visiting Grace before long, and that she would be coming with him when he did. And bringing a present for Chloe with her.

“It says they’re bringing a present?”

She had no particularly good feeling toward the Viscount, and yet the word ‘present’ set her heart oddly fluttering. She had almost no experience of being given a present by anyone.

“My lady, how can you go being pleased like that again? He is bound to tell you to sell one of the villages you have left this time as well.”
“Then I just won’t sell.”
“Ah!”

Delma remembered that Grace’s finances were no longer what they had once been, and broke belatedly into a broad smile.

“In that case, you absolutely must not do as Lady Eileen says this time! Do you understand?”
“Why?”

Dong-hui asked it in a voice that sounded stupid even to her. She did not really know what feelings Chloe Grace had held toward this person called Eileen. Whenever she gave a half-and-half reaction like this, Delma would lay out a whole string of information of her own accord so that Dong-hui could judge for herself.

“That is because— oh dear! Ought I to be saying this at all?”

Delma made to open her mouth, shut it like a clam, and then heaved sigh after sigh. She opened her mouth, shook her head, pressed her lips together, and ran through the whole routine again and again.

Thinking that at this rate there would be nothing left of her lips, Dong-hui grabbed Delma’s arm with a hand still smeared with the stuff.

“Just say it.”

Delma looked at the gray smear on her own clothes and raised her eyebrows, then let out a long sigh as though giving up and went on.

“The things Lady Eileen gives my lady as presents, as though she were handing out alms — they are all, well…”
“Why? Junky? Is it all cheap junk?”

Delma pressed her lips shut again and nodded.

“And Chloe never even knew it, and grinned away, delighted.”
“…Yes.”

Delma answered slowly, looking in puzzlement at the lord who spoke about herself as though she were somebody else.

“It’s because past me is pathetic. Let’s just say that wasn’t me. All right?”

Dong-hui, catching herself at Delma’s reaction, mumbled her way through it.

“Yes!”

Whether or not it was the method that had done it, Delma’s face was brighter than it had ever been.

“But, my lady, what are you making all of those for?”

Those thick, gray-tinged things did not look in the least like food. Looking at them sitting there in the bowls, Delma grew anxious in case her lady tipped one into her mouth, saying it was perfectly all right, the way she had with the Dural.

“Ah! This — I want to try mixing something into it.”
“Into that?”

“Mm. I did manage to make something like cement, but it doesn’t feel like that’s the end of it.”
“Cement?”

“There’s such a thing. A substance so hard it makes buildings and roads sturdy and long-lasting.”
“You know about things like that as well?”

In a whole lifetime Delma had never once seen Chloe open a book, and this side of the lord struck her as nothing but strange.

“Why won’t it set?”

Dong-hui, her face serious, peered at the solutions she had made. Mixed with nothing but Komo tree sap and Tiestone powder, the stuff had hardened in the blink of an eye; now that one more thing had gone in, it refused to set.

She was mixing in every kind of powder to be had in the kitchen, salt and flour among them, one at a time. But whenever a powder other than Komo tree sap and Tiestone powder went in, the viscosity dropped a great deal from what it had been at first. The one she had mixed salt into even separated, the Tiestone powder and the Komo tree sap parting like water and oil.

“No way, this is fascinating. I couldn’t use this method for building houses by the sea.”

She was talking to herself, marveling at what she had just learned, when Delma, who had been watching her blankly all this while, tossed out a remark.

“But, my lady.”
“Mm?”
“Is that what you’re going to make the roads and put up the houses with?”
“No, of course not, obviously I mix in dirt too, and wood… Ack!”
“What is it!”
“Dirt!”
“I beg your pardon?”

Dong-hui realized belatedly that she had not put in the most important ingredient of all.

“Where is there any dirt?”
“In the garden, I should think?”

The moment Delma answered, Dong-hui held out a large bucket in front of her.

“Go dig me some dirt.”