What Language Is That?

“Excuse me.”

Just as I was making a sulky face, the head butler entered the room.

He pushed in a silver cart, served the tea, set the afternoon tea stand on the table, and withdrew.

Come to think of it, I’m hungry.

On the plates of the tea stand were small sandwiches, macarons, scones, and the like.

There’s butter, but is it the milk kind? I don’t really like that much, so maybe jam instead…

Ah.

At times like this, should I speak to the lady first? It wouldn’t do for me alone to start picking things up and eating.

It was just as I glanced over at Lady Shitoen.

Vandel let out a breath and leaned his back against the sofa again.

“…Hey, Vandel.”

The fact that I wound up worrying about him really just showed what a good person I was.

“Are you feeling unwell somewhere?”

“I’m just tired.”

He shrugged.

“There’s been a lot going on lately in the county. I pushed myself a little too hard.”

The Sheen County’s main source of income was tariffs with other countries and trade in imported goods, making use of its borderland location.

Though it was glamorous and bustling, it was also true that there were tax evaders, bandits, and swindlers around.

I mainly patrolled the mountains and the land borders on horseback during the winter season, but over there he ran around on border patrol all year, so naturally it must take stamina.

“Something to do with mountain bandits?”

That was what I had assumed, but Vandel gave an ambiguous shake of the head. His expression plainly said this topic ends here.

“Um… if I may be so bold, may I say something?”

Suddenly, a bright voice rose from beside me.

“Huh? Yes, of course.”

The one even more surprised than me was Vandel.

He blinked and looked at Lady Shitoen.

“Might it be anemia? Has a doctor properly examined you?”

Lady Shitoen was looking at Vandel, seated opposite us, with her delicate brows drawn together.

“Ane…mia?”

I murmured it without thinking.

Somehow, I had always imagined it as a woman’s illness.

The sort where someone turns pale and then slowly faints.

“What makes you think that?”

Vandel neither confirmed nor denied it.

Pinching the handle of his cup with his fingers, he gracefully brought it to his lips.

“Your nails.”

““Nails?””

Vandel and I spoke in unison.

“It’s what is commonly called spoon nails. They are common in anemia.”

What Lady Shitoen was pointing at were Vandel’s fingers resting on the handle. Or rather, his nails.

“Huh? These?”

Vandel set the cup back on the saucer, turned his nails upward, and spread his hand open.

“Well… they are curved upward.”

“Just like their owner, I guess they bounce back.”

I threw in a jab, but Vandel ignored me.

“Have you been taking any medicine?”

Lady Shitoen tilted her head slightly and asked Vandel.

“Yes. The doctor told me to.”

Vandel glanced at me.

Wait, so it really is anemia?

But the moment our eyes met, he looked away.

He had the look of someone who hadn’t wanted me to notice.

Embarrassed, or maybe awkward.

Why was he making that kind of face?

While I sat there blinking, Vandel began muttering in a low voice.

“I put old nails into wine… and drink that.”

“Ah, I see.”

After nodding several times, Lady Shitoen tilted her head again.

“What about your meals? Pork liver, or chicken…”

At once, Vandel grimaced, and I hurriedly cut in.

“Vandel may go by the nickname ‘The Vampire Count,’ but he’s hated meat since long ago…”

Apparently his sense of taste and smell are both unusually sharp, so he won’t eat gamey animal meat.

“You mentioned earlier that your county is on the frontier… in that case, what about fish?”

She nodded along with what I said, then turned back to Vandel again.

What’s this, what’s this. Lady Shitoen is talking a lot.

“I do… eat fish, but not enough to say I like it.”

Maybe he disliked the fishy smell there too, but I had the impression he ate mild white fish with herbs and salt sprinkled on it.

Still, basically, this guy had lived on bread and vegetables since way back. I felt like I occasionally saw him eat sausage or ham, though.

“Bonito would be good, for example. It should be just about the season for it now. In that dark red portion…”

Lady Shitoen continued. But—

“The dark red portion, you mean that part?”

Vandel’s face twisted even more.

Well, I could understand that. It was the fishiest-smelling part of the flesh.

“If the smell bothers you, it is fine to wash it well in cold water and soak it for a while. If you coat it in batter and mix dried herbs into the breadcrumbs, that will remove more of the odor as well. Then fry it… yes, and if you eat it with something like lemon squeezed over it, the absorption rate in the small intestine will rise.”

“Absorption rate?”

I found myself asking back. Lady Shitoen turned her violet eyes toward me and nodded.

“It is not enough simply to eat things rich in iron and nutrients. There is a proper way to eat them. Unless the anemia is caused by an internal organ disorder, it is entirely possible to improve it through diet.”

“Iron… You eat iron?”

I asked because it sounded strange to me, and Lady Shitoen tilted her head slightly.

“You do not eat iron itself. Foods also contain iron.”

Then she turned her violet eyes toward Vandel.

“And the method Lord Vandel mentioned earlier—drinking wine with nails placed in it—is also one of the remedies handed down since ancient times. Iron content leaches into the wine, so the idea is to drink it and improve the condition that way.”

There was not the slightest hesitation in Lady Shitoen’s words.

“However, it is also important to make your daily meals more nourishing. In truth, pork, beef, and chicken liver are rich in iron and are foods the body can absorb easily, but being forced to eat things you dislike every time is nothing but suffering. There are many other foods rich in iron.”

Lady Shitoen went on speaking to Vandel.

“For example, komatsuna, spinach, and hijiki are like that as well. As for beans, soybeans. However, the iron contained in such plants is difficult for the human small intestine to absorb. So even if you eat a great deal, it cannot be absorbed the way animal liver can. That said, depending on what you eat together with it, you can raise the absorption rate.”

“What do you mean, what you eat together with it? You mean eating it along with something else?”

Vandel leaned forward and asked.

“It becomes more effective if taken together with vitamin C or citric acid.”

““Vitamin C and citric acid?””

Again, Vandel and I spoke at the same time. What the heck was that supposed to be? First of all, what language even was it?

As I sat there blinking, Lady Shitoen hurried to explain.

“U-um… fruits and vinegar. It is good to eat it together with such things… I think you can devise ways through the cooking method as well. Marinade, for example, or drinking orange juice with the meal.”

““Huh.””

Vandel and I sounded like fools, saying the same thing together, then we looked at each other.

He immediately turned his face away again, and when I wondered what that was about, I saw him pout like a child.

“Anaemia… I bet you thought it was the sort of illness women get.”

I was about to say yes, but stopped at the last second. I had a feeling that would wound some part of his pride.

So that was why he hadn’t wanted to tell me. That he felt unwell because of sickness.

He really was as prideful as ever.

What an idiot. Honestly, there was no point trying to look cool in front of me.

“There’s no such thing as a man’s illness or a woman’s illness.”

I said that instead.

“That’s right. There is no difference between men and women when it comes to the suffering caused by illness. Everyone suffers equally.”

Lady Shitoen smiled brightly beside me.

“If your anemia improves, you’ll be shocked by how much easier things become. You’ll think, ‘What? Was breathing this easy for everyone else all along? That’s unfair.’”

And so, Lady Shitoen brought her clenched fists together on her lap.

“So please do your best to eat properly.”

“…You sound rather like a doctor.”

When I said exactly what I had been thinking, Lady Shitoen literally gave a tiny jump right there on the sofa. I really felt like she had floated several centimeters into the air.

“N-no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.”

By the middle of it, I could no longer tell whether she was saying no no or just making sounds.

She kept repeating it while shaking her head from side to side, and in the end, perhaps she got dizzy, because she toppled gently against me. Saying, “Eek—sorry,” she scooted all the way to the edge of the sofa. What is this adorable creature? What am I supposed to do?

“No, seriously.”

Vandel’s low voice brushed through the room.

The air tightened at once.

“Do you have medical knowledge? When one says the Kingdom of Tania, one thinks of an inland mountainous region. My apologies, but our county has had no dealings with it… Is your father, Lord Balimore, perhaps the king’s court physician or something of the sort?”

“No, that…”

A moment ago she had been bright red, but now Lady Shitoen had gone pale and faltered.

Seeing that, I became a little uneasy, wondering whether it might involve some kind of state secret.

“So… did you study medical knowledge somewhere?”

Glancing at him, I cut in.

Lady Shitoen looked up at me uneasily.

But she remained silent.

“So… this may be a poor way of putting it, but are your words correct? If one truly eats in that manner, will anemia be cured?”

I changed the wording from how Vandel had put it. I thought it might sound harsh, but Lady Shitoen nodded in relief.

“There are individual differences, but what I have told you now should be correct. Unless it is due to organ disease, anemia will improve this way. Lord Vandel’s nails are not only spoon-shaped, they also have ridges running across them. That indicates that when those nails were formed, he was in a state of malnutrition. I suspect his diet is fundamentally inadequate.”

“You’re the son of a count, and your diet is inadequate? What’s wrong with you?”

I was dumbfounded.

Back in our student days, the cafeteria forced him to eat, but the moment he got back to his family home, he really just did whatever he pleased, didn’t he?

“So you are not a physician?”

Vandel pressed the point. He’s awfully persistent, I thought. It didn’t matter, did it?

“I am not… a physician. But please believe me. This knowledge should not be mistaken. If you continue with the diet I have described, Lord Vandel’s condition will recover, and that will prove my words true.”

Lady Shitoen clenched her fists and said it firmly.

Well, that did make sense.

“I see… Not a physician, but possessed of medical knowledge.”

“Hm?”

At Vandel’s mutter, I looked at him.

“This may be useful.”

The moment our eyes met, he suddenly said that.

“Hey, Saryu.”

“…What?”

He looked straight at me, and somehow that made me falter.

“When can you bring this young lady to my territory? What is the earliest possible day?”

“Huh?”

A ridiculous sound came out of me.

He grabbed me by the back of the neck and yanked me toward him.

The table legs rattled with a clatter, and from below came the rich scent of butter and sugar.

“I will submit the request to His Majesty myself, in my father’s name. When is it? When can you come to our county?”

He asked me from a distance close enough for our noses to touch. He was as impatient as ever.

“Uh… I’ve got work too, you know…”

Seeing him from this close really does make me think his complexion is sickly. That face of his. Eat a lot and get better already.

“How many days will it take you to wrap it up?”

“…Five days, maybe.”

“Then with travel… it will take seven days at most… Good. I’ll inform my father as well.”

The moment he said it, he kissed my cheek again—chu.

“Cut it out!”

When I shoved him away with a thump, he rose smoothly to his feet and gave Lady Shitoen a courteous bow.

“Then I shall await you in my father’s territory, my mysterious young lady.”

Wearing his usual dazzling smile, he left the room.

And so— it was decided that Lady Shitoen and I would go to the County of Sheen.