Meanwhile at the Temple

Meanwhile at the Temple

Meanwhile at the Temple

Before me was Lady Rozemyne, silently floating in a box containing a light-blue potion, bright-red lines streaked across her body. The High Priest removed his hands from the concoction, the small ripples on its surface making her hair sway ever so slightly.

He wiped his hands on a towel as he stood up, handed the towel to me, then opened the door. I couldn’t enter or leave this workshop on my own, so I hurriedly followed him out. He glanced back a single time at the box in which Lady Rozemyne was sleeping, then quietly closed the door.

“And now, only I can enter this room,” the High Priest said. “Rozemyne is safe.”

Even if attackers came to the temple, there was nothing they could do to reach her. Only once the High Priest knew that she was safe did his expression return to normal. He now looked as he usually did while at work.

“Fran, if you have any of the letters or memos Rozemyne left behind, show them to me. I wish to establish what plans she had for this winter.”

“As you wish.”

I promptly went to Lady Rozemyne’s work desk and took out the letters she had written to people. I also gathered the notes she had made for herself; she always copied them from her diptych onto proper paper so as to not forget them, which meant we would not have any issues identifying her immediate plans. It was initially a shock to see her using such expensive paper for mere notes, whether it was ripped or not, but I had since grown used to it. Lady Rozemyne felt most at home writing on plant paper, not wooden boards.

As I was organizing the letters into those for her noble associates, her temple associates, and her lower city associates, an ordonnanz flew into the room. It announced that the criminal had been caught, then returned to its yellow feystone form. The High Priest replied, “Very well. I shall return at once,” then sent the ordonnanz back.

“Fran, there is work for me to do at the castle,” he announced. “I will not return until it is time for the Dedication Ritual. I entrust the temple to you and my attendants. Use the blue priests as needed to finish the necessary preparations.”

The High Priest took the letters for Lady Rozemyne’s noble associates at once, then strode briskly out of the room. Once he was gone, the other attendants—who were supposed to have retired to their rooms for the day—returned to the High Bishop’s chambers.

“Fran, what did the High Priest say? Is Lady Rozemyne going to be okay?” Monika asked, looking up at me with worry. Nicola and Gil waited just as expectantly for my answer; they were all worried about Lady Rozemyne being rushed to her workshop so quickly.

“He said it is likely she will remain asleep for over a year. The poison she was given has put an unexpected strain on her body.”

“No way...”

Everyone looked to be on the verge of tears, but it would be a long time before Lady Rozemyne awakened; there was no point in rushing things.

“I will provide more details tomorrow. It is late, and you all need rest.”

The apprentices returned to their rooms, still unable to accept what had happened, while I alone stayed behind. It was my turn on night duty, and so I organized the room before writing a letter for Lutz, who could explain the circumstances to both Lady Rozemyne’s lower city family and the Plantin Company.

I spent the following day having to explain Lady Rozemyne’s situation again and again. The apprentices were up early, having been unable to sleep out of worry, so I gave them the explanatory letter I had written to Lutz and went for a much-needed nap.

Fourth bell rang before I knew it, and when I sat down for lunch, everyone demanded yet more explanations. The High Priest had not given me very precise details in the first place, so despite all their questions, there was not much I could say.

“As Lady Rozemyne said previously, please think of this as her staying at the castle for an extended period of time. We have no choice but to continue as if she were simply away. Please resume what you have been doing so that she does not encounter any complications upon her awakening.”

After finishing lunch, Zahm and I organized documents relating to Rozemyne’s work before leaving for the High Priest’s room. He would need to handle her High Bishop work while she was gone.

“Will the High Priest not collapse at this rate?” I asked, worriedly eyeing the mountain of documents before us. Zahm paused for a moment, then shook his head.

“I assume he will survive, thanks largely to him taking Lady Rozemyne’s advice and training other blue priests to help him. I shudder to imagine a world in which he had not done so. Even if she had done nothing else, this fact alone would have earned her my utmost gratitude. Praise be to the gods!”

Zahm had once served the same blue priest as Fritz, so he had quickly come to appreciate both the High Priest’s competence and the ease of working beneath him. He had been praising Lady Rozemyne for her skill ever since she was an apprentice blue shrine maiden, thankful for her ability to help the High Priest with his work.

When the time had come to choose one of the High Priest’s attendants to leave and serve Lady Rozemyne, Zahm had volunteered sooner than anyone. The food in the High Bishop’s chambers was of a higher quality, and the greater workload for each attendant made one’s contributions feel that much more meaningful—not to mention that Lady Rozemyne taking on more work would ultimately relieve the burden on the High Priest.

“Now then, shall we go? The High Priest’s attendants will need matters explained to them as well.”

With that, Zahm and I carried the box of documents from the High Bishop’s chambers to the High Priest’s chambers.

“Fran, Zahm—we have been waiting for your arrival,” one of the attendants said. “This shelf has been cleared for you.”

The High Priest must have made arrangements ahead of time, as space had already been cleared for the documents we brought with us. Everyone worked together to organize them and collect information on the events of the previous night, agreeing to do our best to minimize the High Priest’s burden and select what jobs could be entrusted to the blue priests.

“Zahm, might I ask you to explain the situation to Brothers Kampfer and Frietack?” I said once the documents were organized. I then headed for the orphanage, and Wilma came rushing over the moment I arrived.

“Fran, I heard from Monika that Lady Rozemyne is going to be asleep for a long time. What will happen to the orphanage?” she asked, so worried that her face was sickly pale. All those who knew how terrible the orphanage had been before Lady Rozemyne became the orphanage director were deathly afraid of her giving up the position, as this introduced the possibility of things returning to the way they had been before.

“Everything is going to be fine. Authority over the temple will shift to the High Priest while Lady Rozemyne is asleep, but I have been instructed to continue overseeing things as I have been. As for the budget, we cannot use Lady Rozemyne’s guild card, but the High Priest is managing the High Bishop’s payments and the money she is given for being the archduke’s child, so we will surely not lack in that regard. As winter preparations are complete, we will be able to last until spring without issue, so long as we are not wasteful.”

“...That is true,” Wilma murmured with an understanding nod. I also took it upon myself to assure the worried orphans that we would not run out of money while the workshop continued to operate.

I hadn’t mentioned this to anyone, but Lady Rozemyne had a locked box—her “under the mattress bank,” as she called it—which also contained a considerable sum. Those funds would serve as a safety net, hopefully preventing our circumstances from ever becoming too dire.

“Wilma, those in positions of authority must show neither worry nor panic. Please calm yourself. Lady Rozemyne is going to be fine.”

“...Forgive me.”

“I will now announce the goals Lady Rozemyne wishes to be completed over the winter.”

The task Lady Rozemyne had entrusted the orphanage with last year was for everyone to learn the alphabet, as well as single-digit math. Everyone must have remembered the additional meat they had previously been rewarded with for succeeding, as their concerned gazes soon hardened.

“This year’s task is for everyone to learn the basic knowledge required of an attendant before reaching ten years of age. Gray priests who have served as attendants will work as teachers.”

Having learned from the situation with Volk, Lady Rozemyne wished to increase the value of all the gray priests. She would rather they be sold as skilled attendants than lowly servants, since their treatment would vary dramatically based on their position, and servants that were more capable went for more money.

“Delia, Lady Rozemyne was worried about Dirk,” I continued. “Please contact me at once should he begin to show any abnormalities. The High Priest is exceedingly busy, so his treatment could otherwise be delayed.”

“Understood.”

My final task was to go to the workshop, but it became clear pretty soon after I arrived that Gil was putting his all into making books, convinced that they would encourage Lady Rozemyne to wake up faster. He did not seem to need my help, and so I simply handed him the letter for Lutz and left.

The next day, Lady Rozemyne’s personnel returned to the temple. Without her there to protect them, staying in the castle not only ran the risk of their recipes being leaked, but also of those with authority forcibly stealing them away to serve someone else. Lady Rozemyne had specifically asked that Ella and Rosina not be left there, since they were both especially vulnerable as young women.

The personnel were informed that Lady Rozemyne would remain asleep for over a year; then they were given their instructions.

“Ella, Hugo—please continue preparing food for the attendants and the orphanage, as you have been. Lady Rozemyne also wishes for Nicola to be given an opportunity to advance her dreams of becoming a chef, so please accept her services and guide her as an assistant. You are to assist with the completion of the recipe book, on which little progress has been made due to how busy things have been, and should you have any spare time once that is done, she suggests that you start trying to invent new recipes of your own.”

“Understood.”

Nicola wrote down on her diptych everything that needed to be done in the kitchen with a broad smile across her face. She would be handling all the writing, as neither Ella nor Hugo could read, which was also likely a contributing factor toward the recipe book having progressed so little.

“Rosina, please teach the orphanage children to play music. Lady Rozemyne has said that you may recognize some of them as having musical talent, even if they do not see it themselves. She believes that affording them an opportunity for their skills to blossom may change their futures for the better.”

“In other words, I need only teach them as Lady Christine taught me? Very well. I will do what I can.”

Upon hearing that Lady Rozemyne wished to improve the value of the orphans to secure better workplaces for them, Rosina—who had been purchased to serve as a personal musician once herself—smiled softly and nodded.

So began life in the temple without Lady Rozemyne. Nicola assisted the chefs while working as an attendant, while Gil and Fritz continued their duties in the workshop and in the orphanage over the winter. Zahm, Monika, and I generally spent our days working in the High Priest’s chambers, taking breaks only to eat and sleep.

“Preparations for the Dedication Ritual are complete.”

“Does that mean the firewood is also ready? Brother Kampfer, have you decided on an order for the priests?”

“Brother Frietack, please send word to the other blue priests.”

We were able to finish preparing for the Dedication Ritual before the High Priest returned, just as we had the previous year. The work was completed without any considerable issues; not only was this the second time Brothers Kampfer and Frietack were being entrusted with the preparations, there were also more blue priests willing to help.

“Is everything ready?” the High Priest asked upon his return. He checked to make sure the preparations were properly completed, then praised the blue priests for their work. “Well done. You may now rest until the Dedication Ritual in two days’ time.”

He had the blue priests leave the room, then went into his hidden room to retrieve a bag of feystones. Once he had it, the two of us headed to the hidden room in which Lady Rozemyne was still asleep. She looked just as she had on that fateful night, though the blue in the potion was darker than before and the red lines on her skin seemed to be glowing.

“I left her alone for too long...” the High Priest muttered, his brow furrowed and the frustration clear in his voice.

He instructed me to put the feystones into the potion, and so I promptly obliged. There were black feystones and clear feystones; I took them out of the bag and dropped them into the potion one by one. They started to absorb Lady Rozemyne’s mana, causing the potion’s color to fade before my very eyes.

“This fool compressed her mana far too much,” the High Priest sighed, taking Lady Rozemyne’s hand and glaring at the red lines on her skin. “These feystones won’t suffice at all. She is fortunate it is time for the Dedication Ritual.”

I then heard him murmur that the process would take longer than he had expected.

While the High Priest recorded something about Lady Rozemyne’s health on a board, I removed the feystones that were now filled with her mana, delicately wiped them, and then carefully put them back in the bag.

“That should do for today,” the High Priest said.

It became a daily job for me to take the feystones the priests had emptied during the Dedication Ritual and put them back into Lady Rozemyne’s potion to refill them. It was thanks to her mana that the Dedication Ritual concluded without issue, but even afterward, we needed to continue storing mana in preparation for Spring Prayer.

The High Priest and I entered the workshop once again. It certainly was a relief seeing Lady Rozemyne each time, but the fact that she appeared completely unchanged was disheartening.

Please wake up soon, Lady Rozemyne...

With the Dedication Ritual complete, the High Priest focused his efforts on the paperwork that had accumulated. Despite the increase in workload, both Lord Damuel and Lord Eckhart were busy receiving special training with the Knight’s Order, so the High Priest was once again supporting his lifestyle with potions, such that his attendants would murmur about how often they saw him reach for them.

It was easy to see that he was being buried under an avalanche of work—not just his own as the High Priest and from the castle, but also Lady Rozemyne’s High Bishop work and her duties with the orphanage, the workshop, the Plantin Company, and the like. Despite having invested much time training blue priests to assist with his work, they were not capable of managing the orphanage, nor could they do business with the Plantin Company.

“It is rare for members of the Plantin Company to visit during the winter, and the orphanage likewise spends most of that time in hibernation, so I do not foresee any problems,” I said.

“Indeed. Rozemyne already has her attendants handling the workshop and orphanage, and I would like for them to handle some measure of the work.”

Once spring came, however, it was necessary to sell the winter handiwork and start making paper, which inevitably meant dealing with money and taking on duties that could not be put off. The High Priest had work being loaded onto him from the castle as well, despite his numerous temple duties, so there was nothing he could do but give a bitter frown and pick up another potion.

“There is nothing I would like less than to ask him for help, but I suppose I have no other choice...”

The High Priest sent an ordonnanz, and after what was no more than a brief wait, we saw a highbeast racing toward the temple at immense speed. In mere moments, Lord Justus, who had no reservations about visiting the lower city and understood Lady Rozemyne’s predicament, was kneeling before the High Priest with sparkling eyes.

“Lord Ferdinand, I have arrived at your summons. You may count on me to manage the workshop and handle business with the merchants.”

“Fritz, take Justus to the workshop and explain to him the finances of our business with the Plantin Company. Justus, I am too busy to deal with you causing problems. Contain yourself. Is that understood?”

“As you wish. Now then, Fritz—let us depart.”

“Fritz, report to me the moment something happens. I shall not hesitate to beat Justus down in an instant, if necessary.”

Lord Justus, not even trying to hide his excitement, practically dragged Fritz out of the room with him. I was terribly concerned about this; had calling for him truly been a good idea?

“High Priest...”

“Fear not, Fran. Justus has a love for gathering information, but he does not disclose his secrets lightly. Furthermore, he is my retainer; his eccentric nature belies his competence.”

As the High Priest predicted, Lord Justus quickly grew accustomed to the workshop. He wasn’t the kind of person to lord his status over others, and according to Fritz he was exceptionally skilled when it came to fitting in with groups and working with others.

After many more visits to the workshop, Lord Justus asked me about the general workflow prior to Lady Rozemyne’s situation. I started preparing the relevant documents from the High Bishop’s chambers, in the meantime deciding to ask him what he thought about his time there so far.

“Lord Justus, how has the workshop been?”

“Very stimulating. Everything is so interesting there, as I would expect from something overseen by Lady Rozemyne. She has trained quite fascinating subordinates; they even allowed me to swish the water when I first visited.”

It was neither proper nor acceptable for a noble to perform manual labor, so I could easily imagine how conflicted the workshop workers must have been when Lord Justus asked to do such a thing. Fritz must not have had an easy time.

“But the second I touched the paper on the boards,” Lord Justus continued, “one of the leherls from the Plantin Company yelled at me. ‘What’re you doing, you idiot?!’ he shouted, loud enough for everyone to hear.”

Lutz, why in the world would you do that?! And Fritz, how could you allow that to happen?!

But as the blood drained from my face, Lord Justus continued with an endlessly amused expression. Silence had apparently fallen over the entire workshop after Lutz’s outburst, with even Lutz himself realizing he said something that he shouldn’t have. Before anyone else could speak up, however, Fritz had protectively stepped forward wearing the kind of cold smile one would normally expect from Lord Ferdinand, immediately giving Lord Justus a strict lecture that he recalled verbatim.

“I did not expect the High Priest to send us someone so incompetent that they would not understand the time and money lost from damaged paper, even after having the entire process explained to them. He surely must have made an error in judgment due to being so busy. A manager who destroys products cannot take Lady Rozemyne’s place, and so I will report this to the High Priest at once. We do not need someone who fails to understand the importance of our work.”

“...A-And what did you do then, Lord Justus?”

“I obviously didn’t want to be called useless and kicked out on my first day, especially knowing that Lord Ferdinand was desperate enough to have actually requested my help, so I gave them enough to cover the cost of the paper and a little extra to keep them quiet. Whew... It sure was close. I need to use this opportunity to show off my talents and regain my honor. I’ve got to admit, I expected nothing less from Lady Rozemyne’s subordinates, considering how she herself always stands up to Lord Ferdinand, lecturing him about his reliance on potions being unhealthy and all that.”

That was probably not how most nobles would have reacted, but in any case, I kept my silence; he had evidently deemed it necessary to pay them off, and with the incident already over, I saw no reason to question his decision. There was equally no need to trouble the High Priest with such a matter, so I took Fritz’s lead and spoke not a word about it.

Lord Justus did not come to the temple particularly often, no doubt busy with his own matters, but he was just as skilled as the High Priest had said: each time he arrived, he finished up multiple days of work all at once. While here, he would report to the High Priest on both the workshop and some other duty he had been given before returning to the Noble’s Quarter with yet more work pushed onto him. From the snippets of conversation I had managed to catch, it seemed that he was gathering information on the culprit who had harmed Lady Rozemyne.

The midpoint of spring approached, and so began preparations for Spring Prayer. It seemed that the archduke’s children would be taking Lady Rozemyne’s place this year, traveling the Central District with feystones in hand. Their plan was to divide the journey threefold to shorten the overall process, much like Lady Rozemyne and the High Priest had done, except this time while borrowing two important people from the archduke. It was truly heartrending that the High Priest was enduring such an overwhelming workload that he was forced to use any means available to him to get things done.

As I knew more about the ceremonies than Lady Rozemyne’s other attendants, I accompanied Lady Charlotte as a guide. The High Priest gave me special instructions while we were preparing.

“Fran, use this opportunity to create a new saint. Tell a moving story to all those you can: ‘Saint Rozemyne was poisoned protecting the archduke’s children, both of whom have declared their wish to offer blessings in the place of their sister to repay her noble deed.’ If they are showered with praise for being as compassionate and extraordinary as Lady Rozemyne, then it will become easier for us to use them next year as well.”

After the High Priest had explained how to lay this groundwork, he handed me a considerable number of the improved-flavor rejuvenation potions. He seemed to have noticed my hesitation to exploit the still-young children of the archduke, as he then gave me a dismissive scoff.

“If Charlotte and Wilfried do not finish Spring Prayer feeling confident in their own abilities, and subsequently refuse to also take Rozemyne’s place for the Harvest Festival, it is the orphanage that will suffer first due to the lack of food that would have been paid to Rozemyne for the winter,” he noted.

His message was clear: I had no choice but to accept the duty of establishing the legend of Saint Charlotte. The past few years had taught me all about the importance of money; this Spring Prayer needed to go well no matter what, or the temple and orphanage would suffer.

As it was not traditional for underage apprentices to perform religious ceremonies, the only child-sized ceremonial clothes available to us belonged to Lady Rozemyne. We gave Lady Charlotte her white High Bishop robes, which required no alterations whatsoever, and Lord Wilfried her blue ceremonial robes, which did need some alterations to accommodate his marginally greater height. These adjustments did not take long at all though, thanks to Corinna of the Gilberta Company having accounted for Lady Rozemyne growing when she made the outfit.

We requested the usual carriages from the Plantin Company and prepared to bring back Achim and Egon, who had been staying in Hasse’s winter mansion. We also had knights accompanying us at the High Priest’s request—twice as many as usual to guard against a potential attack by members of the nobility.

Lady Charlotte did not have a highbeast, as she had yet to enter the Royal Academy, so I traveled in a carriage for the first time in quite a while. She seemed to have great respect for Lady Rozemyne, as she rejoiced when I told her about her sister’s experiences in the temple. In return, I was graced with stories of Lady Rozemyne’s time in the castle, so it was a very productive journey overall.

When Richt first spotted Lady Charlotte upon our arrival in Hasse, he mistakenly thought they hadn’t been forgiven after all. Following my explanation that Saint Charlotte was dedicating herself to bless the land in her sister’s absence, however, he welcomed her with tears of gratitude.

Lady Charlotte was notably tense about performing her first ceremony, but she took the feystone with Lady Rozemyne’s mana and completed it brilliantly. We reunited with Achim and Egon before moving to the monastery, where I first checked to see that everything was in order, then had Lady Charlotte award the soldiers with their payment.

“Fran, may I ask how the High Bishop is?” Gunther asked upon receiving his money, his expression clouded over.

“It seems the burden on her body was even greater than the High Priest expected, and her sleep will most likely continue for longer still.”

“I see...”

While we were on the road, Lady Charlotte used far fewer potions than Lady Rozemyne, and when Spring Prayer came to an end, she had used only a small portion of all those we had brought. I couldn’t help but sigh at how unhealthy and weak Lady Rozemyne truly was, that she had needed to use the bulk of our potions just to survive to the end.

Upon returning from Spring Prayer, Gil came to me for advice, wanting to know how we should proceed with the printing. My understanding was that Lady Rozemyne had gathered stories from the noble children while at the castle, and after discussing matters with the High Priest, he delivered to me the stories collected in the winter playroom. I promptly gave them to Gil, but he merely scratched his ear uncomfortably and shook his head.

“I can’t print these. They’re written the way kids talk, so they need to be fixed up to read more like a book. Do you know anyone who can do that?”

“I can say with all certainty that nobody has the time to do such a thing at the moment.”

With that said, Lady Rozemyne had managed to write her manuscripts alongside assisting the High Priest, memorizing the procedures for many ceremonies, and heading to the castle to play her role as a noble daughter. Despite all the time we had spent together, I still found myself stunned by her love for books and her obsession with making them.

Several days later, Gil came to say that Tuuli wanted us to teach her proper etiquette. She would pay us with a book of collected short stories that Lady Rozemyne had made for her and her family. The text was already edited to be readable, and Gil wanted to have it printed next after the collection of knight stories.

Tuuli was Lady Rozemyne’s true sister, and she had provided much help to those in the orphanage. The High Priest therefore granted her his permission, determining that this would be a good opportunity to repay her for all she had done. There were no better people for this task than Rosina and Wilma, since they had been strictly trained in the way of proper etiquette beneath Sister Christine, and so I asked for their assistance. It seemed that Lutz would be learning alongside Tuuli as well.

I came by to see how the lessons were going for a short while. The sight of their struggles made me a little nostalgic for when Lady Rozemyne had continuously gotten her long sleeves caught in everything she possibly could.

While I was there, Wilma mentioned that Tuuli was offering advice on how to raise Dirk. The orphanage had lost all of the gray shrine maidens who had given birth themselves, so nobody was quite sure how to raise a toddler. Lady Rozemyne had provided some guidance, but Wilma and Delia wished to know all they could, and so they were endlessly grateful for Tuuli’s wisdom; she had learned much from helping raise her younger brother, who was a similar age to Dirk.

Nicola came of age at the end of spring. We held a small celebration just as we had for Rosina, but she largely just wailed about how Lady Rozemyne wasn’t there to teach her new recipes as she had expected. This outburst was somewhat short-lived though, as a smile returned to her face the instant Ella brought out some sweets and mentioned that Lady Rozemyne could simply teach her the recipes when she eventually awoke.

The Italian restaurant came asking for new recipes around the same time as Nicola’s coming of age ceremony, but we simply said they would need to come up with some themselves, as it was due to be another year before Lady Rozemyne woke up. This somehow turned into Hugo and Leise sharing information about their original creations, which in turn fired up the kitchen staff. They spoke as though their pride as chefs was on the line, determined to produce food that was worthy of Lady Rozemyne’s name.

Halfway through summer, sometime after the Starbind Ceremony, Lady Rozemyne’s guard knight Lady Brigitte was relieved of duty and returned to her home province of Illgner. It seemed that she was preparing to get married.

Lord Damuel seemed to be exceedingly depressed, so I could imagine things had not gone well between them. I could not say I was surprised, though: the High Priest had mentioned that a relationship would be trying for them, given their different classes and circumstances. I did not understand marriage much myself, but I could at the very least pray to the gods that he would see more success in his duties as a knight than he had trying to procure a wife.

Hugo and Ella walked up to me, passing by Lord Damuel as he continued to mope.

“What is this important announcement you spoke of?” I asked.

The two exchanged a look, bright grins creeping onto their faces. “We’re getting married,” Hugo announced. “Both of our parents approved.”

I could see Damuel covering his ears out of the corner of my eye; this evidently wasn’t something that he wanted to hear about right now.