MHHC Chapter 132

Setting Out

The herbalist had worked with most of the wild medicinal plants native to the eastern Belo region, and he had more than twenty antidote formulations committed to memory.

For Adelheid, who had been starving for specialized knowledge, he was nothing less than light and salt itself.

In the mornings she handled supply issues and the castle's miscellaneous administrative work; in the afternoons she shut herself inside the herbalist's study and bombarded him with questions until he was thoroughly sick of her.

"……Living creatures instinctively avoid what is harmful to them. That is why, when lithus is planted between rows of crops, the damage from pests is considerably reduced. With that principle in mind……"

Adelheid absorbed every piece of knowledge the herbalist offered like water seeping into parched soil.

The exhilaration of watching scattered, half-gathered fragments of information click suddenly into a coherent whole — in those moments, even the oppressive weight of reality ceased to press upon her.

She understood now, as she had not before, how precious it was to have time that belonged entirely to herself.

'And that strange crack — it hasn't appeared once since that day.'

She had watched Valentin closely in the days that followed, her nerves drawn perpetually taut, but the same symptom had never recurred.

After three full days of this quiet vigilance, the crack had begun to feel like nothing more than a simple illusion. And after that — she had been too impossibly busy to spare it a thought, and had forgotten it entirely.

'What on earth was that?'

The hand that had been diligently taking notes gradually loosened its grip on the quill.

"……For that reason, one must exercise caution in administering it — Your Highness, are you listening?"

"Oh — I'm sorry."

Adelheid started out of her reverie.

She compared the section she had just been writing with the specimen the herbalist was holding, and asked with a sheepish expression:

"I lost the thread for a moment. Could you explain that part from the beginning, just once more?"

Under the herbalist's cool, level gaze, Adelheid tightened her previously slack grip on the quill.

He gave a helpless shrug and lifted the specimen once more.

"Then, looking at this specimen again — the leaves are serrated and sharply pointed, while……"

This time, Adelheid sat up straight, spine rigid, and bent her full attention back to her notes without letting a single word escape her.

As one busy day followed another in this fashion, time slipped past with arrow-swift speed, and before she knew it, the day of departure had arrived.

"Even with a plant you've never seen before, if you examine the traces carefully you can determine whether it's safe to eat or not. Leaves with signs of insect damage are generally safe."

"I'll remember that. If stranded in the woods — look for leaves with insect damage."

"There is always a reason why animals avoid certain things. Among poisonous plants bearing orange spots like these, there are some that cause the blood to coagulate. For cold-blooded creatures in particular, once the blood congeals——"

"Your — Highness!"

The door to the study flew open with something close to a kick. Yanik filled the doorway, white-faced and gasping.

He had thrown it open with such violence that dust cascaded in small showers from the dried herbs hanging in dense clusters from the ceiling.

Adelheid's eyes went wide — then narrowed as a gust of that same dust surged straight into her nose. She erupted into a helpless string of sneezes.

"Yanik?"

"You're — still — here — hah — how can you — hah — still be here——"

Yanik doubled over against the door handle, panting in long, desperate heaves. From the look of him, he had sprinted at full speed all the way from the central garden to the tower.

"The expedition — hah — party — is about — to depart!"

"I was just about to come down anyway...has it really gotten that late?"

Adelheid scrambled to check her watch. To prevent the dried herbs from deteriorating, every window in the herbalist's study was hung with thick, light-blocking curtains.

In the brief interval she had gone without a view of the outside, preparations had apparently concluded a little earlier than the departure time she had been expecting.

She hurried to gather her bag and hood where she had set them aside.

"I'm afraid I must go. Thank you for explaining everything so thoroughly — and for letting me look at the specimens."

"Ah — that specimen book you left on that side, please take it with you."

"Are you certain?"

"Of course. And since you're here, take some of these with you as well. This one is good as a hemostatic in emergencies. This one, boiled and drunk, can serve as a fair substitute for a painkiller — and if you can't boil it, chewing it works to some degree as well. And this one——"

"Your Highness. We need to go."

Under Yanik's urging, Adelheid hastily swept all the bundles of dried herbs the herbalist pressed upon her into her bag, one after another.

"Thank you, Johann."

"Not at all. It has been a pleasure for me as well — to have such an eager student after so long."

Yanik swiftly slung the leather bag — now round and swollen with every manner of herb — over his own shoulder. Adelheid chased his heels down the stairs at a run.

Out in the open ground, the soldiers were already drawn up in ordered rows. Beside them waited the supply wagons; at the very front of the column, Valentin and the knights sat mounted, patient and still.

A force some twenty times the size of the one that had departed for the capital had gathered and breathed together, the collective heat of them rising in trembling waves, like a mirage above sun-baked stone.

Adelheid pulled her hood low over her face and walked — under every eye in that courtyard — toward the battered supply wagon assigned to her.

Several of the supply soldiers, who had been informed in advance that she would be traveling with them, bent at the waist in respectful bows as she approached.

"Phew. Thank goodness we made it in time."

Yanik performed an elaborate pantomime of wiping sweat from his brow as he said this.

He loaded her pack into the worn cart, then turned to survey it with a visible frown.

"Are you truly going to ride in this wagon?"

"Of course. Shabby as it looks, it's perfectly fine for a long journey. I've already taken measures to keep it from jolting."

Having succeeded with a string of minor spells in recent days, Adelheid added this with confidence.

She had already cast a vibration-dampening spell on the cart. Yanik's frown only deepened as he circled it with an unconvinced air.

"Even so……this really isn't something you ought to be riding in."

"I'm participating as a healer, not as the Grand Duchess of Ansgar."

"Ah — and this. Margaret asked me to pass it along."

Yanik produced a thick paper parcel from inside his coat.

The moment it landed in her hands, warmth radiated through the wrapping. Before she could even ask what it was, Yanik was already rattling on:

"Meat pie, I should think. Word is you've been skipping meals quite often lately? Margaret's been absolutely beside herself with worry, apparently. She made this first thing this morning before she even left."

Adelheid accepted the parcel — the paper already beginning to darken with grease — with careful hands.

The smell alone was enough to coax hunger awake. But what moved her more than the scent was the devotion behind it: that someone had taken the time, in the midst of all this chaos, to prepare something requiring real effort.

"Please tell her I'm grateful. And that I'll eat every bite."

"She'd rather hear you'll finish every last crumb. — Oh, and this is a candle from Thomas. This hand cream is from Jeff's wife. Over here, dried jerky and smoked sausage from old Franz. And this one——"

Adelheid stared at the items Yanik was producing one by one with wide, bewildered eyes.

"These are all...for me?"

"Well, most of them owe Your Highness their lives in one way or another. This is their way of paying that debt back, I should think."

"A debt……"

"Knights are valuable enough that they'll receive treatment regardless of how they're injured — but for common soldiers, it's not unusual for even a minor wound to be left untreated until it becomes something far worse. Accept it in the spirit it's offered. There's no need to feel burdened."

Even setting aside the matter of feeling burdened — the financial circumstances of Ansgar's people were plain enough. It was not a thing she could simply collect as though it were her due.

And behind Yanik's back, there were still items stacked up waiting to be brought out.

"I'm grateful for the thought, but I think it best to return these. This is far too much to carry."

"Then I'll hold on to them until Your Highness returns."

Yanik interjected quickly, eyes brightening with a flash of unmistakable anticipation.

The intent behind that gleam — I'll help myself to some in the meantime — was transparent as glass. The openly mischievous expression signaled jest rather than earnest — but still.

Either way, the bulkier provisions were genuinely difficult to manage.

"Could you do that, then? Leave the things that keep for a long time in my room, and share the food among the people of the castle — that would be lovely, I think."

"You really mustn't coddle him so dreadfully, my lady."

Hermann, who had appeared at some point near the supply wagon, fixed Yanik with a stern eye and continued:

"His gratitude is appreciated, but treating him like this will only put more hot air into that slack-spirited wretch. Coveting what comes to one's mistress — really, there are limits."

From behind Hermann's reproachful tongue-clicking, Yanik fired back, sounding thoroughly aggrieved:

"What exactly did I do? I was simply suggesting that any foodstuffs Your Highness found herself unable to consume due to unavoidable circumstances might come to me in some small portion——"

"Everything you requested has been loaded. Is there anything else you need?"

Hermann cut cleanly through Yanik's protest and addressed Adelheid with composed deference.

Adelheid ran through everything one final time, confirming that her clothing, her herb bags, and a sufficient supply of clean bandages were all aboard.

"No. I think this should be enough. What about the maids who volunteered?"

"They'll depart with the rear guard. In addition to them, the Grand Cathedral has offered to send four priests. Once they arrive, you'll work alongside them tending to the wounded."

Then the horn rang out — the call to march, raw and resonant, shaking the air from all directions at once.

"Ansgar!"

"Ansgar!"

The soldiers drove the butts of their spears against the ground in rhythm and threw up thunderous battle cries, feeding the flame of their own morale until the very air seemed to blaze with it. The roar was the kind that made the blood run hot.

That fever spread to her — there was no way it couldn't have.

Adelheid's face was flushed, eyes bright, as she turned to take in the scene around her. And at that precise moment, her gaze met Valentin's — mounted on his great black horse across the full breadth of the yard.

"……"

Even across that distance, she could tell: he had been watching her all along.