PDCOO Chapter 13

"Goodness, you nearly took my ear off. Anyway — I've agreed to take Bertram along while I go sell the wolf pelts today."

"You're selling the pelts already? They haven't been properly cured."

"Better to sell them before they rot. None of us work leather. Uhehehe—anyway, Bertram, once I've got the pelt money, I'll show you a proper city restaurant!"

"Chief! That makes it sound like some people's restaurants aren't real restaurants!"

"Ha! Did I say something wrong? Anna, please, just get some beer in the place already. Your apple cider is too sweet."

"Is there anyone in this village besides you who likes beer? Who'd buy it all?"

The village chief and Anna were well into their familiar ritual of needling each other when Bertram's particularly weighted voice cut in.

"Chief. This is an excellent restaurant."

"...Ahem. That was—it was a joke between people who know each other!"

"The more familiar the relationship, the less it warrants careless words."

"Confound it all! I live to see the day some green little upstart gives me a lecture. That's enough!"

The chief turned away in open sulk. But his face read clearly: Bertram looking at me is deeply uncomfortable.

"Right, then. I'll get the cart ready. Everyone eat breakfast and be ready."

"...Chief."

"Hm?"

Anna stopped him.

And there, she gathered herself for something that required real nerve.

"I—I'll come along! I have blood sausages that just finished curing—I'll go sell those!"

"Nothing wrong with that, but you'd have to spend the night. You hate paying for meals at other people's restaurants."

"I thought I'd find out what all the fuss is about with that beer of yours. What charm does it have, the way you sing its praises."

"...So says your daughter, Karlah. What do you think? Personally I prefer having more people when I head out."

All three of them looked at Karlah at once.

Their gazes pressed from different directions with different weights.

Bertram's heavy, unreadable look was too high up to escape by bowing her head.

But if she bowed her head, her daughter's desperate gaze was waiting there.

And looking straight ahead meant the chief's expression—I'm uncomfortable being alone with Bertram, please just lend me Anna—staring directly at her.

Surrounded on all sides.

Karlah finally nodded.

"...Come back safely."

"I will! I'll sell high!"

"But Chief, please bring other people along too. Not just Anna."

"Of course! Can't waste the empty seats—might as well pack it full!"

The chief went out to get the cart ready. In the comfortable settling of the conversation, Anna looked up at Bertram.

A sudden, unexpected last morning.

There was only one thing Anna could say at this moment.

"Mr. Bertram... is there anything you'd like for breakfast?"

"Whatever you'd like to make. Please."

"Understood."

Anna went running to the kitchen.

Karlah watched her daughter's oddly composed reaction and pressed down something vague and unresolved.

Now it was really over.

The village would be peaceful again.

The cart rattled and bumped down the country road, carrying four people.

During the journey, Bertram had occasion to repent of his own narrow-mindedness.

The dictionary definition of a carriage was a cart pulled by a horse.

Which meant: a plank of wood with four posts stuck in it also qualified as a carriage, provided a horse was pulling it.

The village chief, managing the reins, chuckled.

"Bertram, you must be a lord's son! When you looked at this rig and said 'where is the carriage — this is a farm wagon,' I was quite surprised."

This was the thirteenth time he'd brought it up.

Bertram ticked off his thirteenth apology.

"I'm sorry."

"Apologize by keeping watch over my girls, then. Cities have the odd scoundrel who targets country women. Let's help each other until we part ways."

"Of course. I'll do my best."

The phrase part ways, received by their fellow passenger Lara, made her eyes go wide.

"Miss Anna, is it really true? Mr. Bertram is leaving for good? This is so sudden."

"I only found out this morning myself."

Anna murmured, chin resting in her hand.

At that grumbling tone, Bertram said—rather as if offering an explanation to no one in particular—

"I also heard about it this morning. Karlah told me: all debts are settled, leave today with the chief."

"Mama doesn't seem to like having Mr. Bertram at our place. I knew she'd send him off eventually—I just didn't expect it so soon."

"So the pretext of selling blood sausages was an excuse you made in order to follow after me."

"......"

Bertram's candor stopped Anna's words entirely.

His second strike took even her exasperation from her.

"The volume of blood sausage you're selling seems unlikely to cover the cost of accommodation in the city. Forgive me—might I ask why you came at a loss?"

He really has no tact whatsoever.

Lara, pretending to sort the rough gemstones she'd brought to sell, kept darting glances between Anna and Bertram. Her eyes had that particular gleam of someone hoping for something sweet-and-tangy in the way of romance.

Anna shook her head firmly.

"It's — well, it's not like — naturally I'm not here because I'd miss Mr. Bertram if he just left like that. Obviously."

"I know."

"...Yes. Of course you would." A beat. "Just a moment."

Anna folded her arms.

She had to think through this herself— why she'd actually followed him.

Five days at the same table had built something, a certain kind of familiarity, but that wasn't enough reason to manufacture a pretext and drag herself along. Back there with Karlah and the others, she could have simply said: leaving today? Sudden, but can't be helped—goodbye!

One farewell would have been sufficient.

But the reason she'd followed him was...

"...Mr. Bertram. You still think your debt isn't paid, don't you."

"...I do, in fact."

Bertram nodded.

"I know it's unreasonable, of course. In this matter, Karlah is right. The borrowed item is gone. The creditor doesn't want repayment. I provided some labor as a moral gesture. Therefore I've stopped pressing my case and I'm leaving Karlah's household."

"Hm, I'd expected Mr. Bertram to press a bit harder."

"We've gotten off the subject. I was asking why you followed me."

A clean, direct cut.

But Anna met him with a smile.

"Not off the subject—that was the heart of it, wasn't it. You wanted to press harder."

"...Did that seem obvious."

"Yes." She paused. "I don't know if I should say this, but..."

Anna glanced around.

The chief was occupied with the reins. Lara had gotten so genuinely absorbed in sorting her gemstones—as cover—that she'd lost track of the pretense entirely. Even so, the worry of being overheard made Anna crouch close to Bertram's side and lower her voice. Even stretching her chin up as far as it would go, she was speaking roughly to his shoulder—but it would reach his ears.

What she said cut straight through the last three years of Bertram's life.

"Somehow, Mr. Bertram— repaying debts seems like it might be the only purpose you have left."

"...How. No—why would you think that."

"Just from looking at your face?"

She meant it entirely.

Seeing his face that morning, she'd thought: there was something depleted about him. Hollow. Like a farmer whose crop has been seized just before harvest.

But she couldn't tell Bertram she'd read it by feeling, so Anna gathered the things that occurred to her afterward.

"Think about it. The war has been over for three years and you've been wandering around repaying debts all this time. Does that make any sense? If it were me, I'd have played dead after the war and kept my mouth shut completely."

"You're an honest person. You wouldn't have done that."

"Oh, that's flattery! But anyway—this is just my own thought—don't the war debts give Mr. Bertram a reason to keep going back to the war in his mind?"

"...Words fail me. I could clap."

"Please don't clap with that face. It's frightening."

Bertram lowered his hands quietly, and Anna laughed and patted them a few times.

"Everyone carries some wound from the war. I can't fix Mr. Bertram's debt-guilt—but I thought I could help with just one thing. That's why I came."

"What thing?"

"Feeding you good food! Mental recovery starts from a full stomach. Even if you can't taste it—if you can eat with some joy in it, that's enough. I'll take you to the best places in this city!"

Anna smiled.

The first real smile of the day.

Bertram had the strange sense, in that moment, that the day had only just begun.

Past the stone road that had widened without their noticing, the city walls began to appear—the walls beneath which they'd have to part.

They towered above a person's height by a considerable margin. Lara's mouth fell open at the sight. Anna, playing the part of someone who'd seen this before, pretended not to be impressed.

"You get used to it after a few trips. I'm not even afraid of the guards anymore!"

"Really? I've never seen anyone in armor before..."

Lara trembled and clung to Anna's back. She seemed to be imagining guards drawing their swords and demanding state your business!

Anna gave a small snort and spoke to Bertram.

"You're used to that sort of thing, aren't you, Mr. Bertram?"

"I saw them once before, but no, I'm not used to them."