1. Patronage Is for Small Fry
"Young Master."
"What is it?"
"Don't you think you've been overdoing it a little lately?"
"The spending?"
"No — your obsession with that insolent painter."
"Which is exactly why it isn't an obsession."
"Visiting that studio every single day for a week straight, without missing even one — if that isn't an obsession, then what would you call it?"
A week had passed since I met Rin, and just as Claire said, I had been visiting her painting workshop every day in disguise, handing over modest "patronage."
Even Rin seemed to find it awkward to flatly refuse anything that wasn't money — food, or art supplies of a reasonable price — and accepted the offerings while muttering something under her breath. Considering she had turned everything down outright at the very start, that was progress of heroic proportions.
"What's this, Claire? Are you jealous, perhaps?"
"Back at the estate, I could idle at your side and chat all day, but the moment we head into the back alleys, I have to work. It is a genuine nuisance."
"Honestly, your problem is that you're too honest."
As always, I gave her shoulder a couple of friendly pats and waved a hand — my signal to stop grumbling and get her disguise on.
Sighing as though she truly despised labor, Claire picked up the perfume vial we kept ready for such occasions. She sprayed it over her entire body, and her appearance melted from her usual self into that of a redheaded, freckled stranger.
Disguise magic dissolved by perfume was a common convenience among the aristocracy — and, at the same time, something the great houses with their own court mages shunned on grounds of shoddy quality. Our family had a mage in residence as well, but borrowing him for something this personal felt improper and might hand our rivals a stick to beat us with, so we made do with perfume for our disguises.
Following Claire's lead, I disguised myself as a tanned, blond young man and set off, as ever, for the back alleys behind the shopping district — this time carrying patronage of considerable weight.
"When it comes to artists, you can't go wrong with booze, right?"
"Far too fine a gift for that insolent painter. There is someone else that wine would suit far better."
"You mean you?"
"I would accept it gratefully, Young Master."
"I never said I was giving it to you. Besides — anyone cultured enough to have read The Sorrow of Martego would surely know how to appreciate a wine like this too, wouldn't they?"
"Just give it to me already."
"You pilfer from the dining hall's wine cellar often enough. Make do with that."
Thanks to this drunkard of a bodyguard, my very first time drinking had been pure agony. She had been drinking for the first time as well — and she emptied five bottles of wine then and there. I ask you.
Leaving Claire, who kept stealing glances at the fine wine as if she couldn't bear to let it go, I slipped into the back alleys — familiar ground by now. I hadn't memorized the whole tangled maze, but the route to Rin's studio gave me no trouble at all.
The moment that signboard in its neat, graceful lettering came into view, I moved to push open the door and step inside—
"Hey. Just how much longer is this going to go on?"
I froze.
An unfamiliar voice was drifting out from inside. In a full week of visits, no one besides Claire and me had ever set foot in Rin's studio.
That said, whoever it was, they did not sound like the kindly patron sort of caller I was.
"Miss Painter, this just won't do, you know. If you borrowed the money, you ought to pay it back, no?"
"...I can pay it back next week. Really."
"Funny — I could swear I heard that same line a month ago. 'No problem, I've received a commission for that painting.' And whatever became of that, hm?"
"Boss, is any client going to be satisfied with a piece like this? Even a philistine like me can see the poor fellow's limbs look wrong."
"That's not it. I took the spot where it would hang into account—"
"Yeah, whatever. Bottom line is, all we want is our money."
"A customer will be here soon. I can only repay you once I've earned that money you love so much, can't I?"
"A customer? In a back-alley studio like this? My, must be a precious guest indeed. Well then — next week, was it?"
"...That's right."
"Don't forget: that will be the very last extension. After that, even I can't say what we'll do. Come on, boys, let's move."
After an exchange that reeked of trouble from the very first word, the studio door was flung open with a bang, and a pack of burly, scar-covered men came swaggering out. The one who looked to be their leader caught sight of Claire and me standing by the door and smirked.
"So you two are those marvelous customers, I take it. What discerning taste you must have. Go on in and spend your money like the easy marks you are."
"If you're finished with your business, step aside, will you?"
"What?"
"With your bruisers blocking the entrance, we can't get in. Weren't you just telling us to go in?"
"That tan says sailor to me, but for a young whelp to have the gall to— GYAAAGH!?"
Crack.
"Don't try anything stupid with the Young Master. That would mean I have to work."
A split second before the thug leader's clenched fist could come swinging, Claire had sprung into action, pinning the man — built far bulkier than she was — with a single hand.
Weight classes be damned. There was simply no way back-alley thugs could beat a professionally trained knight. What's more, Claire had been chosen as my bodyguard in childhood and had trained in mana arts and the sword without pause ever since. The notion of her losing to meatheads whose muscle was all for show had no place even in fantasy.
With Claire — an overwhelming force in her own right — addressing me as "Young Master," perhaps the man had sensed that something out of the ordinary was afoot.
"F-forgive this clumsy fool, he meant no harm! What are you doing, you idiots! Get out of their way, now!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
"We didn't realize you were someone of standing! Our deepest apologies! S-so please, have mercy—!!"
Now, what to do with him.
Making a scene in front of the studio was a nuisance to everyone around, besides. At my slight flick of the eyes, Claire — dusting off her hands as though she had touched something filthy — released the thug leader.
His shoulder, it seemed, had popped out of joint somewhere along the way; clutching his limp, dangling arm, the man bowed his head cravenly, over and over.
"Th-thank you! Thank you very much!"
"Hold on. Before you go."
"Wh-what is it...?"
"Did the owner of this studio borrow money from you?"
If this had been mere muscle flexed to hurry a payment along, there would have been no reason for the word repay. By every sign, Rin had genuinely borrowed money from these thugs.
The mystery was precisely that. Rin — the woman who wouldn't even accept patronage — had gone into debt to hoodlums like these just to make ends meet? With that unbending character of hers?
For me, who had come to know even a little of who she was, the question wrote itself.
"W-we only do as we're told! We collect the money on someone else's behalf, that's all!"
"Ah, so you're hired collectors? Then who is this client of yours?"
"W-we don't know. We truly don't! In this line of work, the first rule is to never ask who the client is!"
It wasn't a lie. Which was exactly what irritated me all the more.
I mulled it over for a moment, then tipped my chin toward the street — get lost. The leader, bowing his head yet again several times in a row, hurried off in a panic.
"Well done, Claire."
"It was nothing. I only thought that if that brute's fist had landed on you, Young Master, the wine might have shattered."
"And your position as my bodyguard would have shattered along with it, hm?"
"In any case, no work was done today."
Sour as her tone was, the way she swept the alley for any sign of the man's crew told me she took her bodyguard duty considerably more seriously than her words let on.
Entering Rin's studio with the same old Claire at my side, I found Rin standing there with her arms crossed and a shadow over her face — a somewhat different arrangement from the usual, when she would receive us in the workshop at the back.
Well, she must have heard all of it.
A door that decrepit had no hope of keeping sound out; Rin had surely caught every word of the ruckus outside. That would be why she was standing there like that.
But rather than bring any of it up, I gave the fine wine tucked inside my coat a little shake.
"Miss Rin, your patronage for today."
"...That wine is your patronage?"
"Do you perhaps dislike it?"
"No, wine is... something I rather like."
And so Rin, too, said nothing further, playing along with my glib deflection. Less out of consideration for me, it seemed, than an air of simply not wanting to discuss what had just happened.
Naturally. The last thing she would want was for the studio's one and only (?) customer to learn of its debts — least of all a customer who kept pressing patronage on her.
I suspected that was exactly what Rin was thinking.
Then just accept the patronage already — if only to pay off the debt.
No doubt she expected me to propose precisely that. And from where Rin stood, practicality aside, it would be a genuinely bitter pill to swallow — if only because of the cold shoulder she'd given me at the very start. Accepting would mean bending her stubbornness and her pride.
But.
"My, the painting of The Sorrow of Martego is nearly finished. A magnificent work, as expected of you."
"............"
"That brushwork there especially — it lets Martego's regret and rage breathe right off the canvas."
"...Are you finished?"
"Would you care for a longer critique?"
"No, that's not—"
I had no intention of making any such offer. That, surely, was why Rin looked so thrown: a golden opportunity and a ready-made justification for requesting patronage had landed squarely in her lap, and yet she didn't so much as open her mouth.
Why? Wasn't it obvious.
Because if I did that, I would never get to see the reaction — the kind that comes straight from the heart.
If all I wanted was a "thank you for clearing my debt" or a "thank you for the grocery money," I could have showered street performers with coins and called it a day. The only reason I was investing this much effort in Rin was that I expected a reaction on an altogether higher plane.
If I pressed my patronage on her now, with the debt as my lever, and she accepted, then to Rin my patronage would amount to exactly one thing: a means of repaying what she owed. No more, no less.
That was not what I wanted. I wanted Rin to accept my patronage sincerely — without bending that stubbornness or that pride. And I wanted to savor the reaction she would show me on that day.
The harder the climb, the sweeter the fruit at the top. With that future reaction to look forward to, the whole process felt less like tedium than like the most entertaining game in the world.
"Ah — I should be getting back; the ship wants inspecting. See you tomorrow."
"...You're coming again tomorrow?"
"Haven't I been coming for a week already? And you have been accepting my humble patronage, Miss Rin."
If it was all buildup for the dopamine still to come, I could play along gladly. It wasn't as though I had anything better to do at home anyway.
Patronage delivered, painting discussed in due measure — I was rising from my seat when—
"Wait."
"Miss Rin?"
"It's not as though I'll be getting any other customers. Spare me a little of your time."
"What seems to be the matter?"
"Nothing much... it's a rare wine, after all. Have a drink before you go. Drinks go down better in company than alone, don't they?"
"Counting me, that makes three."
"I'll set out two cups."
Blithely ignoring Claire, Rin went to the workshop's cupboard and carefully fetched out cups, one after another. They looked quite worn as well — she seemed to wipe them down with particular care.
A drink invitation, of all things. I had been visiting Rin's studio for a week now, and we had never once talked about anything but painting. This was a first.
Cups in hand, Rin sat down at the aged table and poured the fine wine into the chipped vessels. Finding neither a chair nor a cup set out for herself, Claire fixed Rin with a glare grown all the more murderous; Rin did not react in the slightest.
Cheers.
We lightly clinked cups and drank. Fine wine, my foot — there was not a trace of luxury in the taste. Nothing but bitter.
For that matter, the drink of this world was apparently far stronger than anything I'd known.
They kneaded mana into it while brewing, or so I'd been told — which meant that a high-grade wine, properly speaking, could only be truly enjoyed by someone who possessed mana of their own. In other words, for wine to ever suit my palate, I would have to resign myself to cheap swill for the rest of my days.
I had assumed Rin, an ordinary painter without a drop of mana, would find it every bit as bitter — but to my surprise, she let the wine linger on her tongue, eyes closed in evident enjoyment, before finally swallowing.
"...This is a good wine."
"All it is to my palate, I'm afraid, is bitter."
"I hear sailors mostly drink rum. I suppose there's no bridging the gap between that and a wine like this."
"Ordinarily I would request another glass as a matter of courtesy — but this one might be asking too much of me."
"Then it can't be helped. I suppose this patronage wine is all mine now."
And then — for the first time since we had met — she smiled, faintly.
When she had drained the last of her cup, she looked down at the chipped vessel in her hand and spoke quietly.
"I'm in debt. A thoroughly irritating business, that."
"I happened to overhear, outside, just now. My apologies."
"What is there to apologize for? I'm the fool who took on the debt."
"So you are aware of that much."
"Call it being betrayed by someone I knew... I believed he was not the sort to pull such a stunt, and he stabbed me square in the back for it. That is where the debt came from."
"............"
"What do you suppose I am about to say?"
Rin turned those deep, still-water eyes upon me. Asking what I thought would come next.
Any sensible person would answer with something like then let me sponsor you and clear the debt, or could I lend you the money with a painting as collateral.
But I had come to know a little of who she was.
Rin was not the sort to lay her private affairs before someone she had known for barely a week — nor the sort to bend her principles for the sake of money.
"So today's patronage offer has been declined as well, then."
"You saw right through me, didn't you? Remarkable. What are you, some kind of wizard?"
"Hardly. Just an ordinary good-for-nothing."
Rin needed money. And yet she had turned down my patronage.
That was her stubbornness — and her creed. The confidence and the pride of a woman certain she could weather this crisis on her own ability alone, with no one's help.
Some might call it maddening to watch. But that was precisely who Rin the painter was — and precisely what made her worth the effort. A heartfelt reaction from a woman like her would be worth whatever it cost.
And besides — it was not as though she were refusing for refusing's sake.
Anyone who had been betrayed once — over money, of all things — could hardly help being all the more wary of patronage like mine.
The fact that Rin had told me as much after barely a week of acquaintance must have been her own roundabout way of showing consideration. A way of saying: these are my circumstances, so do not take it too hard when I decline your patronage.
Considering how mercilessly she had frozen me out when we first met, it was a change of heart I scarcely knew what to do with.
"Even so, I will come again tomorrow."
"Persistent, aren't you."
"Take it as a measure of just how worthwhile a painter I believe you to be, Miss Rin."
"A practiced flatterer, too. Do they teach you that on ships as well?"
"That's a secret. A secret."
Cheers.
Rin and I clinked cups once more. The wine was as bitter and astringent on my tongue as ever. What on earth did Claire see in this stuff?
"You will come at the same hour tomorrow, won't you?"
"I should think so. Unless something comes up."
"...I'll be waiting, customer."
Being seen off by Rin for the very first time, I could feel just how much closer we had grown over the past week.
I waved back at her and left the studio, happily turning over what manner of patronage to bring tomorrow.
And then.
"No going out for a while, you brat."
"Father?"
I had told her I would keep coming so long as nothing came up.
Something came up.