The Ice Mine
“Rita, I heard you went to the night market in Carrington! What was it like? It must've been way bigger than ours, with so much more to see.”
A few of the servants had gathered in the servants' dining hall for lunch. Aeslin, who had apparently heard the news from somewhere, was looking at Rita with undisguised envy.
“It's been forever since the night market last opened here in Hamilton because of the rain. You know, when you walk around with a candy stick in your mouth, it's honestly so much fun. Sigh……”
She was a teenager with plenty of things she wanted and plenty of things she was curious about. It was true for everyone, of course, but for girls Aeslin's age especially, being cooped up indoors all the time like this took a considerable amount of patience.
“Carrington has good weather, so the night market opens pretty often. But even I've only been there once. The young master was going, so I tagged along behind him.”
She'd wanted to tell everyone about the dazzle and bustle of the first night market she'd ever seen in her life, but somehow it felt like she'd been enjoying it all by herself, and that made her a little guilty. So Rita did her best to rein in the excitement in her voice.
“It really is enormous. It's an international city, so you see tons of foreigners, and the food is amazing. Anyway, it was fascinating. Though I guess you'd say it's crowded? Go alone and you're bound to get lost.”
“Just how many people are there?”
“Too many to count. I've never seen that many people in my whole life.”
“I heard about it from him too! He was going on and on about all the delicious things he ate, absolutely thrilled about it!”
Bar, who had been quietly minding his own meal, suddenly butted in.
“He was bragging about how thanks to the young master's friend, he got to eat practically everything for almost free — I thought I'd die of envy, honestly. He even said he'd take me along next time. When might that be, I wonder?”
Bar's eyes had gone dreamy. The way his lips smacked together, he was already living out that day in his imagination.
“Wow! Lucky you, Bar! I wanna go too!”
It wasn't just Aeslin. The other servants eating their lunch wore much the same expression. All but one, that is.
She's not one to sit quietly, though……
The odd one out was Tania. By this point, she should have been snapping at Bar to quit bragging already — and yet she showed no reaction at all.
Did something happen at her home?
Come to think of it, she'd been noticeably quieter lately, and she looked so downcast that even Rita, who wasn't particularly close to her, found herself worrying. She didn't seem especially ill, but she had no energy and her complexion was dull. That was the only reason Rita had held off pressing her about the glasses.
“If I get to go to the night market, I'll come back for winter break and tell you every last detail, start to finish. Just trust me! My brother never breaks a promise once he makes it. I swear I'll……!”
“Bar, did you finish what I asked you to do?”
“Huh?”
Caught off guard by Rita's ambush of a question, Bar, who had been holding forth so eagerly, blinked in confusion. For some reason, his teacher's voice sounded off, and he couldn't help worrying that he'd done something wrong.
“I distinctly remember telling you to prep the ingredients for tonight's dinner, didn't I?”
“Ah — yes, teacher. That's scheduled for after the meal.”
“There's cleaning to do on top of that, plus a pile of other work. You have time to be lounging around like this? Isn't this meal dragging on a bit long?”
“W-was it?”
“Yes. Move. Now!”
She'd had no intention of touching anything during mealtimes, but Bar had been so heedlessly persistent with his bragging that Rita had been left with no choice.
Even before this, she'd been shouldering the full weight of her coworkers' envy and jealousy ever since the Carrington trip. She had no desire to create scenes like this one, where she came off as lording it over everyone.
I can't go stirring up trouble and making a fuss. The young master would worry.
“Come on, Rita, go easy on him. He works so hard the rest of the time…… let the man at least eat in peace……”
Completely missing Rita's mood, Aeslin leaped to Bar's defense.
“That's right, Rita. He's nothing but muscle, but he drops dead at your word. Go a little easy on him.”
Watching Bar's retreating back as he scurried out of the hall, Lady Hoshue chided Rita as well, her expression rueful.
“His face is so fierce, I misjudged him at first, but the longer I watched, the gentler he seemed. He doesn't make a show of it, but who knows — you might be hurting his feelings, you know that?”
“…Hurting his feelings?”
“Yes! Sometimes when I see how you boss those brothers around, it startles even me.”
“Me too! But what gets me is how they hang on your every word whenever you do. It's honestly a marvel.”
“What, I never treated them that badly……”
“The way they follow you around, you'd think you were some kind of goddess?”
“A goddess?”
“Yes! Didn't you know? Bar goes without saying, and Amon's the gardener, right? But you told him not to lift a finger, so he's only doing the cleaning. And when I saw what he'd cleaned, I was genuinely amazed. I had no idea the castle could get this spotless.”
That's because you don't know Amon's tastes! If I'd let him have his way, the place wouldn't be a garden — it'd be hell! What do you know about anything!
She wanted to shout the rebuttal right out loud, but Rita couldn't bring herself to say it. She knew full well that if it was her word, the brothers obeyed without a murmur. Only, she'd never once thought of it as mistreating them, and she was still turning that over in her mind.
Was I really that harsh……?
“As for the cleaning, it has already been decided that a special bonus will be paid.”
Joana the housekeeper, who had been eating her meal in silence, said this with a smile.
“Oh, really? So it wasn't just me who was surprised! A special bonus — that's wonderful!”
“I was grateful enough that I decided not to say anything about it, you know. It does worry me how much he eats, but I'm treating it as fair reward for the work.”
“Will you be able to finish cleaning the whole castle by the time the lord returns?”
“We'll have to make sure of it.”
The castle was so vast that cleaning every corner of it was no small undertaking. Once the break ended, Death and his brothers would have to return to Carrington with Bayul. Until then, she intended to entrust the castle's cleanliness entirely to them. And of course, she would pay them generously for their trouble.
“If this rain would just let up, we could finally get some work done too……”
Lady Hoshue sighed as she gazed out the window, then prettily arranged a slice of cake on a plate and handed it to Rita.
“It's time for the young master's snack. Rita, you take it up to him.”
“Yes, Lady Hoshue.”
“Do you know where he'll be?”
“Probably in the study. He's spent all his time there ever since the lord left for the imperial capital.”
Strictly speaking, it was the hidden chamber connected to the study, but there was no need to mention that. She carried the plate of cake and headed up to that floor, mentally reviewing her treatment of Death and his brothers as she went.
“Madame Joana! Head Butler Cunning requests your presence at once!”
Just then, a servant came rushing up in search of Joana.
What's happened?
The messenger's voice was distinctly grave. Plate of cake still in hand, Rita headed first for Head Butler Cunning's office.
At that very moment, Bayul — just as Rita had guessed — was stepping into the hidden chamber off the study. He brushed a few books on the shelf in sequence, and the concealed door slid open with a low rumble.
“…Death?”
Bayul had naturally expected the room to be empty. Instead, Death stood before him, shattering that expectation quite spectacularly.
“How did you get in here……?”
Bayul himself had come because thoughts of his mother had left his heart in disarray. But however much he and Death had discovered this place together, it was unquestionably a private space — hardly somewhere one ought to enter without permission.
At the mix of puzzlement and displeasure on Bayul's face, Death offered an explanation.
“It seemed like it needed cleaning.”
“…Cleaning?”
Only then did Bayul notice how pristine the surroundings had become. The place had once been thick with dust; now it was spotless. Somehow even breathing felt easier.
“Ah — thank you.”
He should have cleaned it long ago and never had. Perhaps because, in truth, the moment he set foot in this room, he could think of nothing else.
Whenever he missed his mother, whenever the questions about her grew too heavy, he would come in here and stare at the portrait for a long while. Lately, that had become almost a daily ritual for him.
“What was my mother's original name, I wonder?”
Bayul settled onto the sofa and asked Death as he looked up at the portrait. It was a question he was asking himself as much as anyone.
Did she even have an original name?
“Original name?”
“Yes. I was told Father gave her that name himself before they were married. After all, there's no such thing as…… a person without a name.”
“That's more than a little strange. Do humans just go around changing their names whenever they like?”
“…By 'humans,' you mean?”
“Ah — the nobility. My kind has no such custom.”
“I haven't seen it often myself, but there are people who do change their names.”
Professor Rothius, an imperial prince, had changed even his family name to hide his identity. There was no guarantee his mother hadn't done the same.
“Why anyone would bother with such a tiresome exercise is truly beyond me.”
At Death's cynical reply, Bayul simply smiled. This wasn't the kind of thing he should be discussing with him, but the words about his mother had slipped out before he knew it.
He couldn't tell whether it was because they had discovered this place together, or because of the occasional startlingly perceptive things Death said.
Part of it was surely that his friends weren't by his side, but lately he had come to lean on Death far more than before — of that he was certain. Even ordinarily, there were precious few people he could speak to freely about his mother, and of late, Death was the one he'd been talking to most of all.
“Did you ask your father?”
“No…….”
There simply hadn't been a moment when he could bring himself to ask about his mother's name. He had already asked his father so much, with such an important undertaking ahead of him. On their last night before his departure, the best Bayul could manage was to play chess with him for hours and soothe the ache of parting that way. He hadn't wanted to needlessly unsettle his father's spirits.
“Anyone else you might ask?”
“No one.”
Even before coming to Hamilton, his father had always called his mother by the name Ivette. His uncle remembered only that her name had changed, and knew nothing of what came before.
“I suppose there's nothing for it but to search the Canyon Mountain Range…….”
She had met his father somewhere out there, so some trace of her might remain. But the Canyon Mountain Range was anything but small. How on earth would he search it all? It was an impossible undertaking from the start.
“Young master! Young master!”
Just then, Rita's frantic voice came calling for him from outside the study. She knew about the hidden chamber, but not how to get into it. With Bayul constantly vanishing without a word, she had searched for him so often that she'd naturally learned it through Jasper.
He pressed the mechanism on the inside, and the bookshelf door slid open once more.
“Rita, you're here?”
“You need to go downstairs right this instant!”
Her expression and her tone were both extraordinarily urgent.
“What's wrong? Did someone get hurt?”
“If only that were all! The mine has collapsed!”
“…The mine collapsed?”
“Yes! The Northern Ice Mine caved in, and dozens of workers are trapped in the tunnels! What do we do, young master?”
“When did this happen?”
“…I don't know! Head Butler Cunning's office is downstairs right now, and……”
Rita's words went unfinished. Bayul was already running for the door.
The Northern Ice Mine. It was where Hamilton's unique minerals were extracted — the city's principal source of income, and the workplace where so many of Hamilton's families earned their bread. That was why it was a vital region his father watched over with particular care even in ordinary times.
Let it not be a catastrophe……
With his father away, every decision now fell to Bayul. And with them, the responsibility for their consequences. Worry filled every inch of Bayul's face as he hurried down toward the lower floors.