Desuwa Goes Slumming With the Common Folk!
Desuwa goes sightseeing among the poor commoners!
……………
"……………"
I maintained my silence, deep in deliberation over what on earth I was supposed to do now.
Looking back on the events of moments ago, Katerina's impulsive stunt had, all things considered, produced a rather favorable result. She had suddenly seized Natasha's hand and declared, "Please look after me going forward" — and as a net outcome, hadn't their relationship grown closer? Probably.
Oh, whatever! Who even knows anymore!
In the end, I abandoned all rational resistance and decided to surrender my body to the impulse welling up from within. Though "could no longer hold out" might be the more accurate way to put it.
"Lady Katerina? Are you quite all right?"
At Natasha's worried voice, my body sprang up like a released coiled spring. I shot to my feet from my chair and grabbed her by the wrist.
"Natasha! What do you say we take a little trip down to the castle town below?!"
"Yes…… yes? The castle town below?! What on earth has gotten into you, all of a sudden……!"
"Eliza!"
Not even knowing why, I called for her on pure reflex. Eliza, for her part, wore the leisurely smile of someone who had anticipated this exact situation.
"Yes, my lady. One moment, please. I shall guide you to the hidden passage that leads down to the castle's lower town."
Natasha's maids began to stir in confusion, but whatever sleight of hand Eliza employed, a single glance and a few hushed words were all it took to calm them down.
Next, Eliza produced — from who knows where — clothing fit for commoners, and set about helping Natasha and me with our disguises.
Watching the whole process unfold before my eyes, I found myself marveling anew at her competence. It was as though she had predicted every possible circumstance and prepared for them all in advance.
Her finesse in handling the other maids, her complete mastery of the hidden passages scattered throughout the citadel — her capability truly bordered on the miraculous.
And what astonished me even more was the memory that surfaced as I watched her like this.
Eliza was not the kind of maid who guided Katerina down the proper path through persuasion and restraint.
Quite the opposite — she was more like a friend, one who would enthusiastically join in on these brash, spontaneous escapades and help see them through.
Having changed into the garb of commoner boys that Eliza had prepared, we arrived at the castle's lower town. As the Eisenmark Citadel, towering atop its sheer granite cliffs, receded into the distance, the city's true face gradually revealed itself.
Eisenfels was a city built in tiers, like an enormous staircase. At the very top sat the citadel, home to the Grand Ducal family and the high nobility; below that, the Upper City was lined with the mansions of wealthy merchants and master craftsmen.
The Lower City where we now stood — the castle's under-town — was where the ordinary citizenry lived out their lives.
Narrow, winding stone staircases and ramps threaded through the city, lending it a labyrinthine structure. Smoke billowing from the foundries hazed the sky, and beneath it, countless people bustled to and fro.
Natasha looked astonished by everything, but on the broad avenue leading to the central plaza, she simply could not shut her mouth.
Drapers unfurled brilliant bolts of cloth, while the ironworks of the smiths hung in gleaming rows. Weaving between them, porters hauling carts of ale and laborers bent under baskets of fish jostled past one another, shoulder to shoulder.
She has every right to be.
Flipping through Katerina's memories, her daily routine had consisted chiefly of skipping her tutor's lessons and running wild wherever she pleased.
Which is why I'm the one suffering now, with nothing in my head to show for it.
But I digress. Compared to such a Katerina, this model pupil of a young lady from Count Volkov's household was experiencing the vibrant life of the common people for the very first time in her life.
"Tasha!"
The word burst out of my mouth, and Natasha flinched in surprise.
"Ta—Tasha, you say……?"
"I think it's better to go by that here, desuwa……ahem—or, well, better to go by that here. Where shall we go? If we head over to the artisan street, we can watch the glassblowers at work, and if we go down that market alley, we can find something tasty to eat."
"W-well, I really couldn't say. I don't know the area——"
"Careful with how you talk. And besides, we've come all this way — don't hold yourself so stiffly. Come enjoy it with me. Yeah?"
Having abandoned rational "modern person behavior" and simply embraced "young noble lady behavior" as my heart dictated, I felt as though I'd shed a stifling, heavy overcoat.
Wait…… am I not going to end up completely infected by Katerina at this rate?
It felt liberating, and yet frightening, and more than a little unsettling. Still, I had chosen to follow Katerina's impulse this once, so there was nothing to be done about it.
I — or rather, Katerina — beamed ear to ear and clung fast to Natasha's arm.
"Then let's go, Tasha!"
As I led Natasha toward the artisan street, I suddenly noticed something odd.
The "~desuwa" ending that invariably tagged every sentence I spoke — the so-called desuwa speech I'd been unable to escape no matter how I tried to avoid it — had simply slipped away, naturally and completely.
So this speech pattern can actually be turned off?
Delving deeper into Katerina's memories, I found the answer.
This desuwa speech had been something she deliberately practiced and drilled in order to maintain the dignity befitting a Grand Ducal daughter.
Because left to its own devices, Katerina's natural way of speaking was — to put it generously, modest; to put it bluntly, lowborn and crude — utterly unbecoming of a noble young lady, the kind no one could pretend not to notice.
But now, disguised as commoners, dropping the desuwa was only natural, and so, apparently, I could simply speak normally.
So all that speech was Katerina's own way of trying to look the part of a proper noble daughter after all…….
It was absurd, and yet somehow, I understood it.
The moment we stepped into the artisan street, a wave of heat washed over us. Inside the glass workshop, a molten lump of glowing red glass spun and danced at the end of a long blowpipe. With each measured breath of the artisan, the transparent glass swelled and slowly took shape.
"Oh my……"
Natasha held her breath, evidently stunned by the sight. The glassblower noticed her and smiled warmly.
"Come to watch, little ones?"
His name surfaced from Katerina's memory. Old Hans, who had been making glass on this very street for twenty years now.
Katerina remembered Hans as "the kind uncle." And in truth, even when an unidentified boy she barely knew (Katerina) had come strolling up out of nowhere, pretending to be an old acquaintance, he had welcomed her without a hint of hesitation.
"Yep! This is Tasha — she's from Count Volkov's lands. Show her how you make glass, okay?"
"Oho, a Southerner, eh! Well then! It's a trade secret, but I'll make an exception and show you."
Hans, hamming it up with theatrical flourishes, began to explain his craft — the process of melting sand into glass.
He walked us through mixing silica sand with quicklime and soda ash — made by burning seaweed and other kelp — melting the blend in the furnace, and then shaping the molten glass into form.
As a modern person, I knew the rough outline of all this from skimming the internet, but to my surprise, Katerina seemed to be hearing it for the first time.
No, wait. She just never had any intention of understanding or remembering it, did she…….
Right. Katerina had undoubtedly heard this exact explanation from Hans several times before. Each time, she had listened with mild amusement — and retained absolutely nothing.
And so the theory that Katerina almost never engaged her brain was proven yet again. Natasha, of course, was a different story.
"Master…… sir, so does the strength of the glass change depending on the ratio of soda to lime?"
A flicker of surprise crossed Hans's face. He clearly had not expected the friend Katerina had brought along to ask such a technical question.
"Er…… that's right! Sharp little thing, aren't you. Add too much lime and the glass turns cloudy. So what we do is……"
Hans's explanation grew steadily more complex. Natasha nodded along with a serious expression, listening intently, intellectual curiosity glittering in her eyes.
Even after the explanation ended, we lingered in the workshop for a long while. The various glassworks displayed along the window caught the sunlight and shimmered brilliantly. Natasha took particular interest in a blue-tinted glass goblet.
Just as I was beginning to want to wander off and see the rest of the town, a powerful impulse suddenly surged up from deep inside me.
Old Hans was so kind to us today, so why don't we buy out his entire inventory today too……?
The impulse was, precisely, an overwhelming urge to purchase every single glass piece on the workshop's shelves.
Absolutely not, you lunatic! Even for a Grand Ducal daughter, this is a step too far!
Had it been Katerina, she would doubtless have bought the lot without a moment's hesitation. But this was truly beyond-the-pale extravagance.
I took a long, deep breath and forced the impulse down. If I didn't want to be swept along by Katerina's moods, I was going to have to keep my wits about me.
Sifting through the memories rising to the surface, I could understand why this urge had gripped me.
Whenever Katerina snuck out of the citadel — not always, but quite frequently — she would drop by Hans's workshop. And every single time, she would buy out everything on his shelves.
Ah…… so that's why he was so kind. When a customer sweeps your shelves clean on every visit, naturally you don't assume she's just some ordinary kid…….
Hans surely never dreamed that the boy who kept turning up was a Grand Ducal daughter in disguise — but he must have at least guessed that she was the child of some highborn house.
And the same went for Natasha. She would assume that his companion, brought along by the child of some exalted family, was equally wellborn.
For now, the problem at hand was simple: how, exactly, did I leave this shop without spending a fortune?
However carefully considered the impulse might have been in the past — the fact remained that Hans had even shut his shop's door for a while to entertain us. He had patiently answered every one of Natasha's relentless questions, and even given us a demonstration of the glassblowing craft.
But wiping my mouth clean and just walking out? Hmm……
For a moment I considered that it would be fine — I never actually promised to buy anything — but somehow, for some reason, I found I didn't want to do that.