Please, Indulge in Luxury
The party slipped past the gatekeeper without a hitch and entered Winterhome. Two extra bundles hung from their arms compared to when they had left, yet the moment the man spotted Catherine he simply saluted and skipped even the most perfunctory check.
"Speaking of which," Karem said, tapping the bundle Mary carried, "these Alraune byproducts we picked up this time… honestly, they're not in great shape, are they?"
"The stems have lost their spring and gone wrinkled, and the leaves and roots are wilted," Mary replied, hoisting the load higher and adjusting her grip. "They haven't spoiled yet, though."
"Still, it bothers me. Unsatisfactory as this batch is, we'll have to dark-roast them quickly for preservation, just like at the Adventurers' Guild."
Even vegetables that had lost their peak freshness still tasted roughly the same when cooked long and hard over a strong flame. The contents of the bundle—Alraune stems, roots, and leaves—looked on the verge of turning, yet once Mary seared them over high heat they produced a perfectly drinkable brew.
Karem knew next to nothing about coffee, but when the roasted matter was steeped in hot water the flavor struck him as more or less the same.
"The real problem is how strongly the smell of roasted Alraune clings to the kitchen… we'll have to figure out a way to deal with that."
"It was used as potpourri to begin with. Do you really think you can strip the scent out by itself?"
"Are you trying to provoke my competitive spirit?"
Mary gave a dry little laugh. "I will eliminate that odor. Contractor, Junior Karem—you may look forward to it."
"I, for one, couldn't care less," Catherine said flatly. Then she fell silent mid-sentence, tilting her head in surprise as her gaze shifted.
Karem followed her line of sight.
Still clad in that peacock-bright quilted armor, black-obsidian magic sword at his hip, Gordon was being hauled along by a thoroughly bundled-up Alicia, looking for all the world as though he would rather be anywhere else.
"Now what in the world is—"
"Isn't it obvious?" Mary clucked her tongue at the sight of Gordon being dragged along, bent almost double. "Whether she escaped or simply got free time, she was wandering about, spotted Sir Stark, and that was that."
"Ah—right. Last time she got hauled off she made a random promise that Gordon would take her sightseeing."
Karem recalled Alicia being dragged away a few days earlier like a runaway lamb that had failed its escape attempt.
"Looks like this is part of that."
"Dragged away? Lady Alicia? By whom?"
"Baroness Poppins."
"Ahh."
Catherine, who had been about to ask who would dare haul the princess of Winterhome anywhere, nodded in understanding the moment she heard one of the three people capable of controlling Alicia.
Alicia, chattering away, looked left and right and finally locked eyes with the group. Her plump cheeks were rosy from the cold.
"She's spotted us."
"Please stop describing Lady Alicia as though she were a carnivorous monster—"
"She's coming this way."
Just as Mary said, Alicia came barreling through the thickly falling snow straight toward them. Gordon lurched after her in an awkward half-crouch.
"Kitty! You're back! And Mary and Karem too!"
"It's Catherine, not Kitty."
"What's in those sacks?"
"Let me finish a sentence first…! Haa. Alraune byproducts."
"Alraune?"
She knew what an Alraune was—plant-type monsters she had studied. There had been a lot of details, but the upshot was that you couldn't eat them. Alicia's interest evaporated at once.
Meanwhile Karem turned to Gordon, who looked a good ten years older than usual.
"So. How exactly did you end up like this?"
"I was killing time wandering the castle, ran into Her Highness, and now I'm in this sorry state. Seriously, the energy of a six-year-old—"
"Your back's going to give out. Why not just carry her?"
"What, like a niece? Hey, even so, that'd be a bit rude—"
An image flashed through Gordon's mind: Baroness Poppins striding off with the runaway lamb tucked under one arm like a shepherd.
"…Maybe not so rude after all."
"At least you wouldn't be hunched over like that. Your spine must be killing you."
"Well… it's not quite that bad."
Gordon straightened, scooped Alicia up in one smooth motion, and settled her on his arm.
"Whoa!"
Fools and children love high places. Alicia's eyes went round with delight at the elevated view.
"So, Lady Alicia," Karem asked, "where were you dragging Gordon off to?"
"Hm?"
"The greenhouse."
"Hey, 'dragging' makes it sound weird," Gordon muttered under his breath. No one paid him any mind.
At the word greenhouse, Karem remembered his lifesaver.
Come to think of it, I never properly thanked her.
He had been too busy dealing with his sudden growth; Catherine had simply led him, stumbling, back to the tower before he could express proper gratitude. Two archmages' treatment, the probable grace of Tutatis and Skadi, and that slightly unhinged green woman named Flora…
"We should at least bring something to eat."
"Hm? Bring something? What are you talking about?"
"Flora. I never got the chance to thank her properly."
"Ah."
Catherine agreed for exactly the same reason.
So that was the plan. First, however, Mary insisted on dealing with the questionable Alraune byproducts, so they dropped her off at the Mage's Tower and headed for the greenhouse.
The knights and soldiers on duty took one look at Alicia perched on Gordon's arm, with Karem and Catherine trailing behind, and wearily cleared the way.
"Greenhouse access is supposed to require prior permission," Karem remarked.
"It does."
"I've never asked for permission once."
Catherine pushed back her hood as they stepped inside, and she thought she understood why.
"Gordon! This is Winterhome's greenhouse!"
"A greenhouse, huh. Outside it's the dead of winter, yet it's warm in here."
"Huh?"
Alicia looked puzzled. The reaction she had expected was nowhere to be found. Every outsider from beyond Iceland always gasped. Why wasn't he surprised?
Gordon, however, was having a different experience entirely.
This has to be the biggest greenhouse I've ever seen.
From ceiling to walls everything was glass, and beyond it the dark clouds still dumping fat snowflakes were perfectly visible. Was the entire structure glass?
Whether in Europa or elsewhere, any great noble worth the name kept a greenhouse or something similar—for hobby, for prestige, for whatever reason. If not a greenhouse, then some other equally impressive facility.
Even from the outside Gordon had suspected as much, but Winterhome's greenhouse was the largest, most lavish, most extravagant he had ever laid eyes on. The whole building was glass, and the sheer density of magic needed to maintain these seasonal zones…
Gordon gazed at the fruit of Alfred's one and only youthful extravagance—born of the windfall from trade with the Adobis New Kingdom—and felt genuine awe.
It still wasn't enough for Alicia.
"Hmph. Gordon, put me down now."
"Yes, yes. Wait—hmph?"
"Hmph!!!"
She flung off her puffy outdoor coat with her entire body broadcasting indignation, then charged full-tilt down the greenhouse path.
"Honestly. Kids' minds are a mystery."
"How is anyone supposed to guess what little ones are thinking?"
"We should probably follow Her Highness, right?"
"After we pick up the coat first."
Gordon scooped up Alicia's fur coat and walked with the others. The farther they went into the greenhouse, the more he found himself marveling all over again.
"I thought it was just a pretty luxurious greenhouse. But there are separate zones—desert, grassland, forest, wetland, swamp, pond, lake—each with its own season?"
"I heard the flora and fauna are completely different in each zone too."
"How much money did they pour into this!?"
"When we were helping with the tomatoes and bell peppers before, they used dozens of magical tools just to force the right environment."
"What are they, druids?"
Of course, as mentioned, the entire thing was the result of Alfred's eyes spinning at the first real fortune that had ever fallen into his hands—his first and last act of purely personal extravagance.
"Was it always like this?"
"No."
Catherine shifted her staff and shrugged out of her robe, then held it out to Karem as naturally as breathing.
"The old Winterhome greenhouse wasn't like this. The ceiling wasn't glass, and despite the name they mostly grew barley."
Given Iceland's past poverty—when even nobles sometimes went hungry—if the Felwinter family had flaunted a greenhouse this ostentatious, rebellion would have broken out long ago.
"They say the present greenhouse was completely rebuilt once trade with the Adobis New Kingdom opened the coffers."
"There must have been a lot of grumbling about the cost."
An entire ceiling of glass transparent enough to show the sky, zones that perfectly recreated different seasons, and the sheer size of the building itself… silence would have been stranger than complaints.
"There was. Vassals and retainers each had a word or two to say."
"Of course. No matter how you look at it, the money—"
"'Please, Your Grace, indulge in a little more luxury.'"
"…They're drowning in surplus?"
The unexpected answer left Karem speechless.
Yet the retainers and vassals sworn or contracted to the Felwinter family at the time had been completely sincere. Who among them wouldn't have liked to live a little more extravagantly? They simply couldn't, given how tight things were. And if the highest authority in Iceland—the duke himself—lived in (by great-noble standards) penury, even contracted vassals had to watch their step. So their plea had carried a clear subtext:
Please, Your Grace, live a little more luxuriously so the rest of us can too.
"If you call it hollow, it's hollow; if you call it desperate, it's desperate; and if you call it petty, it's downright petty," Gordon said, twisting his lips into an expression that was neither quite a smile nor quite shock. "But at the same time I can't say I don't understand the situation."
"Well, people supposedly start gossiping if you wear the same dress to a ball more than three times. They must have been fairly desperate."
They followed the trail of Alicia's wet shoeprints toward the heart of the greenhouse. The central zone was autumn incarnate—orange, crimson, and brown in every direction.
"Wow, autumn's in full swing here."
"Different seasons for each zone, huh. They weren't kidding."
"A few chestnuts on the ground and it'd be perfect."
"I wonder if they even have chestnut trees."
Then every footstep stopped at once.
The reason was simple.
"Pororororong~~♬"
"Flora says hi too!"
Flora, buried up to her neck so that only her head poked out of the earth like a sprout, was looking up at Alicia. The sight was thoroughly bizarre. Just as autumn had arrived in the central zone, autumn had arrived in Flora's hair as well: instead of flowers, yellow, brown, and red leaves of every sort lay scattered across her light-green skin and the ground around her.
"…So that woman who dyed herself every color of the rainbow is the one who saved your life?"
"Yes. Though her hair's changed a bit."
"And what exactly is she doing with Her Highness right now?"
"Beats me. Whack-a-mole?"
Alicia was cheerfully smacking Flora on the forehead over and over.