Rumors Chase Their Own Tails
As Catherine had said, to some extent it really was Karem's own fault.
To put it more precisely, he had simply been careless.
To most young children whose minds were still soft and overflowing with curiosity, a secret was practically the same thing as no secret at all.
And if he had kindly explained that it wasn't a secret?
They would have seized the chance and spread their brand-new knowledge far and wide that very day.
Not that he had ever asked them to keep it secret in the first place.
Alicia, the youngest princess of the Felwinter family and the most closely guarded child in all of Winterhome, finished her snacks to her heart's content and slipped back to the classroom without so much as a fairy or a slime noticing. Perfect timing—her private tutor returned and lessons resumed.
At an age when she was bursting with energy, Alicia squirmed with boredom, but rather than force her to sit still, the tutor knew how to prick her curiosity until she joined in of her own accord.
"You must be careful when tending a flower bed," the tutor said. "You never know what sort of plant might be hiding among the bright blossoms."
"Hmm? Is that true of our castle greenhouse as well?"
Coldon sat atop a network of hot springs, making it comparatively mild next to the rest of Iceland. Those same springs fed a greenhouse inside the castle walls where warm water constantly flowed.
"The greenhouse at Winterhome is tended personally by Her Grace the Duchess together with her maids and gardeners, so you need not worry."
"But you said plants can hide?"
"Dangerous poisonous herbs can spring up, after all."
The tutor went on to describe the bizarre ways plants reproduced, and the lesson continued. A child who has just learned something new always wants to show it off—and the topic happened to overlap perfectly.
Alicia spoke up with gusto.
"Come to think of it, they say the Red Witch's Finger isn't a poisonous herb at all!"
"Pardon? Your Highness, from whom did you hear that?"
"Karem, the one who was with Jigmeser, said so. He was eating something that looked like bright-red pickles."
Even the tutor knew who Karem was. Alicia had been bragging nonstop about how delicious his snacks were. A boy only a few years older than the princess herself, yet somehow already a cook.
Wasn't the Red Witch's Finger a poisonous herb that could kill you if you ate it?
They were in the middle of a botany lesson, but the tutor herself was no expert on plants. Still, there was something more pressing to address first.
"Your Highness. Did you eat snacks outside of snack time?"
"Ah—oh no! I wasn't supposed to say that!"
"Hmm. Whatever shall we do?"
"O-okay! I won't daydream for the rest of today's lesson, so please don't tell Papa and Mama!"
"Hmm. Shall we continue the lesson, then?"
Yet Alicia's words had lodged firmly in the tutor's mind. After class ended, on the walk home with colleagues whose routes overlapped, the topic surfaced naturally amid the chatter.
"Ah, by the way—have you heard of the Red Witch's Finger?"
"Of course. The poisonous herb that causes agony just from touching it, isn't it?"
"Apparently it isn't a poisonous herb at all."
"What? Who would say such a thing…"
"Princess Alicia said a cook named Karem, who was with the head chef, claimed as much. She even said he made pickles out of it and ate them."
"Karem…"
"You know—the one who belongs to Lady Atanitas…"
"Ah, the mage's personal chef."
And of course, people who heard something so curious and entertaining on their way home told someone they knew along the road.
"Did you know? They say the Red Witch's Finger isn't actually poisonous!"
"What? Doesn't eating it cause pain so bad you die?"
"Well, a cook named Karem supposedly made pickles out of it and ate them."
"That's completely insane!"
Naturally the story twisted further in the mouths of people with only half-knowledge. And if someone accepted the falsehood as fact and agreed with it, the distortion only grew.
"The Red Witch's Finger that kills you in agony isn't a poisonous herb? What kind of nonsense is that?"
"But a cook named Karem at Winterhome said so."
"What? How many cooks work in that castle?"
"I heard he's the personal chef of the Archmage."
"I'll believe it when I see it with my own eyes!"
With neither transport nor communication developed, information could never spread the way it did in the modern world. Yet city folk always hungered for something new, so rumors flew faster than the wind. And within the largest city in Iceland? Of course every last rat in Coldon soon knew the names Karem and the (supposedly poisonous) Red Witch's Finger.
"I heard that cook Karem was chosen by the gods, so he's fine."
"I heard he ate it so deliciously he died ages ago."
"Honestly, which version am I supposed to believe?"
Of course, after passing through countless mouths the original story was warped until only scraps remained. But that was simply the nature of rumors. And the people spreading them couldn't have cared less.
Rulers, however, were more sensitive to rumors than anyone. The gossip that had blanketed all of Coldon in a day and a half swam upstream like salmon in spawning season and reached Winterhome—more precisely, Alfred, lord of the Felwinter domain—the very next day.
"So this is the pickle made from the Red Witch's Finger, is it?"
In the duke's study, Alfred regarded the kkakdugi—Red Witch pickle—sitting on the table before the three of them. Then he turned to Catherine, who sat on the sofa.
"Lady Atanitas. Can one truly eat this and not die?"
"Yes, my lord. Even if the pain is enough to kill you, you will not die."
"But pain enough to kill?"
"According to my personal chef, it is a 'flavor' one can grow accustomed to."
"A flavor…"
Alfred himself had believed it was fatal. Come to think of it, though, he had never actually seen anyone eat it.
While Alfred calmly pondered, Karem—seated to his employer's left—was dying inside.
I never expected the rumor to spread this fast…
That was only because Karem knew nothing about the Red Witch's Finger. The plant made any living creature capable of feeling pain leap back in horror—and monsters were no exception. There had even been attempts to use powdered Red Witch's Finger to drive monsters away, but the risk of sending them into a pain-maddened frenzy had killed the idea almost at once. Agony enough to kill, yet only a fifty-fifty chance of scaring a monster off. It did repel insects, but other herbs did that job better. An herb of such ambiguous use, combined with humanity's talent for distorting information and its striking appearance and name, had simply become something everyone avoided amid a storm of contradictory claims.
Piecing together the fragmented facts from the conversation between Catherine (seated to Mary's left as she stood with eyes closed) and Alfred across from her, Karem thought:
Well. I dug my own trap and walked right into it.
Ordinarily the tidbit would have flared briefly and then been forgotten. But the Winter-Ascend festival had only just ended. People reluctant to return to dull everyday life cared nothing about whether a rumor was true.
Karem realized living quietly was no longer an option. Then again, the moment he signed the exclusive contract with Catherine, that path had already closed. If he had wanted a quiet life, he should never have approached the center of power.
While Karem was busy abandoning his original goals, Alfred's attention shifted to him.
"Well then, Karem. Could you show us once?"
"Pardon? Ah—of course."
Catching the nuance at once, Karem quickly picked up the fork beside the bowl, speared a piece of the kkakdugi (portioned out from the kitchen in the Mage's Tower), and ate it.
Crunch. Crunch-crunch!
In that short span his senses had already adapted; it was nowhere near as fiery as before. Just a tingling heat. His body, however, had not quite caught up—a flush rose across his skin and sweat beaded on his brow.
Watching him empty the bowl as if nothing were wrong, Alfred's eyes widened.
"…Remarkable indeed. Does anything change when you eat it?"
"Until you adapt, it is more than spicy—it hurts."
"Spicy? That is…"
"If I may be cautious, I believe it is a heat similar to onion, garlic, or pepper, yet of a different kind."
"Hmm. Certainly…"
A shift in perspective. Thinking of the familiar plant the way Karem described it, Alfred found the idea surprisingly plausible. He was still considering when Karem's next words made his eyes light up.
"And when you eat it, a burning sensation rises and your body temperature climbs—"
"Hmm? That is the first I have heard of it."
"Lady Atanitas, why else did you think I was sweating?"
"I simply assumed it was from the pain."
"Let me feel for a moment."
Alfred took Karem's hand with open curiosity. Catherine likewise took the other hand and only then sensed the anomaly. Hot spring water ran through Winterhome's walls for heating, yet Karem's hands were far too warm—downright hot—to blame on the heating alone. Even after releasing him and stepping back a little, a gentle heat still radiated from his skin.
Heat like this from merely eating something… It could be useful.
After a brief deliberation Alfred spoke as though the matter were settled.
"Best to stamp out baseless rumors as quickly as possible. Especially when talk of divine blessings is already circulating. And Lady Atanitas—you cannot be fond of this sort of gossip either, can you?"
"That… ugh…"
A groan escaped Catherine of its own accord. If the personal chef of an Archmage who stood on the threshold of sagehood became the subject of rumors, people would naturally ask who that sage was. And Catherine had no desire to confront her dark history.
While she shuddered, Alfred turned to Karem.
"As it happens, a method for quashing this nonsense as swiftly as possible has just occurred to me."
"Thank you, my lord."
Karem never refused a proposal from Alfred. There were already too many things that made him feel guilty—his age, the gods' attention, and more. Regardless of rank, if distorted rumors were left alone there was no telling how they might meet and fuse into something grotesque.
"But I never imagined it would turn into this…"
"This once, little one, even I feel sorry for you."
Catherine, still suffering from a dark history that resurfaced whenever she least expected it, spoke with genuine pity. The present situation felt all too familiar.
Alfred's solution had been simple. Cover a baseless rumor with a bigger event. Better still if the event was directly tied to the rumor so no one could keep talking afterward.
Which was why Karem now stood here—before a crowd that looked to number at least several hundred.
On the raised seats prepared in the square that held the stage, Alfred and Duchess Elizabeth of the Felwinter family sat with their household and honored guests.
"That little kid is the one from the rumors? He really is just a kid?"
"Beer for only ten pence! Buy now and the side dish is free!"
"The Red Witch's Finger is definitely poisonous! That boy will die any moment!"
"I'll put one shilling on the kid dying!"
The broad square that usually stood empty in winter was packed with people from every street and plaza, and more were still arriving; the noise only grew. Karem's mind went blank for a second, but he steeled himself.
"Hah… Fine. Come what may. I give up."
Carrying a basket full of Red Witch's Fingers, Karem climbed the steps to the platform and took his place upon the stage.