The Weight of a Bouquet (1)
Blow looked over the paper Kunsai held out in a trembling hand.
The price written there was thirty silver for two pounds of sugar.
Two pounds bought anywhere outside would have cost a hundred silver, so the figure Kunsai offered was about thirty percent of the usual price — unreal, plain and simple. Blow had worn out his shoes asking after sugar all over the city, and at a number that simply could not be, his brow drew tight.
"That can't be right."
"It can, Young Master."
"Hm... Then I think I'm going to need an explanation."
"As much as you wish. If you will only spare me the time."
Blow had folded his arms at some point. He glanced once around at everyone in the room.
"There are a lot of people here. Is that all right? We could go to a coffeehouse nearby."
In truth, the donuts had stirred everyone's interest, and he secretly hoped they would talk it out right here. Kunsai seemed to read that wish. He smiled as he answered.
"I don't mind."
"No? Then I'll ask you straight. Shall we sit and talk?"
"Ah — yes. Thank you."
While Kunsai took the seat across from him, a brief quiet settled in, filled by the sound of dishes being washed in the kitchen. A little later Kunsai drew a deep breath and at last began.
"First... we... the Demihumans..."
The moment he actually started, he began to stumble. Skadi laid a hand lightly on his shoulder.
"Don't be nervous. Have a glass of water first. Blow's face isn't friendly, but he does listen."
"...That was a compliment, wasn't it?"
"Wahaha, of course!"
Watching the two of them, Kunsai drank, let out a breath, and finally spoke in a calmer voice.
"At present, we Demihumans live scattered across nine villages. As you may know... because of where those villages lie, we spent hundreds of years under Parso's influence."
"I think I've heard something like that."
"During those hundreds of years, the Demihumans..."
Kunsai stopped for a moment, then went on.
"On paper we were free people, but we were treated little better than slaves. Once it was confirmed that sugar had commercial value, we worked the sugarcane plantations and the mills, taking the whip as we went."
"So it was something like a colony of Parso?"
"Put simply, yes."
Blow himself had caught a glimpse of that in history class. The Demihumans — among the other races, the first to catch human eyes, and so named Ain, the not-human: a small and diligent people. Their technology had advanced slowly, and they were no great warriors, but their greatest misfortune was that a human nation had risen near their home. Unlike them, a people who loved peace and lived within their means, humanity was a race whose hearts had no empty margin left, only greed and malice packed full.
"It is no exaggeration to say that the late Emperor Petrus Serdia saved us. We gained our sovereignty in the course of the Empire's unification."
"How many years ago was that?"
"Sovereignty in any true sense is a story not even twenty years old."
Even telling the history of his own people, Kunsai kept a dry, businesslike tone, and Blow — rather impressed — had already leaned toward him without quite noticing.
"After we gained that sovereignty, a few people helped us. A sugar mill was even built in our village."
"I see."
"From what my father and the other elders say, that was when our people's faces were brightest."
"I imagine so."
"Yes. For hundreds of years we had only cut sugarcane, and then at last we could make the sugar ourselves and sell it."
"When you say that was the brightest time, do you mean..."
Kunsai answered with a bitter smile.
"It did not go well."
"May I ask why?"
"There were several reasons. If I explain only the greatest: as you can tell from this donut, the sugar is a yellow close to black."
"I know. Isn't this what people usually call black sugar?"
"Yes. The truth is, we would like to produce white sugar if we could... but our refining cannot match Parso's. For hundreds of years we Demihumans were put only to the parts of production that needed simple labor, so it is an unavoidable reality."
Blow said nothing, and Kunsai continued.
"And when we first produced sugar, a rumor went around for a while that anything but white sugar was dirty sugar. It has quieted somewhat these days."
Even Blow had hardly tasted black sugar before he came to this other world. Heaping white sugar into one's tea was something like a mark of nobility, and whether in his domain of Blanya or here in Capall, only white sugar was ever set before him.
"There is a difference in the taste, isn't there?"
"There is. Strictly speaking, black sugar is less clean and rougher, but it carries a deeper flavor."
"Hearing that, I do feel it more. Even so, it is unmistakably sweet, as sugar ought to be."
"Yes. But to call it dirty makes no sense. That is the same as saying pepper is dirty because it is black."
"So there is no problem at all with eating it?"
"None. Please, look."
Kunsai held the sugar out. The powder was a little sticky to the touch, but the sweet scent and flavor that rose from it left no room to doubt that it was sugar.
"But as I understand it, every contract underway at the time fell through."
"It went that far?"
"The rumors about the sugar were one thing, and the way people saw us was even worse then. We had never traded before, so we had no credit either."
"...A pity of a story."
"With time, perceptions have improved a great deal. That I can attend the academy is proof enough of it."
Blow was quiet. Then Kunsai, in a tone touched with a joke, smiled as he went on.
"Still, back then we ate sugar to our hearts' content. It was rotting away in the warehouses."
"I don't know what to say. Whether to call that optimistic..."
"Even so, we could hardly throw all of it away."
Kunsai gave a small shrug and continued.
"That was about ten years ago. And that was when the present price of sugar took shape — all this talk of how refining demands tremendous technique, and the rest of it."
"Sugar and pepper both are far too expensive."
"If you consider that transport does not actually cost as much as people think... yes. The truth is, it is close to profiteering."
Measured even against Blow's own common sense, that held. Parso lay some distance from the imperial heartland, where the capital and Capall stood, and desert ran along part of the way — but even so, it was nothing like crossing the Atlantic by ship in the Age of Exploration.
Skadi and Jane were craning their necks, curious about the sugar Kunsai had handed over earlier. Blow held it out to them as he went on.
"Parso is taking an excessive profit?"
"Yes. No matter how much technique goes into it."
If the Parso merchants who all but monopolized sugar were inflating the costs of production and of transport, then the price Kunsai had offered a moment ago began to carry weight. Once his thoughts reached that far, Blow nodded.
"The price you offered me makes sense now."
"It is not white sugar, of course. Young Master, ever since I came up to Capall I have been searching for somewhere that might take a delivery."
"And that is why you came here as well?"
"Yes. It has already been two years."
Kunsai nodded readily. Blow propped his chin on his hand and asked,
"Still, two years... I would have thought a few places would at least carry it."
"Haha, no. Not a single one."
"Hm? Why? This is quite decent."
The black sugar was not bad, and Blow only tilted his head, puzzled. A shadow crossed Kunsai's face, and he went on in a slightly constricted voice.
"...Most of the merchants would not even hear me out."
"What?"
"The rare few who did listen — rare as beans in a drought — took one look at our sugar and showed how little they liked it."
Blow was silent.
"They seemed unwilling to scratch a scab and make a sore. Parso's merchants hold considerable influence in Capall."
"And if I, for that same reason, said I would not take the delivery?"
Kunsai managed, with effort, to lift the corners of his mouth, and barely answered.
"If that is your judgment, Young Master, then there is nothing to be done."
A short silence. Kunsai slowly opened his mouth again.
"Even so, I thought I ought to tell you the situation exactly as it is, and so I explained."
"Thank you for not dressing it up. You could have skimmed the last of it."
"I could not. Even if you had not known, it is something you would have learned without fail, sooner or later."
"That may be so, but..."
"Because the way I conduct myself before you decides the reputation of every Demihuman."
His tone was even. Blow could not easily imagine how much anguish it had taken before he could speak that way.
"Then what are you doing with the sugar you produce now?"
"Aside from what the monastery buys now and then... most of what we produce is handed over to Parso for a pittance. With a feeling like coughing up blood."
Blow said nothing for a long moment.
"Then the reason you were standing out front from Thursday..."
"Yes. I wanted to speak with you even once, Young Master. The truth is, I was desperate for that as well. I had almost never made it past a shop's door..."
Blow remembered how brightly Kunsai had smiled when he was told to come in, and an unavoidable pity settled over his face.
"...I would have heard you out whenever you came."
"I wanted to do absolutely everything I was able to do. And somehow, I thought you would listen."
"Even so, aren't you a student? These two years must have been hard..."
Kunsai shook his head.
"I have a responsibility."
"A what?"
"In this city of education, Capall, I am the only Demihuman attending an academy."
Blow sighed, leaned back in his chair, and said,
"...That must be heavy."
"No. It is light, Young Master."
Kunsai shrugged, and smiled brightly.
The representatives of the Demihumans' nine villages hold a regular council every Monday night. And from very long ago, that hall had always split into two factions, and a war of words would break out.
"The present always exists for the sake of the future."
"The future? How can there be a future if there is no present? Do not try to stir us with pretty words!"
Those called the Future Faction and the Present Faction carried their dispute through every decision. The leading figure of the Future Faction was Tekun Cherohun — Kunsai's father — and the leading figure of the Present Faction was Tarkan Patz, representative of the village beside the one where Kunsai lived.
In the course of that quarrel, talk often arose of the boy and the girl who were awls in a pocket, too sharp to stay hidden. One was Kunsai Cherohun, who had now come looking for Blow. The other was Liliane Meskira.
From childhood, Kunsai showed a genius so great that the whole neighborhood buzzed with the news that a star had finally risen among the Demihumans. He taught himself his letters, and he never forgot anything he had seen once, so that no one who watched him could withhold their wonder.
Liliane, by contrast, showed a gift for magic. She had never studied under anyone, and when she first made a flame in empty air, her village flew into an uproar, certain a fire spirit had grown angry.
Their talents were too keen to hide. From the time the two of them had just passed ten, the federation's councils burned, meeting after meeting, over whether or not to send them to the academy.
"Do you know how much of the budget it takes to send someone to the academy, all the way through to graduation?"
"And that is six years, no less. Six years! Besides, Kunsai is your son, Tekun — of course you talk that way!"
"There is the matter of fitting in, too. Whoever we send to the academy now, how are they supposed to endure among humans? There will be people from Parso there!"
When the Present Faction spoke like this, the Future Faction answered in kind.
"Let us look to the future. The future. What I am saying is that, as we are, we cannot go anywhere and even hold a proper conversation."
"The academy is a place where the classes are mixed together. That is why there is opportunity. Why can you not see that one child's ordinary days there are the very chance we are so desperate to seize?"
"Suppose a single mage rises among the Demihumans. That would be a tremendous power — enough to change how the entire race is seen! Did the White Flame himself not acknowledge Liliane's talent?"
The reason the argument ran back and forth at every meeting was their dire poverty. No single household, nor even a single village, was in any position to send them to the academy. To send the two of them, they would have to borrow the strength of the whole race, and so every week they shouted until the veins stood out in their necks.
Time passed, and Kunsai and Liliane grew until they were thirteen, old enough to sit the academy examination. After those several years of verbal war, it was the Future Faction that won. A motion finally passed the council: if the two of them passed, they would be sent to the academy, and their living expenses would be paid.
In the narrow carriage climbing toward Capall for the examination, Liliane looked out the window and spoke to Kunsai in a voice full of joy and excitement.
"Kunsai! We have to pass, both of us!!"
"I've studied so that we will."
"Tch. You really are full of yourself."
She pouted at his lukewarm answer, but Kunsai was no less tense. The boy of that time had, regrettably, grown up far too soon. Every turn of the carriage wheels was money, and a night's lodging in Capall was money too — as were the small potatoes he put in his mouth each day. They were the blood and sweat of the village. If he was to have any face left to show them, he thought, he had to produce results, no matter what.
Fortunately, Kunsai overcame that pressure in the end, and so did Liliane. Liliane entered Capall Municipal Magic School, and Kunsai entered Capall Central Academy, both with their heads held high.
"Kunsai!! I passed!!!"
Even now he cannot forget the sunlit look on her face as she ran to him with her letter of acceptance. Liliane then looked truly happy, as if she held the whole world.
But unlike her, who was nothing but bright, Kunsai's heart only grew heavier. Once he had actually been accepted to a school whose name rang across the continent, expectation began to settle into the eyes of the villagers who looked at him. From some point on, the older brothers and sisters heading off to other lands to earn money would always look in on him or Liliane once before they climbed into the carriage. They never said it aloud, but as they stroked his hair and hers, their eyes glittered with hope. Faced with that, Kunsai's chest stung, as if they were being sold off because of him.
Once, when the weight of it was too much and he lay curled in his room, his father spoke in a firm voice.
"Set your heart firmly."
"Yes, Father."
"And... do not let Liliane see that worry of yours. She is a fragile child."
"...Yes."
· · ·
But neither Liliane's happiness nor his own faint thrill lasted even two months. Parso — their enemy, their grudge — had begun stationing troops in the borderland near the villages where they lived, and raising a fortress.