Ascendance of a Bookworm

Chapter 73: Interlude – Visiting Miss Corinna’s House

My name is Tuuli! I’m eight years old.

When my little sister Maïne said she got everything figured out at the temple about becoming a sister-in-training, I was super relieved. She’s not going to die because of the devouring, and she’s not going to be a gray-robed priestess and get treated like an orphan. I was really scared that she’d go away and I’d never see her again, but that’s not going to happen, and I’m super happy about that!

The day after Mom and Dad got called out to the temple, Maïne headed out to go to Mister Benno’s shop. She said that she needed to ask him some things about how she should be dealing with the head priest, and that while she was there she was going to figure out what day she was going to meet with Miss Corinna. Last time she met with her, she went all by herself, and I was stuck at home. This time, though, Maïne said that she’d ask Miss Corinna if I could come too.

Aaahh, I’m really looking forward to this! My Maïne is such a good girl, always thinking of her big sister! I’m gonna get to brag to all my friends at the workshop about how I got to go to Miss Corinna’s house.

Miss Corinna’s really amazing! When she came of age, she got her own workshop, and then she started getting orders from the nobility to make clothes for them. To apprentice seamstresses like me, she’s like a shining star in the sky, someone that one day we want to be just like.

The story of how her amazing husband proposed to her super dramatically is like a legend you’d hear from a minstrel. All the apprentice seamstresses talk about it. For the sake of his love, he cast aside his dreams of being a merchant, spent all of the money he’d saved up, and then proposed to her! Hearing rumors like that, it’s really obvious to see that he really loves her a lot. It’s the kind of story that every girl wants to be part of.

I wonder what kind of person Miss Corinna is? All I know is that Maïne said that she was really nice, and also really pretty.

The front door opens, and Maïne comes leaping in. “I’m home, Tuuli!” she says, beaming. “Miss Corinna said that she definitely wants to see you and Mom too. Tomorrow afternoon, she said.”

From how hard she’s panting, it looks like she was kinda hurrying home. Immediately after she tells me about this, she collapses on the spot.

“Maïne?!” I say. “Urgh… I really wanted to come home and tell you as quick as I could, maybe I over did it? Sorry.”

“It’ll be a big problem if you can’t actually make it out there tomorrow. Come sit down and take a break.”

Maïne flops limply into a chair, and her glossy, dark blue hair falls down behind her. She’s always trying her best at a lot of different things, so she’s gotten a little bit healthier, but she’s definitely still not actually strong, and she’s still not getting any bigger. She still looks like she’s four years old, and I really can’t help but worry about her.

When she stands next to Lutz, who’s the same age as her, she looks like his little sister, and lately when she goes to the forest, kids two years younger than her offer to help her out, which always makes her slump over dejectedly. She’s not weak just because she has the devouring. Even when she got cured, she was still really frail. She said that Freida, who has the same disease, doesn’t have that problem.

Maïne rubs at her temples. “…Hmm, am I doing better now?” she says.

She stands up, then starts slowly moving around. She carefully folds up her nice dress and puts it in the bag that she made herself and really likes, making sure that it doesn’t get dirty, then puts her hairpin in as well. As soon as I realize that she’s getting her things ready for tomorrow, I ask her a question.

“Maïne, what about me? Do I need to do anything to get ready?”

“No, I can’t think of anything… but since it’s such a special occasion, maybe we should wash our hair with rinsham?” “Yeah!”

Maïne and I start washing our hair with the rinsham I made. I didn’t used to wash it this much, but lately I guess I’ve started thinking that I need to keep myself looking nice. Even at a workshop, the only people who can talk to customers and show them around are people who make sure they’re dressed very neatly.

“Hey, Maïne,” I say. “Today, they let me sit at the front desk for the first time!”

“Wow, really? That’s great, Tuuli!” “It’s all thanks to you,” I say.

A while back, when I was grumbling to Maïne about how only pretty people got to meet with the customers at work, she said to me, “It’s because first impressions are vital when dealing with customers. It is absolutely something that merchants pay attention to. If you want to go from someone who only works in the back room making things to someone who gets to work publicly with customers, then you have to make sure to keep yourself clean, pay attention to your manners, and so on.” It was cautionary advice about a merchant’s viewpoint.

She also said that I should make sure that my work clothes are nice enough that customers can see me in, and in order to make sure that they don’t get dirty I should wear an apron that even covers my sleeves. That way, if I have to talk to a customer, then I can take off the apron, and be wearing clean clothes. I took her advice to heart, and now I’m in a place where I can do work that involves talking to customers, too.

“I’m home,” says Mom, as she comes through the front door.

She arrives as Maïne and I are in the middle of talking about what we’ve gotten done today as we carefully wash our hair. When she sees us drying our hair and thoroughly combing it out, her eyes widen slightly.

“Oh my, you’re using rinsham? …Does that mean…?”

“Yep!” says Maïne. “Tomorrow, we get to go to Miss Corinna’s house.”

Mom, when she hears this, immediately tells me and Maïne that we’re on dinner duty today and starts washing her hair. Since we definitely understand that she wants to make herself as pretty as possible before meeting with Miss Corinna, Maïne and I just shrug at each other and give up our seats.

“I’m going to wear the new summer dress you just finished making for me tomorrow,” I say to Mom. “Good idea. That’ll keep you cool, and you look good in it, too.”

The cloth that we didn’t need to use to make Maïne’s dress has turned into a new summer dress for me, instead. Unlike Maïne, I’m actually growing healthily, so I’m always getting too big for my clothes really quickly.

There wasn’t enough cloth to make the entire dress, so the skirt part was actually sewn together patchwork-style out of a few different colors of cloth in order to be long enough. It wound up looking like it’s decorative, so it looks really cute. It’s my favorite dress.

I wonder if Miss Corinna is going to think it looks cute, too?

The next day, the three of us leave the house fairly early, making sure that we’ll be able to get there in time even going at Maïne’s walking speed. As we pass through the central plaza and enter the north side of town, the clothes of the people around us start to get more colorful, and I start seeing people who are wearing clothes with lots of cloth. Since it’s rare for me to come to the north part of town, I look down self-consciously at my own clothes, wondering if I’m sticking out too much. When I look up at Mom, I see that she looks a little worried about how other people are looking at her too. Maïne, however, doesn’t look the least bit worried. In fact, she seems really energetic! She’s still really slow, though.

“Miss Corinna’s house is right above Mister Benno’s shop,” she says.

When she says that, it starts to make sense. Mom and I have only heard Maïne talk about these things. We haven’t seen them ourselves. Maïne, though, comes this way with Lutz a lot. There’s no way she’d be worried.

“Oh no, how should I introduce myself?” says Mom. “You could start with ‘it’s nice to meet you’, right?” says Maïne. “Then maybe something like ‘thank you for inviting us here’? And then when you meet Mister Benno and Mister Mark, you could say ‘thank you for looking after my daughter’, I think.”

Maïne immediately has an answer ready for our very stressed-out Mom. We don’t usually need to formally introduce ourselves, but maybe when working at the gates or at a shop, this is the kind of thing you need to be able to bring out immediately, I wonder? She didn’t hesitate at all.

“Maïne, how about me? How do I introduce yourself?”

“Just put on your cutest smile!” she says, beaming. “I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t be happy if you smile and say how much you’ve been looking forward to meeting them.”

Mom and I start practicing our introductions as we walk. Maïne watches us, looking amused. Since she’s wearing her apprentice’s clothes, she really blends in here, unlike me and Mom. I suddenly feel like there’s a side of her that we don’t know about. It’s a strange, uncomfortable, almost frustrating sort of feeling.

“Miss Corinna, hello~!”

Maïne is completely unperturbed as she knocks on the door. Mom and I, on the other hand, are not. With every floor we passed as we climbed the stairs, Mom started shivering more and more, and I couldn’t stop my legs from wobbling with every step.

Wait a bit, Maïne! I’m still not ready!

Before I have a chance to settle my nerves, the door opens. “Maïne, hello, come in!” says Corinna. She looks up at us. “You must be Maïne’s mother and sister. Welcome! I’m Corinna. Please, come in.”

The door has opened to reveal a beautiful, charming woman. She is way younger and prettier than I even imagined. Her glossy, pale, cream-colored hair shines like moonlight, and her thin, gentle eyes are a gray that gleams like silver as she looks at us with the kindest expression. Even though her colors are make her look almost ephemeral, she also has a really good figure. The parts of her that are supposed to stick out stick way out, and her waist is very narrow. Her body is the womanly ideal.

“Miss Corinna, it’s nice to meet you,” says Mom. “My name is Eva; I’m Maïne’s mother. Thank you very much for inviting us here today.”

Mom delivers her rehearsed introduction, slightly bending her knees and lowering her chest in a small curtsey. I copy what she did, and introduce myself too.

“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Corinna! My name’s Tuuli. I’ve been really looking forward to coming here. I’m happy I get to meet you!”

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you as well. When I saw Maïne’s dress, even from far away, it stood out a lot to me. I thought I definitely had to see it up close. Sorry if I’m being a little selfish, calling you all the way out here.”

Corinna’s gentle smile is infectious, and I can’t stop myself from smiling too. Her smile is as warm as a clear spring day.

“Please, wait here for a moment. I’ll go get some tea ready.”

The room that Miss Corinna brings us to looks like it’s a room that she uses for work, filled with embroidered cloth and samples of the clothing that she’s made. There’s so many decorations, this is a really wonderful-looking room. There’s a couple of tables in the room; one in the middle, that looks like it’s for talking, and one off to the side that looks like it’s for working. The table we’ve got in our kitchen that we use for literally everything doesn’t even come close.

Aaaaaa!! This is so amazing~!

Both Mom and me can’t keep our eyes off of all of the clothing set up around the room and the colorful tapestries hung up on the walls. I never thought that I’d ever see something this beautiful. I slowly spin around, taking it all in, one thing at a time. Every single thing is sewn neatly, colored brilliantly, richly decorated, and sewn into designs that are completely different from anything I’ve ever worn. I sigh in complete wonder, looking at these decorations.

“So pretty…” I murmur. “how in the world do I learn how to make things like this? I’d never think to make any of these designs. Is it really just practice?”

“Skill is very important, yeah,” says Maïne. “but if you want to come up ideas like those, looking at lots of good examples is just as important, too.”

I wasn’t expecting her to say anything, so I turn to look at her. She seems tired, sitting all alone in her chair, legs lazily dangling as she looks at me with her golden eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“If you’re not paying attention to what rich people are wearing, what kind of fads and trends there are, and so on, then you won’t have any ideas like this. Miss Corinna was born into money, so she’s naturally surrounded by good examples. That’s why she knows about what’s good to make.” “So, then, it’s impossible for me?”

I slump my shoulders, having been told that I can never get there no matter how hard I try. Maïne, though, shakes her head, saying “no, that’s not it.”

“I know that going to the forest on your days off is still really important, but whenever you can, you should head past the central plaza and take a walk in the northern parts of town. There’s lots of rich people walking around there, and there’s lots of shops where those kinds of people shop, you know? Lots of different kinds of clothes on display. If you compare them, then you can figure out what kinds of colors and designs are fashionable right now, and use those as reference, I think.”

On my days off, I’ve been going to the forest, but have never gone to the north part of town. I actually think I can count the number of times I’ve gone north past the central plaza on one hand. I hadn’t realized that going someplace where rich people are would be a good source of information about the kinds of things rich people liked to wear.

“And then, the patterns on these tapestries and the flowers on this embroidery… this is all stuff you can find in the forest, you know? If you take a good look around you at things like that, when you have to come up with a design I’m sure you’ll think of something useful.”

“…Okay. I’ll try that!”

It looks like Maïne looks at this clothing and these decorations completely differently compared to me. I wonder if the difference between me, who was swept away by how pretty everything is, and her is the difference between a craftswoman and a merchant? I try to keep my feelings in check as I stare intently at Miss Corinna’s work, focusing on trying to find some sort of new technique that I can borrow, even how I am now.

“Oh my, Tuuli,” says Miss Corinna, entering the room with a servant woman in tow. “I’m a little embarrassed that you’re looking so closely.”

“I never see clothes like this anywhere, so I don’t get any chance to look at them like this. I’m an apprentice seamstress, but they still don’t let me work on big things like clothing yet…”

Lately, I’ve finally started to be given work to do on small accessories and stitchery in places that won’t be noticed, but I’m still a long ways away from being able to make clothes all by myself.

“Practicing the basics is very important! You need to be able to make a nice, straight stitch if you want to make beautiful clothing.”

“I’ll try my hardest! Um, Miss Corinna? How did you sew this part here?” “Oh, this? Well…”

As the servant woman sets up some tea and sweets on the table, Miss Corinna explains a few things about the various pieces of clothing around the room. At some point, Mom joins in, listening along with me. Maïne is the only one left out, looking uninterested as she sits at the table.

“Please, eat!”

“Thank you very much.”

At Miss Corinna’s urging, I take a sip of tea. It’s amazing, completely unlike the tea we drink at home. It feels like the flavor’s spreading out all through my mouth.

“This is really good!”

“I’m glad that you like it,” says Miss Corinna, smiling sweetly.

I glance at my family to see if they agree. Mom’s making a face that looks like she thinks it’s good, but can’t stop thinking about how much it costs, and Maïne has her eyes closed, entranced by the flavor.

“Please, have some of this too.”

Miss Corinna pushes a plate towards me, on which is a pastry made of a thin, bread-like dough topped with fruit and honey. I pick up a slice of it, then take a bite.

Hmmm, it’s good, but compared to this I like the recipes that Maïne’s been teaching me even better.

A little while ago, Maïne went to Frieda’s house to teach her a recipe, and came back with a bag of sugar in exchange. Then she started teaching me how to make all sorts of sweets I’d never even heard of, like “crepes”, “compote”, and “pseudo-cookies”. She even says that when it gets colder out she wants to make something called “pudding”, but it seems like it needs to be cooled so it won’t work during the summer. She also put some fruit, some sugar, and some alcohol in a pot and sealed it up. She says that she’s making something that’ll be full of summer flavor by the time winter comes around. I can’t wait!

“This is delicious, and so sweet,” says Maïne, taking another bite. “I’m so envious that you can use so much honey on these…” Corinna smiles wryly. “If that’s how you feel, why don’t you buy some yourself? You’ve certainly made Benno bitter enough to afford it.”

“I’m keeping my workshop’s funds separate from my own personal spending money.”

After we finish eating, we immediately take out Maïne’s dress. Mom and Maïne show it to Miss Corinna, and they explain all the alterations that we made. Miss Corinna picks it up and looks over it carefully, inspecting the backs of the seams and rolling up the hems.

“I never would have guessed this was an alteration,” she says. “It would have been much easier to make something from scratch,” agrees Maïne.

As Maïne explains, Miss Corinna writes something on a little wooden board. She looks just like Maïne does when she’s writing on her slate or on her paper. I start to wonder if maybe I should learn how to read and write, too. Being able to write like that is actually kinda cool, I think.

“And this is the hairpin, hm…” murmurs Miss Corinna, picking up the hairpin. The strands of small white flowers sway as she turns it over in her hands. “This is the first time I’ve seen anything like it.”

“I made the big white one here,” I say, proudly. “Oh! It’s very beautiful, Tuuli,” she replies.

Being praised by Miss Corinna makes my heart melt.

She traces a pale fingertip along the flower. “This hairpin is really beautiful. …I think I might want to make ones like these at my workshop; would that be alright?”

She smiles, gently tilting her head. This is the most amazingly astounding thing that could possibly happen. I hadn’t even dreamed that Miss Corinna would like the hairpin so much that she’d want to make something like it herself! Overjoyed, I open my mouth, ready to say “Of course!!”, but before the words leave my mouth Maïne shakes her head.

“There are terms,” she says. I choke. “M… Ma… Maïne?!”

I absolutely can not believe that Maïne, after having finally been called all the way out to Miss Corinna’s house, would make demands! My eyes nearly pop out of my head. Maïne looks at me, raising her hand to calm me down.

“These hairpins are our winter’s handiwork, one of our most important sources of income. We can’t just give away permission to anyone we want. No matter how much they say they want to make it, if they don’t buy the rights to do so, then that only hurts us.”

Maïne’s words are like cold water thrown in my face. It’s true, these hairpins are a very, very good source of income for us. I suddenly remember just how much money we’d made last winter, and lose interest in stopping her.

“Alright, then, please talk with my brother about that.”

Miss Corinna rings a bell. The servant lady appears, and Miss Corinna tells her to go get her brother. Soon, I hear footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Corinna, I got your message, what’s… Ah, you must be Maïne’s family? It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Benno, Corinna’s older brother.”

So, then, is this the Mister Benno that’s done so much for Maïne?

His light, curly hair, the color of milk tea, frames his kind looking face and his reddish-brown eyes. The way he smiles so sociably makes him look very much like Miss Corinna, and his easy, friendly introduction leaves me with the impression that he’s a very good person.

“I’m Eva, Maïne’s mother. Thank you for looking after my daughter.”

“I’m Tuuli! Hello.”

My mother introduces herself, and I frantically follow suit. Mister Benno smiles broadly, nodding at the two of us in turn, then looks down at Maïne, quirking an eyebrow.

“Maïne, what is it this time?”

“A request from Miss Corinna. She wants the rights to make my hairpins. How much are you willing to buy them for?” “Business, then?” “Business, sir.”

Benno nods, and his demeanor changes in a single, terrifying instant. As soon as a truly merchant-like expression appears on his face, the gentle air about him disappears entirely. With a thud, he sits down roughly in a chair across from Maïne, a fierce glint in his eyes as he stares at her.

“This much,” he says, holding up several fingers. Maïne scoffs. “I certainly can’t sell it for that little. I’d rather take this to Freida instead.”

Even though she is seated directly in front of Benno, who is giving off a terrifyingly menacing air, Maïne’s expression doesn’t flicker in the slightest bit as she turns down his offer like it’s the most obvious thing to do. Instead, she looks like she might even be a little gleeful when faced with this competition.

“We’ve already decided that the things Maïne’s Workshop makes would be sold through Lutz, haven’t we?”

“The things Maïne’s Workshop makes, correct? That doesn’t include recipes or rights, you know?” “You cheeky little…!”

Benno’s exasperated shout causes Mom and I, who are still seated at the same table as these two, to flinch back in shock. Maïne, however, just smiles sweetly, tilting her head curiously to the side.

“Oh, speaking of which, Mister Benno! How much did you decide you’re selling rinsham for? I had a chat with Freida, and it seems that when it comes to the rights for a completely new product that has no other competition, prices should start at no lower than a large gold coin, shouldn’t they? I think I might have been selling my ideas to you for very reasonable rates! Hee hee hee~…”

I’d heard her talk about it before, but this is the first time I’ve seen Maïne working as a merchant. I know that hearing about it and seeing it are two entirely different things, but seeing her dealing evenly with such a terrifying adult is leaving me completely dumbfounded.

What do I do? My little sister’s scary…

At home, she’s always worn out, she gets sick whenever she tries to do any work, and she’s just as useless at helping around the house as she’s always been, so this is the first time I’ve seen her take such an active, prominent role in something. I’m honestly shocked. I know she’d been aiming to become an apprentice merchant at Mister Benno’s shop and gave it up because her health wouldn’t allow it, but I wonder if she’d really wanted to stick with it? This really seems to suit her.

“This will take a while,” says Miss Corinna, standing up suddenly. “Please, come this way.”

“Huh? …Huh?”

Corinna beckons us over to the table on the edge of the room. Mom and I exchange a look, then quietly stand up and follow her. I’m worried about Maïne, but even if we stayed with her, it really didn’t feel like there was anything we could do to help her.

“My brother looks like he’s enjoying himself very much, so it’ll probably take a while,” she says quietly, looking at the other table. “…That said, I’m really impressed by Maïne, how she’s able to negotiate with my brother like that.”

This is the first time I’ve ever realized how amazing Maïne can be. I’m her older sister, but I didn’t know anything about this until just now.

“How about we leave the merchants’ talk to those two, and have our own discussion about sewing? Remind me, we’d been talking about how I shaped this skirt to drape like it does, right?”

“Oh, yes! Please.”

While the other table works their way through their haggling, a lively conversation about sewing grows at our table as we sip our tea. Miss Corinna kindly explains to us a lot about the kinds of styles and decorations that are currently in fashion with the nobility. It seems like there are a lot of different methods for sewing things, because she’s mentioning names of things that, even when I hear them clearly, don’t bring to mind anything that would help change the shape of a skirt. These are words that I would never hear at the workshop, no matter how much I talked with coworkers, and Miss Corinna is mentioning them one right after the others.

“What’s that there?”

Whenever I have a question, Miss Corinna kindly answers it for me. I’m happy, but I’m also feeling a little ashamed. I’ve been working as an apprentice for a whole year now. I didn’t think that I had so much left to learn. I’m fully realizing that just asking questions isn’t going to be enough. If I don’t put a lot of effort into practice and study, I’m never going to get to make any clothes for the customers.

“This is a kind of dress that is only just starting to come into fashion,” she says, gesturing at a dress that’s shown promptly in the center of a display.

It looks like the kind of dress that a noblewoman would wear to a fancy tea party. The cloth is glossy, the thread is fine, and the embroidery added here and there is simply splendid, and I can’t help but sigh in admiration.

“It’s lovely,” I say. “But, I can’t believe that you’d need a whole dress just for one use. It seems like it’s a huge waste of money to me…”

“Ah, you might be right. But think about it this way: when we sleep, when we go out, when we do dirty work… we have different kinds of clothes for different kinds of situations, don’t we? When you have more money, then the situations you need different clothes for get more and more specific.” “Huh…”

Suddenly, there’s a loud clatter from the other table, as if someone had stood up very forcefully. When I look over in shock, I see that both Maïne and Mister Benno have stood up and are staring right at each other, with only the table providing any separation between them.

“You’re not the slightest bit cute anymore, girl.”

“It’s all thanks to your training, sir.” “Hmph, maybe I gave you too much advice…” “Ah, but making sure you gather information from several sources so that you can be as accurate as possible is one of the fundamental principles of being a merchant, isn’t it?”

The two of them shake hands, exchanging rueful smiles. It somehow feels like there is something dark lurking behind each of them that they’re keeping restrained.

Yep, I don’t think I could ever be a merchant, is the only thought that crosses my mind when I look at the two of them.

Maïne glances restlessly around the room, looking for us. When she spots us, she rushes over.

“We made a deal,” she says as she gets closer, “so Mom, please teach Miss Corinna how to make the hairpins.”

She grabs a cup of tea, which has grown cold by now, thanking Miss Corinna for bringing it out.

“Ahh… my throat got really dry.”

“Good work,” says Corinna. “May I ask, how much did you settle on? I’ll be deciding how much I sell them for based on that.”

Maïne glances nervously at me and Mom, then quickly holds up a few fingers for Miss Corinna to see. Miss Corinna gasps slightly as she looks at Maïne’s outstretched fingers. This must be some sort of merchant-specific sign, I think. I can’t help but get a little annoyed, since I have no idea what it actually means.

“We’ve decided that you’ll make hairpins at your workshop for one year, and during that time you’ll have a total monopoly on selling them.”

“Even still, I’m impressed that you managed to get that much out of my brother.”

Corinna really does seem impressed when she looks at Maïne. It seems like that finger sign translates to a particular amount of money.

“Hey, Maïne,” I say. “How much is that?”

I’m legitimately curious as to how much the rights to make these hairpins might actually cost. When I ask, though, Maïne suddenly looks extremely troubled. She glances at Mom, then at Miss Corinna, then lets out a quiet moan.

“You can’t say how much?”

“I mean, it’s a perfectly reasonable price…” she says. “It’s not like I can’t say it, but I really don’t want to…”

I keep pestering her, despite how pained she’s sounding. Eventually, she gives in, not even bothering to hide how reluctant she’s feeling.

“…One large and seven small gold coins,” she mutters. “What?! Did you say gold coins?!”

I’d thought that it was going to be expensive, but I’d been thinking that it was going to be a couple big silver coins. I was off by two entire digits, and the shock of it crashes into my brain like a bullet. My jaw drops, and Mom’s eyes nearly bulge out of her skull.

“It sounds like a lot of money,” she says, frantically waving her hands, “but it really is a fair price for selling the rights to something. I mean, this was Mister Benno. I really didn’t rip him off! Also, these funds are for Maïne’s Workshop, so it’s not like this is my own money!”

No matter how desperately she’s chucking out excuse after excuse, I can’t believe at all that Maïne could have so calmly been dealing with a pile of money that huge.

I mean, these are large gold coins, right? It doesn’t matter that she’s insisting it’s not her own money, but just how much does she have?! Is she secretly really amazing?! Wouldn’t it be way better for her to be in business instead of going to the temple?