BGDN 09

Chapter 9

A short while later, the freshly baked, fragrant walnut cookies were finished.

Thanks to Bree’s sincere help, the cookies were perfectly shaped without a single blemish. Placed on a dish that suited the small desserts, they looked delicious enough to make anyone’s mouth water.

Before leaving the kitchen, Diasta politely thanked Bree and the kitchen servants.

“Thank you for letting me borrow your workspace. Thanks to you, I was able to make these tasty cookies.”

She even gave a slight bow, so the servants hurriedly waved their hands back in fluster. And after Diasta left the kitchen, the kitchen staff let out a deep sigh in unison.

It felt as though a quiet storm had passed through—but it wasn’t unpleasant.

The fragrance of the cookies she’d left behind, saying she had made plenty, and her neatly offered thanks, gently tickled a corner of their hearts like soft, warm feathers.

One servant, still dazedly staring at the door the young lady had exited, spoke up.

“What kind of food does Lady Diasta like?”

“Snacks, maybe? Sweet things.”

“You fool. Lately she hasn’t been eating desserts. She says to give them all to the servants.”

“Why is that?”

“She was very sick. Maybe her tastes have changed.”

Another servant clapped their hands together.

“Then wouldn’t it be good to give her something nourishing?”

“Right! What was planned for dinner tonight?”

“Risotto with sautéed mushrooms.”

At that, the servants tilted their heads. Of course it was a delicious dish, but it felt like something was missing. The same went for Bree, the king of the kitchen. Bree declared in a loud voice:

“For building up strength, meat is best. Peter, bring some pork from the storeroom!”

“Wouldn’t beef be better than pork?”

Hearing that, Bree tossed Peter the storeroom key.

“Peter, for once you’ve said something right! Bring out every kind of meat there is—whether it walks on two legs or four!”

The kitchen, which had been quiet, suddenly grew lively. They recalled the dishes Diasta used to enjoy. Would roast beef be good? Or perhaps a moist goose might be nice.

For a while, all kinds of meat dishes were mentioned in the kitchen. And that day, Diasta ended up eating a rather luxurious dinner.

“Thank you for the gift, Duke.”

On the silver tray Diasta had brought herself lay dainty walnut cookies. The fresh-baked cookies gave off a nutty fragrance.

“Ahem!”

Non-tel, overwhelmed with emotion that his granddaughter had personally baked cookies for him, sat frozen. The only reason he finally picked up a cookie was because Shioel, standing beside him, let out a deliberate, loud cough to draw his attention.

Seeing Non-tel sitting stiffly without even eating, Diasta thought to herself: Just as I expected… A gift of cookies in return—perhaps she hadn’t thought it through well enough.

“Thank you for accepting them. Then I’ll take my leave.”

As Diasta tried to excuse herself, not wanting to disturb Non-tel any further, Non-tel flinched. Thinking she had misread the situation, Diasta took a step away—when a savior appeared to rescue Non-tel, who was flustered by the gift of cookies. As always, it was Shioel.

“It wouldn’t be right to simply let her leave after receiving such a heartfelt gift. Since you’ve been given cookies, how about sharing a cup of tea together?”

There was a sizable stack of documents on Non-tel’s desk. Diasta was about to refuse after seeing that pile, but Non-tel, with the nimble movements of a true master, tossed the entire stack into the trash bin in one go.

“Sh-Shioel, my desk was cluttered.”

“My mistake, Head of the House.”

The two worked quite well together. And so began a tea time between a grandfather and granddaughter who were extraordinarily awkward with each other.

Warm tea was set before Non-tel and Diasta. Next to the tea lay the walnut cookies Diasta had brought, but neither Diasta nor Non-tel touched them.

Diasta didn’t eat them simply because she had made them herself, while Non-tel couldn’t bring himself to eat them because they were far too precious.

It seems the young lady is misunderstanding… And that fool Non-tel has no sense of the mood.

While Shioel clicked his tongue inwardly, Non-tel kept staring at Diasta, gripping his teacup so hard it might shatter. He had been concerned about Diasta’s fingertips for a while.

She had hurt her hands a little while making the cookies. The recipe was in her head, but the kitchen and the unfamiliar large utensils had been the problem.

Seeing the bandage wrapped around her small hand, Non-tel’s nose tingled.

Because he held back the tears that threatened to fall, his face became rigidly stiff.

Most children would have burst into tears and run away from a face like that, but Diasta drank her tea with an impassive expression.

By the time they had both silently emptied their first cup of tea, Shioel finally called a wind spirit to whisper into Non-tel’s ear.

“You idiot, say something, anything!”

Snapping back to his senses, Non-tel managed to open his mouth.

“D-do you like the gift?”

It was an ordinary question, but not to Diasta. To her, that gift was a kind of warning to stop thinking about the position of successor.

If she thanked him here, that would mean quietly giving up her claim to succession. On the other hand, if she said she didn’t like it, she would be an ungrateful young lady insulting the head’s gift.

I can’t answer. Is this… a test?

The stone Non-tel had thrown sent ripples through Diasta’s heart. Just as she set down her teacup and was about to finally answer—

A butterfly flew in through the open window. It was full spring in Bellum, and after the long winter, most of the ducal mansion’s windows were open to welcome the season.

The fluttering butterfly landed on the sugar bowl sitting on the table.

“Spring must truly be here, to see a butterfly fly in like this.”

At Non-tel’s words, Diasta did not reply. She sat perfectly still, staring blankly at the butterfly. Then, almost unconsciously, she lifted the sugar bowl.

Even as Diasta moved her hand, the butterfly remained motionless on the sugar bowl as if entranced.

“Your Grace, this is…”

Non-tel answered before Diasta could finish.

“Ah, that’s not ordinary sugar. The vassal families sent it when they heard I can’t eat sweets. It’s said to taste sweet, but it’s not sugar, and it’s good for the body.”

“…Have you eaten any?”

“No, I was saving it, but—ahem—I suppose Shioel brought it out when you came.”

Non-tel’s earlobes reddened slightly, but Diasta had no leisure to notice.

The tea time that followed was somewhat chaotic. Non-tel made clumsy attempts to speak but kept failing, while Diasta was so preoccupied with the sugar bowl that she completely missed his efforts.

“…Then I’ll take my leave.”

“Yes. You’ve worked hard.”

And so the tea time between the grandfather and granddaughter came to an end. Rather than family, the atmosphere was more like a meeting between liege and retainer.

Even in that awkward, chaotic atmosphere, Diasta succeeded in taking the entire sugar bowl with her.

She couldn’t even clearly remember what excuse she had made. She thought she’d said something strange, driven by the single-minded need to bring it out somehow. Something about needing to research sugar to make even better cookies…

Only after arriving at her own room did Diasta come back to her senses.

“Why is this… why is this here?”

Diasta lifted the sugar bowl and smelled it. The scent of the sugar was so cloyingly sweet it made her head spin.

“This is definitely that sugar.”

Diasta put down the sugar bowl and closed the lid tightly. She treated it as if it were poison.

Diasta had smelled this cloyingly sweet fragrance before. In her previous life, during her short-lived marriage.

After her grandfather passed away, Diasta’s hastily arranged marriage had been rocky from the start. Her husband was always out and about, trying to revive their impoverished family with one failed business venture after another, and the atmosphere at home was gloomy.

Diasta still didn’t know what kind of man her husband had been. They had barely seen each other’s faces a handful of times, so she never had the chance to learn whether he was a good person or a bad one.

But over time, her husband grew strange enough that even a stranger could notice.

It began with him being unable to focus on anything, always looking dazed.

He started throwing things, became increasingly violent, and before long, he began harming himself. Growing weaker by the day, he was eventually found dead on the street.

It was a strange death. But the doctors only said that he had been hit by a carriage and killed.

Diasta didn’t even get to properly observe the mourning period. Consecutive business failures and grim news from the north left her unable to collect herself.

Then one day, as she was eating hard black bread in a cold room, a question suddenly rose in Diasta’s mind.

Isn’t this strange… Do such things really keep happening?

Good fortune is rare in this world. Wouldn’t it be normal for misfortune to be rare as well?

If this isn’t natural… then perhaps my husband’s death wasn’t ordinary either.

Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on her part. Perhaps she didn’t want to accept that the string of misfortunes was natural—mere coincidence. That there might be a cause, that someone might have orchestrated it. So Diasta, left alone in the dark mansion, thought endlessly.

Maybe something changed him. A curse? Magic? Or perhaps even poison.

And what surfaced from the tangled threads of her memory was that sugar.

Yes, that sugar that came as a gift! It was the only thing my husband consumed that no one else did.

Come to think of it, her husband seemed obsessed with tea before he died. But what if it wasn’t the tea he was obsessed with, but the sugar he put in it?

That sugar had an exceptionally sweet smell. So sweet that butterflies would fly in and land on it when it was used.

Late to realize the truth, Diasta had searched the entire house. And she discovered that only that sugar had disappeared from the kitchen.

I gave up quickly back then. The herbalists all said no such poison existed. I thought I was just suffering so much that I was delusional… That’s what I believed.

Diasta stared intently at the sugar bowl. But all of this was mere suspicion; she had no solid proof.

After stowing the sugar bowl deep inside a drawer, Diasta called for Marianne.

“Yes, my lady! What’s the matter?”

Ever since Diasta had recovered from her injury, Marianne had become completely smitten with her. Seeing the servant overflowing with enthusiasm to do anything for this elegant little young lady, Diasta gave an awkward smile and said:

“Could you bring me some rotten meat?”