Previously
Henrietta receives her first military paycheck and dreams of buying a house, though the amount is meager. Her announcement that she will soon be promoted and teaching the squad to read causes a near-riot among the soldiers who despise the idea of studying.
The disciplinary session had grown so loud that Billy, who happened to be strolling idly by, caught wind of Henrietta’s voice.
“Judge the rights and wrongs fairly!”
“Do you think this is a court of law?! A brawl in the military earns everyone disciplinary action!”
Billy stood watching the squabble for a moment before deciding it was far too entertaining to keep to himself, so he sprinted off to find the Division Commander.
He then delivered a vivid, play-by-play account of the whole ordeal to the Duke.
“Private Matyas is utterly hopeless. She’s sheer dead weight. Forget military life; I don't think she was ever properly socialized in the first place. A queen bee belongs strictly in the hive; she shouldn't be flying about! Division Commander? Sir? Are you listening to me?”
The Division Commander offered no reaction, giving no sign as to whether he was even listening.
In truth, however, he had been listening closely and turning things over in his mind.
The fragments of personal history Private Matyas had offhandedly shared not long ago crossed his thoughts. From the sound of it, she had grown up neglected under her aunt's care as an orphan, yet the matter-of-fact way she spoke of those trials lingered in his head all the more.
A woman accustomed to misfortune. A woman who had stooped even to the indignity of becoming an enlisted soldier just to put food on the table could hardly be dismissed as mere dead weight.
Henrietta Matyas’s interpersonal relationships fell into only two categories: playacting as a queen bee wrapped up in falsehoods, or being treated as a useless burden. Growing up properly socialized in such an environment would have been far stranger.
Kalinin understood Henrietta, and he sensed that special measures were needed on her behalf.
“If you ask me, sir, you seem uniquely generous toward a mere private. If this is special treatment because she's a noble, I have to say I'm disappointed.”
It was certainly not out of deference to her noble status, though there was a hint of personal self-interest involved. Henrietta Matyas was a splendid source of amusement for Kalinin. It would be rather inconvenient if Private Matyas could not endure and were discharged.
Having sorted through his thoughts, Kalinin spoke.
“How long will it take to build the basic language education training center?”
“We haven't even broken ground yet. Autumn will be here shortly, after all.”
It meant preparing for the Stampede took priority. In a season when training was paramount, they could hardly afford to divert soldiers toward erecting some trifling building. With the Stampede fast approaching, the men exerted themselves in training without needing to be told, keenly aware that death could strike at any moment.
“What is Private Matyas’s current assignment?”
“She doesn't have one yet.”
Though promoted from Trainee to Private, she had no assigned duty, being treated as dead weight.
“Assign Private Matyas as a chaplain's assistant.”
The Duke produced a solution that would keep Henrietta in the army while simultaneously shielding the soldiers of the Krakow forces from her.
Naturally, whether the soldiers would be satisfied with that solution was entirely beside the point.
***
Of the three orders within the Krakow military, the Order of the God of Wheat Ears had lacked a chaplain's assistant due to the priest's eccentric temperament. Whenever the Division Commander sent someone, the soldier failed to adapt and suffered, prompting Priest Ronda to reject every placement.
However, when Henrietta—with whom she got along splendidly—arrived with an assignment as a chaplain's assistant, Priest Ronda welcomed her warmly.
Naturally, Henrietta respected Priest Ronda, so being posted here was not an unwelcome development. It was simply that the unfamiliar role left her somewhat bewildered.
“Um, Priest Ronda. What exactly does a chaplain's assistant do?”
Priest Ronda replied with a benevolent gaze, looking upon her as if she were a lost child.
“In civilian terms, a chaplain's assistant is like an assistant priest. What does an assistant priest do?”
“Um. Well, I'm not really sure.”
When she had attended chapel in her childhood, she had been too busy getting scolded to ever notice how the chapel was run.
“Whether in the military or out in society, the most important role of our order is to offer comfort. Yet some people wish to hide the fact that they need comforting. In society, guiding such souls to the chapel is the assistant priest's duty, and in the military, the chaplain's assistant carries that torch.”
“Whoa…!”
Henrietta let out a soft gasp of admiration. It sounded like the most magnificent post she had ever heard of in the entire military. The prospect of being able to help someone sounded especially wonderful.
“I will carry out my duties with all my might! I'll do my utmost to guide every soldier in need of help, Priest!”
Priest Ronda wore a gratified smile at her assistant's exemplary attitude and offered her words of encouragement.
However, there was something Henrietta did not know.
Contrary to Priest Ronda’s lofty words, the reality of a chaplain's assistant was serving as the priest's aide. That is, calling it an aide was being generous; in truth, it was an errand runner.
Fortunately, Priest Ronda was not the sort to treat an assistant as personal convenience, and Henrietta, entirely ignorant of the role's reality, faithfully fulfilled what she believed to be her core duty. The only issue, perhaps, was that she was a touch too enthusiastic.
“You seem to be sighing quite a bit lately….”
“…?”
“Do you not require comfort?”
“Wh-what?”
Sergeant Nick, who had been groaning in agony over his books for hours, felt his senses reel. A private… spoke to him first…?
Wondering what on earth was going on, he glanced around at the other soldiers, but every single one was busy avoiding his gaze. Private Matyas, now backed by Priest Ronda, was practically a natural disaster in her own right. No matter how much they feared Sergeant Nick, he was far less terrifying than an act of nature, and the men went out of their way to avoid getting tangled up in it.
At best, Dudery silently mouthed the context to the sergeant.
‘Chaplain's assistant! She's a chaplain's assistant! Priest Ronda!’
Priest Ronda was just as uncomfortable a prospect for Sergeant Nick. He managed to reply as calmly as he could.
“Get lost, Private.”
“I hardly think my getting lost will bring you comfort. I've watched you since I walked in, and you've been sitting there wearing a tortured expression the entire time.”
“What I need right now isn't some pathetic comfort! Dammit! Blast it all! Do they want me to study or not?! How am I supposed to study when I can't even make sense of the words?!”
Already frustrated and eaten up with self-doubt because his studies were going nowhere, hearing such petty pity made his temper boil over. Nick hurled his book aside while spewing curses aimed at no one in particular.
Henrietta picked up the book that had landed at her feet. Having spent so long agonizing over that single spread, the volume fell open to it naturally. One paragraph in particular was scored beneath with multiple layers of underlines.
“If you insult a superior in plain view using writing, drawings, or statues, or curse a superior where others can hear, you can get locked up in the stockade for up to three years or at least a week, depending on how bad the insult is.”
“What…?”
“—is what this says, though they certainly went out of their way to twist it into knots.”
At Henrietta’s muttering, Nick’s eyes flew wide.
“Did you translate that the moment you read it?”
“What is there to translate?”
The original line Henrietta had parsed read: ‘Any person who insults a superior through the public display of documents, pictorial renderings, or effigies, or through public address or other open methods, shall be sentenced to military confinement for not less than one week and not more than three years.’
When a passage was deliberately stuffed with such obscure phrasing, even nobles might tilt their heads in confusion. For Nick, who had been a carpenter, struggling to understand it was the only natural reaction.
“Whoa… Private, you must have done pretty well in your studies back at the academy….”
“What are you talking about? I've never set foot anywhere near an academy. I only learned my letters when I was thirteen.”
Her father, frenzied in his search for the family fortune, had paid his kin no heed whatsoever. With a husband like that, her mother was hardly about to shoulder responsibility for their daughter either. Amid her father’s negligence and her mother’s abandonment, Henrietta had grown up a noble lady who could not even read. She had only learned her letters after going to live as a dependent in her aunt's household.
“And yet you understand writing this difficult? How?”
“That is….”
Henrietta started to say she was simply clever, but a far better thought struck her. She took a step toward Sergeant Nick with a sly look on her face—at least in Nick’s eyes—prompting him to shrink back involuntarily.
“That is entirely thanks to the comfort of the God of Wheat Ears.”
“…Wh-what?”
“When you receive the comfort of the God of Wheat Ears, peace enters your heart and wisdom takes root. For divine power enriches our minds.”
“Are you insane?”
“I am perfectly sane. Now, let us go together to receive divine comfort. I will not let go of your hand, Sergeant.”
Henrietta extended her hand with a benevolent expression. Though his mind screamed that this was absolute nonsense, Sergeant Nick had no choice but to take the hand she offered. For Henrietta had tucked the book firmly under her arm, clearly showing she had no intention of letting that go either.
Besides,
“God always tests us, but gives us the answer to every question as well. I shall help you find it.”
As Henrietta spoke those words, she looked, for a fleeting moment, genuinely holy.
The Duke’s solution worked.
Private Matyas was no longer ignored. She had simply become an object of dread. Because picking a fight with her brought the terrifying risk of being dragged off to the chapel, no one crossed her, bringing peace back to the unit in a rather different sense.
Priest Ronda, gazing out the window, tilted her head as she watched the squad trailing behind Private Matyas.
“We’ve had an awfully strange increase in visitors lately.”