Previously
Baldur summons Jeanne to praise her for Ana's rapid progress in literacy and history. Jeanne explains that her success stems from befriending the lonely child rather than pressuring her, which impresses Baldur enough to offer her a formal position with a high salary.
The labor Baldur intended to assign her was not mere brute drudgery, like copying text character by character or hauling stones. If she felt she was not being compensated for her labor, discontent would fester into neglect, and the harm of that would fall squarely upon him and his adopted daughter.
Baldur pondered deeply, searching for a way to resolve this predicament.
Though banking was thriving across various regions, its clientele was strictly limited to noble houses, wealthy merchant syndicates, and royalty, rather than common individuals. Among them, the Golden Shield Bank possessed the greatest number of branches across the realm.
Though he had spoken to warn her of the risks, the woman’s face brightened like sunlight breaking through the clouds. He found that response exceedingly agreeable.
He cast his gaze upon the brown dress, unadorned by a single piece of jewelry, which had been grating on his nerves for some time. Viewed beneath the chandelier’s glow, the garment looked outright dowdy.
He did not know that she had been driven onto the road of exile straight from prison, without even the time to pack her belongings. In truth, the particular route an exile took to reach their destination was not something he had any reason to know. At his words, the woman’s pale face flushed crimson, as though it were about to burst.
He inquired with generous magnanimity.
“…”
He arched an eyebrow for a brief moment. Books were items as costly as silverware. Yet he readily gave his consent.
There was no reason to deny her. Nor was it difficult to understand why she would request the key to the library.
‘With nothing to do outside lessons, she must need some form of diversion. Yet if she has that much spare time…’
Instead, he set forth a condition.
“You are to run.”
The governess failed to grasp his meaning at once.
“…”
It was Baldur’s steadfast philosophy that nothing surpassed running when it came to physical conditioning. He and his soldiers likewise ran ten laps around the Training Ground each morning before breakfast to prepare for the bitter cold.
Jeanne could only stand there with her mouth agape at his decree. She wore the stunned expression of someone struck by lightning.
His business finished, Baldur dismissed the governess. Pale-faced, her hands trembling uncontrollably, she stepped out of his office with a look of sheer disbelief.
The following day, before the sun had even risen, the morning training ground was cloaked in mist reaching to a grown man’s shoulders, just as it always was. Baldur and his soldiers began their run. It was a daily routine, carried out rain or snow. Seeing that the governess had not appeared, he felt a twinge of disappointment.
‘Just as expected.’
Yet why on earth did he feel disappointed? As though he had harbored some kind of expectation. When all was said and done, was she not merely a noble of Franc? Baldur held deep prejudices against the nobles of Franc—viewing them as arrogant and indolent, looking down on his house as barbarian stock despite their own inferior rank.
He began his jog while contemplating the punishment he would hand down to her. Yet as he completed three laps around the Training Ground and circled back toward the starting point, an unfamiliar figure emerged through the parting mist. It was a woman with a pale complexion, wearing that very same brown dress.
‘Even after I told her I did not wish to see it… Well, I suppose a new dress cannot appear overnight.’
Noticing the woman’s arrival on the training ground, the soldiers began to murmur amongst themselves. He silenced them with a harsh bark. Jeanne hesitated, watching anxiously, and only after the ranks of soldiers had completely passed did she begin to jog behind them.
Between frequent clashes and meal times, the regular troops devoted themselves entirely to drill, tempered into fine steel; had there been no difference in stamina between them and a noble daughter whose only physical exertion had likely been a stroll, it would have been a grave matter. Before the woman had even finished a quarter of a lap, the pack of soldiers caught up to her.
He glanced sideways at Jeanne as he brushed past her. Though it was a chilly summer dawn, the governess’s face looked on the verge of bursting, and her waist bent low as she panted for breath. Even so, Jeanne did not give up and kept running. Long after the soldiers had finished all ten laps, she alternated between walking and jogging until she finally completed the three laps. Then, trudging and practically crawling, she vanished.
Though he expected her to collapse and declare she could not go on, the woman appeared the very next day. And the day after that, as a misty drizzle swept across the sky.
* * *
‘The Duke of Skadi is an absolute madman.’
What employer forces a governess to go on morning runs? And alongside soldiers, no less? I had heard rumors that he was unhinged, but he was far beyond ordinary madness.
On the contrary, Lady Ana’s lessons, which I had anticipated would be plagued with difficulties, progressed smoothly. As I spent more time speaking with her after that shocking first day of class, I came to realize that Lady Ana was simply… strange as it felt to put into words… like a commoner child.
Lady Ana had milked goats, hauled dry hay, churned butter, and even knew how to sew. Whenever she described the things she had done, enjoyed, or excelled at, she spoke with fluid, joyful wit. So much so that I found myself unwittingly drawn into her words as I listened.
‘This child has an innate gift for speech. She possesses both wisdom and wit.’
There was no way such a child possessed low intelligence. She had simply never been afforded the opportunity to learn until now.
‘Could the claim of her being his brother’s child be a lie, and she is actually an illegitimate daughter the Duke of Skadi fathered with a country girl? And did that country girl simply raise her like an ordinary child…?’
It was not an impossibility, but I decided to leave my speculations at that. As a governess, I had no reason to pry into my employer’s hidden disgrace. My vital mission now was to raise this country child into a noble lady. A child who might, in the distant future, become the queen of an entire realm.
They say one’s heart naturally goes out to those suffering from the same affliction. Personally, I grew fond of Lady Ana very quickly. Our circumstances were astonishingly alike. Both of us had been abruptly parted from our families and dropped into an unfamiliar place, leaving us with no one to hold dear. Furthermore, I had a younger sister with a significant age gap. I decided to regard her as my newfound youngest sister in this strange place.
Every day upon arriving in the study, I unfastened her hair, which her nanny had pulled far too tightly, and braided it prettily according to her mood. Lady Ana liked it best when I braided it like spools of thread along her hairline. My personal favorite was weaving her wheat-blonde hair like ears of grain to drape over one shoulder, or parting it from the crown to pin it up into little horn-shaped buns on either side.