Previously
Baldur recalls finding Jeanne asleep under the tree and secretly taking her book, finding himself strangely drawn to her peaceful expression. Later, he encounters Jeanne at an apple orchard where she is clumsily gathering fallen fruit in her skirt, and he invites her on an awkward walk.
Silence followed. I opened my eyes a fraction.
The Grand Duke’s response was entirely unexpected.
“…”
“Pardon?”
I nodded as though in a trance.
Then, as if some thought had crossed his mind, a fleeting smile touched his lips. That man knew how to smile? Caught off guard by this unexpected side of him, I froze entirely.
‘Did I just imagine that?’
Yet just as swiftly, the smile vanished completely from his face.
My head remained lowered as I answered, watching Brül quietly munching on the apple.
“Pardon?”
The conversation drove all thoughts of the apples clean from my mind.
‘Wait, how did he even know I named her Brül?’
The question only occurred to me after I had returned to my room, but perhaps I had let it slip without realizing. Or perhaps he had simply overheard.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. I had no desire for company, but I was in no position to turn anyone away. Suppressing a sigh, I rose and opened the door. A young maid stood in the hallway carrying a basket.
“…”
I could see that much for myself. The basket was heaped full of them. As I took hold of it, its sheer heft startled me. When I glanced back and forth between the fruit and the girl, she hesitated, then spoke.
“…”
The girl accepted five apples before taking her leave. Setting the rest of the basket down on the table, I sank heavily onto the bed.
‘He saw me.’
Gathering fallen fruit off the dirt, my skirts hitched up high.
‘He saw everything.’
Mortification washed over me so sharply I thought I might die.
The apples in the basket were indeed nothing like the bruised windfalls on the ground; they were a bright, vivid yellow, plump and luscious. I picked one up and sank my teeth in. Lusciously sweet juice flooded my mouth.
Yet embarrassment swiftly overpowered the sweetness. Unable to finish it, I dropped the apple to the floor and squirmed as if I had swallowed poison.
‘Why! Why on earth does he only ever see me like that?’
No matter how reduced my circumstances were, I was still born of high nobility. To be caught in such an undignified state—I was ready to wither from pure shame.
* * *
After a shower or two of rain following that day, the colorful leaves fell from the trees until bare boughs were all that remained. As the world turned a bleak, desolate gray, an unbelievable cold settled over the land.
Having lived all my life where autumn, winter, and spring blurred together with little difference, I took a single breath upon waking one morning and was stunned to feel as though my lungs were freezing solid. His Grace had spoken no falsehoods. In such piercing cold, the garments I had acquired at the beginning of autumn were useless, forcing me to hastily place an order for proper winter attire and cold-weather gear.
One day, when hearth fires were being lit in every room to ward off the chill, a sudden flurry of movement stirred through the estate. Shortly after, the Grand Duke departed with a contingent of his private soldiers. Curiously, the numerous carts hauled by mules were entirely empty. With no cargo to weigh them down, the loud clattering of their wooden wheels echoed all the way back to the manor.
‘Where is he off to this time?’
Unlike before, I found myself wondering where he was going and when he would return. To my surprise, it was Lady Ana who knew the answer.
‘Wherever did she learn all this…?’
For a young noble lady, she possessed an almost suspiciously detailed grasp of rural farming life.
They held hunts at the palace as well, though purely for sport. Yet could one truly call that hunting? What passed for hunting at court was simply releasing foxes that had been reared specifically for sport into the manicured gardens, then turning the hounds loose to tear them apart.
Seeing that I had no idea what a sled was, Ana sketched one on a sheet of paper. It consisted of a wooden board wide enough to sit on, reinforced with wood on both sides, with long, blade-like iron runners attached underneath so it could glide smoothly over the ice. Ana explained that one sat atop it, took iron picks in both hands, and pushed forward by digging them into the frozen surface.
“And when the snow falls, we can go snow-sledding, or even ski! Snow sleds don't have blades on the bottom—you just climb onto a wooden plank and slide down the snowy hills. And skis are…”
As she rambled on, Lady Ana looked thoroughly delighted.
In Franc, ice had been an expensive luxury. No matter how low the temperature dropped, the thought of such a vast body of water freezing all at once was difficult to imagine. And snow—I had never actually seen real snow in my life. When I confessed this, Lady Ana explained that it was white ice falling straight from the sky, and that while pressing it together in one’s hands turned it to ice, it was far softer and fluffier than ice itself.
‘I see.’
Apart from an outsider like me, everyone in this land seemed busy preparing for the winter cold.
About three days later, I finally saw snow.
When I pushed the window open to let in fresh air, tufts like white cotton were drifting down from the gloomy, overcast sky. More than that, the entire world lay cloaked beneath a blanket of white. I reached both hands out the window, trying to touch the white flakes. But the moment they brushed against my palms, they melted away. They were cold, yet so light they had no weight at all.
Looking closer, I noticed the white fluff had also gathered on the window frame. I scooped some up and squeezed it together. It hardened into a solid clump like ice, only to melt moments later and vanish, leaving behind damp moisture. My hands ached with the biting cold, and with a shiver, I quickly shut the window.
‘So it begins.’
Only then did the arrival of winter truly sink in.
‘So this is winter in the Skadi Territory.’
I longed to step outside and walk on the snow, but I refrained, afraid the bitter cold would make me ill. By the end of the day, that first snowfall had entirely melted away.
A few days later, the winter clothing I had ordered arrived. The outerwear and dresses were all thick and well padded, with distinctive diamond-shaped quilted patterns that gave them a unique look.