༺ 𓆩 Chapter 39 — A Sprout Breaks the Earth 𓆪 ༻
「Translator — Creator」
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
"Ugh. What in the name of all things is this?"
Of the twelve wagons, three reeked with such ferocity that the gathered men instinctively clamped hands over their noses. They had come at Isaac’s summons, but now stood recoiling from the stench.
"What else. It is the daily bread by which we shall live from this day on."
"My lord bids us to eat shit, then?"
Günter balked at Isaac's words.
What filled the wagons were sacks crammed with fermented excrement. So long had it sat fermenting that the stink of it was scarcely half the matter. Flies and their pale maggots swarmed thickly through the load.
"Fool that you are."
Another of the soldiers, watching, spoke up. A man close-cropped of hair, with brows as thick as caterpillars.
"It is manure."
“That’s right.” Isaac nodded.
"And for what, my lord, do you intend to put it to use?"
"What else. We shall use it to make a field."
"A field?"
Caterpillar-brows furrowed his face.
"Have you, my lord, without our knowing, received some other stretch of land somewhere else?"
"No. I mean to make it here."
"……?"
Only then did the soldiers understand why Isaac had called them together. They traded uneasy looks one with another.
When Carlson had passed down Isaac's order, he had summoned those among them who had once tilled the soil or had lived by slash-and-burn. The reason for it had been this. To raise a field upon the land of Vinfeldt.
With even the scantest knowledge of tillage, a man would know such a thing to be beyond hope. The soldiers nudged one another with their chins. Each of them pushing the other to be the one to come clean before the young lord. There was no profit in drawing the eye of the Ice Demon unnecessarily.
"Well… my young lord, I mean, my lord. This earth has been fouled by many long years of battle with magic-beasts."
"And?"
"Too much mana has soaked into the soil for any crop to take root in it, and the blood of the beasts has rotted into it, so that a poison clings to it also. Vinfeldt is the warmest of the lands of Goethe, true, but dig down a hand's breadth and you will find the soil frozen through."
So Caterpillar-brows explained. When Isaac stared plainly back at him, he let his eyes fall aside.
"It is not, my lord, that we have no wish to do the work. We thought only that your lordship might labor in vain, and we were loath to…"
"Is that all?"
"And that your lordship's precious time might be wasted…"
"No. I mean, is that the whole of the reason a field cannot be raised here?"
"Pardon?"
"Did you not hear me?"
"A-ah. Yes. That is the chief reason of it, my lord."
"Good. Now move."
At Isaac's word, Günter shrugged and set to hauling the sacks. The boy-lord's word was absolute, yes, but hoisting mounds of dung upon their shoulders was not a thing the soldiers took to with any grace.
"What are you about, you louts? His lordship has told us to carry."
Bessemer, come out of nowhere, shouldered his way through the soldiers and slung two sacks over each shoulder.
“What are you bastards standing around for? Elder brother said carry it.”
The soldiers looked at one another in confusion.
"Not that sort. His lordship the Elder Brother."
"Elder Brother, where shall I take these?"
"And the overseeing of the camp's restoration?"
"The men make a fine clatter of it on their own, without me. They'll not so much as let me lay a hand to it. Since I am at loose ends, I thought I might as well do this."
"Your wounds are hardly healed yet."
"Ah, my shoulders are like to fall off. Come now."
"Over there."
Pressed by Bessemer, Isaac had no choice but to point out the place where the manure was to be laid. Once Bessemer had set to moving, the soldiers, each of them with a sigh of his own, fell in and began to carry the sacks themselves.
"Move, move, you swine!"
Bessemer strode out ahead and shouted. What had so put him in such a mood, who could have said, but his face was wreathed in smiles. Watching him, Isaac let out a low chuckle despite himself.
The sky was clear. The sun had passed its height and was leaning westward by slow degrees. The wind was cool. From the camp could be heard the sounds of Carlson drilling the soldiers, the shouted cries of the men. Around the wagons came the sounds of food and provisions being unloaded with purpose. It was a tolerably peaceful afternoon.
"Here, here, spread it evenly, I said!"
"Aye, aye. Enough of your carrying on, chief."
"If you have a complaint, raise your fist and we shall see."
"Hngh."
The soldiers shook their heads under Bessemer's goading.
"You don't suppose the chief has taken something, do you?"
So the soldiers muttered as they scattered the manure at the places Isaac pointed out. The warrior tribes were wont to eat a certain hallucinogenic mushroom to drown pain, and the state of Bessemer was very much like that. He hauled the sacks without so much as a pause for breath, and never once did his brow furrow. Rather, his whole face was alight with a grin. Even spreading foul-smelling manure, the grin would not leave him. Short of taking some draught or other, it was no natural reaction.
The work of spreading the manure went on until the hour the sun began to fall.
"Enough for today."
Carlson, come back from drilling the men, called the day's work at an end.
"Done so soon?"
"Done. Go and rest."
At Carlson's word, Bessemer, as though reluctant, cast his eye toward the stacks of manure sacks still unspread.
"Hhh."
"Damn me, if it's to be like this I had rather take a beating from the captain in training."
The soldiers, who had hoped for a somewhat easier day's labor, kneaded their aching backs and limbs. In truth, at the pace Isaac had set for the work, it had not been harder than Carlson's training. But Bessemer, overflowing with spirit, had pressed the soldiers on and on without rhyme or reason, and so they had driven the work beyond measure.
"Gods, the stink of shit."
The soldiers peeled off the worn tunics they had been wearing, grumbling. Even in the cool weather, their sweat-soaked bodies gleamed.
"Do you suppose Bessemer has lost his wits?"
One of the soldiers, bared to the waist, letting his sweat cool, spoke up.
Bessemer showed no sign of flagging. Even with Carlson's word that the work was over, he was still briskly hauling sacks, spilling their contents onto the earth, and spreading them out with a shovel.
Clang, clang, clang, clang!
A clattering of metal rang out from within the camp. It was not the sound of steel striking steel, nor of nails being driven. The men, hearing it, glanced sidelong at Carlson.
"The day's work is done."
Scarce had the words left his lips than the soldiers clustered together and made their way for the camp. The clangor was the sound of a ladle against a pot. The sound that called them to the evening meal.
As though he had known the supply store would be burned, Schiller had brought with him in his wagons provisions enough to feed fifty men. Far more lavish, these, than the rations Goethe was wont to send at regular intervals. The dry biscuits had been baked not long since, and had salt enough to them to carry a savor. The strips of cured meat were fresh, and there were even dried fruits and nuts, which were rare to come by in ordinary times. A stew made with good ingredients and even seasoned with spices came as a great consolation to the men. It was only natural that they should come to look forward to the meal hour. Amid the grind of the days, all the more so.
"Ha."
"Ought you not rest now?"
Amid the boisterous clamor drifting from the camp, Isaac spoke to Bessemer, who was drawing breath.
"It is Elder Brother who ought to eat your meals proper. You are still of an age to be growing."
"I am the lord here. If I should have need of it, I can set Hans or Schiller to have a meal brought up."
"Is that so?"
Bessemer let himself drop heavily to the ground. The stench about him was a foul alloy of sweat and manure.
"Hhh."
"Have you gone mad?"
Isaac asked, watching Bessemer burst into laughter without warning.
"It is because I am glad."
"What gladness is in being caked in shit?"
"Better than being caked in blood, no?"
Bessemer answered, smiling still.
The two of them, for a long while, looked in silence upon the manure-strewn wasteland.
"This is a land that has not been able to bring up so much as a tuft of grass. Do you think it can be done?"
"It can."
Isaac nodded lightly. As though it were no great matter. As though it were only natural.
"Then I shall put my faith in Elder Brother alone."
"Must you keep on with the 'Elder Brother'?"
"What is the fault with calling Elder Brother Elder Brother?"
"You have not lived half of my years."
"In the tribal tongue there is a word, Prate. There is no fit word for it in the common tongue. It means, near enough, one who is fit to be honored, an honorable one, one worthy of being served. That is the sense of it. When I explained as much to the eldest Elder Brother, he told me this. Then call him Elder Brother, and have done with it."
"The eldest Elder Brother?"
"The Margrave of Goethe, I mean."
"My father?"
"To Elder Brother, he would be so."
"Huh."
Isaac let out a dry laugh. What sort of family tree they were drawing here, he could not have said.
"Ah. This. I had nearly forgotten."
Bessemer, of a sudden, drew out a pouch of cloth from inside his breast.
"What is it?"
"It was inside Father. That is, inside the King of Wolves. It looked like a Mana Stone to me, and I thought it would be of more use to Elder Brother than to me."
The cloth was smeared with manure, and flies buzzed about it. Isaac took it up. Within was a Mana Stone of a deep, dark blue.
"……?"
The Mana Stone, when it touched his palm, held a peculiar warmth. Not from having lain in Bessemer's breast. The warmth was something the stone itself held.
"Is it well that you should give this to me?"
"Father said he entrusted Vinfeldt to me. I am only making the best choice to hold true to his last will."
"……"
"Do not mistake the matter, Elder Brother. Should Vinfeldt drift into a foul course, I shall be the one to put an end to you."
"That is a fierce thing to say."
"Is it? Then see that you do well by it."
Bessemer bared his teeth in a broad grin. Isaac grinned back.
***⚜***
Two days had passed like that.
"Do not tread on it, you sons of bitches!"
The soldiers, from the earliest morning run, were wincing under Bessemer's shouting.
“What is he, a watchdog? Never stops barking.”
"Not one of you passes through here! Any man who sets foot upon it shall taste my axe!"
What Bessemer, shouting with such resolution, was guarding was the stretch of earth where the manure had been laid.
"You there, you bastard! Your life is in peril! Have a care!"
"Gods, the chief has eaten something that has turned on him for certain."
At even the slightest straying from the marked path during the run, the soldiers drew a roar from him, unfailing. What with Carlson's high-intensity conditioning on top of Bessemer's ear-splitting bellows, the soldiers were in a sorry state.
"That is the end of the run. A brief rest, and then we move to weapons drill."
Carlson spoke it with a face upon which not a single drop of sweat had risen. A monster beyond reckoning.
The soldiers thought it at every training. Carlson might well be some magic-beast wearing the skin of a man.
With no strength left to move, the soldiers sank down where they stood and sprawled out any which way. Thick drops of sweat fell and soaked into the dark red earth.
"Haa, haa, damn."
"Khh, damn, khh."
Coarse words rose from one quarter and another, but no one upbraided them. Even Carlson let them pass. The training had been that grueling.
Those soldiers who could yet manage so much as a curse were the men in the very first rank of the camp's physical strength. Most of the rest dropped out along the way, or, like Hans, clutched at the palisade partway through the run and verified, by heaving, what they had eaten the day before.
"Hng, hngg, hnnnng-!"
More than half of them did just so. And yet there was not one man to voice a complaint. They had felt, from the battle with the Hellwolves, the need to become stronger. Set beside the death of a comrade, this pittance of pain was nothing.
"Oi. Do you think that will work?"
Having caught their breath at last, the soldiers watched the detail spreading manure.
"Come now. Idle labor."
They did not so much as half-believe in it. For decades past, in this place, no plant had ever been native to the land. At best, brush hardy in its own right had begun to grow, faltered, and then withered or rotted away. Would merely strewing some manure here bring plants forth out of such a land?
"It will work. Cough, cough."
Hans, who had been clutching the palisade and vomiting up his stomach's contents, wiped his mouth upon his sleeve.
"What is he saying, this one?"
"I said, it will work. It will."
Hans turned suddenly with eyes wide and glared at the mocking soldier.
When his son Peter had been hovering at death's door with the black flu, Isaac had neither turned him out for his late arrival at the manse nor punished him. On the contrary, the young lord had bade the Chamberlain send down herbs for Peter's treatment. Had the family been thrown out of the manse that winter, they would have died to the cold and to hunger. Had there been no herbs, his son Peter would have died of the flu.
At a mere nine years of age, Isaac had saved Hans' family. It had been a mercy. It had been the act of a saint. From that time on, to Hans, Isaac was all but a religion.
"Oho. A half-wit who cannot even swing a blade, and you would cross me now?"
"What my lord sets his hand to, it works. All of it."
Hans did not yield. He repeated the same words.
"Rest is over! Move!"
Carlson shouted.
"You. You shall take a beating from me today."
So the veteran said to the insolent new recruit.
Two more days passed.
"My lord, my lord!"
It was an hour early even for the morning run. The world lay in darkness, and Isaac, in his tent, stirred at the sound of a voice beyond the canvas. He had only gone to sleep late, studying the Mana Stone from the Wolf King that Bessemer had given him.
"My lord!"
"……"
"My lord, you must rise."
Hans, bursting into the tent without warning, shook Isaac awake. Having slept perhaps two hours, Isaac sat up in a daze, half still in dream.
"Yes, what is it?"
"The sprout, the sprout has come up! Out of the manure, a sprout has come up!"
"……"
"My lord! This is no dream! I saw it with my own eyes, as clear as day!"
Isaac looked upon the flustered Hans with eyes half-closed. They were bleary eyes. Before long, Isaac opened his mouth.
"You. Out."
"My lord?"
"Do not wake me again."
That a sprout should come forth in Vinfeldt, a land as good as dead. To Isaac, it was an utterly natural thing.
END σϝ CHAPTER