16. Epilogue—Beloved Ejekail
Episode 128
Beloved Ejekail,
Spring in the west is gentle.
Come to think of it, I believe this is the first time I’ve ever written you a long letter. When I took out the stationery, it felt terribly strange. I’ve written letters on your behalf so often, and yet this is the first letter exchanged between just the two of us.
When I tried to tell you how I’ve been living here, I found myself agonizing for quite a while over what to write from the very first line.
At first, I wrote, “Dear Major,” but Anna happened to find the letter while cleaning the bedroom and said that really wouldn’t do, so now I’m writing it again on a new sheet of paper.
Ah, Anna has been learning her letters from me lately. On the day she first learned spelling, she wrote all our names one by one in jam on the bread she had baked for breakfast. Everyone else’s names were short, so it was fine, but since the name Lizan has so many letters, there was far too much jam on mine, and I alone had to eat a jam sandwich so sweet it made my head spin.
Your name is quite long too, you know. If you want to eat a sandwich with the proper ratio of bread to jam, you might want to shorten your name a little before coming here.
I imagine news from this side must be reaching Cleris regularly even without this letter, but as you have probably heard, life here is going very smoothly and pleasantly.
The people are kind, and the weather is always mild. Wherever I go, I see flowers. Puppies and cats too. The sea is nearby, so there is plenty of seafood, and perhaps because of that, I think I come across four or five cats running off with fish in their mouths every day. A cat has even begun paying regular visits to our kitchen to steal dried fish. Anna vows she won’t let the adorable little thief get away with it, but when the cat doesn’t come, she is also the one who goes out behind the wall and calls for it.
Mm, and this is a little embarrassing, but these days I teach children. It’s nothing impressive. I was wondering what I might be able to do, and after I taught the neighbors’ children some simple letters and numbers, word spread a little. More and more children began following their friends over, one or two at a time, so I ended up decorating one room like a school. These days, I often turn the interesting dreams the children have had into little storybooks. I have each of them draw pictures, then I make a story and attach it. When we fold the paper in half and sew it together, it becomes a very thin book, and when the children make one each and take it home, their parents look terribly proud.
So lately, the neighbors have been calling me Teacher. Not Miss Lizan, not young lady, but Teacher. The title was so embarrassing and unfamiliar that it felt as if foxtail grass were gently tickling my chest. I had such a fit of coughing that I was in trouble. After hearing it over and over, I’ve grown used to it now, though.
Even if they call me Teacher, I’m not capable enough to properly teach anyone, so I only accept a small fee, but many people give me gifts as well, such as grape cake.
Mm... In other words, I’m earning a bit of living money with my own strength. I hope you won’t feel hurt that I sent back a considerable portion of the living expenses you sent through the messenger. No, but in the first place, that amount wasn’t on the scale of living expenses at all. I was truly so shocked. At first, I thought you had sent a year’s worth all at once, but the messenger looked even more flustered and asked me in return whether I only received wages once a year. Apparently, it is money that should originally be received every week, but since the distance from Cleris is considerable, it is sent once a month for convenience. And he said this budget had been set quite a long time ago, with the day I entered the mansion as the starting date.
Ejekail, when you send something, please discuss it with me first. Your excessive spending has a way of encouraging my parents’ vanity. Of course, you aren’t exactly in any state to discuss things right now.
Ah, the children are coming in now. It must be nearly time for class.
I’ll write the rest in my next letter.
From Lizan, who waits for you
Lizan carefully signed her initials.
Only later did Lizan happen to hear that he was terribly fond of her handwriting. Anna even confessed that she had gathered up papers on which Lizan had merely exchanged written words like “yes” and “no” with Polina, with no particular content, and passed them on to Ejekail.
“He probably hasn’t thrown away a single sheet of paper with anything written by you on it, my lady.”
Though Lizan wondered why he would go so far, she had the feeling that this letter, too, would ultimately be added to his collection, so she carefully checked its contents and handwriting again and again.
This was the only way she had to convey her heart and news to him across such a great distance. Lizan planned to write letters whenever Ejekail came to mind, then send them along whenever the messenger came.
This letter would be the beginning.
Lizan placed the letter gently into the basket.
❖ ❖ ❖
Beloved Ejekail.
Summer in the west is cheerful.
The sunlight is astonishingly hot. I’ve never experienced such a hot summer before, but they say the south is even hotter than this place. How do people live there? Anna, whose hometown is Derosa, suffers terribly from the heat, so she goes for a walk to the lake every day. Perhaps because it’s by the water, the breeze there is rather cool.
I go there sometimes too, and when I sit in a daze and look around, the townspeople come by and toss coins in from time to time. I suppose it’s because they have wishes they want fulfilled, or because they want to ward off misfortune. Everyone does that in towns with ponds or lakes, after all. Just as people stack stone cairns as they come and go in the mountains. There is even a rumor that in the very distant past, this whole area was sea, and perhaps because of that, the lake is so deep that you can’t see the bottom. Anna says that if there were someone who could go all the way down to the lakebed, they would become one of the richest people in Astrie.
But if you toss a coin and make a wish, will it really come true?
Sometimes I find it strange, this belief—or perhaps sentiment—that people universally share even though they haven’t particularly been taught it. How did we come to do things like this?
People speak of eternity so easily, and make promises so easily, but in truth, human time is finite. Stones and water, on the other hand, remain there no matter how much time passes. So perhaps people want to borrow that endlessness, even if they must pay a price for it. That thought suddenly came to me. It’s rather useless, isn’t it?
Ejekail, I heard that you’ve begun rehabilitation little by little. The messenger who told me looked as if he were thinking, “Ah, I no longer have to cover it up with lies,” so I couldn’t bring myself to get angry, but... You had been lying to me, saying your treatment was proceeding smoothly, when in fact your consciousness had been coming and going for so long and you were lying in bed unable to move so much as a finger. I knew it was a bit strange that the messenger only ever relayed news verbally each time.
I know you hid it because you thought I would worry.
But being deceived hurts more. I want every bit of news about you to reach me exactly as it is.
The messenger you sent is astonishingly perceptive. I didn’t expect you to send this red diamond ring back to me. Most likely, that messenger noticed the fake gemstone ring on my hand and told you about it.
It wasn’t a matter serious enough for you to worry over. I had been going in and out of the bookshop every day to buy paper and ink for the children to use, so perhaps the bookshop owner had been watching me rather closely. Nothing rude happened. He asked whether I was unmarried, so I answered that there was someone I was going to marry. I couldn’t find a suitable ring, so I briefly borrowed my mother’s wedding ring, but I do wonder a little whether it is all right to suddenly switch from a silver ring set with a colored stone to such a dazzling diamond ring. Still, since a mountain of paper and ink arrived together with the ring, I don’t think I’ll have any reason to go to the bookshop for the time being.
In the end, I am the one always receiving help. The reason I do not feel lonely despite the great distance between us must be that I can feel your heart, always watching over me and thinking of me.
Thank you.
From Lizan, who misses you
She truly was grateful, but.
“...Isn’t this a little too much?”
Lizan looked down at the ring on her finger. No matter how many times she looked at it, the ring was truly large and splendid. It looked like the sort of ring that even people who had never cared whether she was married or not would ask about at least once.
“It is too much, of course.”
Anna answered calmly.
“It is too much, isn’t it?”
Lizan stealthily turned the ring around to hide the jewel in her palm. Even then, its unusual appearance was obvious.
“No, not the ring. The letters.”
Anna adjusted the ring properly for her and continued.
“Normally, you barely say anything, my lady, so how can you have so much to say that you write several letters a day? If we gathered all the letters you’ve sent so far, we’d have ten books’ worth.”
It was true. There were countless days when, the moment she sealed a letter, more things she had not yet said came to mind and she pulled a new sheet of stationery toward herself. In her heart, she wanted to go to the Valdemaera main house, stay by his side, and nurse him herself, but now that she had to wait in a safe place until the complicated circumstances were resolved, letters were the only means of expression available to her from this side. No matter how much she wrote, it was not enough. As a result, the messenger who bustled back and forth between Lizan and Ejekail carried a basket full of letters every time.
“When the two of you can’t live without each other like this, why go through all that trouble... Anyway, be sure to wear the ring. No, please wear it. You have to stamp your mark here and there with the ring so no flies gather.”
Anna shook her head and muttered to herself.
“After all the ironclad defense he set up behind the scenes, just what sort of bastard was it...”
❖ ❖ ❖
Beloved Ejekail.
Autumn in the west is abundant.
Isn’t it truly astonishing how quickly the days pass? That the seasons have already changed twice. In the west, the passage of the seasons is clear, so it feels as if time goes by even faster. In Derosa or Cielsa, where winter is long, the change of the years does not feel quite as real.
Even so, I think both places have their own merits. The north may be barren, but the scenery of its long winter is terribly mysterious, and in the west, there is certainly a relaxed ease in the way people live and think. In autumn, the harvest season, every household carries baskets full of freshly picked fruit and crops and shares them with their neighbors. Since it felt too embarrassing to only receive, yesterday we also made bread with potatoes and sent it home with the children.
Ah, and I heard a rumor worth celebrating.
They say you were specially promoted for your meritorious service in eradicating the spies. Then everything has been settled now, hasn’t it? I asked the messenger whether I might visit Cleris soon to see you, but he said he would have to bring back your answer. I wonder when that answer will arrive...
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