The second I saw Lutz was free, I grabbed him by his collar and pulled him over to me. “Hey, Lutz. What’re you gonna give Brother Sylvester to eat in the forest?” I whispered, and Lutz looked back at me like he hadn’t really given it any thought.
“What’s wrong with him eating the same stuff we have? He wants to see what the lower city’s forest is like, so...”
“Everything’s wrong with it!” You can’t make the archduke eat potatoffels and salty soup!
When gathering and making paper in the forest, we would use the boiling water to steam potatoffels and then have them with butter for lunch. That, and soup made from throwing some nearby vegetation into a pot of salted water, potentially with some dried meat if anyone had brought some. Plus, that soup was made in the same pots we used to boil bark; we couldn’t give that to the archduke.
“I’m gonna go report this to Master Benno. You go on ahead.” I pointed at the Gilberta Company, which had just come into view, and separated from the orphan group to rush over to Mark, who had just walked a customer outside. He turned toward me, and his smile deepened when we made eye contact.
“Leon. Shall we discuss this upstairs?” It seemed that Mark had somehow managed to guess the true identity of the man wearing a silver hair clasp, leather shoes, and a fancy bow, all of which starkly contrasted with his raggedy clothing and made him stick out more than he would have in normal clothes. I hurriedly climbed up the outside stairs.
I started to explain as soon as I was on the second floor, reporting as briefly as possible that Lord Sylvester was sneaking out to go hunting with the orphans, that he was being guided by Lutz, and that he was about to be served the lunch of an impoverished commoner.
“I shall have Matilda prepare bread, ham, cheese, and drink. It might be wise to bring cutlery as well; Master Benno said that they eat the potatoffels with their bare hands outside.”
Apparently Master Benno had gone with Lutz and Myne to the forest once before, and at the time had been forced to eat the potatoffels off of a board with his bare hands. Now that they were making soup at the orphans’ request, they brought wooden bowls and spoons with them in pouches on their hips, but Lord Sylvester had joined so suddenly that there probably wasn’t any spare for him. It was hard to imagine that a noble who was going hunting and used to servants preparing everything for him would think to bring his own cutlery. It was better to play it safe and prepare some of our own.
“Leon, I will trust serving Lord Sylvester to you. Please make the most of your training from Fran. Ah, and I see the food is ready.” Mark handed me a lunch basket that had been prepared by the servant Matilda, wearing his usual smile as he did so. “It seems that Lord Sylvester has no intention of informing Myne or Lutz who he really is. Take good care not to slip up and reveal his secret.”
I took the prepared lunch and rushed to the forest. Work had already begun at the usual riverbank, and I could see bark boiling inside the pots. Some kids were washing potatoffels in the river, while others were gathering in the forest, just like normal. The only note of concern was that Lutz and Sylvester were nowhere to be seen.
“Where are Lutz and Brother Sylvester?”
“We split up once we got here,” Fritz responded. “They went off to the hunting grounds, and Lutz said they’d come back when fourth bell rang.” I noticed he was stacking stones rather than watching over the pots like he usually did, and when I asked what he was doing, he said he was making a table for Lord Sylvester to eat on.
“I think Brother Sylvester will need it because he’s a blue priest. It took even us gray priests a while to get used to eating without a table.”
It seemed that I wasn’t the only one cradling my head over the fact that Lutz wasn’t treating Lord Sylvester like a noble at all. The moment I realized that, I felt an odd sense of companionship with this guy.
“That’s a good idea. I went and got some food for him to eat. No way could we make Brother Sylvester eat a lunch of nothing but potatoffels and soup, right?” I held up the basket in my hand, and Fritz blinked in surprise.
“The blue priests are the ones who prepare the food offered as divine gifts in the temple, so I didn’t consider for a second that we would need to prepare something for him to eat.” Fritz had apparently considered himself a part of Lord Sylvester’s group today, and had even expected some extra fancy food to be handed down to him.
...How were you expecting his food to be prepared when there are no chefs here? The wall of common sense separating me from the gray priests was just too enormous.
Fourth bell rang and I started preparing Lord Sylvester’s lunch. He and Lutz came walking back, having bagged two birds.
“Brother Sylvester, you can hang them from this branch.”
“How should I do that?” Lord Sylvester asked, looking at the branch Lutz had pointed out in confusion. But Lutz made no move to take the birds from Sylvester. Instead, he just explained what to do.
“You really think I have a random cord on me, Lutz? Well, I don’t.”
“Why didn’t you bring any cord to the forest with you? You can’t bleed them without it. Just what
