Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 4.7 - Chapter 10

The Tea Party with Drewanchel

“It’s splendid...” Brunhilde said with a sigh of wonder as she gazed into the wooden box. Inside was the hairpin from Ehrenfest, decorated with pure-white flowers that would make Adolphine’s wavy, wine-red hair stand out all the more beautifully. The flowers were made with lace and looked very much like large roses, and the softly colored green leaves that surrounded them brought images of spring to mind. The thread used seemed to be especially glossy, perhaps because Tuuli had prepared it and the design well ahead of time, and that wasn’t all—the decorations had been adorned with tiny, glass-like beads, making it look entirely like the flowers were wet with morning dew.

Tuuli sure is amazing...

“Is this of an appropriate quality for Prince Sigiswald to give to Lady Adolphine?” I asked.

Brunhilde nodded, her amber eyes tearful and dreamy. “Oh yes—it is more beautiful than I can put into words. I see your personal hairpin craftswoman has become even more talented.” She had the keenest eye for quality out of all my retainers and tended to set very high standards, so earning her praise was a genuine achievement. I was beyond pleased that Tuuli was being recognized for her skill.

“In that case,” I said, “please make arrangements with Charlotte’s attendants and contact Drewanchel.”

“As you wish.”

We probed Drewanchel about a tea party, and they invited us to one they were planning to hold soon. We didn’t have any plans ourselves, and participating was much less of a hassle than hosting, so Charlotte and I both agreed. The moment we received the formal invitation, however, we realized just how big of a mistake we had made.

“So,” Charlotte said, “now we have to attend this...”

“And I suppose it’s too late for us to drop out,” I added.

We shouldn’t have been lazy and taken the easier option! We should have hosted the tea party ourselves!

But it was too late for regrets. We had already expressed our interest, and now that we had a formal invitation from a greater duchy, we could hardly refuse to participate.

To think... We’ve been invited to a tea party meant exclusively for top-ranking duchies!

Now that her engagement to the first prince was formalized, Adolphine was holding a tea party to gather together the central pillars supporting Yurgenschmidt—the top-ranking duchies. Expected to attend were an archnoble from Klassenberg, Hannelore from Dunkelfelger, Adolphine’s half-sister, a fellow archduke candidate from Gilessenmeyer, a fourth-year archduke candidate from Hauchletzte, and finally, Detlinde from Ahrensbach. All of the duchies from ranks one to six were lined up, and none below that were invited... except, of course, Ehrenfest the Tenth.

In case it wasn’t clear already, this tea party isn’t meant for us! We’re completely out of our depth here! Part of me wishes I could pass out partway through just as an excuse to leave sooner, but with how serious and scary things are going to be, that isn’t even an option!

Things rarely panned out as one wanted them to, and there was no way I could abandon Charlotte and force her to attend alone. I needed to steel my resolve and go alongside her.

“But if you think about it,” I said, “this might actually work in our favor.”

“How so?” Charlotte asked, tilting her head. We were going to be attending this tea party whether we wanted to or not, so we had nothing to lose by focusing on the bright side.

“Had we been attending a tea party with Drewanchel alone, we can assume they would have broached any number of uncomfortably personal topics or pushed unreasonable demands on us. In a tea party with so many participants, however, the conversations will trend toward more innocuous subjects. In that sense, this is actually quite convenient for us.”

In short, we could complete our primary mission of delivering the hairpin and then spend the remainder of the tea party talking about things that were completely inoffensive.

I paused for a moment in thought and then looked up. “We should bring some of our new sweets to the tea party with us, such that we can bring up topics of our own.”

“Are you thinking of any sweets in particular?”

“Mille crepes,” I said, recalling the cakes made by stacking lightly baked crepes and slathering cream between the layers. We were going to be dealing with top-ranking duchies with presumably gourmet palates, so a lighter dish seemed more appropriate than something like galettes made with buckwheat. They were time-consuming to make, but the layers of cream and pastry looked divine, and the level of sweetness could be adjusted to one’s taste.

Just like with our pound cakes, we had powdered sugar, cream, honey, jam, and rumtopf as available toppings, allowing for an extra touch of sweetness. The powdered sugar was a little bit too grainy to be ideal, but when sifted on top of the crepes using a tea strainer, it formed what looked like falling snow. It made for a beautiful sight.

The day of the tea party had finally arrived, and after much hard work, Ella had made the mille crepes we needed. I was very much used to the dish, having eaten it surprisingly often while Ella tried to master the recipe, but Charlotte had only tried it on a few occasions. Making one took a long time, and making them in bulk was even more arduous, so they were served only on occasion.

We prepared the sweets and the hairpin, among other things, and since my intention was to acquire some love stories during the tea party, I made sure to have several apprentice scholars accompany us.

“We thank you ever so much for inviting us.”

“Oh my. Lady Rozemyne, Lady Charlotte, I am quite glad to see you’ve come,” Adolphine said, welcoming us with a smile.

To say the Drewanchel tea party room gave off very natural vibes was an understatement—wainscoting was on all the walls, and there was cloth strung up depicting flowers and trees. There were also potted plants here and there, though at a glance, I couldn’t tell whether they were purely decorative or actually useful herbs.

“The air in here is so refreshingly pastoral,” I said. “It feels so serene, like standing in a forest.”

“Oh my.” Adolphine brought a hand to her mouth and gave a refined giggle. “Perhaps through eating here, Lady Rozemyne, it can feel as if you are having a picnic in the forest despite your poor health.”

After we had exchanged our lengthy noble greetings, I was taken to my chair. Charlotte was seated to my right, and Hannelore directly in front of me. Detlinde was sitting rather far away, perhaps because of our tea party last year.

“Good day, Lady Hannelore,” I said.

“Good day,” she replied, returning the greeting with a smile. “I was quite surprised to learn of your invitation to this tea party, Lady Rozemyne.”

“I have brought a hairpin for Prince Sigiswald to present to Lady Adolphine. It will surely be debuted at this very tea party.”

“Is that so? I can’t wait. Lady Eglantine’s hairpin last year was something to behold.”

After a brief conversation with Hannelore, Charlotte introduced me to the archduke candidate sitting next to her. “Sister, this is Lady Luzinde of Gilessenmeyer,” she said.

Luzinde was a first-year archduke candidate and a very good friend of Charlotte’s, it seemed. She was also one of many who had read Royal Academy Love Stories at Hannelore’s recommendation. Her light-green hair swayed gently as she turned to face me. “Lady Rozemyne, this is our first time having a tea party together like this. I added a personal family symbol to my schtappe after Lady Charlotte suggested them, and she tells me that you are the one who came up with the idea. She said she is proud to have you as her older sister.”

Her words echoed in my mind; hearing “proud” and “older sister” together in the same sentence made for a pleasant hum in my head as they repeated over and over. I had considered myself deadweight ever since my arrival at the Royal Academy, but here Charlotte was, singing my praises to her friends.

I’m so happy right now, I could actually die! Aah... I really have to calm down, though. At this rate, I’ll need to leave before the tea party even begins. But I can’t help but smile!

“To me, Charlotte is much more impressive,” I said. “She is so kind and adorable; I am similarly proud to have her as my little sister.” It was my attempt to outdo Charlotte’s own kind words, but she stopped me with a firm tug on my sleeve.

“I see you two are very close,” Luzinde said with a giggle. “It was Lady Hannelore who introduced me to Ehrenfest books, and I have had a wonderful time reading the ones Lady Charlotte allowed me to borrow. I realize this may be somewhat late, but I have brought with me a book to lend in return.”

“We thank you.”

An apprentice scholar serving Luzinde then proffered a book, which Philine and Marianne readily accepted. My excitement swelled at the prospect of getting to read a book from Gilessenmeyer.

Calm down. Caaalm down. The tea party’s barely even started.

Once everyone was gathered, the tea party could properly begin. As the host, Adolphine took demonstrative bites of each type of sweet, introducing them in the process, and drank some tea. After that, it was my task to introduce the Ehrenfest sweets we had brought.

“These are known as mille crepes,” I said. “They are rarely served, even in Ehrenfest, but I thought they would make an ideal treat for this high-class tea party of top-ranking duchies. You may add jam, honey, sugar, and such to taste, as you would with pound cake.” Once my explanation was done, I signaled for Lieseleta to start dusting the crepes with sugar. She gently shook a tea strainer, and the white powder floated down majestically like snow.

Charlotte seemed to have done her best to spread word of our pound cakes, and everyone here seemed well accustomed to the idea of sweets that one could adorn freely. The attendants wasted no time in serving their ladies and adding toppings according to their instructions. Just as expected, the top-ranking duchies preferred their sweets on the stronger side, and many asked for honey.

“Are these thin layers of pastry separated with cream?” Hannelore asked. “From the side, the layers are very visible and pretty.”

“I see...” mused Luzinde. “Ehrenfest has unusual sweets other than pound cake. I must say, I think these crepes are even more delicious.”

Our mille crepes were being well received, it seemed. I thanked everyone for their praise and then broached the topic of what specialties were served in other duchies. I wanted more delicious ingredients, if possible.

“I am aware that sweets made with sugar are popular in the Sovereignty, but do any of your duchies have special sweets or fruit?” I asked. “I wish to learn more about popular confectionaries.”

From there, we discussed many fruits that were used to make sweets, how they were eaten, and various other details, until it became clear that duchies had way more specialty foods than I could have anticipated. It seemed that students would serve sweets that were popular in the Sovereignty during Royal Academy tea parties, but upon returning home, they would eat the more local sweets that they preferred.

“I would very much like to try everyone’s local sweets one day,” I continued. “I feel there are many exciting discoveries waiting among them.”

“What a splendid idea, Lady Rozemyne,” Adolphine replied. “Is that how you discovered these new recipes and your new paper, I wonder?”

I nodded with a smile. “New information can inspire fantastic creations. Lady Hannelore recently introduced me to rohres, for example, which I should be able to incorporate into a new kind of pound cake.”

“My my. A new kind of pound cake? At this rate, I expect you will soon have a new kind of rinsham as well. I certainly hope it is this year that Drewanchel finally secures a trade deal with Ehrenfest. Through experimentation, we have managed to pick apart rinsham and devise a type of our own, but it seems to be less effective than yours...” Adolphine said and placed a troubled hand on her cheek. As it turned out, their version succeeded in making hair glossy, but it wasn’t kind on the scalp. I deduced one possible explanation instantly.

I wonder... Are they messing up the scrub?

Hearing that Drewanchel had yet to flawlessly recreate our rinsham came as a massive relief. Perhaps I had been too on guard against them.

“Ehrenfest has many unusual things,” Adolphine continued. “The rinsham appeared simple when deconstructed, but we could not reproduce it perfectly, and the paper that you use to distinguish between merchants is unlike anything we have ever seen before. I am simply dying to know what other secrets you have up your sleeve. Even my little brother Ortwin has been bemoaning his failure to unearth whatever explanation there is for your duchy’s rising grades.”

Well, it makes sense that he’s struggling. Wilfried can’t exactly admit that everyone’s working hard to win recipes for my sweets.

Our keeping secrets had apparently made Adolphine very curious, and she was now probing into how many new business partners we intended to take during the upcoming Archduke Conference.

“As you know, Ehrenfest has long been among the bottom-ranked duchies and does not have the capacity to accommodate too many merchants at once,” I said with a smile. “I personally believe that our expansion to new trade partners will remain gradual, but as this matter is down to the aub, I can say nothing with certainty.”

I was, in essence, telling her not to get her hopes up, and now that our topic of conversation had turned to business, I decided it was the perfect time to focus on what was the very reason for our attending.

“At the moment, Lady Adolphine, I cannot say whether we will commence trading with Drewanchel. However, you are already in a position to receive Ehrenfest products, are you not? I have brought with me a gift from Prince Sigiswald,” I said and signaled to Brunhilde with my eyes, as we had planned. She responded with a curt nod, then passed the wooden box containing the hairpin to one of Adolphine’s attendants. “Prince Sigiswald ordered this to celebrate your coming of age.”

The other women attending the tea party all sighed in envy; as expected, receiving a gift from a man had very special connotations. I noticed that Hannelore and Luzinde had especially bright glints in their eyes, as one would expect from such devout readers of Royal Academy Love Stories.

“Oh, how wonderful...” Adolphine sighed upon peering into the box her attendants had opened for her. She had yet to actually take out the hairpin, so the others still couldn’t see it.

“Might I suggest trying it on?” I said. “I imagine everyone wishes to see it, and your attendants would do well to use this opportunity to learn how it should be worn.”

Adolphine agreed, then her attendants began—at Brunhilde’s prompting—to style her hair as she intended to wear it for her coming-of-age ceremony. Once that was done, Brunhilde showed them how to put the hairpin on their lady. As predicted, the pure-white flowers stood out wonderfully against the wine red of Adolphine’s hair. She exuded a flashy, strong-willed aura, and the accessory really brought out her inner gracefulness.

“How is it?” Adolphine asked, brushing her fingers against the hairpin as if checking where it was.

“It suits you well,” one archduke candidate said. “You look beautiful.”

“Prince Sigiswald must be such a kind and wonderful man to order such a perfect hairpin for you,” another cooed.

Adolphine’s expression softened at everyone’s praise. “Lady Eglantine looked so remarkable last year; I can only hope I do not compare unfavorably,” she said with a teasing smile. The other girls smiled in turn and assured her that she had nothing to worry about, but I could still sense some genuine anxiety coming from her, no doubt over being compared to Eglantine as the prince’s wife.

“Just as Flutrane and Heilschmerz heal in their own ways, Lady Adolphine, you have a unique beauty distinct from Lady Eglantine’s,” I said. “You both possess such magnificent traits, and none are greater than or inferior to the others.” Eglantine was dreamy and soft, while Adolphine was a sharp beauty with a strong will; there was clearly no point in judging them based on the same criteria.

Adolphine’s amber eyes widened, then her shoulders relaxed, and she broke into a laugh. “Lady Eglantine did mention that you always know exactly what a person wants to hear, Lady Rozemyne, but even then, I did not quite expect her words to ring so true.”

Being compared to Lady Eglantine must be rough... I’m glad to see that she’s feeling better, even if only a little.

As we smiled at each other, Detlinde let out a dreamy sigh off to the side. “I have been thinking that I would like such a hairpin for my own graduation ceremony next year. I wonder, what flowers would suit me...?” she mused aloud, touching her brilliant golden locks while looking at Charlotte and me. Unfortunately, selling her a hairpin was out of the question; if we let her overpower us with her familial ties and superior status, the other top-ranking duchies could do the same.

“Should the time come when we begin trade with Ahrensbach, we will take your order at once,” I said, “but as of yet, we cannot violate our agreements and show favoritism to Ahrensbach alone. Lady Adolphine received her hairpin as an order not from Drewanchel, but from royalty.”

“Oh? But are we not cousins?”

“Our being family has no bearing on trade agreements between archdukes. One needs more than blood to move an aub,” I said with a smile, indirectly saying that she would need to approach Sylvester with something of value first. But even then, Detlinde refused to back down.

“Can nothing be done? It breaks my heart to see this. We are ever so close already...”

Perhaps stubbornness was an Ahrensbach specialty. Her persistence soon brought Fraularm to mind, and as I started to falter, Adolphine moved protectively between us, still wearing her hairpin and a smile.

“Now, now, Lady Detlinde. There is no need to be pushy with Lady Rozemyne,” she said. “You need only ask your partner to place the order for you, as mine did.”

Ouch. Talk about brutal. Detlinde hasn’t found a partner to escort her yet, Adolphine, and you know that! You’re more or less challenging her to find a man from Klassenberg or the Sovereignty. Geez.

In an instant, Detlinde’s face turned exceptionally red, and she pursed her lips in a show of frustration. I was waiting to see how she would fire back, feeling so nervous that I started to sweat, when Charlotte suddenly stepped forward and took her by the hand.

“Your graduation is still a year away, Lady Detlinde,” she said with a smile. “Perhaps things will be different then. We may not be doing trade with Ahrensbach right now, but new agreements could be made during the Archduke Conference this spring.”

“Indeed,” Detlinde replied. “Do ask your aub to make more agreements.”

And with that, the situation was expertly defused. The atmosphere began to relax once again, and the tea party resumed.

Wowee... Charlotte’s something else.

From there, the topic of conversation shifted to Ehrenfest’s increasingly popular new books. It seemed that Adolphine was reading the love stories from Haldenzel that Charlotte had allowed her to borrow.

“I am having a splendid time reading them,” she said, “but Ortwin tires of reading about nothing but romance. Does Ehrenfest have any books for men, I wonder?”

“We have a collection of knight stories,” I replied. “I shall ask Wilfried to lend him a copy.”

In return, Adolphine allowed us to borrow a book from Drewanchel. That made two new books from this tea party alone, and that realization made me dangerously thrilled.

Come on, me! Get a grip!

“Pray tell, what stories are there in Ehrenfest books?” came a question. Both Hannelore and Luzinde answered quickly and passionately, while Adolphine spoke of what she had read in the new book she was borrowing. As they began to discuss the romantic moments when gods popped up, it seemed that even those who were unfamiliar with them were able to visualize the scenes and understand exactly how the characters were feeling.

Aah! It’s hopeless! I can’t empathize with them at all. I mean, why is everyone so moved about spring goddesses popping up during a scene where two lovers gaze into each other’s eyes?!

“Another story comes to mind that tells of...” an archduke candidate from another duchy began and then started to regale the others. My apprentice scholars swiftly transcribed all that was said, while I alone stared wistfully at the table, unable to empathize with anything.

In the end, although everyone was talking about books, I made it all the way through the tea party without collapsing. I simply couldn’t relate to the other girls’ excitement and passion whatsoever, and the necklace I was wearing changed color only the slightest bit.