Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 25 - Chapter 5.1

The Little Bird’s Room

1

The hectic revival festival had come to an end, and the silver month had arrived. At present, Chiffon Chel was in a small space surrounded by gray walls, absentmindedly lost in thought. This was an antechamber leading to the room belonging to her mistress, the current head of the house of Turan, Lady Lefreya. As long as her lady didn’t give her any task to do, her current job was to sit here in this room all on her own.

Though the job only involved sitting, it wasn’t like it was easy. Sitting all on your own for most of the day with nothing to do was, in fact, surprisingly challenging. Being left alone with her thoughts often caused them to wander in all sorts of directions.

Recently, Chiffon Chel had been especially prone to getting caught up in ruminating about the past, probably because of the message from Asuta that someone from the house of Daleim had delivered to her. Asuta had met her brother in the post town, and had sent her a message to tell her he was still alive.

My brother Eleo is alive... What kind of twist of fate did it take for Asuta to encounter him?

Chiffon Chel had been separated from her brother for almost five whole years now, without ever having seen him in that time. She lived in the castle town, whereas he was confined to the Turan lands. The two of them had been captured and enslaved over ten years ago. The armies of Selva had raided the settlement in the Tarless mountain range where the Chel family had lived and destroyed it. The adult men and old folks had all been slaughtered, while the young women and children were taken as slaves. Men of Mahyudra grew large enough to fight as warriors by the age of thirteen, so if the raid had occurred even one year later, her brother Eleo Chel would surely have been killed as well. Yes, her brother had been twelve when they lost their homeland, while Chiffon Chel had been merely ten years old. Thirteen years ago, their fate had been sealed. They would have to live the rest of their lives as slaves.

They had first been taken to some manor five days away from Mahyudra by wagon. Chiffon Chel hadn’t been able to understand the western tongue at the time, so she hadn’t even known the name of the place. They had spent eight years in that little corner of Selva. Those days had been the most difficult ones they faced. Their parents and brethren had been slaughtered, and they’d been forced to work as slaves in Selva. They’d even cursed the gods, wondering why such a cruel fate had been thrust upon them.

They had been fed once a day—a muddy soup made by boiling bones, vegetable scraps, and poitan together—bound with chains, whipped, and worked like animals. And for bedding, they’d had nothing but filthy straw. The manor must also have been located rather far north for Selva, as the nights had been almost as cold as they were in Mahyudra, and over the course of those first few years, around half of their brethren had lost their lives.

Citizens of Selva who lived near the border hated everyone from Mahyudra from the depths of their hearts, so there was no chance of them ever showing mercy to slaves from the north. Chiffon Chel’s back still bore vivid scars from the whippings she had received.

Still, it would be incorrect to say that they hated the people of Mahyudra without reason. The two nations had been warring since long before Chiffon Chel had been born. When Mahyudra occupied western towns, citizens of Selva were made into slaves as well, and both sides had massacred the other’s civilians over and over for as long as the war had been going on. Selva and Mahyudra shared a history of hatred that stretched back for centuries.

A man had said he was going to whip her because her people killed his younger brother.

A woman had spat on her because northerners had taken away her daughter.

Chiffon Chel had first learned the western tongue through the abuse that was often hurled at her. The first word she had learned was most likely “barbarians.”

She herself had not held any hatred toward westerners to begin with. The settlement where the Chel family had lived had been peaceful, and she’d never even seen a westerner before that calamitous day.

However, it wasn’t as if Chiffon Chel’s brethren hadn’t been involved in the war with Selva. Her father and the others had killed countless westerners. They would head down from the Tarless mountains, attack a town or settlement belonging to Selva, and then return with the rare meat and vegetables they’d procured in the process to feed their families. Back then, Chiffon Chel had been too young to consider the amount of blood that had to have been shed in order to acquire that food. But then, soldiers from Selva had slaughtered her brethren in retribution for their attacks. That was how the links in the chain of hatred were endlessly forged. And the first time Chiffon Chel had grasped that hopeless truth, it had left her as sad and as frightened as she had been when her parents had died.

Chiffon Chel had spent eight years in that place, until she was eighteen and Eleo Chel was twenty, both full-fledged adults. But since they had never been given enough to eat, the slaves were all skinny and malnourished. The men in particular only had about half as much muscle as they would have had as proper warriors of Mahyudra. Those eight years had robbed the fierce northerners of their strength, and not just physically. The slaves had been whipped and spat upon by westerners from a young age, until now they were as beaten as old livestock. Their hopeless lives had eaten away at their spirits even more than their bodies.

Why had the great northern god sent his children such hardship? For the first few years, they had been filled with hatred, but eventually they had lost the strength to keep that up and were now little more than living corpses forced to work.

But then their days in that place had come to an end, suddenly and without warning. Their owners had simply loaded them all into wagons one day to be sent elsewhere, and that was that. In all likelihood, the lord of the land where they had been forced to work had lost his wealth for one reason or another. There hadn’t been any signs of significant conflict with Mahyudra recently, so his loss of fortune was probably unrelated to the war, but beyond that, they had no clue what could have caused them to be sold. All they knew was that the lord of another land was buying them. Chiffon Chel was able to understand a bit of the western tongue by that point, so she was able to pick up at least that much from the soldiers’ chatter. They were being brought to Genos, or more precisely, to the lands of Count Turan.

The trip was a long one. It took about a month of riding in the wagon for them to reach their destination. The temperature steadily grew warmer over time as they traveled, and by the halfway point, they no longer needed the furs they had been given for warmth, though they did start to suffer from sunburn. The world was awash in brilliant light, and the color of the ground and trees even shifted.

“To think, Selva has lands filled with such bounty,” one of the women riding in the same wagon muttered in a hollow voice. “So why do the people of Selva feel the need to attack a land of ice and snow like Mahyudra? Just how greedy are they?”

As she stared out at the same sight through the little window the wagon had, Chiffon Chel couldn’t find anything to say in response.

The Selva army had burned Chiffon Chel’s village to the ground, likely because they’d had no intention of occupying it. Taking that into consideration, it seemed likely that Mahyudra was the one trying to steal territory, while Selva was simply fighting back. But at the same time, it was hard to understand why Selva monopolized this fertile land. Perhaps Selva had taken some of this land from Mahyudra at some point in the distant past.

Just how long had Selva and Mahyudra been fighting? Had they lived together peacefully before the war had begun? What had caused them to start stealing land from one another, and which side was justified? There was no way Chiffon Chel could possibly know the answer to those questions. It seemed to her that the only ones who did know were probably the gods, who watched the actions of humankind from on high.

At the end of their monthlong journey, the slaves arrived in the Turan lands. As they got down from the wagons, they found soldiers clad in white armor waiting for them there.

“From now on, you will all be working in this land. If you do your jobs well, you won’t be whipped. Also, know that anyone who plots to flee will be decapitated on the spot.”

All of her brethren gathered there silently listened to those words. As eight years had passed since their enslavement, there were no longer any young children among them. Additionally, the women over the age of twenty had been sold to another land a while back, leaving just a few young women in their group, along with men of various ages.

“Can anyone among you speak the western tongue?” the man who seemed to lead the soldiers asked. “Those of you who can will be tasked with conveying our words to your fellows. If you prove that you are capable of doing that, you will be given better food and bedding than the others.”

Ten of them reluctantly volunteered. Of course, they had no real hopes of truly being given good food or bedding, but even so, they figured they would be whipped if they lied. Chiffon and Eleo Chel were among their number.

“Very well. Then tell the rest of your people what I just said. And that anyone slacking off won’t be fed, so they had better work hard.”

With that, their new lives in the Turan lands began.

Unsurprisingly, they were working fields, tending to the fuwano and mamaria that could be grown there. From the break of dawn until sunset, the slaves were worked like beasts.

Even so, their lives seemed a bit easier than they had been in the past. The heat during the day was tough to endure, but the nights were no longer freezing. They were fed meals twice a day, which was unsurprisingly almost always a crude poitan soup, but there was a lot more meat and vegetables in it than they were used to. And like they had been told upon their arrival, those who could speak the western tongue were occasionally permitted to eat fuwano bread and kimyuus meat with herbs and spices.

At the very least, they were all able to eat enough to fill their stomachs. The owner of the land seemed to see slaves dying of starvation or sickness as a financial loss for himself, so he never skimped on the amount they were fed. That allowed them to grow strong and sturdy, as people of Mahyudra were supposed to be. The men became visibly bigger, even seeming taller to boot, and at the age of twenty, Chiffon Chel finally started menstruating.

There were other changes worth noting as well. After coming to this land, they were hardly ever whipped. At the previous manor, even a slight mistake would lead to a whipping. Actually, you could make no mistake at all and still be punished or verbally abused. People who hated northerners didn’t need any particular reason to be cruel to them. However, the westerners in this land hardly ever used whips. Those who plotted escape were mercilessly executed, but otherwise they faced virtually no abuse or violence.

These people didn’t seem to hate northerners at all. In fact, rather than scorning people from Mahyudra, it was almost as if they feared their own slaves. The people of Genos had never crossed blades with the people of Mahyudra, so perhaps they had no reason to feel the same animosity their countrymen did.

“Even so, it’s not like we have a good master here. At the previous town where I worked, northerners were treated much more like human beings,” a woman who had been purchased from somewhere else once told Chiffon Chel. In the place where she had previously worked, slaves were given money for their labor, and they were permitted to marry their fellow northerners. Chiffon Chel had difficulty even imagining it. “This place is too far away from Mahyudra, so they don’t know how to handle slaves. If you pay people, they will work harder, and if you let them have children, that will give them the resolve to build lives for themselves here in this land. And any kids who are born will be slaves too, which also benefits the lord of the land, right? The master here doesn’t even understand such obvious facts.”

There were a few others who voiced similar complaints here and there, and they were also the only ones who ever plotted escape, but Chiffon Chel and everyone from her village obediently accepted their new lives. They had been made to work under far worse conditions in the past. As long as they didn’t give up on life, there was always a chance they could be bought by a better owner. Or perhaps they could find themselves forced to endure the same sort of hardship as they had before. They could always try to flee later, after things worsened, if such a thing was ever going to happen. That was what they all seemed to feel.

After half a year, further changes arrived. An unfamiliar officer came and had the slaves line up next to the fields.

“Our lord is looking for slaves to act as servants. I am here to take the three of you who are best at speaking the western tongue to him.”

Chiffon Chel, another woman, and a man were the ones chosen to go. Eleo Chel volunteered, but he was sadly rejected. That was the last time that Chiffon Chel would see her brother.

Because the male and female slaves slept in different places, and they weren’t permitted to talk while working, she had only been able to interact with her brother during their two daily meals. But now, even that small amount of time had been snatched away from her, so even though she was being brought to the castle town to take on a new job, Chiffon Chel felt empty inside. Her chains were removed and her body cleaned, and she was given finer clothes than she had ever worn back home in Mahyudra, but her feelings still didn’t change.

Furthermore, it quickly became clear that Chiffon Chel was right to be so dour about her new circumstances. The castle town most definitely wasn’t a better place to be than the world outside. She and the others were tasked with working as servants in a fine stone-built manor. They carried food and luggage, did the washing, and took care of guests.

It was certainly much easier than working out in the fields. However, there were only westerners around. Occasionally, an easterner or a southerner would visit, but a northerner would never be invited there. On top of that, the other two who had been selected for the job worked elsewhere, leaving Chiffon Chel more alone than ever.

The lord of the manor, Count Cyclaeus Turan, was an eerie little man. He never seemed to show any hatred for northerners, and yet he looked down on them even more than the soldiers who watched over the slaves did, as if they were nothing more than animals.

It was entirely possible that he had decided to have northerners work for him as servants on a mere whim. After all, the guests who visited the manor were often surprised when they saw Chiffon Chel, and found her amusing. Those from the south in particular never got to see people from the far off land of Mahyudra, so they looked upon her with great curiosity.

The other potential reason was that Cyclaeus simply didn’t see northerners as fellow human beings. In addition to the various chores they handled, Chiffon Chel and the others had also been given the task of testing his food for poison. It seemed very likely that Cyclaeus had a complete lack of trust in other people, and was only able to enjoy continuously inviting famous chefs to cook for him because he had poison testers to rely on. If a northerner happened to eat poison and die, he wouldn’t mind in the least. That seemed to be the biggest reason she and the others were brought in as servants.

Still, that aside, Cyclaeus wasn’t an especially bad master. Since he didn’t see northerners as humans, he showed no interest in them whatsoever. She had only seen the man a handful of times, and even if he looked down on her, he never did her any harm.

The real issue was her other master, Cyclaeus’s younger brother Ciluel. He was the head of the militia and was far more cruel than his brother. Chiffon Chel had hardly ever seen him either, but he had whipped her multiple times. She hadn’t made any major mistakes around him, and Ciluel didn’t seem to hold any special hatred toward northerners either. Yet in spite of that, he still whipped her anyway. It was a simple diversion to him, something akin to a child throwing a plate during a tantrum. However, Ciluel was no child. He was a fully grown man, with a fairly robust physique for a westerner. He was a military leader as well, so he most certainly wasn’t weak. That meant that whenever he whipped Chiffon Chel, she wouldn’t be able to work properly for half a day afterward.

Still, she was lucky to get off that lightly. The other two servants had died because of Ciluel’s torture after less than a year in the castle town. Though she didn’t know the details, apparently they had made some kind of mistake in front of him, or otherwise done something to earn his displeasure. It wasn’t as if they had been plotting to escape or anything like that, but Ciluel had still returned their souls to the gods.

That had actually gotten Cyclaeus to reprimanded his brother for once. Their guests had found the slaves from Mahyudra amusing, and furthermore, they had needed a lot of training to get them to the point where they could work in a noble’s manor. It would take a great deal of effort to replace them with new slaves, so Ciluel had apparently been told to be more careful in the future.

That had undoubtedly saved Chiffon Chel’s life. Thanks to Cyclaeus, her encounters with Ciluel were even more infrequent than before, and he did not whip her again. However, no new slaves were summoned to replace the two who had lost their lives. They had taken turns testing Cyclaeus’s meals for poison before, but now the task fell on her every single time.

Chiffon Chel was truly, utterly alone.

After that, she never saw another northerner, not even once. She was the only one left in the stone manor, hidden behind the walls surrounding it. Her skin that had been burnt red steadily became white again, and she gained more fat in place of muscle. Whenever she stood before one of those strange tools they called mirrors, she saw a beautiful woman reflected back at her, looking exactly like her mother once had. However, that did nothing to improve Chiffon Chel’s spirits. After she had been removed from the worst circumstances imaginable and brought to the Turan lands, her emotions had steadily thawed, but now she found them turning to ice once more.

She learned how to behave gracefully so as not to offend guests, and was trained to smile even when she wasn’t enjoying herself, so to an outsider, she probably looked like she was doing just fine...but inside, her heart was frozen, like the surface of a river before dawn. Even she herself had no idea what might be swirling around within her.

Five more years passed by, and unsurprisingly, Chiffon Chel had spent that entire time within the manor’s stone walls. Even now, there were no signs of that changing anytime soon, despite the massive upheaval that had been taking place for the last few months.

Currently, her master wasn’t Cyclaeus, but rather his daughter, Lefreya. Cyclaeus and Ciluel had been judged for their crimes—the former Count Turan had been thrown into prison, while his brother had been sent to a place where he would be forced to do hard labor. Ciluel had once whipped slaves, and now it was his turn to be whipped and treated like a slave himself.

Suddenly, the house of Turan found itself facing annihilation. The name of the house remained, and its current master, Lefreya, was in good health, but it no longer possessed even a shadow of its former glory. The luxurious manor had been seized to serve as a place for entertaining noble guests, and Lefreya’s freedom had been taken from her as if she was a prisoner too. The man chosen to be her guardian, Torst, seemed to be constantly running around with a thousand things that needed doing, but at least he seemed to be succeeding at keeping the noble house intact. However, that did nothing to change the positions of Cyclaeus, Ciluel, and Lefreya.

Once again, Chiffon Chel had lost her master. However, her new mistress was Lefreya, so her situation hadn’t shifted as wildly as it had five years ago. All of the pages and maids had been sent away, leaving only Chiffon Chel to serve her.

She had expected to be sent back to the fields, or perhaps sold off to some other land...but both of those predictions proved to be off the mark. Chiffon Chel didn’t yet know whether that was a good thing or not. But what she did know was, the words in the message Asuta had sent her weren’t going to stop swirling around in her heart anytime soon.

Eleo is still alive. He’s working in the fields of the Turan lands, just like he was five years ago.

What should she think about that? Even Chiffon Chel herself couldn’t tell whether the emotion she was feeling in her chest was joy or sadness.

Chiffon Chel lived with gray walls all around her, but there were walls inside of her as well that were just as thick, keeping her heart trapped within them.