The sleet-mixed snow had subsided without them noticing.
Between the thick clouds, even the faint setting sun began to shine through. The soft light of late autumn illuminated the interior of the tavern through the glass door.
Rodrigo slowly sat down next to Ingrid. Even though the counter of Izakaya Nobu, where they sat alone, was neatly cleaned, he couldn’t help but remember the cluttered tavern in the Holy Capital from decades ago.
“Back then, we were always broke and drank watered-down drinks at cheap bars,” Rodrigo said.
“Rodrigo always drank milk, though,” Ingrid replied.
It seemed Ingrid was also reminiscing about the same time.
“That’s all in the past. I’ve grown taller since then.”
The distilled liquor made from the leftovers of wine pressing was a friend to poor seminarians. Because the original alcohol content was high, even when diluted with water, it could get you reasonably drunk. Since it wasn’t officially distributed liquor, it had the advantage of being easy to make excuses if someone accused you of drinking. It was all good.
Rodrigo and Ingrid were somewhat well-known even among such delinquent seminarians.
“After you left, Edwvin-senpai paid off all our tabs at that bar,” Ingrid said.
“Huh, Edwvin? I remember him as the senpai with long hair and even longer sermons, but he has his good points, doesn’t he?”
“He was a serious person. I wonder where he is and what he’s doing now.”
“I saw someone who looked like him in the old capital, Aiteria, a while ago. But he couldn’t still be a deacon, so I’m probably mistaken.”
“He wouldn’t be a deacon. He’s Cardinal Hürchtegott’s right-hand man.”
“That’s right. Anyone who treats others without expecting anything in return is a good person.”
“Instead, he made me help with his research later. A lot.”
He said “boku,” and covered his mouth, realizing his mistake. It wasn’t appropriate for Rodrigo, who was addressed as “Your Excellency” as an archbishop, to use “boku.”
Translator’s Note
“Boku” is a more casual, masculine pronoun.
However, Ingrid didn’t seem to mind. Judging by the slight smile on her face, she seemed to have noticed, but she didn’t intend to tease him about it.
The two of them are immersed in the nostalgic atmosphere that fills the izakaya. The current Ingrid and Rodrigo are not a witch and a cardinal, but the “senpai and boku” of those days.
He took a small, deep breath, feeling the faint feelings of those days resurface. He didn’t have the right to those feelings now.
Their mugs were empty before they knew it, and they both moved on to their second drinks.
The more Rodrigo enjoyed the soft atmosphere and nostalgic silence, the more the guilt, like a peppercorn, began to grow within him.
He had to apologize to Ingrid.
Not only as an archbishop, but also as Rodrigo. For what happened this time, and for what happened back then.
It was Rodrigo’s mistake to use a small-time player like Damian to search for the witch. He couldn’t use his official subordinates to search for a witch, which couldn’t be considered official business. More than that, he was in a hurry to run for the cardinal election.
“…Senpai.”
Rodrigo was determined, but Ingrid laughed and waved her hand to stop him.
“Rodrigo, let’s save the talk that will spoil the drink for later.”
Ingrid’s smiling face, gulping down her lager, was the same as it was back then. She hadn’t so much aged as she had grown more beautiful with time. Rodrigo was strangely moved by the fact that time could pass in this way.
“Senpai, how about we change bars?”
“Change bars?”
“Yes, the dining room at the inn I’m staying at is quite good for an old capital establishment. The menu is in the style of the Eastern Kingdom of Oiria. The fish is, well, it’s inland, so it’s so-so, but the meat is delicious.”
“Huh.”
Back then, he felt like they only talked about wanting to eat good food at a good restaurant.
After Ingrid left the Holy Kingdom of Lupsia, he studied desperately and attained a respectable position. His stipend was enough to make others envious. Even so, he was always unsatisfied because he ate alone.
He felt that his hunger would only be satisfied when he ate with Ingrid.
“But you know, I like it here, Rodrigo.”
“What do you mean, Senpai?”
“The atmosphere here is similar to back then. Besides, the snacks at this place are delicious.”
Rodrigo unconsciously hunched his shoulders at Ingrid’s unexpected words.
Could such a thing be possible? This bar was located on the outskirts of the old capital, in the Coachman’s Lodge district. In a normal town, it wouldn’t be a location where you could expect anything worthy of being called cuisine.
He suspected she might be teasing him, but Ingrid didn’t seem to be doing so.
She was simply sipping her lager, looking like she was enjoying it.
“Shinobu-chan, I’ll order some delicious snacks.”
“Yes, certainly!”
The waitress called Shinobu responded cheerfully to Ingrid’s order.
There’s nothing he can do about what she ordered. It might not suit Rodrigo’s palate, accustomed to gourmet food, but it was Ingrid’s recommendation. He thought it might be interesting to pretend to be back in his poor seminarian days and pretend to enjoy the cheap snacks.
Besides, he was sure that anything he ate with his current feelings would taste delicious.
He had met the person he had been searching for all this time. Nothing could make him happier.
The mushroom incident.
All he had to go on was that Ingrid, who had left the Holy Capital to cover for Rodrigo’s huge blunder, was somewhere practicing as a witch. He thought it would be easy to find her at first, but it had taken this long. Still, that didn’t change the fact that he was happy.
This was a good omen.
He had lost Backeshoff, his financial backer, but Rodrigo felt a surge of energy to fight through the cardinal election.
Reuniting with the person he had been searching for for years meant that luck was on his side. Even divinely ordained fate must have some kind of warning.
This encounter should be a signal fire for Rodrigo, who had been forced to lie low until now.
He would take the position of cardinal, return to the Holy Capital, and lead the classic revivalists against Hürchtegott’s reformists.
“Sorry to keep you waiting!”
Shinobu brought a dish with something familiar on it.
“Vongole (Clams).”
The name came out of his mouth from nostalgia. Clams were a staple snack for poor seminarians.
In the Holy Kingdom, which has many coastlines, clams are harvested in abundance. If you rake the sandy beach with a rake during the season, it doesn’t take long to fill a bucket.
Seminarians would go to the beach, claiming to be letting their thoughts wander by the sea, and gather buckets full of clams, which they would sell to taverns for next to nothing. Payment was requested not in money, but in alcohol. A bucket full of clams turned into a few cups of wine, fueling the seminarians’ thoughts and discussions. The snack, of course, was a large amount of clams.
Nostalgic.
Back then, he was so tired of eating them that he didn’t even want to look at them, but now he felt inexplicably nostalgic for them.
Unlike Ingrid, who was from the Empire, Rodrigo was from the seaside of the Empire-Kingdom.
Since being assigned to this area as an archbishop, he had been eating mostly inland food, but just looking at the clams evoked a sense of nostalgia.
That being said, clams are not that delicious.
That was Rodrigo’s conclusion, having eaten every clam dish imaginable.
If they were fresh, there might be ways to make them taste good, but that was unlikely in the inland old capital.
If they were made into pasta, it would be a different story, but there was no way a tavern in the northern part of the Empire would have pasta, a specialty of the Holy Kingdom, on hand.
“This looks delicious. Can I get some Atsukan?”
“Yes, Atsukan.”
“Two ochoko, please.”
Translator’s Note
Ochoko are small cups for drinking sake.
Was Atsukan the name of the sake Ingrid ordered? If it was a clam dish, it might be white wine.
He had heard that the Empire’s wineries were still lagging behind those of the Eastern Kingdom and the Holy Kingdom, but Ingrid might know a good, cheap brand.
This kind of approach was nice once in a while.
For Rodrigo, who was tired of gourmet food, it was even refreshing.
To eat a cheap clam dish he had eaten in the past, seasoned with nostalgia, and get heavily drunk on wine that was all about price and quantity.
It was unbecoming of a clergyman, but conversely, it might be the last time he could enjoy such a thing.
Once he took up his post in the Holy Capital as a cardinal, he wouldn’t be able to play such foolish games.
“Well, let’s have a toast again.”
But what Ingrid offered was clearly not white wine.
The liquor poured into the small unglazed cup was clear, with the aroma of alcohol.
There was something about the fragrance that tickled his nose that Rodrigo recognized. Clams.
He had been wondering what the unfamiliar smell was, but it seemed to be from this liquor.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
When he took a sip, it soaked in. This liquor was meant to be savored with the nose and throat. That’s why they use small cups. It was his first time drinking this liquor, but both the taste and aroma were good.
If he was fooled by the richness and drank too much, he would quickly get drunk. This kind of liquor should be sipped slowly.
He couldn’t help but smile, realizing that he had become able to discuss sake. When he sat next to Ingrid before, he had only drunk milk.
Thinking about this, he started on the steamed clams.
He didn’t care about etiquette. Not as an archbishop, but as just Rodrigo, he picked up a large clam by the shell, enjoying the aroma of the steam, and brought it to his mouth.
It was hot. And delicious.
Because it was steamed, the flavor hadn’t escaped, but there was no fishy smell.
Before he could fully savor the taste, his hand reached out for the next clam.
Chururi, chururi.
He forced the stubborn ones with the adductor muscles with his teeth, and put the clams into his mouth one after another.
The Atsukan was also good.
It would probably be delicious with white wine, but in this moment, it was Atsukan.
When he looked to the side, Ingrid was also piling up shells on the empty plate one after another.
As he continued to eat, he could feel the heat rising from the bottom of his stomach, perhaps because of the alcohol.
It was a sensation he could never experience with cold gourmet food. He was grateful that Ingrid had recommended this.
Feeling ten or twenty years younger, Rodrigo ate every last clam.
This was unusual for Rodrigo, who usually ordered more snacks than he could eat and believed that leaving some behind was a sign of wealth.
“How about that, clams are pretty delicious, aren’t they?”
“I never thought I could eat such delicious clams in the old capital.”
Wiping the sweat from his brow with an oshibori, Rodrigo’s face broke into a smile.
Izakaya Nobu. It was a really good place. He was able to reunite with Ingrid thanks to this place.
For a while now, he had been suffering from stomachaches and anemia, but he felt as if all those daily frustrations had disappeared.
Out of habit, he reached into his pocket to take out a cup and order hot wine from Shinobu, but Ingrid stopped him.
“That cup looks a little unusual?”
“Ah, you can tell, Senpai? It was a gift from that man, Damian. The decoration is antique-style and suits my taste, but when I drink from it, even cheap wine becomes mellow and sweet.”
“I see.”
He handed it over, and after examining it for a while, Ingrid let out a sigh and tossed the cup to Shinobu.
“Shinobu, throw that cup away. Make sure no one picks it up.”
“Ingrid-senpai?”
“And Rodrigo, you’re not cut out for political strife. You shouldn’t think about anything too grand, and you should get out while you can.”
He was stunned by the suddenness of it all, and Shinobu, who had been looking at the cup, let out a cry.
“This has lead lining on the inside… This is certainly unusable.”
“What do you mean?”
It was Ingrid who answered.
“…If you keep drinking wine from this, the lead in the cup will react with the wine and dissolve. If you consume it for a long time, your body will be damaged.”
When she said that, he realized something. He had started having stomachaches and anemia more frequently around the time he started drinking wine from this cup after meals. He also felt that his mood had become more depressed around the same time.
“In the worst case, it can even lead to death.”
Assassination.
Such a word crossed his mind.
Damian, who had given it to him, or the person pulling the strings behind him. Either way, if he had continued to use the cup…
A cold shiver ran down his spine.
“People have things they’re suited for and things they’re not. Rodrigo, you shouldn’t aim to be a cardinal. It would be better for you to retire to some monastery. It would give you a bit of a more comfortable retirement.”
Even though she had aged, the sparkle of wisdom in Ingrid’s eyes hadn’t faded, just as when Rodrigo, when he was a child, who was still called Chibi (shorty/little one), had admired her.
As Ingrid ordered a refill of Atsukan, Rodrigo kept quietly thinking about why he hadn’t been the one to leave the Holy Capital back then.