Chapter 9
But there was no opportunity to ask him about it.
Samael draped the cloth over the wall again and firmly cautioned her.
“You must be careful not to let the flowers change color. They are an ingredient used to make a very important medicine.”
There was something meaningful in his tone.
Without realizing it, Ella repeated his words.
“An important… medicine?”
Samael smiled gently.
“I cannot tell you the details yet, but it will become a medicine that brings prosperity to Ragusa.”
A medicine that would make the village prosperous.
Ella felt as though something rough had brushed against the back of her neck.
But then Missus Basti’s words came to mind.
“Not every priest is that good-natured. For our village, he’s practically a blessing.”
She was right.
The person Ragusa needed was not the lord, who did not even bother sending a representative, but Head Priest Samael.
“Yes, I’ll look after them carefully. But what should we do about having one less person to care for the patients? I’m worried about the people staying in the hospital too.”
Most of the inpatients were elderly. Keeping them company when they were bored and carefully checking their condition had also been part of Ella’s work.
“Once I get used to the herbs, would it be alright if I make a little time to look around the wards?”
“That would be fine. If you manage the herb room as well as you have handled your other duties until now, I will entrust you with more important work afterward.”
“Yes, please leave it to me.”
Perhaps by more important work, he meant the herb garden spread outside. Would she eventually be able to learn how to make medicine herself?
Ella smiled, trying to erase the image of Priest Anchio from her mind.
If she kept doing things one by one like this, perhaps she truly could put down roots in this village.
‘…I can, right?’
Ella suddenly ran a fingertip around the edges of her nails.
There was not a single bit of raised skin, yet somehow it felt as though she had a hangnail somewhere.
She finished tidying the herb room, received the key, and checked on the patients.
Like a hangnail, it was a strange feeling that kept making its presence known from time to time even while she was busy enough to forget about it.
After finishing a day that had been more exhausting because of that feeling, Ella was on her way home.
Far down the road, a familiar silhouette once again caught her eye.
“That man…”
With the sun behind him, she could not see his face, but there was no mistaking him for anyone else.
Ella pressed her lips together and continued walking.
‘Why does he have to stand right in the middle of my way home of all places?’
Ella intended to walk straight past him.
But this time, he spoke first.
“How long has your leg been like that?”
Ella flinched and stopped.
‘Was, was there something strange about the way I was walking?’
Until recently, she would sometimes limp when she was tired or let her guard down. But not anymore.
Ella mentally retraced the way she had walked, then glared at the man.
“Do you know me?”
“Ella.”
“I told you that yesterday…”
“Age unknown. Place of origin unknown. They say the head priest took you in after you collapsed in front of the church one day.”
“……”
“No one saw you before the head priest found you, so apparently no one knows when or how you entered the village.”
“You must have been busy. I was wondering where all those subordinates you dragged around had gone, but I suppose you sent them to investigate someone like me.”
“There was too little to call it an investigation.”
Ella bit the inside of her mouth.
First her name was half-hearted, and now she herself was insignificant…
“If you look down on me that much, why do you keep watching me?”
“Ah. You noticed.”
“What a disgusting man.”
For Ella, who had never once cursed anyone in her life, it meant that she truly hated him, and far more strongly than those words alone could convey.
But the man merely looked down at her as if he were watching a cat hiss.
“So, your leg.”
“…What?”
“Your leg. I asked when it became like that.”
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