“My lord, this is the house of the master physician.”
For a Schultz clan matter, I naturally turned to Diane. I decided to go to the Schultz camp with her at once. After passing through the inner gate from the upper courtyard, we came to the lower courtyard, which had been created by the labor of giants. It was surrounded by a brand-new exterior wall. Dwarves and workers were hard at work constructing the inns and warehouses we’d need when Castle Getaeus became a trading hub in the future.
The huts of the Schultz people were lined up in one corner. The dwarves had probably aided in their construction, too; they looked sturdy and well built. Diane took me to the second largest hut after the patriarch’s. There was a strange smell in the air—sweet but grassy.
“Auntie Sarria, are you in?”
“Oh, Princess. What’s wrong? Did you get in a fight?”
The master physician was a large woman around the same age as me, or a little bit older. She reminded me of the wife of a ramen shop owner near my home in Japan. She was wearing a long, full robe made of the classic Schultz fur.
“It’s not for me. Lord Margilus says he wants to talk to you.”
“Huh? Oh, oh! Beelzebub!” Sarria—who looked like she weighed somewhere around a hundred kilos—got flustered when she noticed me. “I am Sarria, master physician for the Schultz clan.”
“Please relax. I’ve been wanting to speak to you about your role a bit. Do you have time? If you’re busy, I can some back another day.”
Diane seized on one of my words. “Time! You have time, right? If not, you can just make time!”
I didn’t have any appointments, so I was taking a reserved approach, but Diane jumped in more forcefully.
“If you’re busy,” I assured her, “it’s fine, really.”
“Well, it’s all right, Beelzebub—er, Mister Master Lord Margilus, sir. If I can be of service, please, ask me anything.”
“Really? Well, okay then…”
I looked around the healer’s workspace, searching for an icebreaker to get the discussion rolling.
The walls were lined with dried plants and pots containing powders and liquids. Pharmaceutical tools similar to the alchemy ones I’d produced the other day were present in large numbers, things like mortars, mills, and small distillers.
“It’s embarrassing, but when we were driven from the Holy Precincts by the daemons, I left most of my herbs and tools behind.”
“Oh right… I’m sure you can find anything you need in Healwood Village.”
I made a mental note to tell Ild to give her some money. Now that Sarria seemed to have relaxed a little, I shifted to why I was there.
“Well, I wanted to ask you: Do you think there are issues with this castle in terms of preventing disease and staying healthy? Give me your true, honest opinion.”
I watched silently.
The expression on her face suggested she couldn’t bring herself to say what she wanted to. She clammed right up. She didn’t look confused about my question at all.
Eventually, she found her voice. “W-well, I apologize in advance…but first of all, they say it’s not good for livestock dung to be lying around all willy-nilly, so there really should be an enclosed barn. And! They say that it’s best to practice the custom of purifying the hands and mouth with water. Would you be able to increase the wells by one or two more? Water is necessary to clean the dishes and clothes…and for cleaning and managing the lavatories.”
Sarria instantly came up with a concrete plan for environmental improvements. It wasn’t as if I’d asked and she’d come up with it on the spot; she’d already had these ideas in mind. Without a doubt, she had more ideas and knowledge about hygiene management.
I asked a sneaky question. “What do you think is the cause of disease?”
“In the stories that have been passed down from generation to generation, the cause of most diseases is invisible, poisonous air mixed in with the clean air. Such poisonous air comes from feces, rotten food, and mud, so when you touch something like that, you have to remove the poison.”
“And in such tales, how does one remove the poison?”
“With alcohol. The ingredient that makes people intoxicated has the power to eliminate the poison.”
Oh my. Her knowledge is better than I’d hoped…
It was a little abstract, but she was talking about bacterial infections and alcohol disinfection. On Earth, they hadn’t really figured that out until the eighteenth or nineteenth century.
“And I’d like to ask one more thing. If a man was stabbed with a sword in an accident during training, how would you treat him?”
“Well… I would first wash the wound cleanly with alcohol or water. Stopping the bleeding is also important. If the wound is large, I would sew it together with needle and thread. After that, I would feed him kirine grass broth to remove any poison that went into the body. Finally, the wounded should rest and recover.”
“Hmmm…”
I was utterly impressed with Sarria’s smooth and articulate explanation of her treatment method. She could even give stitches!
When I didn’t respond right away, Diane grew anxious. “Is that good enough? Will our master physician’s knowledge be useful to you?”
“Oh, of course. I was only amazed at the wisdom of the Schultz clan.”
“Heh heh… Well, good!”
Sarria was more subdued. “Earning your praise will please our ancestors, Lord Margilus.”
Diane looked up at me, and I gave her a pat on the head. She narrowed her eyes, looking pleased. She was cute in just the way a girl her age should be.
“Oh, I just had an idea.” Diane suddenly drew a dagger from her waist. I never would have expected what she planned to do next.
“You want to see how Sarria treats wounds, right? In that case, I just need to make one!”
I shouted before I knew it. “Stop that at once!”
“Stupid girl!” Reyha snarled.
I hadn’t shouted like that in a long time. Diane’s dagger, which was a second away from mutilating her own arm, got knocked out of her hand by Reyha. She had appeared faster than any of us could notice.
“Wow!” Diane gaped. “My lord, I…”
“Such a demonstration will not be necessary,” I said gravely. “You are an important vassal. Don’t hurt yourself over nothing.”
After the blow to her wrist, Diane’s red eyes were filled more with despair than with anger.
I thought there would be some danger when she’d decided to bring some of the Schultz clan to join us at Castle Getaeus, but I didn’t think she would do something so extreme. I couldn’t think of anything to do to comfort Diane after she’d almost resorted to self-harm except to hug her and rub her back.
“Really? Am I really important to you, my lord? You won’t cast me away?”
“No…I’d never do that. You’re absolutely important. So you make sure to take care of yourself, too.”