Your Grace, I’d Rather Have Firewood Than Flowers

“Could we trade that bouquet for firewood?”

Only after the words were out did Sara clasp her hands more tightly in her lap. It was hardly the right way to begin a job interview. Especially when the man interviewing her was a duke who lived in the grandest house in the region and had roads named after his family.

Rowan Verno glanced at the white flowers on the corner of his desk. Logs were burning in the fireplace, but their warmth did not reach Sara’s feet where she sat, well away from the door. His fingers were reddened too, on the other side of the desk. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one feeling the cold.

“They were a gift from the capital. I didn’t order them from a florist, so I doubt I could ask for something else instead.”

“...I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to tell you how to spend your money. I saw one of the women from the washhouse gathering fallen branches earlier, and then, with all these flowers here, I thought...”

Her voice trailed away. She hadn’t asked why the woman couldn’t buy firewood, or why the flowers were here. Back in Japan, she had once angered someone on the phone by giving them a delivery date without first finding out what the problem was. Apparently, crossing into another world hadn’t stopped her from making the same mistakes whenever she was in a hurry.

The duke set her application back on the desk. A member of staff at the shelter had written it for her. The only thing Sara could read was her own name, which she had only just learned to write.

“I understand you used to purchase supplies. Is there no firewood in town, or is it available but people can’t afford to buy it?”

“From what I’ve seen, it is available. But buying one bundle at a time is expensive, and people don’t have enough money on hand to buy in bulk. Some said they had no way to carry it home. I’ve only spoken to a few people, though. I can’t say whether that’s true of the whole town.”

He wrote something in the margin. Being unable to read even that left her feeling strangely vulnerable.

Only two weeks ago, Sara had been worrying about how to word an out-of-stock notice. She had meant to buy milk on her way home and answer her mother’s message on the train. Now she was sitting before the duke of a country she didn’t know, choosing her words so she wouldn’t talk herself out of a job. Was her mother still waiting for a reply?

“Are you cold?”

She looked up to find Rowan drawing his chair back.

“There’s a draft where you’re sitting. I’m sorry I didn’t notice. Let’s talk by the fire. We can bring the papers over.”

The warmth reached her in the new seat. When she thanked him, he fetched the papers and writing things from the desk and sat opposite her, straightening with the toe of his shoe a rug he had disturbed when he stood.

“When I handled military supplies, we placed orders for everything we needed together. If households could do the same, it should reduce the work of transporting it all. But while I could give orders to soldiers, I can hardly order the townspeople to hand over their money.”

“No. And there’s also the question of who holds the money once it’s collected, or who people should go to if the firewood arrives wet. If none of that had been settled and someone simply promised me a lower price, I’d be too worried to pay either.”

Now that they were discussing work she understood, she could finally breathe a little easier. That didn’t mean she could solve everything by handing out the order forms she had used in Japan. Her own inability to read the local script was proof enough of that.

“I can find out what people want to buy, ask the merchants about their terms, and see what might be possible. Though I’ll need the people here to teach me what I don’t know.”

“Then I’d like you to do that. Ten days to begin with. I want to know whether giving money to the households that can’t buy what they need would be enough, or whether what they need is someone to transport it.”

Sara almost agreed at once, then unclasped her hands in her lap. She didn’t want the pleasure of being able to work again to send her straight back to accepting everything anyone asked of her.

“Could you put the pay and the limits of what I’m allowed to decide in writing? And arrange for someone to read it to me? I’d also like it to be clear that I haven’t promised to bring prices down straightaway.”

“Of course. You can still refuse after hearing the terms. And if you haven’t produced results in ten days, I won’t use that as a reason to send you back to the shelter.”

Only then did the tension leave her shoulders.

She still hadn’t found a way home. But perhaps there was work she could begin here today. Her fingers prickled a little as she held them toward the fire, and she drew her hands back.

“In that case, could you show me a map of the town first? I’d like to know where the people who want to buy firewood live.”