WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Ceaseless

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◈ The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing ◈

Chapter 56: The Hygiene Revolution (4)

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A week passed, sometimes as slowly as raindrops, sometimes as swiftly as arrows.

With careful hands, Šárka took out the item she had treasured for the past week.

It was the soap bestowed upon her by the young master... no, His Majesty the King.

When she had first received it, it had been as soft as freshly baked bread, leaving an imprint when pressed with a finger. But after a week of drying in a well-ventilated, shaded place, the soap had become something entirely different.

Šárka lightly pressed its surface with her fingertips.

"It's hard..."

With all its moisture gone, the soap was smooth and firm, like a sculpture carved from ivory.

What she had worried about most was its fragrance. She had feared that as the soap dried, its fresh apple scent would disappear completely.

But her fears had been unfounded. The moment she brought it close to her nose, Šárka's eyes widened.

"Wow..."

The space left by the evaporated moisture had been filled with an intensely concentrated fragrance.

The freshness of green apples had gained a sweet, honey-like depth. Simply smelling it made her feel refreshed.

Šárka carefully wrapped the soap in a towel, packed her bathing basket, and left her room.

Her destination was the public bathhouse in the Prague Royal Palace.

It had once been a forbidden place enjoyed only by royalty and high-ranking nobles. Yet immediately after ascending the throne, Ulrich had opened it to everyone who worked in the royal palace.

‘Everyone who belongs to the palace has the right to be clean.’

Still, Šárka had never set foot inside.

The doors had been opened, but the barrier of status remained too high.

There were lavish marble baths and piping-hot water. She had not dared bring her grimy lye soap into such a luxurious place.

Today was different.

Inside her basket was the secret weapon His Majesty had made for her himself.

Creak-

The public bathhouse in the Prague Royal Palace was truly another world.

Its floors and walls were finished in smooth marble, while soft natural light streamed down from the domed ceiling and gently filled the room.

Fortunately, it was early, so there were few people around.

Šárka quickly slipped into a steamy corner. With trembling hands, she took out the soap.

An ivory-colored block of apple soap.

It looked simple, yet possessed an odd elegance.

She filled a basin with warm water, wet the soap, and carefully rubbed it.

Then, a miracle happened.

Bubble, bubble.

No matter how much she rubbed the lye soap she normally used, it produced nothing but slippery gray liquid. It never formed anything close to real lather.

This apple soap was different. After only a few rubs, rich, thick white foam bloomed over Šárka's palms like whipped cream.

"Good heavens..."

As though entranced, she rubbed the lather over her body.

It was soft. Its smoothness enveloped her from head to toe, as luxurious as the finest silk and as rich as milk cream.

More than anything, the fragrance was astounding.

When the soap lather met the hot steam, it released an explosive scent.

The foul smell of lye and sweat vanished, replaced by a refreshing fruit fragrance that made her feel as if she stood in the middle of an orchard in May.

Šárka happily scrubbed every inch of herself.

The satisfying feeling of old grime washing away.

After splashing herself with water one last time and rinsing away the lather, she touched her forearm and gasped again.

"It's so soft..."

Normally, washing with lye made her skin feel tight and sore, as if it might crack. Yet although she had washed herself squeaky clean, her skin still felt moist.

Was it thanks to the apple oil His Majesty had added? Her rough hands and forearms had become as soft as a baby's skin.

Šárka inhaled the faint apple scent rising from the ends of her wet hair and basked in bliss.

That was when it happened.

The quiet bathhouse was suddenly filled with loud voices.

"Oh my, look how humid it is in here!"

"I told them to air the place out! What is the attendant even doing?"

"Ugh, it's so damp."

Sharp, irritated voices.

It was Katerina von Vartemberk and the group of maids who followed her.

They entered without the slightest hesitation, as though they owned the place. Draped in silk robes and holding expensive perfume bottles and ivory combs, they carried themselves with complete confidence.

"Eep..."

Šárka's shoulders hunched on instinct.

She hurriedly turned away, hoping to look as though she were not there.

But she could not escape the maids' keen eyes.

"Oh?"

Katerina stopped in her tracks.

Her eyes caught sight of the small figure crouching in the corner of the bathhouse.

"Isn't that Šárka hiding over there?"

The maids behind her immediately burst into laughter.

"Oh, it really is! Šárka came all the way here?"

"Does she have no shame? She must be planning to dissolve lye in the water we use."

Waving a hand before her nose in an exaggerated gesture, Katerina frowned.

"Girls, open every window. It's already humid enough. If the smell of someone lowborn gets mixed in too, how are we supposed to enjoy our bath without getting a headache?"

She readied a cruel remark for Šárka.

Katerina intended to humiliate her by using the awful stink of lye and rancid lard as an excuse.

She strode toward Šárka.

"Šárka. I told you before. That cheap soap you use..."

But she never finished.

"...What?"

What entered her nostrils was not the disgusting stench she had expected.

It was sweet.

And fresh.

A rich, refreshing scent, like biting into a freshly picked apple, stirred her senses.

Katerina stopped breathing in surprise. She wanted to hurl insults, but her instincts had already told her it smelled wonderful.

The maids following behind her were the same.

"Oh my, what is that scent?"

"Where is that fruit smell coming from?"

"It smells a little like honey..."

The maids sniffed and looked at one another.

The scent was clearly coming from Šárka's direction. Yet it was not a scent that could possibly come from Šárka.

To them, Šárka was someone they associated with the smell of sweat, lye, and poverty.

"H-Hello... Lady Katerina."

Šárka slowly turned around, tense from head to toe.

Her hands were covered in white foam.

Between that foam, a smooth ivory-colored block shyly revealed itself.

Katerina's gaze fixed on the object in Šárka's hands. Her eyes trembled as though the ground had begun to shake.

"You... what is that?"

Katerina knew soap well. Every day, she carefully used the finest Castile soap her father had purchased at great expense from an Italian merchant.

Yet the soap in Šárka's hands looked whiter, harder, and smoother than the Castile soap Katerina used.

Above all, there was that overwhelming fragrance.

Her own soap had only a faint lavender scent, while that soap released such a rich fragrance that it was as though someone had poured an entire bottle of perfume into it.

Šárka pulled the soap to her chest and carefully answered.

"It's... soap."

"I know it's soap! I'm asking what kind of soap it is!"

Katerina shouted sharply, jealousy and bewilderment mixed into her voice.

"You couldn't have bought something like that with your wages! Did you steal it? Did you sneak into some noblewoman's room and take it?"

The maids whispered among themselves.

"Right. There's no way Šárka could have something like that."

"She must have stolen it. So she's a thief."

Šárka shook her head fiercely. Her eyes reddened at the unfair accusation, but she did not back down this time.

This soap was a gift from His Majesty. She could not let it be treated as stolen goods.

"No! I didn't steal it!"

"Then where did you get it? Even if someone searched all of Prague, they would never find soap with a scent like that!"

Katerina reached for Šárka's arm.

At that moment, Šárka squeezed her eyes shut and cried out.

"H-His Majesty...!"

Her voice was weak, but the bathhouse echoed enough that everyone heard her clearly.

"His Majesty Ulrich... gave it to me himself."

Silence.

A quiet like cold water being poured over the bathhouse settled over the room.

Katerina's mouth fell open, and the maids' eyes widened.

"What...? His Majesty did?"

"The King himself?"

They rapidly began calculating in their heads.

That soap was clearly an extraordinary item. It looked at least as good as the finest Castile soap, if not better.

Its price had to be unimaginable.

It was surely worth several gold coins.

And the King had personally given such a precious gift to a maid who had once been a common servant?

None of the other noble maids had received one. Only Šárka?

The maids' expressions began to waver.

Perhaps it was not a simple gift...

‘Favor.’

That sticky, secretive word flashed through their minds.

"Could Šárka possibly be His Majesty's...?"

"She has served him for ten years, hasn't she? He must have grown very attached to her."

"If he gave her such precious scented soap..."

"Perhaps the rumor that she attends to him every night was true."

Of course, there had been no such rumor.

It was no more than a fantasy they had invented moments ago.

But the evidence before their eyes was too powerful.

A man giving a woman something fragrant?

And a special item that did not exist anywhere else, made only for her?

It was impossible to explain unless they were lovers.

Katerina's face turned red, then pale.

Until now, she had freely looked down on Šárka.

She had thought Šárka was lowborn, with no family, wealth, or support.

But what if Šárka was the woman favored by the King?

What if the King learned that Katerina had tormented her?

A chill ran down her spine.

Katerina tried to compose herself and stammered.

"H-His Majesty...? Hm, yes. Well... you've suffered for a long time, so perhaps he tossed you one out of charity."

But there was no strength in her voice.

The soap's quality was far too overwhelming for it to be a mere act of charity.

Then one maid standing behind Katerina cautiously stepped forward.

It was Marta, who had always been the best at currying favor with Katerina.

"Um... Šárka."

Marta glanced at Katerina, then gave Šárka the sweetest smile imaginable.

"That smells really nice. It's apple-scented, right? How can it smell so fresh?"

"Huh? Ah... thank you."

"Your skin looks so nice too. I saw how much foam it made earlier. Can I touch it once?"

Before she even received an answer, Marta grabbed Šárka's wet forearm.

"Oh my! Good heavens!"

Marta cried out dramatically.

"Girls, look at this! It's unbelievably soft! It feels like a baby's skin!"

"Really? I want to touch it too!"

"Oh my, it really is! It's so smooth I could slip on it."

The maids crowded around Šárka.

They touched her arms, smelled the soap, and exclaimed in admiration.

Katerina was pushed out of the group in an instant.

"Hey! What are all of you doing?"

Katerina shrieked, but the maids already seemed unable to hear her.

Katerina and her pride no longer mattered to them.

All they cared about was the desire to use that fragrant soap at least once, and the instinct to attach themselves to the King's possible future lover.

"Šárka, where can we get this?"

"Do you think we could get some too if we ask His Majesty?"

"My skin has been so rough lately..."

Šárka was bewildered by the attention from the maids surrounding her.

Only moments ago, they had laughed at her. Now they looked at her with envy.

She looked down at the ivory-colored soap in her hands.

Then she remembered what the young master had said.

‘Do as you wish with the rest. Give them to your fellow maids or use them all yourself.’

An innocent smile spread across Šárka's lips.

"Um... I have a lot in my room."

"What?"

"His Majesty gave me a whole box. If you want... I can give each of you a bar."

Silence.

The bathhouse fell quiet again.

But this silence was completely different from before.

The maids' faces filled with shock and joy.

"R-Really?"

"You're just giving away something this precious?"

"Not just letting us use it once, but giving us a whole bar?"

They had only ever envied the Castile soap Katerina used. They had never been allowed to use it themselves.

At most, Katerina would generously cut off a tiny scrap or let them rub it once.

She had made a great show of even that, yet Šárka was offering to give them entire bars of precious soap for nothing in return.

The difference in character was clear.

"Oh, Šárka! You're truly an angel!"

"I always knew you were kind!"

"Can I call you big sister? No, I will call you big sister!"

The maids scrambled to cling to Šárka.

Some had joined in tormenting her because they had been mindful of Katerina's mood.

But before the temptation of soap, pride meant nothing.

"Come here, I'll scrub your back!"

"No, I'll comb your hair!"

An extraordinary sight unfolded as the maids surrounded Šárka and attended to her.

In an instant, Šárka had become the queen of the bathhouse.

"Y-You...!"

Katerina trembled.

Even Marta, whom she had believed was her most loyal follower, was now laughing as she poured water over Šárka's back.

"Marta! Have you lost your mind? After everything I've done for you, how dare you act like this in front of me...!"

Katerina screamed, but Marta only glanced back and replied indifferently.

"What have you ever done for me? I served you for a year, and all I got were three soap scraps no bigger than fingernails."

"W-What...?"

"Šárka said she'll give us whole bars. And honestly... Lady Katerina, your soap hardly smells at all. It just reeks of rancid oil."

Marta turned back and fawned over Šárka.

"Big Sister Šárka, can I have two? My little sister has sensitive skin too..."

Katerina's face burned so fiercely that she could barely endure it.

Remaining here any longer would only prove how pathetic she was.

"...This is ridiculous. I can't stay in a place that smells this vulgar any longer!"

She held her head high and turned away, as though she were leaving by her own choice.

But the maids in the bathhouse were already captivated by the soap in Šárka's hands. Not one of them paid Katerina any attention.

Bang!

Katerina slammed the door shut as hard as she could and left the bathhouse.

Only then did the noisy laughter inside fade away, leaving heavy silence around her.

"Ughhh...!"

Katerina's shoulders rose and fell harshly as she stood alone.

She still held the Castile soap she had proudly called the finest.

But compared to the overwhelming fragrance and sheer abundance of Šárka's apple soap, her soap was no more than a hard lump of oil.

"Aaaah!!"

Katerina screamed and threw the soap in her hand.

Broken pieces scattered pitifully across the marble floor.

* * *

While the Prague Royal Palace was in an uproar over soap bubbles,

I took János Hunyadi with me to the Soap Guild's workshop in Prague's artisan district.

The moment I opened the workshop door, a wave of heat and white steam struck my face.

The inside looked like a battlefield.

Dozens of workers, bare from the waist up, sweated profusely as they stirred huge cauldrons. On one side, others hurriedly cut hardened soap with wooden knives.

What should have been a quiet, refined artisan's space had become a factory running without pause.

Josef noticed my arrival and came running through the crowd in his stocking feet.

"Your Majesty! You're here! If you had sent word ahead, I would have gone out to greet you!"

"Don't worry about it. I have no intention of troubling a busy man."

The stubborn expression of the old craftsman from only a few days ago was nowhere to be seen.

In his place stood a man who looked exactly like a factory manager, with dark hollows beneath his eyes and a strange madness gleaming in them.

"Still, it looks like this workshop is about to burst. I know you're using it temporarily until you move to Sternberg, but it seems far too cramped."

Josef scratched the back of his head at my words.

"To be honest... it's killing me. Thanks to the new process you taught us, soap is pouring out, but this tiny workshop can't handle it. We don't have enough space to harden it, so we've taken over the yard, and the warehouse filled up long ago."

Even as he complained, the corners of his mouth stretched up to his ears.

A man who had spent his whole life making perhaps one bar of soap a day was now producing dozens, even hundreds, every day. His body might have been exhausted, but his spirit could not help soaring.

"Bear with it a little longer. A large factory complex is being built in Sternberg for you and the guild members. There will be sturdy brick factories, along with homes where your families can live."

"Y-You're giving us homes?"

Josef's eyes reddened.

Overcome with emotion, he could not continue speaking and bowed deeply.

"Y-Your Majesty. I am truly unworthy. How could I ever repay this grace...?"

I patted Josef's shoulder.

"Repay me by making plenty of soap from now on. Come, let's go inside."

Footnotes:

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