The Dialectic of Master and Slave - Chapter 62
In any case, bringing anything into the Emperor’s bedroom was itself an indefensible matter. Even if it was a harmless object, someone determined to find fault could do so. The best approach was to give no cause at all.
“It’s… soap, Your Majesty.”
“Soap? Bring it here.”
Jaha, breaking out in cold sweat, held out the soap to the Emperor.
The Emperor unwrapped the crude packaging, examined the contents visually, and gently rubbed it to smell it.
It really was soap. But it was too crude to be considered a craftsman’s work. It had no engraved decorations, the color wasn’t pretty, and the scent was weak. By any standard, it wasn’t of sufficient quality to be used in the imperial palace. He wondered if lower-quality soap was being provided separately to the slaves, but this was news to him.
The Emperor mulled this over. Originally, soap was a luxury enjoyed by only a few. It made no sense that even lowly slaves would have access to it, regardless of quality. So what was this?
“Where did you get this?”
“I made it myself, Your Majesty.”
“You made it? Yourself?”
The Emperor raised his eyebrows at the unexpected answer. He had considered several possibilities, but this wasn’t one of them.
“How do you know how to make soap?”
This wasn’t knowledge a mere slave should possess.
Ordinary slaves were illiterate, unable to write even their own names. Occasionally some received basic education to make them more useful, but that was limited to male slaves. Yet here she was, knowing how to make soap.
“I learned it at the Academy. Pure oil and ash boiled or mixed in specific ratios becomes soap.”
She had actually learned that soap was made by hydrolyzing fatty acids with sodium hydroxide, but Jaha adapted her answer to suit this world’s context.
“Academy? You were a student?”
“Yes.”
The Emperor stroked his chin. Attending an Academy meant she was at least of noble birth.
Now he understood the source of her un-slave-like pride. But that was all.
Though it wasn’t common for nobles to fall into slavery, it wasn’t particularly rare either. It simply happened when there was sufficient reason. Even a prince could become a slave after losing a war, so he felt no particular sympathy.
Whatever her past might have been, a slave was a slave.
“Once you start considering what rank someone was originally, you end up with ridiculous situations like ‘Oh, your great-grandfather’s great-great-grandfather was a baron, so you’re more pitiful than other slaves.'”
There was no reason to dig up past glories, nor any cause to be curious about them.
Yet even thinking this, the Emperor’s lips moved, swept by an impulse to know just a little more about the slave before him.
“What did you study at the Academy? By our standards, what year were you in?”
“The subjects and standards were different from here, so it’s difficult to say exactly, but in terms of mathematics, I believe I was equivalent to the graduation class.”
This assessment came from seeing the mathematics problems for Academy graduates in books from the Langjev Palace library.
“Did you dream of becoming a scholar?”
“No, not particularly.”
“Then why study to such an extent?”
She immediately understood the unspoken part of the question was ‘as a woman?’ In this world, educational opportunities were only open to a privileged few—men.
To the perplexed Emperor, Jaha replied matter-of-factly.
“Where I lived, everyone with the means attended the Academy regardless of gender.”
“That’s fascinating. It seems culture across the sea is quite different.”
The Emperor muttered this with apparent interest.
Jaha neither confirmed nor denied.
Different indeed. With at least several hundred years’ gap between them, comparison would be sacrilege. At best, this place was at the level of pre-modern Europe.
While the existence of magic and other mystical forces meant some areas might be more advanced than Earth, their ideology was clearly lagging behind.
“So, who were you planning to give this soap to?”
Rolling the soap in his palm, the Emperor got to the real issue.
In truth, from the moment he first saw the soap, this question interested him more than how a slave came to possess such a luxury item.
She wasn’t carrying it for her own use. It was new and, though crude, was even packaged. It was clearly meant as a gift for someone.
Who could that ‘someone’ be?
He wanted to find out.
