I raise my hand to stop them talking anymore.
"Please girls, don't talk like that again. First, it's just rumors. Don't believe what rumors say because mostly they not based on fact. Second, she's my father chose for me. I believe my father will not make harm to me, don't you agree with that? Third, you should see her directly before labeling her as devil incarnation. Do you understand?"
They nodded in unison, not refute my words.
"Alright, dismiss girls. I need to take a nap for two-three hours. After that can you arrange a bath? I haven't take a bath for days and it feels unpleasant"
"Okay, brother!"
They start to clean up the table from our lunch leftover. I can see Clara and Claire wink to each other while smiling. But I feel too lazy to know what the mean of their wink. After they left my room, I laid my body back to bed and thinking solutions to help my father overcome this financial crisis.
I try to recall my conversation with the girls just now. Didn't they say salt is expensive? If I can use my knowledge to produce salt from seawater, that will bring fortune to our castle. But before I execute that plan I must get approval from my father first and bring sufficient manpower and tools. And after that, I must inspect the shore to find suitable places to produce salt.
I don't realize I fall to sleep when planning to produce the salt until soft voices and warm kiss like this morning happen to me again. But right now it's coming from both my ears and my cheeks. When I open my eyes, I see Clara and Claire already at my side. They smiling and giggling when see me wake up. Is this what the meaning of their winking? Well, I'm not against this way of wake up people anyway.
"How long I've slept?"
"Almost three hours Henry, and it's already afternoon"
"We've prepared your bath. You can use it anytime, but don't too long or the water will be cold"
I can see they already carrying towel and bathrobe for me. So I just step down from the bed and follow them to the bathroom. Along the way to the bathroom, from maids and servant that I meet, I can see a happy and delighted expression on their faces. It looks like this young master Henry really loved by all the people in the castle. After walk for some distance finally, I arrived at the bathroom. The bathroom in this castle in different with modern bathroom, there's no shower or bathtub here, and different with bathroom in the kingdom in the movie that looks like a big pool. The bathroom in this castle is more like room to store the water. There are several big wooden barrels full with water in the corner of the room. In the middle of the room, there's a wooden tub, smaller than the big barrel, that still releases faint steams. Looks like the tub contains some warm water. When I see the tub content, I can see there are also some flower petals to give an aromatic smell to the water.
I told Clara and Claire that still accompany me in the room to leave the towel and bathrobe at the table in the room.
"Clara and Claire, just put that towel and robe at that table. After that you can leave, don't forget to close the door" after giving the order, I bow to check the water temperature in the tub. From the corner of my eyes, I can see the girls put the towel and robe on the table and leave because I heard the sound of the door closed.
Since there's nobody else in the room, I immediately strip my dress that feels sticky to my skin. After no clothes attached to my body, I insert my body into the tub and sit on it. The tub is quite wide although not too high with diameter around 2 meters, so I can stretch my legs freely. I laid my back to the tub edge while closing my eyes and enjoy the taste of warm water soaking my skin. It feels so refreshing after several days without a bath. Japanese people like me is always enjoying a bath, that's why there are many public bath and onsen in Japan. Too bad, in this world, there's no soap the clean the body. When I open my eyes to continue my bath, I'm so shocked until almost scream at what I've seen.