If Aoto rembered correctly... a few days ago while patrolling the road, after unexpectedly eting Kinoshita Mai, the girl had told him she was going to Fujisawa-shuku on the Tōkaidō to et a friend.
After 1603, when the Edo Shogunate was established, in order to strengthen control of the country, the shogunate built five major roads collectively known as the Five Routes, all starting from Edo and connecting the nation’s major economic and military centers.
Those five routes are: the Tōkaidō, the Nakasendō, the Nikkō Kaidō, the ??shū Kaidō, and the Kōshū Kaidō.
To facilitate movent of people and goods and to promote comrce, the shogunate set up many post stations and waystations along these five routes.
Among them, the Tōkaidō, which connects Edo and Kyoto, was the busiest and most heavily trafficked of the Five Routes.
The Tōkaidō had fifty-three post stations; Fujisawa-shuku, the post station Arima had just ntioned and the very place Kinoshita Mai planned to go to et her friend, was one of those stations.
Besides being used for governnt and military purposes, ordinary travelers and rchants could freely use the Five Routes and any of the post stations along them for travel; demand for lodging, food, and shopping surged as a result.
Consequently, large settlents gradually gathered around most of the post stations on the Five Routes and eventually developed into castle towns.
A castle town ford around a post station was called a shukuba-machi.
Fujisawa-shuku was a typical example.
Nominally still a post station, Fujisawa-shuku had in practice already beco a fairly sizeable castle town.
Teahouses, izakaya, brothels, gambling houses, bathhouses... everything a typical castle town might have could be found in Fujisawa-shuku.
"Arima-sama." Aoto asked, "Has sothing happened at Fujisawa-shuku?"
"A band of very skillful thieves has appeared in Fujisawa-shuku recently," Arima said. "They specialize in stealing travelers’ money at the post station."
"The amount involved has already reached two hundred ryō of gold."
"Faced with thieves they cannot catch no matter what they try, the local officials in Fujisawa-shuku have completely run out of options, so they appealed to our Magistrate’s Office in Edo, requesting we send Dōshin to assist them."
"Fujisawa-shuku is one of the most important post stations on the Tōkaidō and not very far from Edo. After weighing the pros and cons, Usui decided to accept Fujisawa-shuku's request for assistance and personally nad you, Tachibana-kun, to take charge of the case."
"Usui personally nad ?" Aoto was montarily stunned.
"Your excellent performance in that case involving Granny Apple clearly changed Usui’s opinion of you. That he would personally designate you to handle this case is a sign he’s truly begun to regard you as a mber of the Teimachi squad."
"In short—work hard, Tachibana-kun."
"Try to produce another performance at Fujisawa-shuku that will make everyone take notice."
Aoto let out an awkward laugh. "A theft case... Arima-sama, saying it like that puts a lot of pressure on ."
"I'm not a god either. It's impossible to miraculously solve every case perfectly."
"Do your best."
With that, Arima drew a docunt stamped with the Magistrate’s Office seal from the desk, then took out two ryō of gold from a lacquer box beside him.
"This is your travel pass—keep it safe. If you lose it, you won't be able to eat, sleep, and stay free at the post station."
"This two ryō is your travel money; don’t squander it. The more joyfully you spend your travel allowance, the more painful it will be when you have to report your expenses afterwards. Last ti Butagaya went on a trip, he spent most of his travel money entangling himself with a woman and received a harsh scolding from Usui."
When governnt business brought an official to a post station, the post station was required to provide free "person-and-horse relay" services.
Each post station had to have a certain number of support staff and horses. The "person-and-horse relay" ant the station would assist officials in replacing personnel and horses, and provide lodging and als to officials free of charge.
So the travel pass Arima handed Aoto was quite important: without a docunt proving he was on official business, he wouldn’t be able to get free food, lodging, and horses at the post stations.
After accepting Arima’s travel pass and travel money and bowing solemnly to say farewell, Aoto strode out of Arima’s office to prepare for his trip.
Just as he turned onto the corridor leaving the Magistrate’s Office, he suddenly ran into one of his seniors: Butagaya was walking toward him.
Butagaya had one hand on his hip and held a palm-sized paper in the other, smiling oddly as he walked, delighting in whatever he was staring at on that paper.
"Mr. Butagaya!" Aoto greeted proactively.
"Oh?" Hearing Aoto’s voice, Butagaya finally took his gaze off the paper. "Oh ho, Tachibana-kun."
"What are you looking at?" Aoto cast a puzzled look at the paper in Butagaya’s hand. "You're so absorbed you nearly walked right into
and didn't even see ."
"Heh heh..." Butagaya made a strange chuckle and turned the paper toward Aoto.
It was a small picture.
A portrait drawn in the ukiyo-e style.
Aoto didn't really understand paintings from this era.
He examined it more carefully and gradually made out that the portrait seed to be of a little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes.
"This is sothing good I got yesterday when I went to Yoshiwara to... ah, no, to et a friend," Butagaya said. "Tachibana-kun, do you know Elodie de Angoulê?"
Aoto shook his head blankly.
"She is the granddaughter of a French rchant currently settled in Osaka," Butagaya chuckled. "I heard of her na long ago."
"Though she’s a foreigner, they say her skin is smoother than silk, and her face is unbelievably pretty—just the sort of look we Japanese like."
"This portrait in my hand is supposedly painted by an artist who saw Elodie up close."
Butagaya turned the portrait back toward himself with a look of admiration.
"Truly beautiful... if this portrait really shows Elodie’s true appearance, then she must be a little beauty..."
"Heh heh... I really want to see what she looks like in person... heh heh heh..."
If he didn't wipe his mouth soon, drool might start running from Butagaya's lips.
How exactly he could tell from a painting that Elodie was so beautiful was sothing Aoto, who had no appreciation for ukiyo-e, could not comprehend.
"If this portrait is really Elodie's true likeness... she looks so young," Aoto frowned as he looked at the picture in Butagaya’s hand. "She’s very small."
"Yes, Elodie is indeed very young; they say she’s only twelve this year."
"Twelve?" Aoto's eyes widened, and he gave Butagaya a strange look up and down. "…Mr. Butagaya, as a man in his early thirties, you can't—at the very least, you shouldn't be attracted to a twelve-year-old girl..."
"I'm not attracted," Butagaya’s face went serious as he spoke earnestly. "I’m rely appreciating a beauty in a normal way."
"Does appreciating beauty require you to care about her age?"
Butagaya tucked the portrait of Elodie back into his chest.
"All right, it's best not to talk about this at the Magistrate’s Office."
"If Arima-sama found out I was talking about won during official hours, he'd scold
again."
"Tachibana-kun, why do you look in such a hurry? Is sothing urgent?"
Aoto took out the travel pass he had just received from Arima and waved it at Butagaya. "I’m heading to Fujisawa-shuku on official duty."
He briefly and concisely explained to Butagaya the reason for his business trip to Fujisawa-shuku.
"Oh ho... Fujisawa-shuku..." Butagaya grinned. "A trip there isn’t bad; it's close to Edo, not too tiring. When I went to Kyoto on business last ti, that was really exhausting..."
"Want
to bring you back a local specialty from Fujisawa-shuku?" Aoto asked half-jokingly.
Butagaya laughed: "Fujisawa-shuku is only three days' walk from Edo—what local specialties are there? You don’t need to bring anything back; just focus on investigating the case."
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