The Empress's First Tea
This banquet was the first official gathering to be held since the new emperor's accession.
The tea served there was one of the official marks meant to announce that the previous emperor's age had set. Once it had been offered at the banquet, it would be used in the Main Palace, the Emperor's Palace, and the Empress's Palace, and brought out whenever a state guest arrived or an important council was convened.
Most of the decent estates in the Empire produce tea.
And so the people of the Empire all drank tea with pleasure, and drank every kind there was. Even when Laniakea had pared the Annex Palace's budget down as far as it would go, tea was the one thing she had still been obliged to buy at better than the bare minimum.
It had not been for the sake of her own face. The detached palace of a prince who was never in the Imperial Palace had no standing worth speaking of in the first place—but if she failed to keep even tea bought and ready, she had been certain everyone would truly start regarding the Annex the way one regards a shed.
She herself could have borne being looked at that way. She could not allow Hyperion, on the rare days he returned to the palace, to be looked at that way as well. And so she had once studied hard enough to find, among teas of a recognized quality, the one whose price was the least punishing.
To think that knowledge would serve me now.
On the table, beside the teapot, lay papers naming the producing regions of a great many places. Hilde explained from beside her.
"A great many estates have sent their tea, hoping for the honor of being chosen for this banquet. I made a first selection on my own, but should anything prove wanting, please tell me. I will have it prepared at once."
With that, Hilde set the list she had drawn up respectfully before Laniakea.
Opening it, Laniakea breathed in the fragrance of the teas. They had not even been steeped, and still the distinct character rising from each was enough to tell her how costly and precious they were. As was only to be expected, Hilde's eye for tea seemed to be of a very high order.
And she took care with the producing regions, too.
The new emperor's first tea. The honor bound up in it was immense. Every tea chosen by the emperors of ages past had been entered among the Empire's famed teas, and the regions that held the gardens producing them had made fortunes as well.
For a place of such weight, it was customary to choose the tea of the region belonging to whoever would stand closest to the emperor. And so every producing region on the list Hilde had brought belonged to the tea gardens of those who might be called the opposition to the former empress. More precisely, they were the regions of the very people who had stood in the vanguard and, as a matter of course, had given passionate aid to Hyperion's accession.
It was a list from which she might have chosen anyone at all without the slightest trouble, and looking it over, Laniakea was satisfied once more that she had made Hilde her chief lady-in-waiting.
When satisfaction showed on Laniakea's face, Hilde, gratified to have been understood, smiled softly and lifted the teapot.
"I will steep each of them once."
"Please do."
Beneath the serving cart as well, the maids had set out a great many teapots. While Hilde made ready, Laniakea ran her eyes over the list again. It was perfect even on a second reading—perfect enough that she might have chosen with her eyes closed and found no fault.
Even so, she studied the names of the regions and called to mind the noble houses rooted there. Among them were gardens that had already been selected once, under some earlier emperor, and places only lately grown popular with the nobility and on the rise. She had only to choose whichever place her heart inclined toward.
And yet, somehow, Laniakea hesitated over the choice.
In the meantime Hilde steeped the first tea. The color of the liquor alone was enough to show that it was fine. The fragrance was splendid as well, so much so that the other ladies-in-waiting, seated some distance away, stilled the work in their hands for a moment and simply drank in the scent.
Laniakea took a sip of each tea Hilde steeped for her. Just as she had expected, every one of them was worthy to be entered at once among the Empire's famed teas, with nothing lacking.
"Is there nothing that pleases you, Your Majesty?"
Seeing Laniakea so slow to decide, Hilde asked, sounding worried.
"No. All of it is quite splendid."
Perhaps because Hilde had sifted and sifted again, every one was of the very highest grade. There would be no shortcoming in any choice among them.
"…I think I shall need a little more time to consider. Some time yet remains, so I will hold the decision."
So saying, Laniakea sank into thought.
Having tasted every tea once, Laniakea said the remaining leaves might be drunk during the ladies-in-waiting's rest that day, and set out for the rear garden with Lucy.
Lucy, who had lately been training the new guards of the Empress's Palace, seemed delighted to be walking alone with Laniakea as they used to. Had she not been so pleased, she would never have sent the guards and the knights of the Empress's Palace flying all at once.
"Chance. Once. Come."
Thanks to that, no one was left to bar the two of them from the rear garden.
Laniakea made a point of going deep into the garden. To any watching eye, it would seem only that an empress worn thin by affairs of state had come in search of rest. She sat on a bench beside a rose thicket, where no glance from the Empress's Palace could reach.
"Lucy, is there anyone else nearby?"
"None. If come. Death."
"Don't kill them, though……"
Once Lucy had confirmed it, Laniakea spoke toward the ground.
"Mole, are you there?"
A moment after the words left her, the earth heaved, and Mole poked its face out.
"Why are you only calling me now!"
At the spirit's thoroughly sulky complaint, Laniakea let out a soft laugh.
"Sorry. I've been so busy."
Even that did not seem to mend its mood. Mole folded its short forepaws and let out a hmph, a tch, a pfft. It was hardly the first time Laniakea had seen such a display, and yet a spirit's shape was wondrous all the same. Lucy paced this way and that at Mole's side, looking it over with eyes full of curiosity.
"I already knew that, peeking from all over. If only it were just one or two humans running around shouting that you've become empress. But is it all right, becoming empress? That's a high seat among humans, isn't it? If you take that, can you still go out and live?"
Mole knew better than anyone what Laniakea's dream was. Tending the vegetable patch in the rear garden of the Annex Palace, she had often told the spirit of it—what sort of house she wanted once she left the Imperial Palace, what she would grow there, how she meant to work and earn her living. Living on in the palace as empress was a future she had truly never once imagined.
"Mm……"
With Lucy beside her, Laniakea could not answer Mole at once, and hesitated. Noticing, Lucy moved quickly off and called back.
"Perimeter! Scout!"
She would be circling nearby—the words meant that Laniakea should talk with Mole at her ease.
Only after Lucy had gone did Laniakea give Mole a brief account of all that had happened.
"Yeah? Then when are you having the baby? Tomorrow?"
At Mole's reply, Laniakea pressed a hand to her head.
"A child isn't born by will, the way a spirit is…… It takes a little more time."
"Then from today, how much longer till it's born?"
"Well, um……"
Wondering where on earth she was supposed to begin, Laniakea only grew more lost.
"It isn't something I can make by myself……"
"No? Then can't you go ask the emperor today when you're going to make a baby? Just tell him to make one today."
"…I'll try."
In truth the emperor was already trying very hard, and it would still take a little more time—but Laniakea had not the confidence to explain all of that to Mole.
"More importantly, help me with something."
First she had to see to the purpose for which she had called the spirit out.
"What is it? Just say the word."
At a request from Laniakea after so long, Mole thumped its chest with a forepaw, as if to say she had only to trust it. Laniakea unfolded the paper she had brought.
"Can you go to the places I'm about to name, see how things are there, and come back? I want to know what the people working there are like, too."
Over the past few years Mole had grown quite familiar with human place-names. Whenever Laniakea read in the rear garden of the Annex Palace, it had insisted on reading along.
"Don't worry. But it'll take a while—is that all right?"
"How long do you think?"
"To get around all of them, look everything over, and come back, I figure it'll take a day anyway? I have to look at the people who live there, too."
Anyone else, hearing that, would have fainted. Among the places Laniakea had named were some that took a full month to reach even on horseback. Counting those, what she had asked after came to more than twenty places. A single day, to visit and look over so many.
"Then I'll come back out here at this time tomorrow. I'm counting on you."
"Don't worry. Just leave it to me!"
As if thrilled for the first time in a long while, Mole vanished in a flash.
Treading the heaved soil flat beneath her foot to erase the trace, Laniakea looked at the list she had shown the spirit. It was one she had drawn up apart from the rest—the places she had chosen long ago, when she had fretted over tea for the Annex Palace. They were also regions of the Empire whose terrain was especially harsh, and whose circumstances were not good.