The Pride of Toulois
When Laniakea first came to the Empire, she set herself to the study of tea.
She spent her days committing the Empire's famed tea regions to memory and learning the taste of each, and more than once she drank so much that sleep would not come, leaving her awake through the night.
It was in the course of that study that she first came upon the name of Toulois among the Empire's great estates. Thinking she ought to taste its tea as well, she searched the leaves delivered to the imperial household until she found what Toulois had sent.
The moment she saw it, she was puzzled. Other regions packed their leaves into splendid boxes, desperate to catch the eye for even a moment. Toulois tea, however, lay in a box so plain it was almost crude.
Drinking it only unsettled her further. It was nothing like the magnificent flavor described in the books. Stranger still, she thought she tasted ash.
She was still wondering at it when, at a banquet she happened to attend, she learned what had become of the Toulois Territory. After that, every year, she made certain to set aside the Toulois tea from among the leaves the Empress's Palace meant to discard.
Toulois still received no aid, and yet every year, without fail, the tea arrived. What astonished her was that its flavor grew better, little by little, with each passing year. Even as they scraped by in a land that had never been properly restored, its people were striving to revive the tea that had once been their pride.
By the end of the previous year, what they sent was not of the very highest grade—the sort that might represent the imperial house—but it had reached a quality that would not have been amiss as the everyday tea of a respectable family.
So when she asked Mole to look into the state of several territories, she gave him the name of Toulois as well.
The Mole who came back had this to say.
The folks there looked like they were really struggling. The houses were still burnt... A big fire went through once, so the life in the ground got even weaker, and there weren't many spirits around. Lots of people were going hungry.
And then Mole told her the rest. Even so, the people were pulling up the dead tea trees and tending the ones that had survived with devoted care, sprinkling the cleanest water over the gardens, choosing only the youngest and softest leaves, and making their tea.
The moment she heard it, Laniakea made up her mind. Toulois tea would be chosen as the tea of the imperial house.
She looked out over the assembly and spoke.
"I trust you all know how renowned a place Toulois once was."
Of course they knew. They knew even this: that Countess Toulois had been denied proper aid because she would not slip the Empress Dowager a bribe.
"That land took a grievous blow when the pirates struck. And still the Toulois Territory has not been restored. But its people did not forget their promise, nor their duty."
The nobles held their tongues. In the Empress's remark—that the territory remained unrestored—they had caught the thorn aimed at the Empress Dowager.
"Nor did they merely keep an obligation. I, who have tasted their tea every year, could tell. They labored with everything in them to reclaim the pride of their past."
At Laniakea's words, the eyes of Countess Toulois, who had been standing perfectly still, reddened.
She was a woman who had lived by principle and by law. The income from the tea she had always divided among the people of her land, wishing only that every one of them might live in comfort. Unlike other lords, she had never set wealth aside for her own appetite. Her satisfaction came from their happiness.
So when she sought the imperial house's help, she had no jewels or coin to offer an empress. What family jewels she had once possessed had all been plundered. The imperial house's failure to give any real aid had broken her heart again and again, but still she endured. If she collapsed, her people would truly have had nothing left to hold on to.
The old renown had already been ground into the dirt, and no one in the capital sought their tea any longer—when, without warning, word came from the imperial house. Toulois tea had been chosen as the tea of the new Emperor. And the Empress's letter that arrived with the news held warm words.
I know the effort you have made to keep your duty, even through hardship.
And now, before everyone, the Empress was saying it aloud: that however hard the way had been, all of Toulois had fought to rise again. That there was someone who recognized this was, for the countess, overwhelming.
Watching Countess Toulois bow her head, her throat too tight for words, Laniakea smiled.
"From this day, Toulois will send tea every month, and each time you attend a banquet of the imperial house, you will drink it. Then all of you will see for yourselves how Toulois tea continues to change."
The restoration funds Laniakea had already allotted, together with stores of relief goods, were even now on their way to Toulois. Once the people of the territory received their share and could spare a little more care for themselves and for what lay around them, Toulois tea would recover its former renown all the sooner.
"Every one of you will come to see how what once collapsed may be restored."
At Laniakea's words, Countess Toulois drew near. Her body was old, but her stride overflowed with strength. Standing before the Empress, she bent deeply at the waist.
"We of Toulois shall be Your Majesty's faithful hands and feet, and we will surely repay the faith and the trust you have placed in us."
With that, Countess Toulois took Laniakea's hand in her trembling one and pressed a kiss to the back of it. She was fighting to master herself, yet everyone could hear how her voice shook, soaked through with feeling.
A beautiful, gracious new Empress, and before her an aged vassal swearing loyalty. The sight stirred hearts already steeped in the emotion of the coronation.
A quiet sniffle.
Among those watching, some were already red about the eyes, dabbing at their tears with handkerchiefs. Others simply gazed on, their faces full to overflowing. Then someone, without quite meaning to, began to clap.
This was the banquet of the coronation, and of the spring festival—affairs that had always passed in elegant music and suitably refined conversation. Applause had never once sounded in them. But once a single person began, the others followed, and the sound swelled.
Among them was a young noble so overcome by the feeling rising in him that he cried out at the top of his voice.
"Long live His Majesty the Emperor! Long live Her Majesty the Empress!"
Startled, the nobles around him stole glances at the Emperor. But far from disliking the commotion, he was looking at the Empress with an expression of profound satisfaction. If the Emperor was pleased, there was no need to watch his mood. Applause and cheers grew louder still, until they filled the hall.
Laniakea, watching them all too stirred to know what to do with themselves, turned her gaze upon the Empress Dowager. Cold stares met and locked.
A moment later, Laniakea smiled.
From the coronation through to the banquet, the victor of the day was, without question, Laniakea.
The banquet had long since reached its height. It had begun in the afternoon, and yet beyond the windows complete darkness had fallen, and the stars were up.
Hyperion came to Laniakea and took her hand.
"Empress. I think you ought to rest now."
She had already spent hours in the hall receiving the greetings of so many, and she nodded as if to agree.
When the imperial couple, hand in hand, turned toward the doors at the front, every noble bowed their head. At a banquet, save for those too unwell, the highest in rank withdrew first. Even after the Emperor and Empress departed, the nobles would remain a long while yet and carry the banquet on. In a society newly rearranged, each of them had to find their own side and gather into a faction.
Leaving them behind, Laniakea and Hyperion left the hall. They walked on down the corridor toward the Main Palace.
The moment they arrived, the maids who had been waiting hurried forward. Hyperion raised a hand, as if to tell them not to come any closer.
"That will do. If we have need of you, we will call. Come then."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Leaving the bowing maids behind, the two climbed the stairs toward the bedchamber they had always shared.
As they went in, the sound of doors closing, one after another, followed at their backs. And in the instant the last door shut, Laniakea—who had been standing there with a smile—sank straight down where she stood.
"Laniakea!"
"I'm all right... The strength just went out of me... I must have been too tense. Ever since the crown vanished..."
Tears welled in her eyes as she fumbled over the words.
It was over. At last the coronation and the banquet were over. The crown had vanished, and she had come within a breath of being attacked for a want of refinement in choosing Toulois tea, yet all of it had ended safely.
The moment she understood that, the tears fell before she knew it, drop after drop.