An A-Grade in the Capital
Nina handed over the herbs Kirill had asked for, and entrusted her plants to the woman as well.
An ordinary gardener would have been a difficult person to ask. The only one worth asking was Kirill, who had already grown herbs out of the Purple Forest.
Kirill peered into the gathering pouch. "Well, now."
"Where did you pick these up?"
"Here and there."
Nina held up her little finger. "Please look after them."
In another world that gesture meant it's a promise. Here it meant I am asking you — a formal entreaty, they said, the way one solemnly entrusted a young creature to another's care.
That one confused me for ages.
Remembering her childhood, Nina shook her head inwardly.
Kirill's eyes glittered. "I hear you drove in a whole herd of black unicorns?"
"Yes. It just sort of happened."
"And that just sort of happens, does it? No weak ones? No injured ones? The sort you'd look at and think, well, we could do without this one."
Faced with the question of whether there was a specimen safe to experiment on, Nina's expression went flat.
"Kirill, stay away from the black unicorns. I'm afraid of what you might feed them."
"I have that much sense."
"I certainly hope so."
Nina's doubtful tone drew a sharp little grin from Kirill.
"I really won't touch them, so quit fretting. You brought what I asked for, and you brought it properly. Leave it to that Jin boy and he'd have pulled up something completely useless."
"Ah. Jin has no eye for it. And he's the second son of a trading house."
"Exactly. Second son of a trading house, and with an eye like that, running one is a lost cause."
Kirill shook her head, then asked, "Body all right?"
"Yes. Nothing strange anywhere."
Kirill let out a short laugh, moved to light her pipe, and then set it down again.
"If you die, I want to dissect the corpse."
"I'd like to let you."
"If you did, His Grace wouldn't leave my head attached to the rest of me."
If only a person could live in separate pieces — Kirill consoled herself with the thought.
Once she grew tired of company and all but showed her guest the door, Nina was quick to leave the medicine room.
She took a meal with Vice-Captain Jin and talked over replenishing the Black Knights, and by the time they finished it was evening.
"I'd better sleep early tonight," Jin said, worn out.
"See you at dawn," Nina told him, already announcing tomorrow's training.
"Right."
Jin answered with a face full of resolve and left. Alone, Nina slowly sorted through everything the two of them had discussed.
He did give me full authority. Even so, she ought to report the broad shape of it, shouldn't she? She would need a fuller account of the Exchange Match from Sir Louis as well.
She was captain of the Black Knights now. If the order's name was going to rise, she would have to lift it herself.
Hm. Come to think of it, doesn't the ducal house have another knight order?
The Black Knights belonged to the Purple Forest — more or less. There ought to be another order, the one that had gone out to the Exchange Matches.
What became of them?
She had not been back long, but she had not seen them once.
He didn't disband them, did he?
Knowing the Young Master's temperament, it was entirely possible.
He enjoys drawing the claws out with care. But once someone becomes a nuisance, he is the sort who simply cuts the neck.
Then she might need to recruit more people than she had thought.
Nina stood. She would report what she had put in order, and collect the reward she had not received during the day.
She walked boldly into Adrian's bedroom and found him seated on the chaise, reading a note.
"Young Master?"
"Come in."
"May I run from here and throw myself at you?"
"What?"
Adrian lifted his head and looked at her, and Nina kicked off the floor.
She scarcely touched down before launching herself at him. Adrian went over with the chaise. He caught her as he fell, so the impact amounted to almost nothing.
Giggling, Nina pinned both his shoulders and looked down at him.
"The chair looked soft."
"It is soft," Adrian said.
His hand was around her waist, keeping her from tumbling off. When he tried to sit up she braced hard and stopped him. Laid flat again midway through rising, Adrian stared up at her.
Nina knew she crossed the line from time to time.
Whenever she did, Adrian only looked at her as if it were nothing. He never truly grew angry, and he never grew irritated. He was affectionate, but he was a finely made man. An ordinary person would have been furious to be handled this way. Of course, the people who had known her a long time were used to her by now.
And so, now and then, the impulse rose in her.
Adrian. How far can you endure?
How much will you allow?
"Adrian."
Nina smiled.
"I really like you."
Adrian's eyes went wide. Then he smiled.
"I like you too."
Nina grinned and rolled once, elegantly, from the sofa to the floor. She landed on all fours with a cat's own grace.
While Adrian sat up and straightened his collar, she was already leaning into his knee, folding her arms over it and setting her head on top.
"I talked with Jin. We decided to replenish the numbers quickly. If we can, I want them recruited within the month."
"Again."
He had said he didn't care for this posture, and even so his hand began to stroke her hair. Nina enjoyed it at her leisure and went on.
"But isn't there another knight order? What happened to them?"
"They sided with the Duchess."
"I see. I thought as much."
Nina lifted her head to look at him. "Then should we expand the Black Knights? Or will you make another order?"
"Do as you like. So long as nuisances don't loiter around me."
Calling an escort a nuisance, in that soft, even voice — very like Adrian.
"I'll be careful."
Nina straightened, rubbed her head and cheek against his hand, and then drew away.
"I'll discuss the budget with Sir Louis."
"All right."
She glanced at the note still in his hand.
"What's that?"
"Intelligence from a spy."
"Oh. We have spies?"
"The Imperial Guard is gone, so there was budget left over."
No. I'm fairly sure that budget was not left over.
We bought herbs. We built Kirill a greenhouse. The finances are a wreck from the infighting, and there are debts to other territories besides!
"Without eyes and ears, it's inconvenient."
Our Young Master, honestly.
Anyone else, looking at them, would have thought they were groaning under their taxes, with no strength left to reach beyond their own borders. And this man was eating potatoes and wringing the budget dry to loose his spies.
An ordinary noble couldn't do it...
Who would ever have imagined that, over the past two years, the ducal house of Rubuaene had spread an intelligence network across the empire?
"Is it good news?"
"There is no good news, and no bad news. News is just news."
It was only a matter of how one used it. He added that, and folded the note.
Nina nodded. "The crops we grew. We'll have to sell them through a trading company, won't we? What if we established our own?"
"Our own?"
"Yes. We could put an agent in charge. I think it would be better if we handled the distribution ourselves."
"After all, we'll be selling something no one else can."
"Have you anyone in mind?"
"Mm. Not yet."
"Think about it."
Provisional permission. Nina rose with a satisfied smile.
"Then I'll be going. From dawn tomorrow I'm going to run Jin into the— no. Jin and I are training together."
Her voice sounded oddly cheerful.
After Nina left, Adrian looked at the empty place the storm had occupied and shaken her head from, and shook his own.
Coming when she wished and leaving when she wished — in that, too, she resembled a cat.
He opened the note again.
A-grade Bellac sighted in the Imperial Capital.
The corner of Adrian's mouth lifted, crooked.