Nothing Was Lost
It was a story she had not yet told anyone. Nina was not without a plan.
Knowing the future as she did, she had laid those plans down carefully, one upon another. When she offered her body to the spirit, she had thought the future was gone for good. Coming back to find that two years had already passed left her restless.
"Trying to recover the two years I lost... I must have pushed myself too hard."
"Nina. You haven't lost a thing."
"Well, my swordsmanship has improved, but with only that..."
Keeping herself fed, she could manage one way or another. Think of the Young Master and the ducal house, though, and the road ahead felt impossibly long.
"Why is that yours to worry over? I'm the duke."
"I know, but..."
Even so, shouldn't I—the one who knows the future—be doing something?
When Nina only mumbled and gave him no proper answer, Adrian tapped the bed with his fingertips.
"What is it you want?"
At his question, Nina thought it over.
What I want.
"For all of us to laugh, and live happily together...?"
To grow rich, to see the domain flourish, to strike down the cult...
Those were only the means.
"All right. Then you have a week of leave."
"What? Just like that?"
"For a week, I'll have them keep you out of everything. No—stay at my side. I'll be watching to make sure you actually rest."
"But I have so much to do... And the Exchange Match is in two weeks!"
"Rest."
With that, Adrian caught her head and drew it back against his shoulder.
"There."
It was a resolute smile.
Nina let out a groan, but she had no thought of defying the Young Master.
A whole week.
A whole week!
A holiday!
At a time this busy!
She closed her eyes and breathed out a long, deep sigh. When his hand began to pat her head, a helpless little laugh escaped her.
Perhaps she simply had no strength left. Sleep rushed over her again almost at once.
A whole week...
On that last thought, Nina sank under.
"A whole week off!"
Nina rolled back and forth across the sofa.
A vacation was actually wonderful.
It was already the third day of her rest.
Come to think of it, she had worked without a pause from the day she returned. Only now, forced to stop, did she realize she had given herself over to anxiety and never properly looked around her.
Taking one step back and being made to watch, at leisure, how things turned, she found the ducal house was not in nearly so bad a state as she had feared. Even without her desperation, it was more or less running.
"Young Master. Young Master."
She called to Adrian from where she lay on the sofa. He was writing a letter and did not so much as turn his head.
"What?"
"The Black Unicorn. We decided to send it to the Gota family. What did they say?"
"They'll come up at once."
They were the house that bred hunting hounds, hawks, and horses for the ducal family.
After the infighting, the Gotas had been left with no work worth the name, and now they were suddenly told to take in a unicorn and raise it. No wonder they would come running.
"Well, of course. And I went down below the castle. There are rumors going around."
"What kind?"
"That the unicorn's appearance means the Young Master is the rightful heir! That the duchy's new duke has heaven's favor!"
"Not bad."
"You spread that, didn't you?"
"I had it done."
Nina propped her chin on her hand and smiled.
"It's fine. There's nothing wrong with getting the public on our side."
Plenty of people had seen the unicorn with their own eyes. It would make excellent testimony for Adrian's legitimacy.
Since ancient times, how hard had rulers labored to prove their right to rule?
And we even have people who can fight a war of public opinion.
"Young Master, are we stronger than I thought?"
It was a blunt way to put it, but Adrian did not scold her. He was quiet for a moment, thinking, and then he said,
"I'd need to know how strong you thought we were before I could answer."
"A ducal house going to ruin?"
"I let it look that way."
"Ah. Then we really are stronger than I expected."
"We're still short of what we need."
Adrian set down his pen. While he waited for the ink to dry, Nina rose and came to stand beside him.
"I understand now what you meant. I really haven't lost a single thing."
There were things Nina could do, and things she could not.
Binding the house together from within, spreading a net of information, deceiving the eyes around them, sifting out the disloyal—those were beyond her.
But if that work had not come first, nothing she meant to attempt would have turned as it should.
In short, the foundation had been dug and finished. All that remained was to raise the building.
Nina came up behind him, slipped her arms around his neck, and rested her chin lightly on his shoulder.
"I'm sorry. For acting as if I had to do it all alone."
Adrian turned to look at her. They were so close their breath nearly touched.
He laughed, soft and low, and said,
"Even so, I'm not letting you off. A week's leave is a week's leave."
"Fine, then."
Nina pouted for no good reason and straightened.
In any case, Vice-Captain Jin had already sent notices far and wide announcing that the Black Knights were recruiting.
They meant to take about thirty, so she hoped a great many would apply.
The knights already in the order were excited at the news that newcomers were coming. More than anything, they seemed to be hoping a new Elite might be chosen.
Once the Exchange Match was over, the real selection would begin.
Sir Louis said he would choose candidates for the merchant houses and set them in order for me. And I've already sorted the people who appeared in the novel.
She did not have to move herself. People moved of their own accord, and it was convenient.
So this was why one raised subordinates.
Nina took up the letter in Adrian's place, folded it neat and crisp, and held it ready.
"So how does the Exchange Match work?"
"In our case, we form teams of ten, and whoever wins keeps fighting."
"Oh. Is that all."
Nina melted the wax and let it fall onto the envelope, and Adrian pressed his seal into it.
"Then of course we'll win. I was a little worried."
Nina smiled.
"Where do we meet for it?"
"On our land. The land they're using."
"I can hardly wait."
Adrian looked at her and smiled.
"Neither can I."
The Ila Great Plain yielded more than any other land in the ducal domain.
Stand in the middle of it, and the horizon opened in every direction. Because this land existed, the ducal house could be a ducal house.
"So the Exchange Match resumes at last."
"Two whole years, and it just slipped past."
"It was pleasant enough, holding it without a fight. It'll be our land anyway."
The gathered knights of Count Rava's house tossed out a remark apiece.
Six years of unbroken victory had made them insufferably proud. The House of Rubuaene, besides, had grown weaker by the day, until at last its knights were not merely dull opponents but pitiable ones.
"Did we gather the farmers again this year? I don't see why we still need to."
"We do. Those fools are too stupid unless you show them outright."
At that, the rest of them burst out laughing.
Under imperial law, a noble of the empire could not take more than sixty percent in tax from his own people.
Count Rava had thought the matter through.
Then a tax levied on another lord's people was no concern of the law, was it?
They had borrowed only the right to use the Ila Great Plain. Its owner was the Duke of Rubuaene. The farmers living there were not his farmers, nor were they people of the County of Rava.
Count Rava had raised the tax to ninety percent.
The backlash was fierce, of course, but the knight order crushed it without hesitation. And if not for the Eagle Knights of House Rava, there was no one to protect those farmers from the Bellac.
Every year, when the Exchange Match was held anew, the farmers hoped.
To break that hope, Count Rava had an arena built and forced each village to choose a representative and attend.
For years, those representatives went home having watched Rubuaene's knights lose in wretched defeat.
This year too, farmers with no hope left in their faces filled the arena. They had not come empty-handed.
After the knights won, they were to offer up food and drink as tribute.
One of the knights said, quietly,
"Then two years from now, we become a ducal house?"
No one answered what he had thrown into the air, but expectation surged all at once.