A Great Gift
Not long after Diana had asked for the motion sickness remedy, Rebert came to her with the trial sample. Clutching the little bottle, Diana headed straight for the palace.
"We were expecting you."
Karl, having already been told by Karman that she would be coming, ushered her straight into the King's office. The moment the door opened, Karman lifted his head and looked at her.
"Your Majesty, I trust you have been well." Diana bowed with all courtesy.
"I have been well indeed, thanks to you, Young Duchess."
When his eyes met Diana's, the look on Karman's face softened into something gentle. Unlike the last time they had met, he seemed genuinely glad to see her today.
Karman tipped his chin toward the table set for receiving guests. Diana took a seat before it; atop the table lay sweets in pretty colors, sweet as could be.
"They say one can hardly hold a conversation with a child without these sorts of things. Though I confess, I find it rather difficult to think of you as a child."
Just as he had once pressed candy on her, Karman now slid the plate of cookies toward Diana. Since turning down the King's hospitality time and again would have been poor manners, she picked one up and popped it into her mouth.
While she tasted it, Karman rested an arm on the armrest, propped his chin in his hand, and began to observe her. Under that relentless gaze — as though he meant to count every last wisp of her peach fuzz — Diana felt as if she were sitting on a cushion of thorns.
'If he has something to ask, he should just ask it outright and be done with it.'
Pretending not to notice Karman's stare, Diana devoted herself entirely to the business of eating cookies. Frankly, the palace's cookies were no match for Cooker's desserts — but even so, she saw one enormous cookie through to the very last bite.
"So how did you coax Gadrian?"
At last, the question came. It was not the one Diana had been expecting. Instead of answering right away, she bought herself time by diligently chewing the mouthful of cookie. Karman waited, patient as stone, until she had swallowed it all.
In that interval, Diana decided just how much she would tell him about Gadrian.
'I'll play it as though I knew all along — and make every detail out to be pure coincidence.'
Gulp. At last, the cookie was gone. Diana washed it down with a sip of tea and opened her mouth.
"Coax him, you say? How could I possibly coax the greatest mage in the world?"
"Then why did he say he would become Cassion's teacher?"
"Pardon?"
The cookie she'd been holding in one hand slipped from her fingers, and Diana scrambled to brush the fallen thing from her lap.
"Did you not know that Gadrian was to become Cassion's teacher?"
"I did not."
Diana's astonishment was no act — she truly hadn't known. Gadrian had left word that they would meet "later" and then gone silent as the grave, and she, busy in her own right, had not once dropped by the palace since.
'Does His Highness Cassion know?' If he did, she would be a little hurt that he hadn't told her. If he didn't, then she would simply have to hurry and share the happy news.
"Judging by that expression of yours, it seems you truly didn't."
"No, truly, I didn't. I was the one who introduced Mage Gadrian to His Highness Cassion — but I never imagined he would end up taking Cassion as his student."
Diana made a point of stressing that she had been the one to bring Gadrian to Cassion. Karman gave a soft huff of laughter.
'Is she angling for credit? Asking to be praised for a job well done?' The sight of her all but demanding a compliment made her seem every bit the thirteen-year-old she was.
'Like a child one moment, and not the next. Impossible to pin down.' Little by little, Karman's curiosity was turning into fondness.
"Introduced him, did you? Why?"
"Because it would be of help to His Highness Cassion."
"And it profits you as well, does it?"
Diana nodded brightly. There was not a trace of deceit in the gesture, nor in her eyes. The suspicion Karman had harbored toward her thinned. He still found it hard to believe she had conceived and driven everything single-handedly — but he concluded she was not the sort to make use of Cassion and then cast him aside.
'Talented, no question about it. The ability to read a situation and forecast the course of a war... and then seating Gadrian as Cassion's teacher, on top of it all.' Karman grew certain of it: the talent Gadrian had spoken of, standing at Cassion's side, was Diana.
"The cookies must suit your taste. Have some more."
At his urging, Diana beamed and picked up a cookie studded thick with walnuts. Munching away, she pondered when would be the right moment to produce the motion sickness sample.
'The mood is good right now. Time to press my advantage.'
She drew out her handkerchief, dabbed the cookie crumbs from the corner of her mouth, then began rummaging through her bag. Karman leaned back against his chair and watched her with unconcealed interest.
Tap.
Diana set a bottle the size of a child's fist on the table. Inside, round pills no bigger than a baby's little fingernail and a dull, yellowish hue were packed to the brim.
"And what might this be, Young Duchess Diana?"
"Your Majesty, with this, I shall prove myself to you."
Diana declared it with perfect confidence. Karman picked up the bottle, twirled it this way and that, and smirked.
"Some sort of health tonic, I see. Well now — whatever shall I do? If it is a supplement within the young duchess's means to acquire, then it is within mine as well."
Without even hearing her explanation, he pushed the bottle back across the table toward her. The corner of Diana's mouth curled upward. At that expression, brimming over with confidence, Karman's gaze sharpened with intent.
"Your Majesty, this is no supplement — it is a motion sickness medicine. Might you be acquainted with the torment one endures at sea?"
"I am."
Karman, too, had once suffered miserably from seasickness. It had been dreadful enough that he never wished to endure it again. And yet, as the king of a nation, there were occasions that took him out to sea — at times, even long voyages to visit foreign lands.
'And this year's schedule has one of those on it as well.' Merely thinking of it was already draining his strength and setting his head spinning.
"What of seasickness?"
A hunch told Karman that Diana was about to entertain him. Though he was dying to know what she was scheming, he asked with studied leisure.
"You will already know, of course, that Ffrika leaves are good for motion sickness. This medicine is made by blending those leaves with a remedy for headaches and another that quells nausea — a treatment that markedly lessens the misery of a voyage at sea."
"And why bring this to me? So that I might take it the next time I go to sea?"
'He knows perfectly well, and he's pretending not to.' Judging by how Karman had been leaning steadily toward the table as she explained, he took a keen interest in the motion sickness medicine — and not idle interest, either, but the interest of a man who had recognized a product's worth.
So his trailing question was nothing more than banter. Diana had not come to play twenty questions; she laid her plan bare.
"...Once the war begins, if we sell this motion sickness medicine to both kingdoms, it will reap an enormous profit. And when the war is over, we shall be able to boast of the aid we extended to them as well."
Karman's lips eased apart as he listened in silence. He felt caught utterly off guard. Diana had put forward something he had never once considered — all he had thought of was making money by selling the new drug. He picked the bottle up off the table.
'It worked.' Even without hearing his answer, she could tell her plan had struck home.
"Are you certain Brooke and Donet would welcome this medicine?"
"I am certain Your Majesty's opinion and my own will be one and the same."
Karman let out a short laugh. Diana nearly jumped out of her skin — for when he laughed in earnest, his face bore an astonishing resemblance to Cassion's.
"We shall proceed as you propose, then."
"And if Brooke Kingdom and Donet Kingdom show active interest, that would complete the third of my proofs, wouldn't it?"
Diana's eyes sparkled. That expectant face was pure child — a child striving to be acknowledged — and Karman felt the sudden impulse to pat her head.
"Why three?"
"I brought Your Majesty great profit through timber, I brought Mage Gadrian into the kingdom's service, and with the motion sickness medicine I will win the trust of two nations — have I not?"
"I will grant you the first two. The last, I will not."
'So he means to wait until the answer arrives before he concedes.' It would succeed regardless, so a delay of two or three days was no great matter — provided she extracted his firm promise first.
"And if it succeeds all the way to the end? Will you acknowledge it then?"
Instead of answering, Karman turned his gaze to the door. It was as good as telling her to leave. Diana considered pressing him further, then rose from her seat — pleading any longer here seemed unlikely to wring an answer from him. She bowed.
Gazing down at the adorably round crown of her head, Karman spoke.
"Young Duchess — if all goes as you say, I shall give you a great gift. You may look forward to it."
If Diana's plan unfolded exactly as promised, the Kingdom of Petrora could claim the high ground when the time came to arbitrate supremacy over the seas — without committing a single soldier to the war. It was, quite literally, reaping a windfall without so much as lifting a finger. Which meant that even a gift on the scale of granting her betrothal would cost him nothing he would miss.
'It is only an engagement, after all.'
Having left Karman's palace, I headed straight for Cassion's. My steps felt light enough to take wing — Karman's reaction had exceeded my every expectation.
"If all goes as you say, I shall give you a great gift. You may look forward to it."
What could the gift be? His blessing on the marriage would be wonderful indeed, but the odds were against it. Even so, I had a feeling it would prove worthy of comparison — and if it fell short of my hopes, then I could simply negotiate.
'Only Rebert knows the formula for the motion sickness medicine, after all.' I had handed Karman exactly one sample bottle of the stuff. Even if trade requests came pouring in from Donet and Brooke, without me, not a single pill would ever leave the country.
'Should I just come out and ask him to approve the marriage?' I soon folded the thought away. Knowing Karman's temperament, he would sooner abandon the medicine than grant the marriage. However scrupulously fair and rational they pretended to be, kings and nobles loathed a blow to their pride nearly as much as death itself.
Which meant that whenever I negotiated with Karman, even when the advantage lay with me, I had to leave him with the impression that the upper hand was his.
'Honestly, dealing with him is exhausting.' Merely imagining the haggling over the gift to come made my head throb. I shook it briskly and swept the tangled thoughts away. Two pieces of happy news in a single day — complicated thinking could wait!
"Holzman, pick up the pace!"
I called through the coachman's window with a rap of my knuckles, and the clatter of hooves swelled.
The moment the carriage rolled to a halt, I leapt down before the footstool could even be set in place. My whole body itched to bring Cassion the good news as fast as possible — and how, pray tell, was I meant to sit meekly in my seat and wait for a footstool?
From within the carriage, I had made complete preparations to dash to the floor where Cassion's chambers lay. I had even hiked my dress up with brisk efficiency, baring my shins for the sprint. As it turned out, there was no need to run at all — for there stood Cassion, his face scrunched into a magnificent scowl.
And he was not alone. A crowd of people I had never once seen at the 3rd Prince's Palace was bustling in and out of it.