Founding Festival (2)
I walked the shopping streets that would not see their lights go out for days, talking with Celia about the Founding Festival.
“But it’s really funny, you know. Why does it have to be someone who masters both the sword and the bow?”
“To decide the greatest warrior, of course.”
“And losing would be a disgrace to a great nation’s face.”
Losing didn’t worry me. What did was whether they’d keep using me for these things from now on. That was the real issue.
Just then, figures who looked like nomads came into view in the distance.
“Oh? I heard there were horses outside the walls that I hadn’t seen during the day. Looks like they’ve already arrived.”
At Celia’s words I decided to size up those steppe folk for a moment.
Looking closer, they seemed to be having a petty quarrel with a street vendor.
The skewers in the nomads’ hands made the situation almost certain.
“Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“When our tribe makes skewers from chicken or mutton, they come out huge. And you’re telling us to pay for these tiny little things?”
“You ate what’s clearly right in front of you, and now you refuse to pay?”
“Wasn’t this free samples?”
“There’s no talking sense into you lot. You think I’d put out this many free samples? It’s the Founding Festival, sure, but if I hand these out free, how’s a merchant supposed to put food on the table?”
“Anyway, we’re not paying. You’d better accept that.”
“Fine! Looks like I’ll have to call the capital guard to knock some sense into you!”
In the end it was a fight over food.
Calling the capital guard? Wasn’t this about to blow up? These things could happen, sure, but until now they never had.
Because it was once a year, and the chieftains had come every year.
Meaning if nothing like this had happened before, these people were here for the first time.
So a new chieftain had brought new people.
I should step in before it got any bigger.
Times like this made me truly resent the position of Taesa.
“What’s all the noise about?”
“Oh, looks like some noble young lady. These bastards ate the skewers and now they’re demanding their money back because the portions are too small!”
Yeah, that was pretty shameless. Paid is paid. Who comes here to cause a scene?
Even the hero had paid his own money and stuffed his face.
I’d told Celia that once it goes down the throat it’s all the same, but I knew Empire skewers well enough myself.
When you stopped by the Empire, skewers were the convenient street food of choice.
The skewers this shopkeeper was selling were nothing to laugh at.
I picked up one of the ones laid out for sale. The amount of meat was decent, and the seasoning had soaked in evenly.
“At this quality they’re going all out for the Founding Festival, and the price is so good you might even wonder if it’s local produce.”
The price was five copper coins. Probably discounted for the festival, but considering normal street skewers ran ten copper, you could buy two of these.
They clearly hadn’t been in the Empire long.
“Exactly. And for the record, it is Imperial. These are skewers made from chickens raised on my family’s poultry farm out in the provinces.”
If he was slaughtering his own farm’s birds, he was serious about the festival. The shopkeeper had every right to be furious.
“Well, the steppe nomads make their skewers huge even for a single serving, so it’s not completely incomprehensible.”
“That’s right! Considering nomads come for the Founding Festival, they should prepare things to suit us!”
“I see this as entirely your fault.”
“What?”
This was obviously the nomads’ fault.
Ashtar could guarantee it.
“If you’ve come to the Empire, you follow Imperial law. The steppes may be brothers to the Imperial house of old, but why should everything be adjusted to steppe circumstances? Besides, steppe livestock and Imperial livestock are completely different breeds, so the meat that comes out is different. Steppe meat tends to be tougher but large; Imperial livestock yield smaller but tender, fatty meat. The meat itself is different, yet you’re demanding your money back over this? Even Imperial street thugs wouldn’t pull that.”
There were differences in many respects.
“What did you say? Are you finished talking? Do you even know who we are?”
Who you are? Just a bunch of nomads.
No matter how high-and-mighty they thought themselves, they weren’t above Ashtar. Even if chieftains had come for the Founding Festival, I wasn’t merely a noble young lady—I was also Taesa.
That thought made me laugh inside.
Of course. These guys would be face-to-face with me later anyway.
“Do you even know who I am?”
“That’s right. Show some manners. This is the young lady of the prestigious Imperial house of Ashtar.”
Celia was even filling in for Claire.
Good. Not bad. Looking at their faces, they knew the name Ashtar.
“A… Ashtar?”
“Ashtar, as in that—?”
I never imagined I’d act high-and-mighty with the family name, but this should be enough.
Celia was snickering beside me. I’d give her a solid thump later.
“And if the situation were reversed, I would have taken the steppes’ side. If an Imperial went to the steppes, ate a massive cut of meat, and asked why there was so much of it and why it was so tough, I’d have sided with the steppes.”
Come to the Empire and follow Imperial law; go to the steppes and follow steppe law. That was how you avoided friction between peoples.
“Even so—”
The moment “even so” came out, it was proof they knew they were on shaky ground.
“There’s no ‘even so.’ Do you expect ordinary merchants to cater to every one of you individually? If this shop sold meat sized for the steppes, the owner’s poultry farm would go under. This isn’t a border market, and only the steppe representatives have come, so there aren’t many of you. Of course they have to tailor things more for Imperials. Besides, if you’re from the steppes you’ll be received at the Imperial Palace—what’s the problem?”
At my words a few of them nodded as if they understood, but a few others twisted their faces, pride clearly the issue.
These ones would probably need a good scare before they came to their senses.
“If you’re really that dissatisfied, try the same thing in front of His Majesty the Emperor during the Founding Festival. Or would you rather be dragged off right here? Looking at you, you’re young ones who’ve just come to the Empire for the first time. Better watch your behavior so you don’t end up kicking the blankets later.”
After that, the nomads had nothing more to say and backed off on the spot.
They at least had some sense—after hearing from Celia who I was, they didn’t make more noise. That much was praiseworthy.
Once the nomads left, the shopkeeper came up to me and bowed repeatedly.
“Thank you. Truly, thank you. The way those steppe bastards glared—it was terrifying.”
“Did this happen last year too?”
“No, no. Last year it didn’t. I figured they must be a tribe visiting for the first time, so I didn’t want to make a big deal of it either.”
Is that so? Then that confirmed it.
“I see. Still, be careful for the rest of the festival. People who’ve just arrived in the Empire can cause problems.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you. Please take these skewers as a token of my gratitude.”
The shopkeeper pressed skewers into my hands as thanks.
I decided to feed them to Celia for now.
“Ah. I think I know who they are.”
“What do you mean?”
“A new chieftain has risen among the Turka tribe. His name is Orkan. Apparently he’s exactly our age.”
The Turka tribe? I thought their chieftain had been an old man.
“A young fellow, then. So one of them could be him, or they could be his subordinates. Is that what you’re saying?”
I was pretty sure there had been three men and two women.
Add the rest of their retinue and the numbers would be respectable.
“Probably?”
“Hrm. This is going to be a nuisance.”
Meaning one of them might be the one who’d compete with me in archery.
Having become Taesa and Saint, I was fully aware of what my position meant.
If word got out that someone of my standing had quarreled with those people on a capital street, I could already imagine what the Emperor would say—and my future looked bleak.
“By the way, Lady Olivia.”
“What?”
“The atmosphere around you feels… quite different somehow?”
After the library incident I’d felt something change in myself as well.
Anyone who’d seen that couldn’t stay the same. Still, I didn’t think Celia would have noticed that much, but under that suspicious gaze I found myself making excuses without meaning to.
“Maybe you’re imagining it?”
Whether she was or not, Celia was flaring her nostrils. What about my atmosphere had changed? On the surface nothing seemed different.
“Something like a more mature scent? Mm. That is to say… an old-person smell?”
I gave Celia’s head a thoroughly sincere knuckle-rap.
Turka tribe lodgings
Atali, younger sister of Orkan, chieftain of the Turka tribe, was fuming over the day’s events and hurling sofa cushions.
“Would you stop already? What’s got you so worked up?”
“The Ashtar family—isn’t their root the same as tribes like ours? How could she humiliate us right there on the spot?”
Could you even call that humiliation?
If anything, it was thanks to her that the matter hadn’t blown into something bigger.
That was the heart of the capital. The other tribes didn’t look kindly on the Turka either, so none of them would have taken their side. If a full brawl had broken out right there, the ones who would have suffered were—
“Even so, Ashtar is Imperial. Demanding they take our side is ridiculous. And the Ashtar young lady’s words had merit.”
“Right. She even said that if it had been the steppes she would have taken the steppes’ side. Saying that if you’ve come to the Empire you follow the Empire isn’t wrong either.”
The Turka men were still dazed by the looks of the Ashtar young lady they’d seen that afternoon. A woman of a grace and refined air never found on the steppes. And she hadn’t sent underlings—she had met their eyes herself and mediated with absolute confidence. She could easily be called the finest woman in the Empire.
“Hah. You lot are hilarious. What, is it because the Ashtar young lady is a pretty, delicate little thing the likes of which you never see on the steppes?”
Atali found the state of the tribe’s men utterly pathetic.
Pretty? All she looked was fragile. A real woman slept under the open sky of the steppes and rose as a heroine who could support a steppe man.
At this rate they’d all get played by some fox-like Imperial bitch.
“Hey now. Watch your mouth. We’re trying to look at this rationally. We know nothing about Imperial affairs. So from that shopkeeper’s perspective, he had every right to feel wronged.”
Thinking it over carefully the way the Ashtar young lady had put it, the shopkeeper’s position really was pitiable. It wasn’t as if they’d raised the issue before eating—after finishing they’d suddenly complained the portions were too small. Of course he was angry.
“If it’s going to be like this, how is the Empire any different from a kingdom? We’re supposed to be brothers, aren’t we?”
“To be precise, Imperials are a mix of half-bloods, Carts, and the minor-kingdom alliance. The climate they live in, the temperature, even the livestock are different from ours. Trying to force everything into our ways would cause problems.”
At that point Atali looked to Orkan, hoping that even her brother would take her side, but Orkan was shaking his head.
“She’s right, Atali. You got too worked up.”
“Not you too, Brother?”
Even the brother she’d counted as her ally was like this. Atali chewed her lip hard.
She never imagined the tribe’s men would all turn out this way.
Of course some of it was because the woman was beautiful, and some of it was pure contrariness. Even so, being shamed on the spot was a disgrace to a steppe warrior.
“We were too hasty. We came to see the Empire. If we refuse to accept the Empire as it is and insist on looking at everything only through our own ways, what good does that do?”
“Well, yes, but—”
This was a country that might one day become an enemy.
Studying the situation carefully was a good method too.
“Besides, the Ashtar young lady is the Saint and a student at Aetlina. How about making that girl one of our own while we’re at it?”
“What the hell kind of nonsense is that?”
What was he suddenly talking about?
“If the woman who is the Empire’s Saint becomes my—Orkan’s—woman, the tribe’s future would look pretty bright, don’t you think? We could even have Ashtar as our backer.”
It sounded plausible enough when you just listened, but it was obvious her brother had fallen head over heels for that woman. The brother she had always been so proud of suddenly looked like nothing more than a petty man.
Atali stuck her lip out, but Orkan had no intention of changing his mind.
“It’s true the Ashtar young lady’s marriage to the crown prince seems to have fallen through.”
“This time I’ll show her the power of Orkan and try to win that girl.”
Orkan, the young chieftain of the Turka tribe, was casting his eyes on an impossible tree named Olivia.