Free of Charge
Victoria Carlyle, First Imperial Princess of the Britannia Empire, was the eldest of three princesses, each born of a different mother.
Rank was not the only thing she had over the others. Her maternal house still wielded considerable power in the army. Her own mother was dead, but both of her uncles remained in service—brigade commanders, to be exact. With no divisional structure in the empire, they stood among the highest officers who actually commanded troops in the field, and each of them had played a part when the present emperor fought his war of succession.
Victoria herself was a field-grade officer.
It was perfectly natural for royalty to set a foot in the military. Even Sienna held the title of honorary regimental commander. Victoria, though, had not merely lent her name to a roster. She actually served. Royal blood bought her privileges, of course, but by all accounts she did not treat the work as a sham. She seemed to regard the army's support as her single most important asset, and she labored on every front to keep it.
Even so, I never thought she would take the bait like this.
It would have been a lie to claim I had sent my people circulating through the hospitals with no thought of the imperial family at all. I had expected the Third Princess—the one who bore us a grudge—and her faction to bite. I had not expected the First Princess to bite first, much less to go so far as to humiliate Sienna while she was at it. Perhaps she had not meant to be spiteful. Perhaps the apology had been genuine, born of regret that she had been unable to buy any. It hardly mattered.
What mattered was that she now knew morphine existed, and that she could bring broad influence to bear on the very arm of the state where demand for it was bound to run highest.
I decided to open a channel into military supply through the First Princess.
The risk was obvious. If it succeeded, though, it would be the steadiest route I had for disposing of morphine, and the chance of abuse by anyone not actually in pain would be low.
I went straight to the Imperial Military Hospital.
"I would like to see the director."
"Well... this is rather sudden."
"If the director is unavailable, anyone with authority will do. Should it be awkward to receive a mere apothecary, then I request the interview in my capacity as a knight of the Imperial Escort. I am Allan Madoff. I serve Her Highness the Second Princess."
The speech had one purpose. I meant to see the director before I left.
I might be treated like filth, but I was still an escort knight attending a princess of the direct line. They would find it hard to turn me away and live with it.
In the end the hospital official stalled for a long while, then showed me through.
I doubt the director has the authority to decide anything.
He could, at least, carry word to his patron, the First Princess. Counting on that, I talked at length about morphine—how much more effective it was than willow bark, opium, or jimsonweed root—and then pressed on to the point I had come to make.
"I know you have no reason to trust me, Director. So what if we did it this way?"
"Did what...?"
"For patients in severe pain only, try morphine in place of opium. I will supply it free of charge for three days."
Free of charge. That offer was the reason I had come in the first place.
"I don't know, Sir Allan. How are we supposed to use a medicine that hasn't been verified?"
"In the end, this morphine is still a medicine made from opium."
"And not opium grown on some ordinary farm, either. It was cultivated in the principal gardens of Thames Palace by order of Her Highness Sienna. Skilled gardeners harvested it and carried out the first refinement. Nowhere else in the Empire is opium produced on that scale, or with that degree of system."
"I'm aware of that, but—"
"And it costs you nothing. What reason do you have to refuse?"
He could not quite bring himself to say no. He could not quite bring himself to accept, either.
Prescribing a little medicine ought to have lain within a director's discretion, and still he hesitated. So the authority was not his. Someone else's consent was required, and I already knew whose.
"...Give me a little time to think it over, Sir Allan."
His face all but begged me to leave, so I was glad to oblige.
From the next day on, I simply started reporting to the hospital as if it were my post.
"Not three days. I'll furnish four days' worth, free of charge."
"On top of that, I'll remain on the premises for the whole of that period and help with the dosing instructions. Surely that would ease your concerns? That, of course, will also cost you nothing."
"I'm swallowing my pride to ask this. ...I'll come again tomorrow."
After the performance had repeated itself several times, the director's face grew steadily more haggard. He could hardly have enjoyed dealing with me, and Sienna standing at my back would have weighed on him as well. For all I knew, he had decided that rotten luck had dragged him into a quarrel between First Princess Victoria and Second Princess Sienna.
So a few days passed.
At last someone other than the director was waiting to receive me.
She was tall for a woman, dressed not in a splendid full-dress uniform but in a combat uniform of black-green. A beauty, her platinum-blonde hair bound neatly back, she stood with her hands clasped behind her, and the posture sat on her with perfect ease.
"Your Highness?"
She was Victoria—the Imperial Military Hospital's greatest patron, and the Empire's First Princess.
Looked at squarely, a mere knight had forced his way in to sell medicine and provoked the First Princess herself.
I put on a show of being flustered and hesitated, and Victoria spoke first, her hands still clasped behind her back.
"Sir Allan. I have already heard of you."
"How does Your Highness know my name?"
"One of my advisers, Baron Valderin, brought me a certain account. He has a distant kinsman among Sienna's attendants. He once made that attendant a modest gift of money and goods, and Sienna, he tells me, seized on some pretext and had him punished."
"I am told you carried out the punishment yourself. Is that correct?"
She meant the attendant I had beaten, through no wish of my own, on the first day I woke in this body.
At the time I had done everything I could not to kill him, and in the end I had kept him alive—but I had hit him, and that much was fact. I had no injustice to plead. I could also see why Victoria was looking at me as if I were something foul.
"It was not the first such incident, nor the second. I do not find it comfortable to face you."
"Do you understand to what end I am saying this?"
I thought I did. If I had any sense of shame, I was to get out. Judging by the severity on her face alone, there would be no talking her around.
I had no intention of retreating, so I set my smaller wits to work.
She called a baron with hardly any power to his name an adviser. And the only attendant she brought with her wasn't an escort knight, but a single second lieutenant. An adjutant, most likely.
I could sketch the shape of her well enough.
Whether the feeling was genuine or not, she was someone who respected those beneath her. Unlike Sienna, who lived as the mood took her, she seemed to care a great deal about her reputation. That an imperial princess had come in person to a military hospital was evidence enough. It let me take her measure at once.
"Your Highness. I understand why you find me distasteful. In truth, that is why I came."
"What?"
"Your Highness is no doubt already aware. Recently, Her Highness Sienna treated Her Majesty the Empress. I assisted her in that, drawing on what knowledge of pharmacy I possess."
"What is it you mean to say?"
Victoria's expression did not so much as shift. I watched her a moment, let out a short breath, and dropped my eyes.
"If I speak honestly, will you forgive me?"
"Of course."
"...The truth is, I believed that affair would greatly raise Her Highness Sienna's standing. To put it more bluntly, I expected a procession of nobles at the doors of Thames Palace, where she resides."
"A vain expectation. Reputation is not remade overnight."
"I have only just come to understand that myself. Her Highness Sienna is still someone everyone keeps at a wary distance. ...The fault is largely mine, for conducting myself poorly."
"And why should that be your responsib—"
Victoria got that far and closed her mouth.
A glance showed me a face sunk in thought.
She had no wish to rebuke a loyal retainer scrambling to repair his lord's reputation—one even trying to take his lord's faults upon himself. Never mind that the loyalty in question was garbage offered up to a villainess.
I did not mean to waste the moment she wavered.
"That is also why I am so determined to supply medicine to this military hospital."
"Every patient admitted here is a soldier. Most are enlisted men or noncommissioned officers, and even the officers come from comparatively obscure houses. If I contribute to easing their pain, would that not also be of help to Her Highness Sienna?"
"So that is why you went so far as to offer it free of charge. I understand the sentiment. It will not accomplish what you hope."
"Even so, the effort has to be made. I beg you—please open a way for me...!"
With those words I dropped to one knee and bowed my head.
It was no courtesy that matched proper form. I only wanted the desperation to show.
Victoria, as I read her, was not a woman who could brush sincerity of that kind aside.
At this point, even refusal will be difficult.
How long the silence lasted, I could not have said.
"Very well, Sir Allan."
"Your Highness...?"
"I will allow it."
At last. I was through.
"You truly mean to help me?"
She nodded, her expression softened, if only faintly. She seemed to think well of the effort that had put me on my knees.
"Discuss the particulars with the director. ...I will have a word with him."
"Thank you, Your Highness."
Victoria turned her gaze aside, as if thanks were hardly called for. A moment later she offered the director, who had been watching from beside her, one short remark—"You see how hard he tries"—and simply left. It was a glimpse of what her influence looked like in practice.
I did not rise until she was well away. For the moment, I still needed to stay bowed.
"I'm sorry for the burden I've placed on you all this time."
Once the First Princess was gone, I gave the military hospital a detailed account of how the medicine was to be taken, and supplied only a small quantity of morphine.
Sixty grams. Starting modestly was best for me as well.
"As I said before, the first supply is free. Opening a formal trade after the efficacy has been proven will be soon enough."
I was giving it away because I had already talked too much. I was not sorry.
Negotiating from the weaker seat would be the first time, and the last.