The Payment
A few days after the nobles of Anais's faction had been turned into dogs, Sienna set out for the Ministry of Military Affairs, the office that governed every matter of the army.
She had never paid the military much attention. Victoria and her maternal house already held every worthwhile connection in their grip: a grandfather who had once commanded the army, two uncles still serving as generals, and cousins climbing, step by measured step, the elite track through both the army and the navy.
They're only holding back because they have to watch Father. If they ever set their minds to it, swallowing the army whole wouldn't be impossible.
Perhaps that was why the army was also the institution that rejected her most fiercely. The other ministries disliked her as well, of course, but the military was in a class of its own. Among the officers of the Guard Regiment, word had it that a posting to Thames Palace, where Sienna resided, was the end of a career.
Careers had, in fact, ended there. From Sienna's point of view it was a grievance. She had only purged those who had given her cause.
Morphine had changed the situation.
The army is my greatest customer. For now, my only one.
Tomorrow was the first official delivery, and even at this moment Allan was working himself to the bone to meet the quantity owed to the army. He was hauling the opium stacked in the warehouse and refining still more morphine, and he was directing the production of morphine tablets meant to be taken with ease. The most help he received was setting Bono and his brother, along with the palace servants, to the drudge work.
The woman Sienna had come to see was the very one responsible for that exhaustion.
Victoria Carlyle — a major of the Special Staff under the Ministry of Military Affairs, First Princess of the Empire, and, as things stood, the figure closest to being invested as Crown Princess Regent.
"Major Carlyle should be in her office at present."
The colonel who had guided Sienna all the way to her sister's office delivered the report with impeccable courtesy. A serving colonel had, in effect, played secretary to a mere major, and yet there was no one who would have dreamed of remarking on it. Not a soldier in the Empire could truly treat an imperial princess as nothing more than a major.
Just showing up to work without fail is impressive enough. I don't understand it, but still.
Even for Sienna, this was the first time she had set foot in her sister's office. Had there ever been an opening to make Victoria's life difficult, she would have taken an interest long ago, but no gap had ever shown itself, and so she had simply let it pass. Now that morphine bound them together, she wanted at least one serious conversation.
"Sister?"
"It has been some time, Sienna."
Victoria, buried in paperwork, received her with calm composure.
She really does live hard.
A glance around showed inspection reports scattered across the desk. The motives differed, but Sienna could feel that her sister worked every bit as hard as she did. Unless something special arose, Sienna herself did nothing but work from morning to night.
"Doesn't working at a desk bore you?"
"...Ha. I would be lying if I said I had no wish to go to the field. Say what one will, the flower of a soldier's life is the front. But if I indulge that desire, the enlisted men are the ones put in danger. They would all overreach themselves, trying to manufacture some plausible merit for my sake."
"So that's why you live... like this, here."
"I judged it more efficient to help the men serve under even slightly better conditions."
They truly did not suit each other. Sienna looked at her sister in blank dismay. Holding forth like that as if she meant every word — and perhaps she did — was simply Victoria's way. She had been like this since childhood, forever invoking an imperial princess's public duty and repeating, like a habit, that the blood His Majesty their father had spilled on his path to the throne was blood the two of them were obliged to wash clean.
Honestly, it still makes my skin crawl.
Even so, there were things that needed saying. She had not come merely to tease her sister for letting her make money. Just as when she had brought the nobles to their knees, she had a clear purpose, and that purpose, of course, concerned morphine.
"Sister. As you know, I'm an investor in Madoff Pharmaceuticals."
"You have come about the morphine. The preparations to receive it are already complete. As agreed with Sir Allan, the Quartermaster Bureau will manage the stock directly and issue whatever quantity is required at the time—"
"You'll need to be exceptionally careful about security."
"Hm?"
Victoria only tilted her head, puzzled. As expected, she doesn't know a thing. Sienna let out a short sigh, putting on a convincing show of genuine worry over her sister's innocence.
"I was going to leave it alone whether something went wrong or not... haah. I really can't. Sister, do you truly see morphine as nothing but medicine?"
"I do not follow your meaning."
"It doesn't look like medicine to me. It looks like money."
"Think about it. A military surgeon's yearly pay is forty or fifty thousand thalers at best, and a nurse earns less than that. Two hundred grams of morphine is a fortune that could change their lives. Do you honestly believe no one will be tempted?"
"I know it must be managed with the utmost rigor. Do not concern yourself."
"I'm glad you know. ...But Sister, how am I supposed to not worry? It's a product made by a company in which I hold half the shares."
Sienna sighed as though deeply troubled. Victoria, in the midst of soothing her, suddenly wore a quiet smile.
Does she think I've grown up?
A younger sister who, instead of gloating over the money, worried first about the harm it might do. Victoria could hardly help finding her admirable. Sienna's aim, of course, was nothing so trivial as her sister's praise.
An accident is going to happen no matter what.
Hadn't there already been word that patients had nearly rioted over the morphine? A drug of this potency could not be perfectly controlled. Something would go wrong, one way or another, and Sienna was only laying the groundwork so that every bit of the cleanup would fall to Victoria.
Victoria did not seem to suspect any such motive. Quite the opposite.
"Sienna. If only so that I do not disappoint you and Sir Allan, I shall do my utmost."
"Why would I be disappointed? I invested to make money, that's all."
"It is all right. I know this is not something you do merely for the money. ...When I think on it, Allan Madoff was able to produce morphine thanks to your support as well. The two of you seem to be a good influence upon each other."
Victoria gazed at her as if she were something precious. Her sister's reaction was so earnest that Sienna had nothing in particular to say.
"You have found yourself a fine retainer, Sienna."
That much, at least, was true.
"...You're saying strange things all of a sudden."
"Will you take a cup of tea, at least?"
"I'm fine. I'm going."
Sienna rose in a hurry, feigning a sudden fit of shyness. When she left the office, of course, a faint smile had risen to her face.
At last, the day of the delivery.
"Sir Allan. They say the escort will be here shortly."
The lot we were handing over to the Ministry today came to twenty-five kilograms: twenty-two in crystalline powder, and three in pills — morphine tablets. From the next shipment on, I meant to raise the proportion of tablets, so that even those without expertise could handle them without trouble. Even at this moment, under Bono's eye, the pressing was still underway. I had dragged in several apothecaries from the military hospitals and put them to the work.
It was not difficult. Capsules were beyond them, but tablets bound with starch lay within the craft this world already possessed. Step into any apothecary and you could find ammonium chloride pills. Those might actually do something for a cough and the like, so I could let them pass. What had left me faintly incredulous were the pills claimed to be made from wyvern bone meal. Swallowing bone powder outright is not, as a rule, good for one's health.
Not that I was in any position to say so. I was about to move morphine on a massive scale.
Twenty-five kilograms came to roughly one million six hundred thousand doses. It sounded enormous, but in truth it was only what the critical wards of the military hospitals would burn through in a year — and honestly, it would not even last that long. Tolerance would set in, and patients would certainly begin demanding more.
I had signed the contract knowing that. And I was not the only one who had foreseen the same future.
"How many months do you think that'll last, Allan?"
Sienna, appearing out of nowhere to ask exactly that, was the other.
"Your Highness."
We had both been too busy these past few days even to see each other's faces. Unlike me, worn thin from the manufacturing, Sienna was all smiles.
"Ah, sorry. The army will manage it strictly, of course? I saw Sister Victoria yesterday, and she seemed to have prepared quite diligently."
"You went to see Princess Victoria at this juncture?"
"Relax. I didn't go and do anything strange. I also stopped by Mother and gave her psilocybin as a gift. It seemed about time her supply ran out."
"Her Majesty the Empress must have been very pleased."
"Pleased doesn't cover it. This time I even taught her the lemon."
Yes. Of course she had. Introduced to the lemon tek, the Empress had been delighted and taken the dose at once, and the moment it took hold she had cried, "Daughter, thank you!" and gathered Sienna into her arms. Sienna, pretending to be put out, had allowed herself to be held. And while they were locked together like that, the Emperor had appeared and watched for a long while, visibly moved.
"It was fun, in its way."
"You've grown quite close."
"Close doesn't cover it either. Oh — and this evening we're set to gossip again, over a communication spell."
She had actually become a filial daughter. Not content with treating the Empress, she was now cultivating the bond itself. Whether it was Sienna's doing or not, the Emperor and Empress were said to be fonder of each other than in their newlywed days, walking together every day and sharing a bed besides. A display of devotion one could hardly square with the unfilial wretch who had once meant to steep the Empress in opium wine.
I doubted this was a sudden longing for family affection.
"You're laying a foundation before the morphine is loosed on the world. Am I correct?"
"You are. I wore out some shoe leather while you were making the drug. It's good for you too, isn't it? If something goes wrong, we'll be in a position to handle it."
Handle it, my foot. The world was the one that needed to prepare for us.
I had a fair idea of the real reason Sienna was suddenly gathering strength. She meant to bind me all the more tightly. For the present, I was the only craftsman alive who could manufacture a drug worth more than gold.
"Let's do well from here on, Allan."
We were already reading each other's insides, so I simply smiled. It was a little more comfortable, no longer having to spin some lengthy excuse.
A few hours later, the men from the Ministry carried off twenty-five kilograms of morphine. The payment we received came to twenty-five million thalers.
This was only the beginning.