Mushrooms

The plan was to treat the Empress, and in the same stroke to strike at the child she had borne — the Third ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Princess, Anais.

"Frankly, it will not be easy. One misstep, and we may only strengthen the Third Princess's backing. She is the Empress's own blood, after all."

Foreigner or not, the power of a living Empress could not be brushed aside. The Britannia Empire was full of men who ate by the trade with the East. For the moment the Empress was shut up in her palace, living like a plant, but if she ever set her mind to cruelty she would still have the strength to scatter favors and concessions wherever she pleased.

I was midway through explaining how the thing might be done when Sienna cut in.

"Right. Perfectly possible."

She nodded as she said it.

"Your Highness?"

"You don't have to spell it out. I can roughly tell what you're thinking. You want me to use my reputation to plant suspicion on that bitch Anais."

"......"

"I mean, how many people would simply believe me if I said I was looking after the Empress? These days there's even a rumor I've had a torture chamber built underground and I'm dragging in innocent people to kill them."

She really did say it with her own mouth. It was true, of course.

"Yes, Your Highness. Throw the proper bait and the reaction will be violent. Played well, we may even induce the Third Princess to attack you herself. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Failing that, someone in her faction will certainly take the hook."

"And afterward, once I cure the Empress, the ones who slandered me will be the ones caught in the backlash."

A relief that she was a woman one could reason with, so long as the subject stayed within the bounds of wickedness. By now she was probably picturing herself reborn as the great filial daughter of the age, devoted to an Empress with whom she shared not a drop of blood — and, beside that, the despairing face of the half-sister who had hounded her and then been crushed by the recoil.

Not that Sienna was only chiming in.

"But... Allan? How exactly do you mean to cure the Empress? I assume you're not planning to put her on a ship and send her home."

Fair enough. It would be strange to welcome it blindly when an escort knight who had done nothing but swing a morningstar suddenly began holding forth on opium and playing the strategist. She would also be wondering how I intended to cure a mental illness of many years' standing.

"If you wish, I will explain."

I said it meaning only to talk my way around her. Sienna stared straight at me, then shook her head.

"Enough. You'll have some scheme of your own. ...So. In the end, you're saying you want to be the one to do this?"

"If you entrust it to me, I will deliver a result that satisfies Your Highness."

I put the smile away and answered as gravely as I could. Even so, Sienna dragged her feet.

Was she this cautious a creature?

A political maneuver on this scale was normally something one conducted with care, but the Sienna I knew was not that sort of character. She was closer to the type who committed the act first and, once the surroundings had been scorched because of it, flailed and scrambled to shove the blame off herself.

Kindly enough, she explained in person why she did not trust me.

"I'm curious. Why volunteer for a difficult mission?"

"Well."

"Don't dress it up as loyalty. Where in the world does a person like that exist?"

So it was not the operation she refused to trust. It was me. A mere escort knight, courting great danger of his own accord — of course she found it strange. Toy with royalty and get it wrong, and the only price was death.

I decided to furnish the reason gladly.

"The truth is, I have one request."

"Speak."

"If I produce a result that satisfies Your Highness, I would ask that you grant me a reward."

"Money?"

"...Yes. What could matter more than money? Should I succeed, I would like a bounty paid. A million thalers ought to do. And so that I may spend that money as I please and enjoy myself, I would also ask for a long leave of a month or more."

I said it while deliberately summoning a faint smile. A man moved by self-interest was more believable than one brandishing a loyalty that did not exist, and it suited Allan Madoff's public image besides.

A million thalers. A considerable sum. There was nothing wrong with taking the money. My true aim, however, was not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the money. It was the leave. If I was to find a way out from under this woman, I needed time.

Fortunately, Sienna did not suspect the intent.

"True. You do like your money. I know you've been skimming a little here and there from my businesses, actually. All this time I just decided to call it a bonus and look the other way."

"......"

"Fine. If it goes as you planned, I'll give you that much."

"Thank you."

"Nothing to thank me for. I have a condition of my own. Any guess what it is?"

"...Should the affair go wrong, I will bear the whole of the responsibility. There will not be so much as the remotest chance of trouble reaching Your Highness."

And with that, the discussion was over. She summoned the chief attendant of Thames Palace on the spot.

"From now on, see to it that whatever Allan requests is granted."

"Yes, Your Highness."

A brief order, and Sienna departed without fuss. The knight guarding her side had rather short arms and legs — Bono, the one who had been caught dead to rights talking behind her back. Rather than retaliate against him separately, she simply took him along like that and was withering him to death in real time.

Brutally hard going, no doubt. I felt no pity. If the plan failed, I would be left in a worse place than even that Bono.

First, I had to find a way to treat the Empress.

What ailed the Empress was a severe homesickness. In the end, it was depression.

By day she wrote letters to family and friends living in her homeland, and when night came she plucked a seven-string zither and wept without a sound. The rest of the time, they said, she sat blank as a plant and only stared out the window. I could understand why she longed for home. She had been married off at eighteen to a foreign land a world away, where the aftermath of a civil war — royalty slaughtering royalty — had not even faded. At so young an age she must have been worn thin. She would have been treated with all due reverence, but there would have been no lack of native hostility toward a foreigner.

So what she reached for, after being knocked about from every side, was home after all.

Life in a strange, airless empire; longing for a childhood she had lived happily as a princess; and, riding along with both, the softening glaze of memory.

The method I chose for an Empress like this was medicine. I was no physician of the mind, and I had no ability to treat her by counsel. But I knew of a drug that could ease the symptoms of depression without reducing her to a wreck.

And what was more, it was a drug that could be found in nature.

"I would like you to hire herb-gatherers and obtain mushrooms. Spend as much money as you need."

The order I gave after calling in Gordon, Sienna's chief attendant.

"Mushrooms, sir?"

"Yes. Mushrooms. There is one with a cap the size of a fingernail, of a light brown color, that leaves no sticky slime whatsoever even when handled, and whose flesh, once cut, turns blue within a short time. As for the terrain where it may be found..."

"And what do you intend to use the mushrooms for?"

"You don't need to know that."

I set him to fetching them while explaining nothing but the appearance in detail. Not ordinary mushrooms. Hallucinogenic mushrooms containing psilocybin.

A means I had recalled because mushrooms of that sort had appeared in the original work as well. There was a female assassin who gnawed on what were presumably hallucinogenic mushrooms the way other people ate a snack. Thinking of it now, the creator really was one peculiar bastard.

In any case, mushrooms of the psilocybin kind had many uses. They produced hallucinations, but their addictiveness was far weaker than tobacco and their dependence lower than cannabis. They did not, of course, ruin the body the way opium did. Drink them together with strong liquor and the liver would pay for it, naturally. Above all, psilocybin had the effect of rapidly improving the symptoms of depression. There were even countries that had already licensed it as a medicine.

No perfect antidepressant existed in the world, but that did not matter.

Even if she isn't cured, the memory of having been cheerful for a while will remain.

For an Empress who had suffered depression across long years, simply savoring the feeling of a brief visit to some other star would be stimulation enough. I had even seen the real thing.

Mushrooms instead of opium. Not a kind method, but it was the only way to improve depression in a short time — or at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠least to make it appear so.

"Sir Allan. I've brought them as ordered."

Two days later, servants of the palace arrived carrying mushrooms in quantity. Most were the wrong species, far from what I had ordered. Mushrooms, by nature, were extremely difficult things. Even a professor of mycology was hard to call a true expert.

I selected only the mushrooms needed to make the drug, and I did not forget to ingest a trace amount in order to verify them.

Madness, but better this than poisoning the Empress without meaning to. This body is sturdy enough anyway.

About thirty minutes later, as I wondered whether I had sorted them wrong, a buoyant sensation rose and everything before my eyes began to ripple. This was only because I had eaten a trace. Had I taken a proper dose, I would by now have been flying through empty air in a world of synesthesia...

Huh?

Ah.

A good thing I had eaten only a little.

I sorted them correctly.

Handing them over as plain mushrooms felt inadequate, so I added a measure of staging. I worked them into pills, a form the Empress was likely to find familiar, and had a luxurious medicine chest of ivory procured — one that had come from the East. That cost several more days, but the work was necessary. Dressing the thing up as a medicine refined through a careful process, rather than as mere mushrooms, suited our interests. If I meant to put the Empress properly in our debt, it was best to make it look as though a great deal of time and effort had gone into it.

"Plausible enough."

The result was reasonably satisfying. How good it would have been if I could simply take it to the Empress like this. But I had promised Sienna one thing more: to hook the Third Princess Anais and drag her image down to Sienna's level — no, beneath it. Sienna's infamy stood so high that it would not be difficult.

I cast the bait at once.