The First Time
Antrim — a city on the fringe of the Great Forest.
This was still a fantasy world, so a teleportation circle had shortened the journey, but the distance from the Imperial Capital made itself felt easily enough: humid, stifling air, people dressed noticeably lighter, and the World Tree, so immense that its shape could be made out even from far away.
“Um, President Allan? The long-ears say they won’t permit entry. Their representatives will come here themselves instead.”
That was the report from the mayor of Antrim, who had come out to receive me.
The elves had no wish to admit the delegation under my lead into the domain of the World Tree, and so they intended to come in person all the way to this city of the short-lived races.
The question is what sort of elf they send as their representative.
I had already drawn up scenarios for a range of possibilities. A belligerent elf screaming about killing humans, come to receive us. An elf with neither office nor bloodline worth the name, shoved forward to meet us. Even — unlikely as it was — an encounter with a progressive elf who truly wanted to speak with humankind.
The plan to spread heroin itself would not change, but the particulars would, according to the negotiating partner’s disposition. We had been snarling at each other only days ago. No one was going to take it just because we smiled and offered.
“Understood, Mayor. When are they expected?”
“Well…”
“They didn’t give you a specific time.”
“Ha ha, no. Even getting them to accept the delegation at all was practically begging. They promised to send an elf of standing — someone of elder rank — but as for who, I couldn’t say.”
“……”
“I’m ashamed to admit it. Negotiating with a people we were fighting only days ago was no simple matter. I hope you’ll understand, President Allan.”
Their hostility, at least, seemed certain.
A hard-liner might come.
Perhaps even a mad elf sent deliberately to wreck the talks. I was planning something insane myself; I had to allow that the other side might be insane as well.
“Very well, Mayor. See to it that my attendants have somewhere to rest.”
“Yes.”
Bono, the coffin of heroin in his arms, and the rest of my retinue headed for the lodgings.
I ought to rest a little myself. I turned to follow, and the mayor of Antrim shot me a sidelong glance.
“Um, President Allan…?”
“Speak.”
“It’s just…”
The stammering was suspicious.
Did he know I was the Second Princess’s closest aide, and hope to curry a little favor? A man who had climbed as high as mayor — nothing strange in that. The mayor of the Empire’s southernmost city would not have many chances to attach himself to a princess.
His business, however, was nothing of the sort.
“Could you spare me a little morphine…?”
“……”
“My toothache is dreadful, you see. Every meal is pure agony. The commander of the Ninth Infantry Brigade that was stationed here is an academy classmate of mine, and I asked him for just a little morphine, but he refused. I mean, it isn’t as if only soldiers feel pain…!”
Morphine.
Hardly a request to make of a man here on a diplomatic mission.
Still, he looked ready to burst into tears, and the desperation seemed genuine enough. A ruined tooth dragged the quality of a life straight down; I could see why he would beg.
Victoria’s keeping a proper hold on the morphine, then.
A high official, a mayor no less, reduced to sniveling because he could not get his hands on a few pills.
Even so, I was not handing over morphine for a toothache.
“No. You’ve heard it’s a medicine that takes away pain and come looking for morphine, but find another way. Start depending on morphine over a mere toothache, and in about three months you won’t be in the mayor’s office. You’ll be in a hospital.”
“……?”
“Failing that, you may be bankrupt and sitting in the street. If you ask me, you’d be better off having the tooth pulled.”
“That’s too… no. Never mind.”
Perhaps because I was so firm, the mayor started to protest and then shut his mouth.
From his face, he did not seem particularly wounded — only convinced that I was exaggerating the danger because I did not want to give him any.
I did not mind. Better that a bureaucrat charged, by the Emperor’s command, with administering an entire city misunderstand me and let it pass, than that he start crying morphine, morphine and lose himself in the boundless pleasure locked inside a human being.
“And, Mayor. Did Her Highness the First Princess not forbid morphine from being taken out in the first place? I am close not only to Her Highness the Second Princess, but to the First as well.”
Only when I invoked the princesses did fear settle over the mayor’s face.
“President Allan. Please pretend you never heard it.”
“I’ll consider it.”
That ought to be enough to make him give it up.
Of course I intended to loose upon the elves a heroin at least five times as toxic as morphine, but I did not say so.
Nor did I feel any particular discomfort at warning one man off while pressing it upon another. If I were the sort to agonize over that, I would never have come this far.
There’s no turning back now.
Arriving at the lodgings, I murmured it while looking at the coffin that held the heroin — and at the other preparations I had brought along, for the sake of easier distribution.
Having brought them, I meant to use every last one before I left.
The first exchange with the elves came two days later.
“Consul Allan? The elves have arrived.”
“Who? Elder rank?”
“We demanded they identify themselves, and all they said was to guide them to where the imperial envoys were. They’re waiting now in a negotiating hall we set aside. They were so high-handed we couldn’t make them follow procedure.”
“……”
They had come, so I had to meet them. I took a few attendants and headed for the hall.
The moment I stepped inside, elven eyes fixed on me.
They’ve assembled a proper show, at least.
Eleven elves, some seated and some standing, looked at me.
There were seats enough, but only one of them was sitting.
“Human.”
A green-haired elven woman swept me up and down and spat the word short.
She would be the representative; the rest, attendants. Bringing as many as ten elves as subordinates — elder rank, perhaps? If I asked what sort of elf she was, she would answer, but I did not bother.
Ignore her, for now.
I sat still, and the air in the hall grew steadily more uncomfortable.
If they did not mean simply to glare and leave, they would have to say something. From then on I meant to read their disposition and answer in real time.
The silence held for a while, but not for long.
“Human! A person of honor is calling you.”
An elf who looked as if he had come along to carry the bags growled it, but I ignored him for the moment, waiting for the green-haired leader to open her mouth.
They would not want to sit through hours of a staring contest either. Less so if they hated humans.
At last the green-haired elf lifted one corner of her mouth and made herself known.
“I am Marcella of the Udriana clan. I possess that representativeness you lot are so obsessed with, so you may rest easy.”
A brief introduction.
Even that was enough to take in a great deal.
Marcella.
She was an elf who appeared in the original.
A young great warrior of Udriana, one of the five clans that claimed the title of high elf and led their people. Not an elder, but the real power within her own clan — young in years, yet the finest fighter in the Great Forest, and that was why.
The realm of a master. Magical skill besides.
On the strength of that overwhelming might, Marcella was the elf the belligerent faction looked to. She was the one who had directed the guerrilla war from behind the lines, provoking the imperial army on purpose in an attempt to force the conflict wider.
In the original, she obstructed reconciliation to the very end, and got taken down by Leon and the Saintess.
I had come seeking an exchange, and the most extreme figure among them had come to meet me.
Still better than some ambiguously moderate elf turning up. I would not have to drag things out in a probing match, and that was a relief.
“I am Allan Madoff, consul of the Britannia Empire.”
“Friendship, is it. A fine pretext. I don’t know what you’re scheming, but whatever you try, it won’t work. I don’t trust y—”
“You don’t need to trust me. I never expected you to.”
“What?”
Marcella glared at me. She had the fine looks one expected of an elf, for what that was worth, but the face was soaked through with distrust and hostility. Which was why, no doubt, she had wrecked the ankles of so many imperial soldiers with traps smeared in poisonous herbs and animal dung.
I meant to use her distrust of humans.
“You’re wondering why the Empire suddenly withdrew its troops. I don’t know whether a people who live in the forest can understand it, but this is a matter of the Empire’s internal affairs.”
“A factional squabble, I suppose. Creatures who don’t live a hundred years, fighting over a handful of power…”
“Marcella, was it? Save the mockery of humans for when you’re back in the forest among your own. I didn’t sit down here because I wanted to, either.”
“……”
“I’ll stay a few days, return to the Capital, and report that after a sincere dialogue with the elves I laid a bridgehead for friendship. You, for your part, can tell the elders you drove the humans off. It’s a formality anyway. All of it.”
Marcella stared at me blankly, but I let it pass. My acting was not so thin that a people who lived by isolation would see through it.
A long while passed before she spoke.
“…What do you want.”
“If possible, I’d like some token of friendship. It makes reporting to my superiors easier. If you’d rather not, just put your name to a peace accord.”
“……”
“There are a lot of eyes on us, so we’ll have to pretend to talk for a few hours, won’t we? If sitting in silence bores you, I can offer tea. Liquor, if you prefer.”
At that, Marcella looked at me as if I were pathetic.
An elf would have a hard time understanding a human negotiation staged for show.
Even so, the wariness seemed to have cracked. She exchanged a look with her subordinates, shook her head, and turned back to me.
“…Tea, then. Human liquor is too harsh to drink.”
“Should I serve the elves who came with you as well? If you’re afraid I’ll poison the tea, I’m willing to attach a taster.”
“Must you keep on with that… no. Fine. Serve tea to my attendants too. And since you’ll do as you please, step outside for a moment.”
“Gladly. I was uncomfortable anyway.”
I left the seat as if I had been waiting for the chance.
Then, with Bono, I prepared by my own hand a special tea for the elves alone.
Eleven cups of lemon tea, each containing ten milligrams of heroin.
In truth, heroin was strongly fat-soluble, so sniffing it for absorption through the mucous membranes, or smoking it in a pipe, was more efficient than drinking it. But there was no sense fretting over efficiency from the very start. Showing them the taste of it came first.
Naturally, I meant to provide the first time free of charge.
I was, after all, an envoy dispatched for the friendship of both sides.