There Was a Brief Commotion - 4
My summer work hours are much like the sun’s. The days stretch so long that darkness never quite arrives, making it nearly impossible to judge the passage of time—and that is how this disaster is born. It feels unfair, somehow. It is not as if I work shorter hours in winter simply because the days are brief, so why do I voluntarily put in longer ones in summer? Have four years of this life given me a slave’s mentality?
Of course, in my heart of hearts I would love nothing more than cool, ice-like punctual arrivals and departures. But if I indulge that wish, the work piles up until I die a slow death in the final week of every quarter. When you think about it, the only real difference is whether you die now or die later.
And so, once again, it was already late evening before I could return to the mansion.
“Young Master Karl, welcome home.”
Margeta had come all the way to the front gate to greet me.
“Mar? What are you doing out here at this hour instead of in your room?”
It was late evening in name only; the hour was practically night. Dinner should long since have been finished, the light conversation afterward concluded, and everyone retired to their own chambers.
For a moment I feared that the very problem I had been dreading had finally erupted today. Yes—even I had to admit I had gone too far. For the master of the house to neglect invited guests for days on end was an enormous insult.
At least my absence had been the result of work rather than deliberate slight, and Margeta was generous by nature, so she had endured until now. Under ordinary circumstances she would have been justified in taking offense after only two days and walking out of the mansion, leaving me with nothing to say in my defense.
“I will never forget this! I shall lodge a formal protest in the name of the Varenti Ducal House!”
The image of Margeta’s face flushed crimson, eyes shining with unshed tears as she cried out those words, made my chest ache. To drive someone who had remained perfectly composed even after a marriage proposal was rejected into a genuine rage would have been an achievement of sorts—but not one I particularly wanted.
I should apologize first. The fact that she had not simply left without a word meant there was still room to salvage the situation—
“You must have had a hard day. Drink this. They say honey water is good for fatigue.”
“Ah—thank you.”
Before I could even open my mouth, Margeta thrust a cup toward me.
“The weather is so hot, and you work so hard. You’re not overdoing it, are you?”
Her soft, gentle voice, full of quiet concern, left me feeling strangely unsettled. It had been the same when Luise worried over me before—no matter how exhausted I truly was, being fretted over by someone younger than myself was simply embarrassing.
I nodded to show I was fine, and only then did Margeta smile.
“I know perfectly well how hard Young Master Karl works. So during the vacation, at least, you needn’t concern yourself with the club.”
Advisors have every right to enjoy their holidays as well, she added. I let the corner of my mouth lift slightly. I was grateful for the thought, but the reality was more difficult. Did she think I was doing this during the break because I enjoyed it? There was simply no one else who could keep those idiots in line, so I had no choice.
The moment I shouted “Advisors are free!” and fled, the cluster of bombs currently gathered in one place would scatter in every direction. And the Crown Prince would fly into a rage and demote my status from freeman straight down to slave.
…Or would he? I might have been a slave to begin with.
“I’ve managed to do as much as Young Master Karl trusted me to do, so I hope Young Master Karl will rest as much as I have trusted him.”
“What?”
What was this about? As much as I had trusted her?
I was already feeling guilty enough for leaving Margeta neglected at the mansion. If, in that situation, I had actually expected something from her, I would have been nothing short of a madman.
Unable to make sense of her words, I simply stood there. Perhaps interpreting my silence differently, Margeta lifted her chin with an expression of quiet pride. Given how much smaller she was than me, it only made her look as though she were gazing upward.
“Today Their Highnesses the princes suggested that it might be pleasant to leave the Imperial Capital for a time and visit the outer regions.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
The gentle voice and the far-from-gentle content snapped me fully awake. Leave for where? Outside the Capital? These bastards already made me nervous enough simply by sitting still inside the city—what the hell were they babbling about?
Building a pretext, are they.
Their purpose was obvious. They could not possibly have a genuine interest in other regions. They were almost certainly planning to head for Luise’s territory and start winning over the people around her. But marching straight to her lands would be far too blatant, so they meant to build justification by visiting other places first.
You absolute bastards. You need to win over the woman herself far more urgently than the people around her.
“Of course, Their Highnesses seemed more interested in the Capital after all, and withdrew the suggestion.”
I had been trembling with rage, yet Margeta’s next words allowed me to calm down. Thank the heavens. I had nearly found myself handling Audit Department work and out-of-town business trips at the same time.
Only after the anger subsided did my thoughts settle into order. Waiting for me until so late an hour, deliberately informing me of a matter already resolved, that faintly proud expression, the talk of my having trusted her…
She stopped them.
Margeta had put a halt to the rampage of those status-bullying little shits. There was no other explanation for any of this.
In truth, when I first invited Margeta to the mansion I had harbored a faint hope that she might rein in the royals. But it had been only a vague, half-formed expectation. I had never seriously intended to dump the enormous mess that was the club onto a guest.
Apparently a small misunderstanding had arisen between us.
Thank goodness.
That misunderstanding had saved me.
“Understood. I should repay Mar’s trust in kind.”
At those words Margeta smiled radiantly, yet turned her gaze aside as though suddenly shy. What was this? Was there something else?
“Young Lady Luise’s role was significant as well.”
Ah. Nothing out of the ordinary, then.
“That does not mean Mar’s actions were meaningless.”
I myself clung to Luise whenever I needed to stop the royals, so of course it was true. If anything, Margeta deserved praise for quickly recognizing that Luise was the dedicated brake for the royal idiots and putting that knowledge to use.
Yes. Exactly so.
When the house is peaceful, a man can wander about outside with a light heart. With Luise, who possessed the ability to restrain those hopeless club members, and Margeta, who possessed the will to do so, joining forces, nothing could have been more reassuring.
Once my peace of mind returned, the work practically flew from my hands. People really do change according to their state of mind.
—The signs are not good.
No matter how tranquil things may be within, there is nothing to be done when trouble arrives from outside.
While I was scribbling signatures across a stack of documents, a communication arrived from the 2nd Section Chief, whom I had dispatched north at the request of Margrave Sorden. And it came accompanied by news that was far from welcome.
“What’s the situation?”
—First of all, the Margrave’s concerns were correct. There are definitely numerous holes in the movement of supplies.
The faint hope that the Margrave might simply have miscounted crumbled to nothing. Of course. If the matter had risen all the way to a report in the Capital, the Margrave must already have verified it several times himself. That hope had been far too shameless.
—It’s clearly being stockpiled somewhere.
As he spoke, the 2nd Section Chief roughly raked his hair back in frustration. It was true that a portion of the materials sent north had gone missing. It was true that someone was deliberately concealing them.
The problem was that we had ascertained only that much. And even that was less a new discovery than a reconfirmation of the Margrave’s existing suspicions. But what could be done? The 2nd Section Chief had only been dispatched a short while ago.
“It’s fortunate we learned of it even now. Don’t rush things.”
—Yes, understood.
The 2nd Section Chief, expression twisted, forced a respectful nod. It was a peculiar mixture of irritation at having to roam the harsh northern wilds and anxiety that the whole affair might explode into a major incident.
“Do you need more men?”
—We’re fine. Even just the few of us moving about is already drawing too many eyes.
Given the gravity of the matter I had intended to reinforce him with additional personnel, yet the man actually on the ground refused. Damn it. The North was still a den of vipers.
Originally there had been a non-negligible number of pro-Empire tribes in the North. Then that bastard Kagan had beaten every last one of them into submission or converted them outright, leaving the North an absolute shambles in the immediate aftermath of the Great Subjugation War.
The Empire itself had suffered too heavily to intervene or dominate the region actively, and the internal struggle over imperial succession only compounded the difficulty. Indirect rule was equally impossible; the pro-Empire tribes had long since been sent to heaven by Kagan’s spicy punches (which hurt like hell).
As a result, an Empire that had just staggered through the Great Subjugation War and the succession crisis one after another was forced to squeeze its already meager resources and begin sending friendship subsidies north from absolute zero. Compared with the strong influence it had once wielded, the present state of affairs was pitiful.
—In the old days an Imperial wandering about would have been no cause for remark, but these days we stand out far too much.
“This is driving me insane.”
The living proof of that pitiful influence was the 2nd Section Chief speaking through the communication orb. Before the war, exchanges had been so lively and the Empire’s presence so pervasive that Imperials roaming the North caused no particular stir.
Now that everything had been wiped clean and was being rebuilt from the ground up, every single Imperial’s movements drew the eye. From the nomads’ perspective they regarded us with looks that said, “Excuse me, just leave the money and get out—what business do you have in our home?”
Fucking hell. Would setting the entire northern steppes ablaze finally make this nonsense disappear?
“If anything strange happens, report it at once. Good work.”
One thing was certain: there was nothing I could do to help. Other than waiting for whatever information the 2nd Section Chief and the Margrave managed to drag back after running themselves ragged, a civil servant sitting in the Imperial Capital had no role to play.
—Chief, by any chance, alco—
I cut the connection while the 2nd Section Chief was still mid-sentence. Judging by the last syllable, it had not been anything important. If it had been, he would contact me again.
Alcohol, obviously.
What else would a man who went around half-water and half-spirits be asking for? Our bastard. Still, he was working hard, so I would send some.
It seemed a great many eyes were watching me from various directions. Otherwise something like this would never have arrived the very moment I finished clearing my backlog of work.
“Who sent it?”
I looked down at the letter the butler respectfully presented and asked again. A single letter that had instantly shattered my happy resolve to remain housebound for the foreseeable future, since I had no need to report to the office for a while.
“It is from the Countess, sir.”
A letter had come from the woman who was the mother of this body.
Not the family head, but Mother?
I truly had no idea what this could be about.