New Year's Audience – 3
I couldn't lift my head under Irina's startled gaze. She had pulled me out of the darkness once, and I had repaid that kindness with betrayal.
"Oh-ho. So this is the Audit Department Chief's sweetheart."
"What a lovely girl. I fretted that he was still unmatched past twenty—turns out I fretted for nothing."
The voices behind me made the world spin.
I had escaped the hell of old hands—only for the demons to climb out with me. Could you even call that an escape? Maybe I had a passive skill for turning every place I stood into hell.
It was pathetic. All I'd said was that an acquaintance of mine was coming over to say hello. The next thing I knew, the Minister and every department chief were trailing after me in a line. Reading Well, we had nothing better to do on their faces was not my imagination.
"So, young lady. How old are you this year?"
At the Review Department Chief's words—each syllable heavy with years no one could hide—Count Flanbel looked thoroughly at a loss.
The Review Department Chief was the oldest executive in the Ministry of Finance, a living legend who had retired and then miraculously returned. For Count Flanbel, a major figure in the commercial world, the man was bound to be intimidating. Not that anyone in the Empire took lightly the official who gave final approval to the imperial budget.
In any case, Irina answered the Ministry's supreme old hand in a trembling voice.
"I-I'm eighteen now..."
"My, my, so young. This thief has plundered a precious young lady."
"If the Audit Department Chief is a thief, who audits the auditors?"
The Statistics Chief slipped in a supporting shot to the Review Department Chief's joke.
These people—faces overflowing with genuine laughter, nothing like the smiling curses they'd been lobbing earlier. Apparently the joy of gossiping about someone else's romance never died, no matter how old you got.
"Come on. We're only four years apart. What kind of thief is that?"
I offered a modest rebellion against the two chiefs' brilliant combo. For the sake of my honor alone, I couldn't let that stand. A gap of ten years or more I might have conceded, but calling me a thief over a mere four was going too far.
"A man in his twenties who carries off a teenager is a thief. Full stop."
The Minister, who had been watching in silence, delivered the line that reduced my modest rebellion to something truly modest.
Damn them all.
After a few rounds of teasing, the executives drifted off as if nothing had happened. Fortunately they were playful rather than oblivious—though anyone who was truly oblivious would never have climbed as high as they had.
"My apologies, Your Excellency. I've caused an unnecessary disturbance."
Once I was sure the executives had moved off, I apologized to Count Flanbel at once. Because of those walking liabilities, I had ended up looking as if I were pressuring a count. A pack of Ministry of Finance executives leaning on a noble—especially one active in commerce—was a catastrophe waiting to happen.
I wanted to scream. I needed to show only my best side, and already the start was a mess. No—thanks to Section Chief Three's spectacular performance, the mess had started long before this.
"It's quite all right. Seeing that unexpected side of them was almost amusing."
Still, the Count answered with a smile. Whether he truly meant it, or was only pretending because airing a complaint here would gain him nothing, I couldn't tell.
"Please speak comfortably. What kind of son-in-law listens to his father-in-law address him with formality?"
At that, I decided to be direct. The Count's careful courtesy meant there was still a wall between us.
Section Chief Three's spectacularly large ball of trouble was the reason that wall existed, and there was no helping that—but it was a wall that could not be allowed to last a lifetime. Irina would be miserable if her husband and father remained stiff with each other. People said a son-in-law was a guest for a hundred years, but this wasn't guest status—it was unwelcome guest status.
At my words, a glint of interest lit the Count's eyes, as if he hadn't expected me to bow this clearly, this openly, in a public place.
"You're right. Age has made new things hard to get used to, but by the wedding I shall try to speak freely."
"I'm grateful to hear it."
I had never heard of a merchant being slow to adapt, but I could hardly press a count who had just promised to change at his own pace.
And he had drawn a clear Maginot line at the wedding. At the very least he wasn't opposing my relationship with Irina, and for that alone I was thankful.
"I should apologize to your wife as well. They have a mischievous streak—people often jump the first time they speak with them."
I bowed to the lady standing beside the Count. The Count at least had professional reasons to encounter department chiefs; Irina could lean on me. His wife had neither.
How often did the mistress of a house meet high officials? And for those same high officials to take an interest in her beloved daughter must have been terribly burdensome. Of everyone present, she might well have been the greatest victim.
Unlike the Count, who at least maintained an outward calm, her pupils still quivered faintly, as if she had not yet recovered from the shock.
"Please don't mind it. As the Audit Department Chief said, they are merely a little mischievous."
At least she said she was fine. Truly, thank heaven...
Those damn people.
I pictured the lot of them back in their corner, trading empty conversation.
Couldn't they move with some awareness of the power they held? Plenty of people would flip their tables if a Ministry of Finance department chief so much as said hello.
When the Audit Department Chief arrived with the other Ministry executives, it had felt like being sucked into a typhoon. Fortunately they had approached not as officials but as his acquaintances, so nothing went wrong.
In any case, the executives who came as ordinary acquaintances showed Irina the kind of interest an old man shows a neighborhood child when he hands out sweets. With me they exchanged little more than a brief greeting.
I should be content that they saw our faces.
In that case, it wasn't bad. If there had been no real damage, today's meeting was a perfectly decent one. Maximizing contact with high officials of the Ministry of Finance was always wise, and we had met every executive at once. Weighing fortune against misfortune, this was fortune.
The Audit Department Chief had also apologized several times for the abrupt encounter, so there was nothing left to hold against him. If anything, I ought to thank him for arranging the introductions.
Yes—something to be grateful for, and yet...
Truly half.
As the Audit Department Chief spoke with my wife, my eyes—more precisely—went to his hand.
I had already known through Irina, of course, but to see him actually wearing a half-ring... Looking at an object that shattered every established common sense, I almost laughed out loud.
...It seems rather good, though.
At the same time, a merchant's instincts howled. The ring worn by the Audit Department Chief and his fiancées. A design no one had ever seen, no one had ever imagined. Even the meaning it carried was fine. Two halves becoming one was genuinely romantic, wasn't it?
This would sell. It would absolutely sell. Even if only the Audit Department Chief had worn it, a trend might have started—and the Iron Blood Duke's daughter and the Magic Lord herself were said to wear the same ring. On top of that, it was the New Year's Audience season, when every titled noble gathered. If this failed to become fashionable, that would be the strange part.
Fortunately, the family already had contracts with a number of jewelers. Once today's schedule ended, I would have to get in touch.
Leaving Count Flanbel's lingering gaze behind, I stepped away. His eyes had been glued to the ring for some time—no doubt it sat poorly with him that his precious daughter was one of six wives.
I was the sinner here. I was the sinner...
"A father always wants his daughter to monopolize the love, if he can help it."
"I know. Please shut up."
Unfortunately the Minister seemed to understand my feelings perfectly, and needled me as naturally as breathing.
Who didn't know that? Even in a society where polygamy was ordinary, the heart was another matter entirely. Wanting a better place for your child was an instinct no law or custom could stop.
"Still, it went smoother than expected, didn't it? If it had been me, I'd never have allowed it—not even if they put dirt in my eyes first."
Shit.
Ignoring my plea for silence, the Minister began thrashing me with facts I couldn't refute.
Honestly, if I had been Count Flanbel I would have done the same. However much it had been an accident, however many apologies had followed—the culprit who had nearly ruined a house, and who then had the gall to steal its precious daughter. That was the kind of position that would make a man sit bolt upright in the middle of the night.
I only hoped my future daughter never met a man like me...
"Minister, don't press so hard. Count Flanbel seems to have shaken off any ill will already. Do outsiders like us need to involve ourselves?"
"You're right. I was shortsighted."
The Minister's merciless facts had pushed me into a thought experiment where I had nothing left to say. The one who stepped in to mediate was the Review Department Chief.
At the old man's mild laugh, the Minister quickly dusted his hands and backed off. Fair enough. Anyone else might have been different, but the Minister could not treat the Review Department Chief lightly. It was the Minister himself who had gone to the man enjoying his happy retirement and begged him, three visits over, to please come back and work for the Ministry of Finance again.
...The more I thought about it, the more horrifying it was. To retire only to be dragged back in. Wasn't that the worst possible life for a civil servant?
No wonder he's a man who just wants to enjoy himself.
I found myself looking at the Review Department Chief with pity I couldn't help. Earlier, when we went to see Irina, he was the one who had egged the other executives on and dragged them along.
I had resented him a little then, but once I saw that agitation as a desperate scramble to find some joy in life, I almost wanted to cry.
I am not spending my later years like that.
When I retired, maybe I should cross the border so thoroughly that reemployment became impossible.
The once-quiet interior of the Imperial Palace was growing busier. Separate from that bustle, the space around us remained still.
Business cards really were useful. In reality we were just old men muttering about how they only wanted to retire, but everyone else assumed we were discussing important policy and kept their distance. Never mind that not one of us wanted to talk about work off the clock.
"Hey."
"Yes?"
While I was half-listening to the other chiefs complain about wanting to pass on their titles only for their sons to refuse them, the Minister tapped my shoulder.
"Congratulations. You won't need to go looking."
At the sudden remark I frowned on pure instinct. What was he talking about?
In answer, the Minister pointed somewhere, as if telling me to look for myself—
Ah.
The moment I followed his finger, my body locked solid.
I saw a blond man walking stiffly beside the Iron Blood Duke, and a few steps behind them a pink-haired woman holding Luise's hand.
...What?
I was confused. Circumstantially that was clearly House Naiard—so why were they entering with House Valenti?
Had the daughters grown so close they decided to come together? No—House Yorun had arrived separately. Had they simply run into each other at the entrance by chance?
"Now we only need Marquis Iones to show up."
At the Minister's quiet parting shot, I could only manage a hollow laugh.