Northern Grand Count (Not a Grand Duke) - 5
Lately, the days I spent at the mansion in the Imperial Capital had come to outnumber the days I returned to my territory. With even the time spent traveling between the territory and the Diet feeling too precious to waste, it was an unavoidable choice.
Yes—truly a natural and inevitable choice. With every bureaucrat in the realm preparing for the enthronement anniversary banquet, I could hardly neglect those preparations as an Imperial Count. An Imperial Count was duty-bound to move for the imperial house more than any other subject.
Moreover, my withdrawal from the rank of Imperial Count had already been decided, and once Erich graduated I would step away completely from my seat in the Diet as well. In other words, this banquet would be the last enthronement anniversary I prepared while still serving as a government official. That made its significance all the greater.
Retirement in my forties, huh.
I set my pen down for a moment and gazed out the window. When I first became a member of the Imperial Diet, I had assumed I would remain one until the day I died. Somehow I had instead been handed the gift of retiring in my forties.
It would of course be a lie to say the earlier-than-usual retirement did not disconcert me, yet my retirement was the will of the Retired Emperor, for the sake of the imperial house and the Empire. I had followed it willingly.
Having father and son hold high office side by side would be awkward.
And so I had stepped down for my son's path as well.
Karl was proving his ability and rising with remarkable speed. Though he had demonstrated it through the dangerous method of campaigning with the army, the results, at least, had been favorable.
Yet if I, Karl's father, remained a sitting Imperial Count and assemblyman? Voices might rise in concern over father and son occupying high posts together; envious parties might appear as well. Therefore the right course was for me, the father, to withdraw and open the road ahead for Karl.
...Though I never expected the road to open quite this wide.
The corner of my mouth lifted. Recalling the conversation I had just had with Karl, I could not suppress a smile.
"I've only now managed to contact you—I've been busy cultivating goodwill with our new neighbors."
The communication orb had suddenly flared with light. When I lifted it, Karl's face appeared.
After offering the usual courtesies with a face rather worn by fatigue, Karl continued as though unburdening himself.
"They are newly made nobles, after all, so the capital environment must feel unfamiliar. As their neighbor, I decided to guide them myself."
He had packaged it with ordinary words like "neighbor" and "guide," yet both of us knew it truly meant a faction.
It was astonishing. I had willingly followed the Retired Emperor's will in order to open my son's path, yet I had never expected him to race ahead like this in less than a year. Or perhaps I had been the one holding him back from this all along.
Karl himself seemed thoroughly annoyed by the sudden formation of a faction—but as a father, I could not have been more pleased.
"Once they were enemies, yet now they may become neighbors closer than any other. They approached you after recognizing your character, so treat them with good faith and friendship."
"...Yes, Father. I will keep it in mind."
And so I had given Karl the answer he had not wanted. I felt sorry for a son who had contacted his father only after stress had piled and piled, yet if a matter could not be avoided, it was right to think of it as positively as possible.
If he treated them with good faith and friendship, they would become Karl's strongest friends and shields—or perhaps his swords.
Even Karl, wearing a bitter expression for now, would one day acknowledge their usefulness and gladly make use of them.
One day, is it.
The thought suddenly struck me. If Karl truly set his mind to wielding the faction now in his hands, the title of Count of Wiridia might well become that of a marquis.
A marquis from House Crassius.
I almost laughed. That a marquis would emerge from the Imperial Count house of Crassius—had I heard such a claim only a few years ago, I would have dismissed it as nonsense.
I should tell my wife as well.
I reached for the communication orb set to one side of the desk. Karl had only just managed to contact even me; I doubted he had spoken to his mother. By now he would be busy cementing amity with the northern grand lords.
So I would deliver this glad news to my wife. As the mistress of a noble house, she understood the power of a faction perfectly well.
She would surely be delighted. What she worried over was Karl being wounded in war—not his acquisition of connections.
Time flowed on, and at last the day of the Emperor's enthronement anniversary banquet arrived.
Damn it all.
My head spun. I now had to lead thirteen grand lords into the banquet hall with imposing dignity. Before the nobles gathered from every corner of the Empire, I would have to declare with my entire body, These are my subordinates. Impressive, aren't they?
—Our children are impressive, though.
Please be quiet.
On top of everything, a certain goddess boasting about her nomad "children" made my head throb all the harder.
No—I was not even a priest, and I had no faith to speak of, so what "our children"? Wasn't her mercy overflowing a bit too much?
—I just decided to think of you as my priest. It makes me feel better that way.
What kind of—
"Your Excellency."
I had been about to rebut the Eternal Blue Sky, whose optimism had burned so brightly it had short-circuited, when the voice of the Imperial Knight Commander snapped my gaze around.
"The inspection is complete. You may enter."
"Understood."
I nodded to the Commander, who opened the way with a faint smile.
Had I come alone, I would have passed with a nearly free-pass, abbreviated check. But with a party of thirteen, the inspection had taken a little time—though even that had been fast for the numbers involved.
"Ah, but Your Excellency."
Just as I exchanged a light bow with the Commander and prepared to step inside, he spoke again.
"Whose name shall we place at the top of the list?"
Ah.
Only then did I realize. Yes—that problem had certainly existed.
I glanced at the visitor register held by an imperial knight. The names of nobles and officials who completed inspection and entered were recorded on the list managed by the Imperial Knight Order. When a group rather than an individual entered, custom dictated that the name of the highest-ranking member—or the faction leader—be written first.
The custom split into two possibilities, but there was usually no need to worry. The faction leader's rank was typically the highest within the faction.
Ours is not, unfortunately.
Regrettably, the northern faction had its highest-ranking member and its faction leader as two separate people. The existence of such a rootless faction was enough to make my chest feel tight.
"Please write Marquis Barandiga's name at the top. He is our only marquis, so that is only proper."
After a brief deliberation, I chose the former. Everyone already knew I was the faction leader; it was only right to look after Marquis Barandiga's authority on occasions like this—
"No. Write the Count of Wiridia."
"Understood."
At the marquis's words, the list was quickly filled out.
Seeing a count written above a marquis, I nearly shed tears.
The faction gathered around His Grace the Golden Duke shared one common trait.
"Now that we can freely move goods bound for the north by sea, I cannot tell you how convenient it is."
"Indeed. Hauling everything by land all this time was no small hardship."
Whenever even two faction members gathered, conversation frequently turned to money. With everyone running trading houses, it was inevitable.
Not that I disliked it. Only those who enjoyed discussing money and markets could advance together with His Grace the Golden Duke.
"Come to think of it, have you all heard? Something rather unusual has occurred in the north."
"The north? Ah, that business."
They spoke of how the north's stabilization had made the sole imperial direct territory bordering the sea safe; how maritime traffic northward had flourished as a result; how those who had once gouged docking fees were now left sucking their thumbs—and as they talked, the faction members' gazes subtly drifted toward me.
I simply smiled at those looks. The northern upheaval they spoke of concerned my prospective son-in-law, after all.
Without going through my son-in-law, trading with the north will be difficult.
Ordinarily the nomads had traded with territories located in the north. Lately, however, they had begun flocking to Wiridia, my son-in-law's domain, and other markets were losing vitality one by one.
Fortunately, it was not yet a matter that demanded serious attention. Trading with the nomads had always been the north's affair; we dealt by sea with the Empire's south and west, or with nations to the Empire's east. Even if the nomads monopolized trade with Wiridia, the immediate impact was negligible.
In the long term, however, it would prove fatal. That vast north would now be developed, and the nomads would draw in the Empire's goods. A gigantic market no one had yet pioneered was about to open.
And to approach that market required the permission—or at least the tacit consent—of my prospective son-in-law, who had forged friendly ties with the nomads.
"It seems the Minister built quite a rapport with the northern grand lords during his campaign."
The gazes fixed on me began to scatter at His Grace the Golden Duke's remark.
"I heard the Minister personally persuaded the northern grand lords into surrender. Naturally they would feel indebted to him."
"Is that so. Well, the place is so remote that news is hard to come by."
With that, the topic of northern upheaval quietly subsided.
His Grace's words just now had meant recognition of the Count of Wiridia's northern sphere of influence. It was no longer something for us to discuss.
"My, speaking of him and here he comes."
Having thus declared his position to the faction, His Grace the Golden Duke turned his gaze toward the entrance and let out a short laugh.
I followed his line of sight—and flinched.
...It was not mere friendship after all.
More than ten men and women poured in as a group. At their head walked my prospective son-in-law.
Yes—at their head. Even Marquis Barandiga, whom I had glimpsed only briefly at the abdication ceremony, walked behind my son-in-law. No matter how newly made the nobles, a marquis had yielded the lead to a count.
Before I knew it, not only my eyes but every noble's gaze had locked onto my son-in-law. An individual who already held formidable authority now possessed the collective power of a faction as well.
And it was no ordinary faction. The Imperial Army, which had yet to fully restore its cavalry strength, would hunger for the nomad forces my son-in-law controlled; merchants would covet the vast undeveloped lands and the market population. He held in both hands swords that could each, alone, throw the political world into turmoil.
He'll be a marquis before long.
Watching my son-in-law stride forward as though on display, I thought as much. Prestige with the entire north at his back, and the authority of Minister of the Inspectorate Ministry.
This was a level that could leapfrog ordinary marquis houses and ascend to the rank itself. If a man like that was not a marquis, the minimum qualifications for the title would become absurdly high.
My son-in-law a marquis.
It was hardly new, but Irina was most certainly my daughter.
Otherwise there was no explaining the skill with which she had reeled him in before he hit his peak.