The Nearby Wife's Territory - 2
Immediately after learning that the Cervez Grand Duchy was this year's school trip destination, I issued a new order to the steward still grinding away in Wiridia County. Prepare one hundred top-grade furs and wrap them prettily.
I felt a little guilty about pestering an already busy steward over personal business, but the man was a seasoned bureaucrat tempered by decades of provincial administration. He secured a hundred furs in less than twenty-four hours, a feat that left even me, the one who had given the order, genuinely impressed. Was he a steward or a quartermaster?
"Had it been winter it would have taken somewhat longer, but demand for furs is falling as the weather warms. Thanks to that, I was able to prepare pieces of a quality Your Excellency will find satisfactory."
"You've worked hard. If any of them catch your eye, take a few for yourself."
"My thanks, Your Excellency. I shall treasure them as family heirlooms."
Heirlooms? That seemed a bit much.
I offered an awkward smile as the steward bowed with formal precision. Watching the steward of a county bow that deeply over something like this was almost embarrassing. Had his loyalty not yet settled because I had held the title for less than a year?
Of course, high loyalty among subordinates was a good thing, so I made no effort to correct it. Time would loosen the tension on its own.
Just like the section chiefs.
I thought of the section chiefs who had started out rigidly disciplined and somehow turned into a pack of lunatics. Those bastards had relaxed far too quickly.
"I still have a great deal more to give you in the future. Settling on a family heirloom this early seems premature."
"You honor me beyond my station."
I pushed the faintly bitter feeling aside and offered the joke; the steward's waist only bent lower. The sight reminded me of Duke Kilanas standing before Trixie.
The furs, once delivered to the mansion in the Imperial Capital, had to pass Trixie's careful inspection.
"They're soft. The luster is excellent as well."
That said, she had mostly just looked hard; she had not spotted any professional flaws. Her specialty was magic, after all, not furs.
Still, Trixie seemed to hold genuine goodwill toward the steward who managed the grand duchy in her stead. The moment she heard they were a gift for him, she hovered nearby and stroked the pelts several times. It was pleasant to see a good relationship between a lord and her retainer.
"He will be delighted to hear it is a gift."
"That's a relief."
It was exactly the answer I had wanted, and a sigh of relief escaped me unbidden. I had prepared something reasonably rare, but a gift mattered less for the giver's intention than for the recipient's taste. If the steward disliked them, the whole effort meant nothing.
Yet Trixie, his superior, had publicly certified that he would like them, so my heart could rest easy.
"That child has preferred unusual things over ordinary ones since he was small. Tell him it came from the North and he would keep it even if it were weeds rather than fur."
Trixie was more than a mere superior; she had watched the steward from the day he was born. She would know even the trivial details of a retainer's preferences.
"If he looks displeased, I'll just say Trixie recommended the gift."
"Heh. Spare me that, please. I would rather not earn that child's resentment either."
I tossed out the light joke and Trixie let out a small laugh, shaking her head.
Child…
At Trixie's habit of calling the steward a child, I bit my tongue and forced my reason awake. At this rate I might start calling him a child myself.
Obviously I could not. The steward Trixie spoke of was Count Deodore Jedas of Sicilla—an able retainer praised for covering her absence superbly, and the current head of the Jedas Count family that had supported the Catoban Grand Ducal House for generations.
He was also a middle-aged man nearing fifty. Older than my father.
Calling a count older than my father a child.
Even imagining the catastrophe made my skin crawl. As Trixie's future husband I could get away with speaking down to him; it was natural for a lord and lady to address retainers casually.
But calling him a child crossed every line by a wide margin. I would become an instant social sensation. Newspapers might circulate with headlines like The Minister of the Inspectorate's Arrogance—Is This Acceptable?
Terrifying.
It was a future that must never happen. From the moment I became the youngest bureau director until now, I had worked so hard at image management. I had not been especially active in high society, but I had handled every piece of work with the utmost care so people would at least see me as a reasonable man who could be reasoned with. I could not afford to destroy that carefully built image in a single blow.
A surge of tension and mission rose from deep in my chest.
I would treat the steward not merely as Trixie's retainer, but as something closer to future in-laws.
While I alone assumed battle readiness and steadied my heart, time flew and the day of the school trip arrived.
"Please take this carriage! It seats four!"
Olivia, who had somehow evolved into a guide officer, assigned us a carriage. Myself, Trixie, Rory, and Lin—exactly the family group Olivia had described.
"Thank you. Tell the president I won't forget this consideration."
"Yes! I'll be sure to pass it on! Oh, and the president said she wanted to guide you personally but had too much other work, so she was sorry she couldn't!"
"Of course I understand. It's not as if I don't know how busy the president is."
Olivia giggled at my words, bobbed her head, and withdrew quickly.
Strangely enough, looking at her almost brought tears of emotion. The first time I saw her she had been a poor, miserable child splitting a turnip with her sister; now she stood as a confident Student Council officer, a key figure at the Academy. Once she graduated I planned to snatch her up just like her sister, so her future was secured as well.
I felt proud. One of the children I had sponsored for three years had grown bright and sturdy and become society's vigorous slave—no, workforce. It ranked among the better things I had done at the Academy.
"What a lively child. Commoner students tend to watch their surroundings without realizing it, but that girl has none of that."
"She gets along well even though the Student Council has so many nobles, so I think she simply has good social skills."
Yes—good to a fault. Thinking back, even when we first met she had not shown nearly the tension her sister Amelia had.
Whether that came from simply liking people, from a lack of social awareness, or from an instinctive sense that I would not harm her, I could not say—but in the end Olivia's softness and sociability had made her who she was now.
"That's why some people say things like, 'I wonder what Olivia would have been like if she had been a noble.'"
"An interesting thought."
I nodded at Lin's words. She had achieved this much even with the constraints of common birth; what if she had started as a noble from the beginning?
Of course it was a futile hypothesis. Olivia, already born a commoner, could never stand at the starting line of nobility. Regrettably, the blood one was born with was decided by heaven.
Yet the Empire was not a place where one had to die with only the blood one was born with. If one had ability, even starting as a commoner, one could become a noble at the turn.
If just one of them earns a title, that should be enough.
I thought of Amelia, still grinding hard in Wiridia. If Amelia achieved great merit there she would become a baroness, and her younger sister Olivia would automatically become a noble as well.
Or perhaps Olivia herself might earn a title through martial deeds. Neither path was easy, but neither was impossible.
"Ah, let's get in first. Sitting and talking is better than standing."
I watched Olivia's retreating back for a moment, then climbed into the carriage.
Still, was it really right for us, who lived in the Imperial Capital, to come all the way to the Academy only to ride a carriage to Cervez? The route felt thoroughly strange.
Unfortunately, as members of the Academy we could not act separately.
At last the day arrived.
A day the retainers of the Catoban Grand Ducal House had dreamed of for a hundred years—a day I myself would not have dared imagine only a few years ago.
That such a joyous occasion should come while I am steward…
Unable to contain the emotion surging up, I wiped the corners of my eyes with a handkerchief. As the one who managed the grand duchy in Her Grace's stead, I should never have shown such feeling, yet I simply could not hold it back.
And it was not only me. The head chamberlain, the head lady-in-waiting, the treasurer, the captain of the guard, the secretary—every one of them looked as overcome as I. So for this moment, just this moment, it was allowed.
"At last we too will have a consort we may call husband."
"Hrrk!"
At the head lady-in-waiting's entranced murmur, the captain of the guard burst into tears. Watching a burly warrior weep like a child was rather hard to bear, but as I had thought earlier, for now it was fine.
Father…
The sight made me wipe my eyes again. I had remembered my late father.
"Her Grace is the loneliest person in this Empire. There is no one who may stand beside her, no one who may support her from behind. Your grandfather, I myself, and even you—to her we are no more than passing acquaintances."
Father, who had passed away roughly ten years ago, had spoken those words. Her Grace, who appeared more noble and brilliant than anyone, was in truth lonelier and more solitary than anyone. No matter how hard we tried, we could never fill her emptiness.
"Yet we are those who serve the honorable House of Catoban. Even if to her we are merely fleeting ties, to us she is the master of our entire lives. Remember that well."
And with that as the pretext, he had told us never to forget our loyalty to Her Grace.
"…Still, it is a pity. I had wanted to see her share her life with someone, to see her happy like an ordinary woman."
Father had left this world with those final words—regret that he had never seen the liege he served all his life smile, and yet faith that one day her happiness would come.
Fortunately that faith had been rewarded. Father, who now rested at Enen's side, would be smiling as well.
Son-in-law of the Catoban Grand Ducal House.
A beautiful phrase. After a hundred years of vacancy, someone would at last sit in the place of the Duke's consort.
And not just anyone—a current Imperial minister and Imperial Count, a great man lacking nothing.
Even a commoner would have been more than enough to be grateful for.
The tears would not stop. I had known for some time that Her Grace and the Minister of the Inspectorate were lovers, yet the thought of them visiting the Cervez Grand Duchy on the eve of marriage made the feeling utterly new.
From this day forward I was a supporter of the Minister of the Inspectorate—no, of His Grace the Consort—even if it cost me my limbs.