The New Friend Is an Outwardly Gentle, Steely Young Lady?!
……………
In Katerina's memory, Natasha's entire evaluation amounted to a single line: 'Not much of a fighter, but a good girl.' That was it.
'No, no, no. Hold on a moment.'
The daughter of a count family that all but steered the economy of the entire Grand Duchy, and all she amounted to was a "good girl"? And a noble young lady who wasn't much of a fighter, at that? A sigh escaped me.
'Does the owner of this body have no awareness that she's the young lady of the Grand Ducal family? Just how long had she gone without studying, without paying the slightest attention to the world around her, to be missing information this important?'
"Lady Natasha will be arriving shortly. Shall we begin preparing, my lady?"
I nodded at Eliza's words. Pondering it now would get me nowhere. All I could do was tread carefully and avoid as many mistakes as possible.
Following Eliza's guidance, I moved to the drawing room in the eastern tower. My body had fully recovered, so getting around posed no difficulty at all.
I had barely settled onto the luxuriously appointed sofa when a knock announced Natasha's arrival. Eliza opened the door, and a girl with light chestnut hair stepped in.
"Lady Katerina, I am so relieved to hear that your health has much improved."
"I do apologize for the worry I've caused you."
Natasha took the sofa across from me while Eliza settled herself at a respectful distance.
"At the Winter Festival gala, when last we met..."
Natasha began, choosing her words carefully.
"I never could have imagined such a thing would happen."
'The Winter Festival...?'
I sifted through Katerina's memories, but the festival was hazy at best. All that surfaced was snow falling beyond a window, and a vague sense that a number of noble young ladies had gathered together.
'Watching the young ladies spar was rather entertaining, wasn't it...
The young ladies were dueling?!'
I shoved that absurd memory firmly aside. Now was the time to focus on the Natasha in front of me.
"Ah, that time... the details escape me!"
I laughed a little hehe and tried to slide past it, but looking back, of course that was never going to work. Natasha's expression stiffened slightly. My choice of words had been dreadful, too.
At that moment, Eliza, standing on the far side of the room, quietly folded her hands together.
'Is that a signal that I've committed a faux pas...? Oh no!'
I had brought up a gathering we'd attended together hoping to share the memory, and breezily laughing that I couldn't remember was obviously a terrible move. Katerina's carelessness seemed to be rubbing off on me.
'I should have played along at all costs and nodded along, no matter what...'
"I see..."
Just as I feared. Natasha was straining to keep her polished smile in place, but the disappointment she couldn't quite conceal was written plainly in her eyes.
'If only someone would fix this situation for me.
...No, wait. This isn't a situation anyone can fix for me. I have to do something myself.'
I desperately raked through Katerina's memories. Anything at all about Natasha, anything concerning her.
Fragmentary images flickered past. Natasha standing slightly apart from the other young ladies. The subtle, sidelong glances the others traded about her.
Why would that be?
What came to mind was a hint Eliza had once dropped.
'Natasha is ostracized because of her family?'
And that remark interlocked with Katerina's other memories. House Volkov. The iron mines in the southwest. The endless trains of ore carts and tax wagons rolling toward Eisenfels, the fortress city that served as the capital of the Grand Duchy.
'And the Grand Duke of Eisenmark... Father always seated Count Volkov at his right hand at banquets. Yes. Now I finally understand.'
Like puzzle pieces clicking into place, the situation came into focus.
House Volkov operated mines in a comparatively safe region of the southwestern Grand Duchy and had amassed an enormous fortune doing so.
Count Volkov had devoted a considerable share of that wealth to taxes, and in return had earned Father's trust.
And just how much tax did the man pay? His largesse was so princely, so magnificently over the top, that even Father — who otherwise took little interest in such "trivial matters" as the family finances — came to regard Count Volkov as someone special.
But that was precisely the problem. No doubt Father favored him within reason, yet the mere fact that a man grew rich sucking honey from the safe rear country while amassing influence and the Grand Duke's personal affection was more than enough to draw the envy of every other lord in the duchy.
It was in circumstances like these that Natasha, the third of Count Volkov's three sons and one daughter, was always so diligent. The studies Katerina found tedious. The sparring practice that Katerina, at least, enjoyed watching. And the balls, too.
Katerina's memory filed Natasha away as simply a "hardworking child" or a "good girl," but from where I sat, it looked like a deliberate campaign of active social engagement — an effort to keep House Volkov from becoming isolated within the Grand Duchy.
"I trust you remain just as busy as ever these days?"
I ventured carefully, and Natasha tilted her head with a puzzled look.
"Busy, my lady?"
"You're always so earnest whenever we meet, aren't you, Natasha?"
"Ah... so that's how I appeared to you, Lady Katerina?"
"Of course. You improve by leaps and bounds at every sparring exhibition, you attend every ball and social gathering without fail, and I hear you're diligent in your studies as well."
For an instant, Natasha's expression shifted in a subtle way. She seemed about to say something and then stopped, her fingers toying with the hem of her dress. I could see her composure waver, just slightly.
"I..."
At length, Natasha lowered her gaze and spoke.
"I wasn't born with a gift, the way you were, my lady. That is why I must simply work harder.
For you to notice that... I hardly know how to thank you."
A faint smile settled at the corner of Eliza's lips as she poured our tea, watching our exchange. That would be the signal that the conversation was flowing in the right direction.
I could see the tension gradually draining from Natasha's shoulders. At this rate, it seemed we could keep talking without too much difficulty.
"And how are the Count and Countess keeping, if I may ask?"
Seeing her relax, I asked after her parents — a bit stock, but a safe topic for conversation.
"Very well, thank you. Father is busy, as ever, tending to our domain, and Mother manages the household."
She answered as though by rote. The kind of question asked often at formal occasions, the kind of answer given many times before.
After a brief silence, Natasha ventured a question of her own.
"And might I ask... how are the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess faring?"
For a moment I hesitated, unsure how to reply. The whereabouts of my parents were, of all things, the one subject the daughter herself ought to know best.
"Father and Mother are currently on progress in the north."
Thankfully, the information Eliza had briefed me on came back to me. That much had happened after Katerina had slipped into her coma.
"The north... ah."
Natasha's eyes brightened with understanding.
"Yes — that was once the territory of the barbarians... forgive me, of the Northern Lords. It has since been incorporated into the Grand Duchy, of course."
'It's a rather awkward thing to say as the Grand Duke's daughter, though.'
The Northern Lords, former chieftains of the barbarians — quite apart from the personal admiration they held for the current Grand Duke of Eisenmark, were a power that had won their war against the Grand Duchy half a victory at the least.
On paper, their lands had been annexed into the Grand Duchy and fell under the Grand Duke's rule, but in truth the relationship was less vassal and liege than a pair of brothers on the very warmest of terms — closer to an alliance, really.
In other words: the elder brother (presumably the Grand Duke of Eisenmark) barely interferes with his younger brothers (the Northern Lords), while the younger brothers trust and follow the elder but otherwise mind their own affairs and prosper nicely — that sort of arrangement.
The upshot being that the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess could not simply drop everything and rush home to see their recovered daughter. They were already mid-progress, the distance between the capital Eisenfels and their present location was far too great, and as rulers they needed to maintain relations with the Northern Lords — a matter of the very highest importance.
"Then I suppose it will be difficult for His Grace to return any time soon."
Natasha said with a nod. To understand without me spelling it all out — a clever girl indeed, as expected.
"Just so."
As we talked, it dawned on me that while Katerina herself had never given it a moment's thought, the Grand Duchy of Eisenmark was, like any place where people lived and breathed, thoroughly entangled in complicated interests of its own.
……………
'So. What do I do now?'
The conversation with Natasha had gone tolerably well, all things considered — but looking back on it, all we'd really done was exchange a round of greetings about each other's parents.
The daughter of a count had traveled all the way from her own domain to Eisenfels to pay a sick visit, and I was to see her off after a single pleasantry? I needed something more to say, but combing back through Katerina's memories turned up no promising topics whatsoever.
If I pushed for deeper conversation in my present state, I risked committing yet another blunder of the "I don't remember, hehe" variety. And yet I couldn't exactly let an awkward silence stretch on forever, either.
'Oh, hang it all.'
"Natasha."
Having steeled myself, I called to the girl with the light chestnut hair.
"Since you've so kindly come to visit me in my convalescence — is there anything at all you would like to do with me?"
Perhaps that had been too blunt. Natasha's eyes widened a little. Even Eliza looked at me, faintly startled.
But contrary to my expectations — a flustered stammer, or else a very safe, noncommittal answer — Natasha's expression abruptly turned resolute. It was the face of someone who had hesitated over a decision for a long while and had only now, at last, made it.
"The truth is... there is something I have long wished to ask of you."
She drew a steadying breath, then lifted her head to face me.
"Would you grant me the honor of a bout with you, Lady Katerina?"