A Festival More Frightening Than War (1)
Peace instead of war. Consolation instead of threats. A festival instead of a bloody storm.
What convinced me that such soft methods would work against those slippery nobles was my experience in the Gallisto territory.
In truth, right after arriving in the Gallisto lands I had still been fretting over how to calm the hostile popular sentiment. Among the policies Karen and I had carried out, there was little that specifically helped the east. Of course the kingdom’s economy had advanced by leaps and bounds, so some crumbs had naturally fallen eastward as well—but compared with other regions the amount was pitiful. Humans are creatures of comparison; it would have been no surprise at all if the people of the territory felt a relative sense of deprivation.
The moment we reached the east we cut down some of the rampaging Claudia cavalry. Even after an easy first victory I still hesitated to set foot inside the walls.
“If this is the eastern part of the kingdom, the view of the royal family can’t be all that favorable, right?”
“How could you say such a thing, Your Excellency?”
“Just be honest with me, Torres. It’s true that the eastern economy has stagnated somewhat since my merchant guild came in.”
“That’s only relative standing within the kingdom. Beyond that it has developed tremendously. It’s nothing of the sort.”
“Always with the flattery. Did I pick the wrong man?”
I dismissed Torres’s denial as empty words meant to curry favor with his superior. The greater the expectations, the greater the disappointment would be. And so, with a tight chest, our column passed through the castle gates.
What greeted the support forces—who were maintaining strict military discipline to forestall any possible unrest—was a shower of flower petals that tickled the nose.
“Welcome! Your Excellency the Prime Minister!”
“Look over here! Finally, finally the reinforcements have come!!”
“At last our army won’t have to take orders from that incompetent duke. We won! We’ve really won this time!!”
“The genius strategist who toppled the Empire has arrived! Those horse-obsessed bastards chased out of the Empire are nothing!”
An astonishing welcome. I wanted to savor the joy, but the coughing was so bad it was difficult. Just how many petals had they thrown?
“Ahem! I’m grateful for the sentiment, but this is a large procession and it could be dangerous. Tell them to stop scattering petals for a moment.”
“Yes, sir!”
Among the overflowing welcoming throng far too many held baskets of flowers; the pollen was thick enough to impede our advance. I sent people out to halt it. There was a brief scuffle, but fortunately it did not spread.
Now I can finally see ahead.
Thanks to that I could take everything in at a glance—hundreds, thousands of gazes fixed earnestly upon me, each filled with its own hopes and longings. Some yearned for the fall of the incompetent and corrupt Gallisto. Others longed for the peaceful nights that would follow once the foreign enemy was finally driven off. Still others envisioned a bright future for the east, fully one with the kingdom at last and ready to soar. That fierce yearning gathered, piled, and layered until it seemed ready to crush me then and there.
As I thought… there’s still so much that needs doing!
Of course I had no intention of simply letting myself be crushed.
But why isn’t anyone saying anything?
When I turned my head with a puzzled look, Kain was hurriedly signaling the soldiers. They spread out in every direction at once, shouting themselves hoarse. Judging by the situation, they must have taken the order not to scatter petals as a command to keep completely silent and had been holding their mouths shut. The moment that restraint was lifted, a thunderous cheer erupted.
“Long live the Beinos Kingdom!!! Curse upon Claudia!!”
“Kingdom mages! Look over here!”
“Blessings upon Her Majesty Queen Karen! Endless prosperity upon Prime Minister Demian! Good fortune in money!!”
Oh, that fellow’s got some sense. I like that line a lot.
The crowd’s chants did not stop at simply praising the kingdom and lauding the queen.
“The brave soldiers of the kingdom~ are off to catch those horse-obsessed bastards!~ So those scum can never again~ commit such atrocities before the Goddess~!”
Starting with a rather embarrassing folk song that mocked Claudia’s cavalry,
“We have to break every last leg of those plunderer bastards!”
“There’s a reason they got kicked out of the Empire, you know? Independence, my ass. It’s just a rebellion whose suppression got delayed a bit!”
“How many people has that villain Etoile Claudia sacrificed? He should be burned at the stake! Burned!”
“That reckless woman Debora as the heir? That kingdom’s going to collapse soon anyway!”
High-intensity denunciations of the Claudia family began erupting on every side. For me, who knew the full story of this war, the reaction was even a little bewildering.
Strange. Debora clearly said popular sentiment along the border wasn’t bad.
When I heard she had even scattered silver coins I had admired her for going all out. Yet the popular sentiment in Tempa, the largest city in the east, was this hostile.
Maybe because it’s farther from the battlefield, the rumors got badly distorted.
Well, not a bad thing. Looking at Debora’s last-minute moves, she seemed to have intended to stretch her hand into the east over the long term—and that plan looked blocked from the very start. Moreover it was also good news that popular sentiment did not end with merely condemning the Claudia family.
“Because of those rotten Gallisto bastards we nearly had a real disaster!”
“Finally the central army is here! Instead of Hernan’s worthless minions who don’t even look like an army, Her Majesty the Queen’s elite troops have come!”
“Your Majesty! Your Excellency the Prime Minister! Please free us from this corrupt and weak ducal house!”
Even in Tempa, where the family palace stood, criticism and condemnation of Gallisto overflowed. Ordinarily they would have sent men to arrest the speakers, but with the war they seemed to lack even that capacity—or perhaps they could not move because they were watching our reaction. Either way, it was clear that Gallisto’s downfall had already begun.
Popular sentiment is far better than I expected.
Gallisto’s private soldiers had been crushed in defeat after defeat, while the central army had immediately repelled the cavalry upon arrival. That contrast seemed to have left a truly deep impression on the eastern people. Wherever the reinforcement column went there was an uproar of people offering national-defense contributions, promising meals, wanting to donate their belongings.
“I’ll donate rabbit hides! Use them when you make leather armor!”
“I want to offer silver coins for the country! It was dirty money Debora forced on me in the first place, so it isn’t mine! Please use it for the nation!”
“Could I join this procession too? I want to serve in the campaign for our beautiful Queen!”
Acts of support for the army had become a culture in themselves. The fervor even spread to the priests of the Goddess Church.
“Here are the contributions our faithful have gathered with holy faith and patriotism. Please use them to protect this kingdom blessed by the Goddess.”
“...Thank you.”
“Ah, and I have also included the clerical tax and tribute that originally would have gone to the Gallisto family. We will no longer have any dealings with those people, after all. This land is to return to our noble Queen, is it not? Through the arrangements Your Excellency has made.”
“Father… you have remarkable insight into worldly affairs.”
“To spread the Goddess’s teachings in the world, one cannot help but keep paying attention to the movements of the flock.”
In the process I met a priest whose expression was hard to read. Even after making the largest donation he only uttered enigmatic words and seemed to want nothing, so I kept questioning him. In the end I was able to hear what he truly desired.
“How does Your Excellency view the Goddess Church…?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I will speak frankly. I am afraid. Of the future we will face if Your Excellency decides that the clergy are of no help to the kingdom.”
The priest continued in a somewhat trembling voice.
“So I will show you. That there are so many things our order can do for the kingdom, for Her Majesty the Queen.”
And so even the Goddess Church jumped on the bandwagon of the fervor. They continued sermons claiming one could go to heaven by contributing to national defense, doubling the amount of contributions that poured in. They even went so far as to propose using indulgences to collect additional taxes, which made me jump and refuse.
We’re not even that hard up for money right now, and that was going too far.
Killer moves like that should be saved and used sparingly. Only then do they have proper effect when you do use them. Anyway, the heat, now infused with religious faith as well, showed no sign of cooling. It continued even after we had secured Hernan’s unconditional surrender.
“To commemorate liberation from Gallisto and celebrate the victory! The people of the territory have voluntarily prepared a festival!”
“Please eat and drink and enjoy yourselves to your hearts’ content, brave warriors!”
“Y-Your Excellency the Prime Minister, may I also…?”
“Sure, go eat.”
“Yes! Thank you!!”
A grand festival of a scale that had perhaps never been held in the east illuminated the late-autumn night. Overflowing bread and butter. Foods cooked every way imaginable—grilled, fried, boiled, and stewed. Oak barrels that showed no sign of diminishing, and young men and women dancing to traditional kingdom folk songs around a massive bonfire. It was a level of abundance hard to believe for a region that had been under foreign invasion only days before.
Well, this place isn’t one of the villages right on the border, after all.
That was why they could rage even more fiercely, and rejoice all the more. Most of the kingdom’s territory people probably shared a similar sentiment with them. Yes—nearly all the people of those countless provincial nobles who were digging in their heels, refusing to provide private soldiers or give up their privileges.
“...Therefore, if Her Majesty the Queen herself makes a progress and knocks on their castle gates, no one will dare bare their claws.”
That was why I proposed Karen’s nationwide pilgrimage at the court council.
“That’s absurd! Who knows when bandits might appear!”
“Exactly. It’s far too dangerous. To make such a reckless choice just to soothe the discontent of some provincial lords.”
“Your Majesty, even if it is Prime Minister Demian’s suggestion, this truly will not do. A nationwide pilgrimage has no precedent!”
“Could it be that Your Excellency intends to boost the merchant guild’s sales through a nationwide pilgrimage? Prime Minister! Please explain yourself!”
Of course, as expected, opposition boiled over.
“Very well. If my presence is needed so that blood need not be shed, I will gladly go anywhere.”
Once again Karen trusted me. So I had to repay her with certainty. I would prove the meaning of that trust right away.
“Do not worry. Of course the escort will be thorough.”
“No, no matter how many soldiers there are, there can’t be absolutely no gaps…”
“I will have every single mage of the kingdom accompany the escort, excluding those dispatched to Claudia.”
“All more than five hundred of them?!”
“Yes. Then it should be safe, right?”
A procession of hundreds of mages—something that had never once been done before. Their vast and overwhelming presence would imprint the queen’s majesty across the entire kingdom—no, the entire continent.
I would make it so.