Chapter 31

The day after Earl Grey’s charity ball concluded, every single salon, club, and tearoom in London buzzed with one sole topic of conversation.

Earl Grey.

The mystical tea blended personally by the Queen and named after the great statesman Charles Grey seized the attention of London high society overnight.

In the salons, within the clubs, and behind the velvet curtains of tearooms, people looked at one another and repeated the same question.

“So, where on earth can one acquire that tea?”

“It hasn’t been released to the market yet. Her Majesty mentioned that the Royal Tea House Company will handle it.”

“Shares! Where can one subscribe for shares in that company?”

When it came to sniffing out the scent of money, a capitalist’s nose was sharper than a hound’s.

They scoured for offerings with blazing eyes, and trend-conscious noblewomen grew desperate to taste the tea, but tragically, the volume currently circulating in London was sparser than the tears of an eel living at the bottom of the Thames.

Consequently, the price of Earl Grey had practically become whatever anyone cared to name, for people always yearned for that which did not exist, and yearning was invariably greater and fiercer than the reality of its object.

The sunlight pouring into the greenhouse drifted lazily down upon the orchids.

I sat within that light with Dash resting by my feet, holding a teacup where Earl Grey, flecked with the blue petals of cornflowers, rippled gently.

At that moment, the greenhouse door creaked open and Robert Fortune appeared.
Having stayed up all night, his eyes were bloodshot, but his gaze halted upon discovering the sea of namecards that had not only occupied the desk but spilled all the way down onto the floor.

“Y-Your Majesty, what on earth is all this…?”

“What does it look like?”

I picked up a single card with one hand, then set it back down.

“Love letters from people who smelled money.”

“Good grief…”

The exclamation escaping Fortune’s lips was no different from a child seeing a rainbow for the very first time. That sight caused my shoulders to puff up with undue pride.

See that? That’s the kind of person I am.

Just as I was leisurely raising my teacup, Fortune asked:

“So, which of those gentlemen is Your Majesty planning to marry?”

Cough!

The Earl Grey tea I had held in my mouth instantly created a sparkling rainbow inside the greenhouse.

“W-What on earth are you talking about?!”

“Didn’t you say they were love letters? So naturally, I assumed you were getting married, y’see.”

“Ah.”

I stared into that fool Fortune’s face. Even while scratching his head, he wore an expression asking what on earth he had done wrong.

Within those eyes, no space had yet been made for understanding the metaphors and simulations of the world.

Ah, figurative language. Not everyone grasps such things right away, sure, sure.

Engraving a few mental characters for patience inwardly, I deliberately and calmly began to explanation.

“No… those are what I received as letters of intent for investment right after Earl Grey’s charity ball yesterday.”

“Pardon? All of those namecards?”

“Yes. They are offers practically akin to blank checks. Furthermore, letters have been arriving since this morning asking to place their names on the shareholder registry regardless of the amount, heaven knows how they found out.”

At my explanation, Fortune clicked his tongue in amazement.

A tea marketed directly by the Queen and lent the name of the era’s foremost luminary, Earl Grey.

On top of that, its flavor and aroma surpassed existing Chinese tea; it was inevitable that sharp-witted capitalists would sit still.

I picked up one random letter from the pile that had arrived this morning and scanned it briskly.

[Respected Queen Majesty, our mercantile house has since the days of the East India Company… We are confident in our financial strength, so please grant us the opportunity…]

A feast of tedious and pedantic flattery.

I tossed the letter casually back onto the table.

“Mr. Fortune.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“I will select the investors personally. We cannot let just anyone hop aboard simply because they have deep pockets.”

“Understood. Though… I do have one lingering concern.”

Fortune spoke up cautiously.

“Won’t people wonder what the raw ingredients of Earl Grey are? Rumors abound that it’s a rare Chinese tea leaf, but wouldn’t it be better to reveal that it originates from India…?”

At that moment, my hand holding the teacup paused.

I shook my head decisively.

“Absolutely not.”

“Why ever not? Wouldn’t inspiring patriotism be possible if we declared it a tea born in India? God bless Engla–”

Insane.

Has he still not given up on that name?

“Doing that would turn out like boiling oatmeal porridge and handing it over to the French.”

I stood up and stroked an orchid blooming in the greenhouse as I continued. Just as orchids do not know how beautiful they are themselves, Earl Grey was no different.

“A company named the Assam Company is already listed on the London stock exchange. Even though its performance is abysmal.”

“Ah…”

“What do you think would happen if it became known that Earl Grey is made from Assam tea? Investors would rush past our company straight to the Assam Company, whose shares they can purchase right now.”

As I curved the corners of my lips slightly upward, Fortune’s eyes slowly widened.

In his world, seeds were planted to grow, and watering them made flowers bloom.

Yet what I was speaking of now was a different kind of farming.

The farming of an invisible garden, where the seed of information is planted in the soil of time and nurtured with the water of silence.

“We have no need to inflate our competitor’s stock price, do we? We simply wait until the Assam Company hits rock bottom, and later swallow it whole or let it wither away entirely.”

I gripped the teacup with both hands. The warm tactile feel of the porcelain spread across my entire palm.

Fortune swallowed hard and bowed his head.

“I shall keep the origin of the raw materials strictly under wraps.”

“Good.”

Mystique marketing.

People are invariably more deeply fascinated by what is concealed than what is revealed.
Before a closed door, people spread the wings of imagination, and the illusions forged by that imagination are always more dazzling than reality. I intended to become the gardener of that illusion.

Mrs. Ashburton’s residence.

Today, the drawing room of her mansion was exceptionally crowded with noblewomen, and a strange tension blending perfume, anticipation, and a hint of jealousy drifted through the air. Everyone’s gazes were fixed upon a small silver case resting at the center of the table, much like devotees gazing upon a crucifix on an altar.

“Oh, my word. Mrs. Ashburton, is this truly the rumored Earl Grey?”

Mrs. Stanley’s voice trembled. Yet it was not the excitement of discovering a new toy, but rather matched the reverence felt when attending church services.

“Hoho, it’s nothing much. Her Majesty sent it to me as a gift.”

Mrs. Ashburton smiled knowingly as she elegantly unfolded her fan.

“As expected! Her Majesty must truly favor you, madam!”

To a certain noblewoman’s flattering remark, Mrs. Ashburton shook her head.

The reason Her Majesty had gone out of her way to send such a precious tea to her.

Mrs. Ashburton smiled as she looked at the case.

She knew very well what intention Her Majesty had concealed within that case.

“Favor, you say? That is quite out of the question. The ladies gathered here know very well what kind of person our Queen is, do they not?”

At those words, the noblewomen nodded.

Two years ago, when they were trapped in the quagmire of the poison laudanum, it was the young Queen who had saved them by mixing salicin into chamomile tea.

From poison to medicine, from despair to salvation, the Queen had served as the bridge crossing that boundary.

That was why, when Parliament resolved to wage the Opium War against Qing China, the noblewomen had readily signed a joint petition and answered the Queen’s summons.
Thus, the meaning imbued within this Earl Grey must surely be another call to arms.

“Her Majesty is asking us to evaluate this tea.”

Saying so, Mrs. Ashburton felt a slight twinge of worry.

Should it taste even slightly inferior to the Lapsang Souchong imported from Qing China, the noblewomen would turn their backs on the Queen’s invention, and her own reputation for hosting such a gathering would undoubtedly suffer a blow.

No.

She closed her eyes. Memories of the year before last surfaced behind her eyelids.

The days when she was being consumed by laudanum, the era when her own face in the mirror grew a little fainter each day. That single cup of chamomile tea sent by the Queen had practically pulled her up from the darkness.

Fretting over a mere trifle like this.

Ashamed, as though her loyalty had just been put to the test, embarrassment brushed past her cheeks. She turned her head and signaled to her attendants.

Warmed teacups were passed around.

One by one, the warmth of the porcelain transferred from hand to hand altered the atmosphere of the room.

And the moment tea leaves were placed into the cups and hot water was poured over them!

“Oh…!”

The sunlight of the Mediterranean, concentrated within the teacup, burst forth with a fragrance reminiscent of a handful of light arriving upon a gray London afternoon after a long voyage.

“My word! Is this tea, or is it perfume?”

“The flavor is astonishing as well. That insipid quality unique to Chinese tea is entirely absent. It is robust yet refreshing.”

“I truly cannot believe this. How can black tea possess such a floral aroma?”

Sipping it one by one, the ladies vied with one another in heaping praises upon it.

“Frankly speaking, I can no longer bring myself to drink Chinese tea. It’s just flavorless and tastes of nothing but dirt…”

“Indeed. I once thought Lapsang Souchong was the pinnacle, but having tasted this Earl Grey, it feels merely like water boiled with smoked ham.”

“Moreover, just look at these blue petals. Do they not resemble Her Majesty’s eyes?”

“Oh, how exquisitely you put it. They truly do!”

Lifting their teacups, the ladies fell into a state of enchantment.

The cornflower petals inside the teacup resembled the Queen’s blue eyes; since an object genuinely termed a masterpiece embodied the soul of its creator, acquiring such an item was equivalent not to purchasing mere goods, but to buying that very soul.

“Yet is it not truly astonishing? To think our young Queen Majesty could craft such a thing.”

When someone broached the subject, Mrs. Ashburton chimed in as if she had been waiting for the moment.

“My thoughts exactly! Everyone fretted that Her Majesty was too young, but perish the thought. She is undeniably a genius.”

“Indeed. I knew she excelled at statecraft, but I had no idea she possessed such aesthetic sensibility as well.”

“Where on earth could Her Majesty have procured such a fantastical tea?”

“I heard it is imported through a company called… the Royal Tea House Company? It is not entirely certain, but they say Earl Grey has assumed office as honorary chairman…”

The conversation among the noblewomen naturally drifted toward investment. The aristocratic ladies of this era were far from mere consumers of tea; they were investors possessing instincts sharper than anyone else when it came to managing and growing family fortunes.

The fates of hundreds of thousands of pounds were decided within the smiles hidden behind fans, and stock prices danced according to the angle of the fingers setting down a teacup.

“I must tell my husband immediately. Whatever else, we simply must purchase shares in this company.”

“You will have to stand in line. My husband says the bankers in the City are in a complete uproar.”

“Me as well. I shall have to dissuade my husband from investing in that place called the Assam Company or whatever it was. I was doubtful anyway, but since Her Majesty adores Earl Grey, there is surely no reason to invest in such a venture.”

The moment Mrs. Stanley’s final words resonated through the drawing room, Mrs. Ashburton set down her teacup with a look of satisfaction.

The mission was accomplished.

Yet Mrs. Ashburton remained entirely unconscious of the fact that it had even been a mission.

For when loyalty reaches its most flawless form, the boundary between duty and spontaneity ceases to exist.

A few days after loyalty toward the Queen bloomed vigorously alongside the bergamot fragrance within the teacups.

I curled the corners of my lips upward as I read the report brought by Earl Grey, who had assumed office as the honorary chairman of the Royal Tea House Company.

“The response is explosive.”

“It goes far beyond explosive, Your Majesty.”

Flowers of a smile blossomed across Earl Grey’s face.

He was a man who had once been pushed aside to a sinecure, abandoned by countless individuals simply for forcing through the abolition of slavery.

A person punished for doing what was right.

A person who had stepped forth bearing the morality of the future when the world was not yet prepared.

His solitude was not the solitude of a politician, but of a pioneer; and within the smile of a man who had returned once more to the center of civilized society, there lingered the humble joy of one returning from a long exile.

“London stockbrokers are coming to us with investment inquiries at a pace that threatens to shatter our office doors.”

Good. We must row while the tide is coming in.

I laid the report down upon the desk and flashed a smile toward Earl Grey. From here on was what mattered.

“And the person sent to the Patent Office?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. A reply arrived around lunchtime today. The patent application regarding the method of scenting tea utilizing bergamot oil has been completed without a hitch.”

“Splendid.”

I leaned deeply back into the backrest of my chair and gazed out the window.

Now, how would our competitors react?

Merchants in the City of London were likely tearing their hair out by now.

Meanwhile, at that very moment, inside the office of a trading firm in eastern London.
The atmosphere here, diametrically opposed to that of high society, was no different from a house of mourning.

“Damn it! What on earth is the meaning of this?!”

Bang!

A heavy fist slammed down upon the mahogany desk.

William Madison, a tycoon who had amassed vast fortunes by importing tea from Guangzhou, Qing China, glared at the teacup with bloodshot eyes. Hostliness was etched within that gaze, yet mixed into it simultaneously was an admiration he was loath to admit even to himself.

Standing before him with heads bowed like criminals were a few subordinate staff members and tea tasters.

“Tell me. What on earth is the identity of this damned fragrance? Orange? Lemon? Or did they mix in some kind of eastern elixir?”

The desperation contained within Madison’s voice was closer to terror—not questioning whether they could compete with the tea he handled, but whether he might find himself forced to withdraw from the tea market entirely.

“That… it is certain to be a citrus peel oil, however…”

The chief taster stammered, cold sweat beading on his brow. He, too, was a man who had lived his entire life alongside tea. A craftsman capable of guessing the origin by touching the texture of the tea leaves with his fingertips and pinpointing the harvest season by aroma alone. Yet the tea leaves set before him now existed entirely outside of every classification system he had ever known.

“It differs from ordinary orange or lemon. The aroma is far more bittersweet and profound. Furthermore, it does not appear that the oil was applied directly to the leaves. The leaves are not the least bit damp.”

“So! Can we replicate this or not?!”

“…At present, it is impossible. Neither the blending ratio nor the process of imparting the fragrance can be figured out at all. We attempted to mix in orange oil to mimic it, but it produced nothing more than a sickening odor.”

Madison ran a rough hand through his hair.

It was maddening. To think that a technology unknown even to men who had spent their entire lives in the tea trade had been introduced by a queen barely past her twentieth year? That fact utterly shattered his pride.

“Someone must be standing behind Her Majesty. I hear that fellow Dr. John Lindley frequently visits Buckingham these days—could it be him?”

At that moment, a middle-aged gentleman keeping silence in the corner spoke up. It was Lord Palmerston, representing the interests of the merchants.

“Technology is not the issue, Madison.”

Lord Palmerston shook a document with a grave expression.

“Look at this. I verified it at the Patent Office this morning.”

“What might that be?”

“A patent for the flavoring and aging manufacturing method of tea has been filed under the name of the Royal Tea House Company. The name of the raw material was obscured so I could not verify it, but… in any case, the entirety of the flavoring technology utilizing oil is included.”

Silence descended in an instant.

“…P-Patent, you say?”

Madison’s jaw dropped slack.

Filing a patent on a recipe.

A proclamation donning the armor of law and ascending the throne of monopoly.

The moment walls were erected, a moat dug, and the drawbridge raised, those who failed to enter within the fortress would have no choice but to linger outside the walls, inhaling only that fragrance while slowly starving to death.

“Should we attempt to imitate it even slightly and sell it, we shall be sued for patent infringement. Do you wish to go bankrupt paying damages? Moreover, the royal family will hardly stand idly by!”

“This is madness…”

A chain of information flashed across Madison’s brain in an instant. Scattered fragments rushed toward one another to complete a single picture.

“Now that I think of it, I caught wind of an ominous rumor. The Royal Tea House is seeking technicians bound for India.”

“What of it?”

“The man seeking these technicians is reportedly Dr. John Lindley, who has been frequenting Buckingham lately.”

Silence flowed once more.

What if the Queen had succeeded in producing tea not in China, but in India, a British colony?

And what if the Royal Tea House Company monopolized that technology and distribution network?

Those of them tethering their lifelines to Qing trade would find themselves boarding an express train heading straight for bankruptcy.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

Madison hurled his teacup.

Accompanied by the sound of shattering porcelain, the fragrance of the Earl Grey spilled upon the floor rose up with a fragrance so cruel it felt spiteful.

The aroma lost none of its freshness even upon the shards, and that unyielding freshness served as the most brutal message possible to Madison.

You cannot create this fragrance. Nor will you ever, for all eternity.

“If all of this… is true.”

Madison stared down at the shattered fragments. Up until now, he had thought of Queen Victoria merely as a symbolic entity, or at best a clueless girl. Yet the adversary he faced now was a seasoned hunter brandishing a sword strictly within the bounds of the law—a hunter who laid traps with a smile, crafted bait with fragrance, and cut off escape routes with the snare of patents.

“Just what on earth… is the Queen’s true identity?”

And no one answered.

Only the bergamot fragrance rising from the floor silently offered its reply.