The Plan.

The Plan.

“Uh….”

“….”

Jack whispered to his lady.

“Um… since we were going to bring him along anyway, shouldn’t you just tell him to get up already…?”

“He’s clearly come with quite the prepared speech, so let him have his moment. You know how he likes this sort of thing.”

The two of them nodded, waited some thirty minutes, and then finally granted the hostage permission to accompany them.

And so the party bound for the head of the merchant house’s residence was decided: castle lord Gus, Volmo, and Aspara.

Our last visit didn’t exactly end on a pleasant note.

It seemed the castle lord had been thinking the same thing. Strapped to his broad back, plainly enough, were not only the odd-shaped sword he ordinarily wore, but his flail and three bundles of crossbow quarrels besides.

With each step he took, a thunderous clank, clank rang in the ears of all three of them.

《— ― –.》

“We have arrived.”

“It’s changed quite a bit.”

The madam’s merchant house had been rebuilt on the site of the old one that had burned down, a slightly smaller mansion than before, and far less ornate. A sand-colored building, barely a trace of decoration on it. And yet the steep roof and smooth stone walls blended in, unmistakably, far better with the snowfield than the earlier structure had.

Unlike the house of the old upstart who had burned to death inside it.

“Haah….”

Aspara drew her breath into an even rhythm and steadied her mind before stepping through the main gate.

She would need to brace her resolve. Aspara was a woman who might, even indirectly, have had some hand in the death of this lady’s baron husband. And now she had to face such a woman in person, for business reasons no less. Surely it would be a very stiff meeting. First she would offer her greetings carefully, and then, a little belated though it was, her condolences for the late husband—

Aspara reached slowly for the doorknob with the air of someone testing thin ice. Just before she turned the handle, a sound came from the other side of the door.

Cla-clank—

The great door was flung wide open from the other side.

“Oh—….”

Caught off guard, Aspara took a step back.

“Welcome, welcome!”

“Oh, h-hello.”

“My, your husband came along too. 《Hello.》”

《Ah, ——, a pleasure to meet you.》

What had appeared as the door flew open was a matronly woman beaming from ear to ear. The wife of the baron who had burned to death. The head of the Monstro merchant house.

The lady had gained a few more freckles than when her husband had been alive, had filled out pleasantly plumper, and, above all, her face had grown remarkably expressive.

“Was the madam always this sort of personality….”

“I was always this sort of personality!”

The madam replied to Aspara’s unconscious mutter. Her voice was bright and merry indeed.

Even Volmo looked startled at her sprightly manner; it seemed that even he, her own son, had never seen this side of her before.

“You look… very well.”

“Oh my, is that so. Come, come, don’t stand about out here — let us go inside. This time I mean to receive you properly, and I’ve made all the preparations for it. After all—”

The lady leaned in toward Aspara and whispered.

“My benefactor has come, you see.”

“…Yes.”

The middle-aged woman welcomed her guests into the mansion, and briefly met eyes with her son, Volmo, who stood at the very back. But without any particular greeting, she simply turned and went back inside.

“You’ve come today on business, yes. I had expected the meal to come after the discussion, so preparations aren’t quite finished — but as for the other two gentlemen… 《—- —— —?》”

The lady turned briefly to the castle lord and spoke in the northern tongue, as if explaining the situation. Even to Aspara’s ear, which caught barely three parts in ten of the exchange, the cadence came across as remarkably graceful and dignified.

It was hard to believe this was the same woman who hadn’t opened her mouth so much as once at that dinner with her husband.

When the castle lord gave a nod, the lady turned her head back and spoke brightly.

“He says we should be at our ease and speak freely, and that the two of them will wait in the parlor. How very kind of him. It’s a touch early, but I’ll have tea and sweets brought round to the two of them in a moment.”

The lady had a servant lead the two men to the parlor, and headed with Aspara toward her office.

The castle lord, alone with Volmo over tea and sweets….

Aspara pictured the castle lord crammed at a tiny pink tea table sharing sweet pastries with the young man, and let out a small snort of laughter.

On the way to the office, she took a look at the corridor.

Gone were the lavish decorations and hung frames that had crowded the walls before. Only firm, thick white walls now. To an uninitiated eye, it was a plain and characterless building; but to the eye of one who knew, the overall structure and the very materials themselves bore the stamp of the north’s refined architectural tradition.

“Well then — shall we begin?”

“Yes.”

The office was the same.

Compared with the former mansion, it was a room with a low ceiling and simple furnishings. The furniture, too, was sized to the lady’s frame, so there was nothing awkward about Aspara using it either.

It’s a first in the north for me — a chair my feet can actually touch the floor from.

“A good chair, isn’t it?”

“Ah, yes, truly.”

“In the north the selection of furniture is rather narrow. Indeed — the selection of goods as a whole is narrow.”

“It can’t be helped, I suppose….”

“The reason I wished to greet you face to face like this today is—”

The lady gave a light push to the back of Aspara’s chair as she spoke.

“Precisely to set that right.”

After the two women had disappeared, two men were left behind in the parlor in uneasy silence.

《….》

《….》

《Will it not trouble you, not going in with them?》

《I would have no understanding of it even if I did.》

《But still—》

Volmo’s sentence — you are the king, aren’t you — was cut off by the castle lord.

《More than that, if I am there she grows uncomfortable.》

《Is that enough for you? It may well be that the largest deal in your country’s history is being struck at this very moment.》

《The nation is not mine.》

《But the right to interfere in that room is yours.》

《Before she is my wife, she is my countrywoman and a private individual. Today’s meeting is no more than one between two businesspeople — it is not a matter for a lout like me to meddle in.》

The two men fell silent.

《Let me ask just one more thing.》

《If it is an impertinent question, do not ask it.》

《No, it is not that, it is just…》

The young man hesitated, as though gauging in his head whether he could say it.

《Ah — the, that chair… shall I ask them to bring a larger chair…?》

He pointed at the castle lord, wedged into the cute little tea-party chair. The castle lord sat hunched like a cat jammed into a hole among the dainty handles of the small cherrywood chair that ladies ordinarily used for tea and chatter.

《…It is all right.》

《It’s not you I’m worried about — the chair is the one that doesn’t look all right.》

《I am holding it up with my legs, so it is fine.》

《I’ll ask them to bring a larger chair.》

《…Mm.》

The castle lord answered in a reluctant tone, as though his pride had been wounded.

“Why are you getting into a pissing contest with a chair….”

《What did you say.》

《I said I’ll have one brought round right away.》

“…You don’t want money, then — you want me to build a tunnel, is that it?”

“Quite so.”

The plump lady spoke with a beaming smile.

“You know as well as I how troublesome the road from the capital to the border is.”

“Well, yes….”

“There’s a mountain range in between, so one has to go the long way round through the passes. What’s more, there was an avalanche in one of those passes only recently, and the inconvenience to people has been no small matter.”

Aspara flinched at the mention of the avalanche in the pass. Ah. That one Flower set off. I ended up causing trouble for people.

“If one could just bore a tunnel through here, like this—”

The lady drew a long line across the map spread out on the table with a piece of charcoal.

“Imports and exports, naturally — but internal trade, too, would become far more convenient.”

“However… compared to the cost, the demand isn’t there. The north has hardly any commercial trade to speak of.”

“At present, that is so.”

“You seem to be placing great hopes on the dye, but from the start that is a high-value, low-volume item, small in bulk….”

“It isn’t only that. Lady Aspara, no — Your Majesty.”

The lady took Aspara’s right hand in both of her own, cupping it between them as she spoke.

“This is not a matter of money. You see — I want to make the north into a civilized nation.”

Her eyes held the unmistakable, steady gleam of firm resolve.

“Do you know why the ‘cultural nations’ and the north cannot bear one another?”

“…The overall difference in culture… and the considerable difference in language, I should think. And, of course, the differences in appearance that come with differences in race—”

“No, no! It is the difference in wealth and power!”

The lady smiled brightly.

“It is not on account of mere cultural differences that people cannot understand one another. People imagine that sharing the same sex, or the same race, or the same nationality puts one on the same side. What foolishness! Wealth, and power. If those are matched in degree, all else is transcended and people can become friends.”

Aspara said nothing, and only looked into the lady’s eyes. In that moment, the eyes of the dead pig-of-a-baron and the eyes of this widowed lady struck her as much alike.

“…Let us grant, for the sake of argument, that what you say is true.”

“What I say is true.”

“Even if you build a tunnel and begin trading, the wealth and power of the central kingdom and the north will never come out even.”

“The important thing is, first and foremost, to become entangled.”

The head of the merchant house pressed on, not cowed in the least.

“The reason I threw in with Your Majesty’s futures-issuance scheme was precisely because I was struck by that very point. You saw it yourself, did you not? What a tremendous power it is, for interests to become entangled! At present no one spares the north a thought. No one loses a customer if the castle lord should suddenly collapse, and there isn’t a single factory or merchant house that would have trouble getting supplies if the north were turned into a sea of flame.”