The penalty. A sum the homeland's finances could—never, under any circumstances, pay.
Chancellor Erwin Garrett read that single line three times.
—Evening, the same day. The Kingdom of Albert, the central wing of the royal palace, the Chancellor's office. The candles had only just been lit.
The Chancellor opened the official document on his desk once more.
The wax seal bore the crest of the Grand Duchy of Vernant.
The title was a single, concise line.
Bilateral Memorandum (Draft)
The Chancellor raised an eyebrow.
"...Quick work, His Highness the Grand Duke."
Only a few days had passed since Rosalind Abel's move to the Grand Duchy had been settled. Already a letter had arrived from the other side, expressing a wish to "put the intergovernmental aftermath in order on a practical footing."
The Chancellor spread the document out on his desk again.
The draft memorandum consisted of four articles.
Article One. The Kingdom of Albert officially recognizes Rosalind Abel's appointment as Economic Advisor to the Grand Duchy of Vernant.
Article Two. The Kingdom of Albert shall not demand the return of her person, and shall not intervene in her contract of employment with the Grand Duchy of Vernant.
Article Three. Should any interference in breach of the foregoing agreement cause damage to Rosalind Abel's contract of employment and thereby cause loss to the Grand Duchy of Vernant, all compensation shall be borne by the Kingdom of Albert as signatory to this memorandum. The amount of compensation shall be as set out in the attached assessment.
Article Four. In consideration of this memorandum, the Grand Duchy of Vernant shall provide the Kingdom of Albert with the following two items:
(1) A preferential quota for goods produced in the Kingdom of Albert within the Vernant customs zone (for a period of three years).
(2) A right of official inquiry, from your royal court, to Economic Advisor Rosalind Abel. Such inquiries shall be routed through the Foreign Office of the Grand Duchy of Vernant, and the decision whether to answer, and the content of any answer, shall be left entirely to her.
Around Article Three, the Chancellor's finger paused.
...And the penalty's on us.
He drew the attached assessment toward him with a soft rustle.
His finger stopped once on the figure, then slid over to the kingdom's budget tables.
The moment he set the two numbers side by side, the Chancellor caught his breath.
...A sum our kingdom's finances could never possibly pay.
_And set right at the brink—at the exact level where the very attempt to pay would bring the kingdom itself down._
It could not be a coincidence. A sum that, paid in full, would stop one step short of emptying the royal treasury. To place it so precisely, the other side had to have grasped the homeland's revenues, expenditures, reserves, and outstanding bonds—all of it—in advance.
_At the very moment of drafting, they had already grasped all of our internal affairs, and built the figure on that basis._
Before Rosalind Abel herself had even arrived in the Grand Duchy—no, before that night in the corridor of the Abel ducal residence when the signing of her employment contract had been hammered out. On Grand Duke Vernant's desk, this draft memorandum and an anatomical chart of the homeland's finances had already been lying side by side.
His Highness the Grand Duke had laid out the mechanism for never letting her go before he had even acquired her.
A low laugh escaped the Chancellor.
...Three years ago, I saw a carriage bearing the Vernant crest at the palace gates. Just once.
That was the day of the duke's daughter's debut, if I recall.
Looking back now, perhaps that single visit was already the preliminary sketch of this memorandum.
Idle speculation.
The Chancellor cut it short and turned the page.
_Well, it's a clause that won't trigger so long as we don't make a move._
At Article Four, his finger stopped again.
_...A right of inquiry, hmm._
Rosalind Abel. The woman society had mocked as the cold-hearted lady.
—And yet who was it that had quietly been putting the darkest corners of the kingdom's accounts in order since the age of sixteen?
That girl's head would fetch a far higher price than her ducal house's entire fortune.
The Chancellor slowly chewed over the meaning of the words "right of inquiry."
The quality and quantity of any answer would be left to her—so it said.
In other words: the right to ask. No guarantee anything comes back.
The corner of the Chancellor's mouth twisted, ever so slightly.
...Well, being able to ask at all beats having nothing.
There was a light knock at the door.
An attendant announced the arrival of His Highness the Crown Prince.
"Show him in."
Alfred came in still flushed, a copy of the letter clutched in his hand.
"Chancellor, I heard. They say Vernant's sent an envoy to offer thanks."
"Thanks, Your Highness?"
"It's about compensation for taking that cold-hearted woman off our hands, isn't it? Naturally they've come to bow their heads to us."
The Chancellor's expression did not change.
_...Come to bow, have they._
In reality, they were the ones being asked to sign, but he had no intention of correcting that here and now.
Letting the Crown Prince's vanity be tickled now and then, for the sake of the realm's stability, was part of a Chancellor's job.
"Your Highness. This is the draft memorandum. Would you be so kind as to look it over?"
"Hmph."
Alfred ran his eyes over the document on the desk once, top to bottom, as if skimming water.
He did not follow the details.
"It says 'consideration.'"
"Indeed."
"A preferential quota? And... to the Economic Advisor, a what—right of inquiry?"
"Yes. To put it simply, it is the right to borrow Lady Rosalind's mind whenever the need arises."
The Crown Prince's eyebrow twitched.
"...When she was with me, she never once gave me advice on affairs of state, even when I asked. That woman."
"Is that so."
The Chancellor's tone remained flat throughout.
...Perhaps because Your Highness never troubled to put the question in proper form.
—That one line of thought, he kept to himself.
"Well, fine."
Alfred nodded magnanimously.
"That cold-hearted woman's gone, good riddance, and on top of that we get tariff benefits. —Not a bad deal, is it, Chancellor?"
"Just as you say, Your Highness."
The Chancellor began to reach for the pen tray—and then stopped.
"Your Highness. One matter before you sign."
"What?"
The Chancellor lightly indicated Article Three with the pad of his finger.
"I would ask you to keep this one clause in mind. —So long as there is no interference, it will never take effect."
"Interference?"
Alfred snorted.
"With that cold-hearted woman? As if I would. I'm done having anything to do with her."
"—Is that so."
The Chancellor said nothing more, only nodded quietly.
I did say it would never take effect so long as there was no interference.
And the one who heard it was His Highness himself.
"Sign it. In my name. I'll go get His Majesty's mark tomorrow."
"Very good, Your Highness."
After the Crown Prince had left in high spirits, the Chancellor remained alone at his desk.
He took up his quill and held the nib above the signature line.
—There, his hand stopped, just slightly.
...Articles Three and Four mesh a little too well.
The bait of a right of inquiry was dangled before their eyes—and alongside it, the stipulation that interference meant a penalty.
_In other words—the moment I go beyond the form of an "inquiry" and try to give that girl direct orders, a sum our country's finances could never cover goes flying._
The other side's intent was plain.
Rosalind Abel was no longer the homeland's property. Her inquiries might be answered. She would not be commanded.
...Well, so be it.
The Chancellor lowered the nib to the paper.
At least I've preserved a position from which the kingdom can officially rely on that girl's mind.
_For ties severed by way of a broken engagement, that's a fine result._
The pen glided across the paper.
—Erwin Garrett.
His mark flowed from a practiced hand.
He did not notice.
That within the stroke of that pen lurked a figure which, in years to come, would strip the kingdom's finances bare.
—That same evening, the Grand Duchy of Vernant, an office in the Silver Tower.
Rosalind Abel had just finished writing her name on her formal contract of employment.
Her homeland's Chancellor's mark had not yet reached that contract.
It would arrive a few days later.
By then, Rosalind would already have found the first flaw in the customs ledgers piled on her desk.
...This preferential quota is written rather generously, isn't it.
Her finger stopped once over the figures on the page. Then, without hesitation, she drew a line of red correction through them.
—Because it was her job, she drew it.
The preferential quota her homeland had won was, from that moment, quietly beginning to be whittled away.