...Excuse me? Seven years' worth of the national budget, thrown down the drain?
A low mutter most unbecoming of a lady nearly escaped Rosalind's lips, and was pushed back down into a lady's tone of voice.
"Would you care for more tea, Lady Rosalind?"
"Thank you. Two sugars."
Rosalind answered without so much as raising her eyes.
On her desk, leather-bound trade ledgers were stacked three tiers high. The top tier held the past five years of customs records with the Kingdom of Albert, her homeland. The second, the thirty years before that. The third, copies of the supplementary agreements and memoranda.
Two weeks since Rosalind had taken her seat as advisor.
She had decided to scour every existing treaty before the morning was out, and was turning the pages one after another.
"...Hm."
A single short murmur.
Then her silver lashes lowered, for just half a second.
Iron ore, silver ore, woolens. Trade agreements with anyone other than the homeland: none. All three, effectively a monopoly supply.
Rosalind's gaze had stopped on a single line.
Commission: routed through the Chancellor's Office. Fixed surcharge. Ten percent.
—In other words, every time they buy iron, silver, or wool, the homeland automatically skims ten percent off the top.
...I do wonder who negotiated this. Unbelievable.
She did not say it aloud.
It was only that she had settled into exactly the same posture as Ritsuko Tanaka in her past life, reading over a contract a new hire had turned in, in an office just before the last train.
One hand pinned down the profit line; the fingers of the other counted the unfavorable clauses. The five fingers of one hand were not enough.
"...How very impressive."
At the sarcasm in her voice, the head clerk nearby, a graying, elderly man named Oswald, gave a faint shudder of the shoulders.
"Ah, Lady Rosalind. That, er, that bears the signature of His Grace's predecessor... Back then our nation was still young, you see, and could not have stood without your homeland's minerals and backing. The terms offered in exchange were, well, the Chancellor of the day was a good-natured man... And even now, the tariff walls with other countries remain high, so in the end, iron and silver and woolens alike come in from your homeland and nowhere else..."
Rosalind finally looked up.
"Being good-natured is no virtue in contract negotiations."
It was the voice of someone stating a fact.
"It is a virtue only in wedding toasts and funeral eulogies. On a contract, it is a sin."
The expression drained from Oswald's face.
Then he bowed deeply.
"...It is exactly as you say."
Rosalind took up her pen.
The tip of the quill began to glide over a blank sheet of notepaper.
The past thirty years. The markup from monopoly supply. The accumulated surcharge from the Chancellor's Office commission.
The figures lined themselves up beneath her fingers of their own accord.
Thirty years, cumulative. The Grand Duchy's losses come to... roughly seven years' worth of the national budget.
The instant the figure came out, the corner of Rosalind's mouth rose by just one millimeter.
It was not a smile.
It was the same face as back then. When Ritsuko Tanaka in her past life had hammered out the losses on a garbage outsourcing contract her boss had signed off on, the morning after three straight all-nighters, and in the instant she looked at that number, it had come to her.
_—Oh. This is one I can turn around._
Within Rosalind, two voices overlapped and murmured the same thing.
The office door opened quietly.
Rosalind did not turn around. Her quill did not stop moving.
Only Oswald straightened with a start and bowed deeply.
"Your Grace."
It was Lucas.
No documents. No sign he had brought anything for approval.
He merely stepped half a pace into the room, swept his gaze once over the stacks of ledgers on the desk, and looked at Rosalind's back.
Then, without a word, he withdrew and closed the door.
Time elapsed: under ten seconds.
Only the scratch of Rosalind's quill returned to the office once more.
"...Oswald."
"Yes."
"Did His Grace want something?"
"No, Lady Rosalind."
Oswald paused for a breath.
"It is... exceedingly rare for His Grace to come in person, of his own accord, just to see how things stand in the office."
Rosalind nodded lightly as she drew a circle beside the figure "seven years cumulative" in her notes.
"A set schedule for progress checks, I imagine. Reviewing a new hire's progress in their second week. Quite rational."
The corner of Oswald's mouth twitched slightly.
"...Is that so."
"Indeed."
Rosalind was already turning to the next page.
Oswald glanced toward the corridor.
—His Grace is most likely still standing somewhere out there.
He did not say it aloud. Lately, he had been telling himself it was just his imagination more and more often.
Toward evening, Rosalind set down her pen.
At the bottom of her notes, she had written the following:
1. Conclude new trade agreements with other nations for mutual tariff reductions
2. Diversify procurement routes for minerals and textiles by sea
3. Raise import tariffs in stages on iron ore, silver ore, and woolens from the homeland
Three lines.
The skeleton of the proposal was already done.
Rosalind stretched once and turned her eyes to an oilpaper packet at the corner of her desk.
The last skewer of dumplings the stall had thrown in for free yesterday. She had left it at the corner of the desk, meaning to enjoy it with a cup of hot tea that morning, and in the end she still hadn't eaten it.
"...Oh my."
She had been so absorbed that she'd forgotten.
Rosalind looked down at her own hands for half a second and gave a short laugh.
—Ritsuko would have shoved it in a desk drawer and let it go moldy within three days.
Today was different.
Tomorrow morning, she would eat it properly, with hot tea.
That she had time enough on her hands to think so was, in itself, still a little strange to her.
"Oswald."
"Yes, Lady Rosalind."
"I shall submit a redesign of our foreign trade to His Grace by tomorrow morning."
She heard Oswald catch his breath.
"...By tomorrow morning, you say?"
"Yes. The materials are all in hand."
Rosalind carefully laid a single sheet of notes atop the stack of ledgers.
"Then I'll make the fair copy tonight. Two more sugars, if you would."
Oswald bowed deeply.
The moment he stepped into the corridor, he stopped once more and looked back at the office door.
Beyond it, a silver-haired woman was already gripping the next quill.
_—Tomorrow morning, a treaty no one had touched in thirty years would catch fire._
For the first time, something that was not cold ran down Oswald's spine.
At that same hour, in the homeland's Chancellor's Office, the ten percent commission was being entered in the books as usual, just as it always was.
Tomorrow morning, that "as usual" would end.
The homeland did not yet know what had begun.
By the time it did, there would be no putting it out.