"So. When do you start?"
Not an objection. Not a request for revisions. Not a referral back to some review committee. He asked only for the start date.
It was the moment Rosalind first recognized Lucas as "an excellent approver."
_—Let us rewind a little._
The next morning, the office was quieter than usual.
Rosalind's proposal came to three pages. Not parchment; she had chosen cheap card stock. Spending expensive parchment just to carry a signature was, by the habits of her past life, unforgivable.
_—A proposal gets approved on its contents. Not on its binding._
From her own seat, Rosalind watched the chief clerk carry those three pages reverently to the desk.
Lucas took the proposal and spread it on the desk with one hand.
Page one.
Page two.
Page three.
Only the sound of turning pages filled the office.
The chief clerk stood beside Rosalind like a statue. His profile looked damp with sweat.
_—Is this really a matter worth being so nervous over?_
Rosalind leaned back in her chair and timed Lucas's reading speed.
Roughly forty seconds per page. Judging by the back-and-forth of his eyes, he wasn't skipping sections. Not skimming for the key points, but combing every clause from the top.
_—An excellent approver._ She made a mental note.
_—Beneath those three pages lay that bundle of parchment her father had spent three years assembling for her._
The Grand Duchy's trade balance for the past five years, and a register of its leading nobles. She had received them in the study the night before her departure, started reading in the carriage, and had the broad strokes in her head by the time she took up her post.
_Three years of Father's work, folded into exactly three pages of proposal._
To her father, who must have watched her go from the study window, Rosalind returned a single lady's curtsy, once, in her heart.
Boiled down, Rosalind's proposal came to three points.
One. Conclude new trade agreements for mutual tariff reductions with other nations—led by the neutral nation of Porto, along with the Southern Sea states and the Eastern Commercial League. Open the three commodities of iron ore, silver ore, and woolens from the homeland's sole monopoly to a competitive market of multiple nations. That alone would make the monopoly prices the homeland had effectively enjoyed collapse automatically under the principle of competition. The treaty would not be torn up. The buyers would simply stop choosing the homeland in the first place. A design no one, anywhere, could legally object to.
Two. Diversify procurement routes for minerals and textiles from a single overland route through the homeland into multiple routes, with a sea route via Porto as the backbone. Run at least three routes in parallel, so that the risks of pirates, port conditions, and seasonal factors could be spread out.
Three. Raise the Grand Duchy's import tariffs on homeland-produced iron ore, silver ore, and woolens in stages from current levels. The Chancellor's Office's ten percent commission on goods routed through the homeland would be left untouched. To get it abolished through direct negotiation, the homeland first had to be made to say, "We'll scrap it if that's what it takes to keep selling to you." The tariffs would create the pressure for that.
When he had finished the last line of the third page, Lucas looked up.
"So. When do you start?"
Rosalind tilted her head ever so slightly.
Not an objection. Not a request for revisions. Not a referral back to some review committee. He had asked only for the start date.
"Seven days to prepare the articles, three for the proclamation and notices. Ten days in total."
"Very well."
Lucas picked up the quill at the edge of the desk and, at the bottom right of the first page, added his signature and pressed his seal of approval.
The second and third pages, the same motion.
Time elapsed: about two minutes.
The chief clerk's throat made a very small sound.
Rosalind glanced at him from the corner of her eye and offered herself a brief verdict.
_—Approval speed: excellent. So this is how pleasant it feels to work somewhere documents don't go to sleep on a desk._
Before he set down the pen, Lucas added one remark.
"The sea route via Porto has a pirate season in summer. I'll handle arranging the escort ships."
Rosalind nodded lightly.
"Thank you. That would be a great help."
"You focus on the articles."
"Understood."
Having said so, Rosalind found something snagging, just a little.
Arranging escort ships was properly a matter for joint deliberation between the Foreign Office and the Naval Bureau. It was not the sort of business on which the Grand Duke himself would say, "I'll handle it."
_—Pirates, which means high risk. His Grace has judged it best to act personally to minimize losses. Rational._
And there, Rosalind's processing ended.
Behind her, the chief clerk swallowed once more.
_—This is the first time His Grace has ever reached into the Naval Bureau's territory of his own accord, Lady Rosalind._
He could not say it aloud.
Approvals done, Lucas rose.
On his way to the office door, he stopped just once, beside Rosalind's desk.
Rosalind had already moved on to the next task. She had pulled over a sheet for drafting the proclamation and had just taken a fresh grip on her quill.
Lucas looked at her profile for a single beat.
Then he turned his eyes back toward the door and spoke briefly.
"...Good work."
Rosalind stopped her pen and looked up.
"You honor me."
That was all she said before lowering her eyes to her work again.
Lucas left the office without another word.
The door closed.
She heard the chief clerk finally let out his breath.
Rosalind began writing the first line of the proclamation.
As her pen moved, somewhere in the back of her mind, she turned over that "Good work" from a moment ago.
A superior who handed over performance feedback on the spot, in a few words. Excellent. Nothing to complain about.
In her past life— she began to think, and stopped at once.
She had decided not to talk about her past life during business hours.
Just one thing, though.
In ten years at the trading company, Ritsuko Tanaka had never once been told "Good work" to her face.
Her deliverables were siphoned upward time and again, and proposals went through under someone else's name. Only new requests piled up on her own desk.
Rosalind set to the second line of the proclamation.
Her pen felt just a little lighter than usual.
That evening, the chief clerk approached hesitantly and delivered a report in a low voice.
"Lady Rosalind. We've already received three inquiries from the merchants' guild. They'd like early disclosure of the details on the tariff reductions for the new route via Porto."
"Before the proclamation, I see."
"Yes. Word that His Grace's seal has been pressed seems to have leaked to the market already."
The chief clerk bowed his head apologetically.
Rosalind gave a light laugh.
"A swift information network. Very well. Please reply that no details will be given before the official proclamation date—but that the Porto route is confirmed. The merchants will want to secure their ships ahead of time, and that alone will be enough for them to move."
"As you wish."
The chief clerk bowed and left the office.
Left alone, Rosalind stood by the window.
The streets of the Grand Duchy's capital, in the dusk.
Tomorrow, the first express rider would set out for Porto. In ten days, the first ship on the new route would get underway.
_—In next month's accounts, the homeland's customs revenue will likely fall by close to forty percent._
Rosalind turned the figure over without saying it aloud.
She felt no guilt.
She had not come here to bring the homeland down. She had simply done the job she was asked to do—maximize the Grand Duchy's profits. She had plugged the holes in the treaty, redesigned the flow of goods, and cut out the skimming of the nobles who had nested along the approval line.
If that put the homeland in a bind, then the fault lay with the design of the side in the bind.
Rosalind left the window and returned to her desk.
As she went to begin the third line of the proclamation, Lucas's parting "Good work," two words, brushed the corner of her mind again.
The tip of her pen paused on the paper for an instant.
_—Well. It isn't bad, I suppose._
With that brief murmur to herself, she began writing again.
Ten days left until the proclamation.
_—The following week, thirty-two letters of thanks, bound with a leather cord, would be stacked upon her desk._
Every last one addressed to "Rosalind Abel."
The very thing Ritsuko Tanaka had not received even once in ten years.