"Your Grace. I propose that we recoin the currency."
First thing in the morning, in the office.
Rosalind stood directly in front of Lucas's desk, a bundle of documents in her arms.
Her voice carried a faint rasp from too little sleep.
Lucas set down his pen and raised only his eyes.
"...Reason."
"There are three."
Rosalind folded down one finger at a time.
"First, four out of every ten of our current silver coins are off-standard. The provincial mints have begun to drift."
"Second, the neighboring kingdom's silver coin is about to lose its credibility. The wave will reach the Grand Duchy as well."
"Third—"
Rosalind slid a single sheet of projections across the desk.
"If we recoin now, the Grand Duchy's silver coin will become the standard for the continent. An opportunity that comes once a decade."
A short explanation, nothing but the key points.
Lucas glanced at the projections, then looked at Rosalind's face.
"How long have you been preparing this?"
"For three weeks, in my spare hours at night."
"In your spare hours at night."
Lucas repeated the phrase as if rolling it over on his tongue.
Rosalind nodded, perfectly at ease.
"Yes. During the day I have the tariff cases and the sorting of marriage-proposal mail... no, I mean, the organizing of diplomatic correspondence."
"Spare hours at night."
Lucas said it once more, low.
In the corner of the office, the clerk Oswald, halfway through shelving some papers, froze.
Rosalind did not notice.
"Your Grace. Implementing the recoinage will require securing the consent of both the Royal Mint and the Treasury Oversight Board. If I begin drafting the notice today, it will be ready in time for a vote at next month's council."
"Rosalind."
"Yes?"
"For today's working hours, you'll do nothing but draft the recoinage."
"Pardon—"
"I'll handle the rest."
"And another thing."
Lucas set down his pen. His gaze passed, for only an instant, over the shadows under Rosalind's eyes.
"From tonight on, the lamps in this office go out at eight in the evening. Sleep."
"...Pardon?"
"If the drafter of the recoinage collapses at her desk, the plan stops. A rational decision for the running of the organization."
"And don't skip meals. Supplying sugar to the Economic Advisor's brain is a strategic resource of the Grand Duchy."
Rosalind thought for three seconds.
(...From an organizational standpoint, an instruction to assign me full-time is rational. Productivity under task concentration is 1.3 times that of split tasking.)
(...Besides, the drafter's health is the most critical resource for project continuity. The point about sugar supply is physiologically sound as well.)
"I gratefully accept."
She nodded deeply.
—She did not notice Lucas signaling Oswald with a glance.
—Nor did she notice the words "strategic resource" slipping straight past her sleep-deprived brain.
The moment Oswald stepped into the corridor, he let out a deep sigh.
"Sir Dieter."
His voice, calling the aide's name, was very nearly a scream.
Sir Dieter, the taciturn master swordsman, happened to be walking down the corridor with a letter under his arm.
"From His Grace. Everything on Advisor Rosalind's plate today, apart from drafting the recoinage, is to be passed to me."
"...Yes."
"All the other approvals. All of them. Me."
"Yes."
"She'd been working out a currency reform on her own for three weeks. In her spare hours at night."
Sir Dieter shifted the letter under his arm and let his gaze drift to the ceiling.
"About His Grace. How was the complexion?"
"Lady Rosalind's?"
"His Grace's."
Oswald fell silent for half a second.
"...Quietly furious."
"I see."
"At the part about 'spare hours at night.'"
"I see."
In the corridor, the two of them sighed again, at the same moment.
The office.
The mail-sorting basket that should have been on Rosalind's desk as always was not there.
In its place, a stack of blank drafting paper and two new quill pens had already been laid out.
(My, how quickly they've prepared things.)
Rosalind sat down and rolled both sleeves up to her elbows.
A habit from her past life.
"Well then. Commencing work."
She declared it quietly, to no one in particular.
Ritsuko Tanaka's voice gave a faint laugh somewhere deep in her head.
(...The work I've been doing for three weeks in my spare hours at night—today I'm allowed to do it in daylight. What a luxury.)
Rosalind picked up a quill and began writing the first line.
Her handwriting trembled, just slightly.
Noon.
There was a light knock at the office door.
"Your Grace, your lunch," came the attendant's voice.
"Here."
At Lucas's reply, Rosalind looked up.
At the corner of her desk sat a pot of warm tea and, on a small plate, a single slice of baked sweets.
The attendant bowed and withdrew at once.
Rosalind pushed her projections aside and took a sip of tea.
(...My, a sweeter treat than usual.)
Normally it was a well-salted pie, but today it was a cake of butter and honey.
(Blood sugar replenishment in a state of fatigue. I don't know whose instruction this was, but it's spot-on.)
Rosalind took one bite of the cake and went back to her draft.
From his side of the room, Lucas followed the motion with his eyes, just once.
Then he returned his gaze to his papers and, without a word, pressed his seal on one approval that should have been Rosalind's.
Evening.
A young girl, one of the clerks, came running down the corridor.
"Lady Rosalind!"
When Rosalind looked up, the girl caught her breath and broke into a smile.
"The revision to the pay structure you wrote last week, Lady Rosalind—it's been applied at my father's workshop too. His take-home pay went up by two silver coins a month."
"...Is that so."
Rosalind set down her quill.
"I'm very glad to hear it."
"My father asked whether he might come to the castle someday, because he'd like to thank you, Lady Rosalind."
"Fair compensation for labor is simply one's due. Tell your father there is no need for thanks."
The girl bowed deeply and ran off down the corridor again.
—Rosalind kept looking toward the door for a while.
(Lady Rosalind, she said.)
Ritsuko Tanaka's voice was translating on its own again.
(There are people who know my name.)
(In my past life, it was only ever written on file names as "Assigned to: Tanaka." Apart from being addressed as "Ms. Tanaka" on interoffice mail, there was no one who ever had reason to call my name—no one at all.)
Rosalind tightened her grip on the quill.
She only tightened it. She wrote nothing more after that.
The sun went down.
When Lucas looked in, Rosalind was still at her desk.
"Finished?"
"The draft is about eighty percent complete. By tomorrow I can—"
"Tomorrow is fine."
"But—"
"Rosalind."
Lucas's voice was the same as always, low and short.
"Rest for today."
Rosalind stopped her quill.
She thought for three seconds.
(In terms of order priority, it ranks higher.)
(Comply.)
"I gratefully accept."
She rose quietly.
The instant she stood, her vision went dark for half a second.
Rosalind lightly pressed her fingers against the edge of the desk.
Lucas saw it.
He said nothing.
He only followed her back with his eyes as she left, until the very last instant before the door closed.
Back in her room, Rosalind got into bed earlier than usual.
The moment her cheek touched the pillow, her thoughts cut out with a soft snap.
(...Sleepy.)
(When was the last time I was this sleepy?)
Ritsuko Tanaka had never been able to sleep like this, right up to the very end.
That was all Rosalind thought before she sank into a deep, deep sleep.
—The next morning, when she opened the office door.
On the desk there would be the usual tea and a single slice of baked sweets.
And on top of the stack of drafting paper, a short note in unfamiliar handwriting, a single line, would have been added.
Rosalind did not yet know.