"We will not survive the winter."
The King slammed his hand on the long table.
An ornate goblet jumped, and wine bled across the tabletop.
No one moved to wipe it up.
The Kingdom of Albert, the finance council chamber.
Around the long table sat the King, the Chancellor, and Finance Officer Gray. Beyond them, only the secretaries, and Crown Prince Alfred, sunk deep into a settee.
"Bringing her back is impossible."
Gray's voice was shaking. Even when he lowered it, the tremor did not go away.
"Lady Rosalind has already completed her separation from House Abel. Under our own laws, we cannot even invoke any duty of service to the royal house. Every path to her return has been closed off, in writing."
"—The private letter entrusted to us by the consort-to-be was also duly delivered into Lady Rosalind's hands. A last hope, placed in the affection of one who calls her 'sister.' ...However."
Gray paused.
"The seal was never broken. Not a single line was read, and it came back to us as it was."
"Then you returned empty-handed?"
"...No. We were granted one thing, at least: a way to rebuild trade."
Gray drew a single sheet of paper from his breast pocket and laid it gently on the long table.
"The Grand Duchy will lower its tariffs on our goods. Our exports will open again. —However."
His finger stopped on the paper.
"Our Chancellery's ten percent fee is to be abolished entirely, and for the next thirty years, we are to continue paying a fee to the Grand Duchy. Exactly as many years as our kingdom once collected from theirs."
Silence fell over the long table.
"Moreover, the exports will turn a profit next season at the earliest. —As for this winter's treasury, this arrangement will not fill it by so much as a single gold coin."
"So it all sits in the palm of that girl's hand."
The King struck the table again.
"The northern territories already can't pay their taxes. Tariff revenue is down forty percent from last year, and the exchange rate has halved. —Before next season ever comes, this winter will freeze the kingdom solid. What do we do?"
The Chancellor slowly raised his face.
There was no warmth in his gray eyes.
"A tax increase—the people would riot. Last month's uprising was only barely put down. Any more than that..."
"Then—"
"Then—allow us to make use of the birth of the heir."
"The heir, you say?"
"The Saint candidate's confinement is near. A joyous occasion like no other. —In her name, we will solicit 'Offerings in Celebration of the Heir' from every church in the land. No one will fault the people for giving coin to the Saint's joy."
For one beat, the air in the chamber stood still.
"As for the money collected," the Chancellor said, his voice flat, "not one copper of it will be spent on celebration. It will go to plugging the hole in the northern territories, and to the fee we owe that country. —So that nothing whatsoever remains in the Saint's hands, nor for the child."
The King's brows drew together.
"Then... it is to be the Saint's will, and not the Crown's decision."
"Just so. The collecting, the spending—all of it in the Saint's name. —And should the ledgers later be found not to balance, the crime as well, in the Saint's name."
The Chancellor did not smile. He had no need to.
At that moment, Alfred, who had been sunk deep in the settee, cut in while stifling a yawn.
"Just make Miria do it."
Everyone looked at the Crown Prince.
"She's the Saint, isn't she? Sacrificing herself for the people, that's the whole Saint job, right? I'm sick of this mess too, you know. Father, Chancellor—let's just call this sort of thing Saint work."
He flung both arms lazily over the back of the settee.
"It's not my responsibility. She couldn't even move her own 'sister' with one letter. That's the Saint's screwup, isn't it?"
The King snapped his fingers.
"—See to it."
The Chancellor bowed deeply.
Gray kept his eyes lowered to the table and said nothing.
The wine stain spread, slowly, all the way to the table's edge.
That night.
Deep within the palace, Miria's private chambers.
"Consort-to-be."
The Queen Mother's cold voice looked down upon Miria where she lay in bed.
"As one who carries the heir, from tomorrow you will serve as the named sponsor of the increased donations to the churches."
"...Donations, Your Majesty?"
"Refusal will not be permitted."
Miria's pale fingers clenched tight around the thin coverlet.
Her morning sickness had made her vomit three times again today.
The morning maid had tattled to the Queen Mother about "the consort's hysterics." The midday physician had said only, "It will affect the heir, so please take care of yourself," and added to the mountain of papers.
Her husband—she had not seen his face in three days.
She did not even want to hear the new favorite's name anymore.
"...Is Prince Alfred aware of this?"
"It was His Highness's idea."
The Queen Mother's lips thinned into the shape of a smile.
"A fitting final duty for a Saint, wouldn't you say?"
The door closed.
Left alone in the bed, Miria stared for a while at the embroidery of the canopy.
The candle flame cast long shadows on the bedposts.
(...That coward who ran from her duties.)
She did not say it aloud.
(I bet right now you're doing work you love, and even have some man treasuring you.)
(Running off by yourself. So unfair. When all of this is your fault.)
She had sent the private letter three days ago now. Once that woman learned of her plight, she'd surely play the good person and at least offer a hand. Miria had believed that.
No reply had come.
Slowly, Miria reached for the mountain of papers set beside the bed.
"Increased Church Donations — Named Sponsor."
There, with trembling fingers, she wrote her own name.
"Miria Lowe."
—The only place anyone called my name anymore was on paperwork, like this.
That same night. The Grand Duchy, the office.
By the window at dusk, Rosalind was leafing through documents.
The winter staffing roster. The autumn grain reserves. The cost estimate for repairing the northern highway.
The tip of her pen glided across the paper in a steady rhythm.
"It looks to be a cold night, doesn't it."
She had murmured it as if to herself, but from across the desk, a low voice answered.
"I told the chamberlain to add blankets."
Rosalind looked up and smiled.
"Thank you, Your Grace. —A review of the heating budget, as a matter of labor management. It bears directly on efficiency during the winter months, after all."
Lucas did not look up from his papers.
Only, the quill in his hand paused on the paper for one beat.
Rosalind, not noticing, returned her gaze to her documents.
Outside the window, the lights of the town came on, one, then another.
People in the streets hurried home, wrapped in woolen cloaks. A woman with a child in her arms was laughing to a man who looked to be her husband. "Let's have stew tonight."
And beyond that, beneath a distant sky—
That tonight, one of the homeland's lights had gone out.
That the tip of the pen with which Miria had written her name in bed had been trembling.
Rosalind did not yet know.
Nor did she need to.
"Your Grace, may I rework the northern highway repairs to break ground next spring?"
"That's yours to decide."
"Then I shall."
Outside the door, a young clerk was clutching a report brought by express rider from the homeland, about to dash into the office. Anna, a bundle of papers in her arms, gently held him back by the arm.
"Where are you going?"
"Ah, um, there's been political upheaval in the homeland... I thought Lady Rosalind should be told."
Anna quietly shook her head and whispered low to the young clerk.
"—Listen carefully. Even if a special envoy from the homeland turned up at the gates, the most Lady Rosalind would concern herself with is whether her tea had gone cold. The homeland no longer even enters her view. And the only thing His Grace is watching is the tip of Lady Rosalind's pen. That single point where it glides across the paper—he never takes his eyes off it for a moment."
"Y-yes, ma'am."
"That is the balance of this office. Whatever you do, don't go disturbing their desks with talk from outside."
The clerk nodded deeply, shifted his grip on his bundle, and hurried off down the corridor.
The sounds of the two pens overlapped again, quietly.
—Far away, the homeland's economy had, without a doubt, begun to creak.
Half a year passed.
Miria's belly was heavy, and her time was near.
—And the Queen Mother had already finished choosing a wet nurse.