I instructed Oscar, who was waiting outside, to bring the letters.
Shortly after, an attendant entered carrying them.
The attendant presented the letters respectfully and withdrew, but the look we exchanged in passing was a bit odd. It was as if he were sizing up a rival. Why is it that royal attendants are all so insufferable?
"These are the letters exchanged between the Viscount Neunil family and the administrator."
"Hmm, anything interesting in them?"
"Interesting, yes, but there’s far more I can’t make sense of."
The grand duke took the letters I handed him. While he read through them, I sipped my wine and sorted out my thoughts. It all seemed tangled together, but in the end, it was a scheme for seizing power.
The relationships among the Finance Minister, Heinlein, and Neunil.
Heinlein and Neunil are on somewhat friendly terms. If they weren’t, Heinlein would never have taken in a Neunil cadet-branch member who’d caused trouble in the Finance Department and made him administrator of Schafen.
Even without friendship, the two were at least doing business with each other. Count Heinlein, for instance, might have borrowed Viscount Neunil’s influence to keep himself closely informed about court politics in Breisburg.
Conversely, that also meant the Viscount Neunil family had a clear window into Heinlein’s internal affairs through the administrator. Whether the two factions were pursuing separate ends behind a shared front, or genuinely getting along, I couldn’t say.
So which faction hired mercenary captain Schlieffen?
Heinlein was convinced it was the Finance Minister.
But was it really?
At first, I thought so too, but with the Finance Minister dead, another thought occurred to me. What if Neunil, having murdered the Finance Minister, hired the mercenaries to pin the crime on Heinlein?
Once Heinlein was dead, fabricating the evidence would be child’s play.
Having finished the letters, the grand duke let out a short sigh and said,
"Child of the Magnolia. Strange contents indeed."
"Do you happen to know anything about the magnolia?"
The grand duke smiled mischievously.
"If you ask me so vaguely whether I know about magnolias, then naturally I have no choice but to say I know nothing."
"...I admit I had my hopes up."
"Haha, don’t be disappointed. My attendant might know."
The grand duke clapped his hands, and the attendant waiting outside came in. The grand duke’s attendant is a high-ranking noble, no less. Count palatines may be common enough, but his rank still sits above mine.
Even so, high-ranking court nobles like him consider it a family honor simply to wait on the grand duke. Serving him is proof of a trust no government office can match, and it carries more weight in noble society than you’d expect.
Simply put, it’s gatekeeper power.
Is that why he gave me that strange look? A man like me, who can hold a private audience with royalty without an attendant’s help, might rub them the wrong way. Where there’s a single seat, countless interests crowd in.
Of course, flaunting that in front of a prince would be like lecturing a master in his own craft, but the fact remains that they’re people I should stay friendly with. Unfortunately, aside from Eisenach, I have almost no friendly contacts at court.
Whether it counts as friendship is debatable, but there’s Karlstadt, the royal palace gatekeeper, and Vermeer, the crown prince’s childhood friend. Who else is there? Somehow I’ve even managed to win Altringen’s favor.
Come to think of it, I wonder what Vermeer has been up to.
Aside from news of his marriage to the Mainhof young lady and his cooperation with Clara, I haven’t heard a thing.
"You called, Your Highness?"
"I called you in to ask something. Do any families come to mind in connection with the magnolia?"
The attendant thought for a moment, then began rattling off answers without a hitch.
Honestly, it was enough to overwhelm anyone listening.
"Five families or so use the magnolia as their symbol. The Landshuts are a court baron family, ordinary nobles with nothing left but their bloodline. The Klenhofs are a duchy knight family that fought bravely against Burgundy, but they have yet to recover since their head died of his wounds. The Obernes are vassals of Essenbach; I know little about them. I’ve also heard that a knight family from Eisten uses the magnolia as its symbol, but they’ve earned no distinction since the Great War."
...What is he, a database?
He recited it all without pausing for breath.
Forget count palatine. If someone told me he was an obsessive scholar, I’d believe it.
The only family I know of is the Obernes. Their head was one of the commanders who fought under Count Essenbach. We never formally introduced ourselves, but commanders know one another.
The rest are complete nobodies.
The last family seems to be the key.
"Lastly, there is the family that manages all tax collectors under the Breisburg Finance Department, the court viscount family of Elsheimer."
"Hmm, that was helpful."
"I’m glad to be of service."
After the attendant withdrew, silence fell between the grand duke and me once more. My thoughts grew tangled. Instinct told me the Child of the Magnolia was connected to Elsheimer.
And the kidnapped Bodo...
"Curiously, the Elsheimer family keeps coming up."
"Do you know anything about that family?"
"I cannot know every family in the duchy, so I knew of them only as a family under the Finance Department. Though I did recently hear that the viscountess died of illness."
"...The viscountess, you say?"
The viscountess died recently?
Through the Finance Minister’s matchmaking, an arranged marriage had nearly gone through between me and the elder of the two sisters the late Viscount Elsheimer left behind. They wanted me to marry into the family as a live-in son-in-law, so I refused with everything I had.
I’ve never met her; we have no acquaintance at all.
And through Adelbert’s matchmaking, she married Inspector General Mort.
That’s how Elsheimer came under Adelbert’s influence.
The grand duke was smiling as if he were genuinely enjoying himself.
"Isn’t it comical, watching them run wild the moment the palace’s master is away?"
"Your Highness seems to find this whole affair merely entertaining."
"Baron, so long as they don’t challenge the royal family, nobles killing one another is nothing more than a fascinating curiosity. Like bees that can’t pass a flower by."
His attitude sent a chill through me. The grand duke is friendly toward me, but his innate disposition is conspiracy (neutral). People with the conspiracy disposition are never normal.
I’d just had that confirmed once again.
The one saving grace is that the grand duke’s heir is Franz, and that he used his power to bury the secret of Franz’s illegitimate birth and recognize him as crown prince. Purely out of a twisted friendship, but still.
I consider that a true blessing.
"Even setting aside the Reinfeldt family, if Neunil proves their ability, they’re worth considering."
"You would make a family that rose through scheming the next Finance Minister’s house?"
"The Finance Minister was a fine schemer himself, Baron. Court politics is a world where no one with a conscience can survive. That’s why I sent you to work outside, so you wouldn’t be stained by it."
"...How touching. I’m moved to tears."
"Good to see you appreciate it. Be aware that you’re receiving an unprecedented privilege."
"I know my place, Your Highness."
"And that is why I trust you, Baron."
Not many nobles know their place, he added, before sipping his wine and regarding me at his leisure. It seems the grand duke still tests me at every turn.
"I’ll be returning to Breisburg."
"You wish to see things with your own eyes?"
"That’s part of it, but there’s a bigger reason."
I didn’t want to share the Streit family’s internal affairs with the grand duke. He didn’t press further, and he took full custody of Henry, lord of Schafen, and Count Palatine Heinlein.
Mercenary captain Schlieffen, however, would be coming with me. The fact that Heinlein had been attacked by mercenaries lay outside the grand duke’s interest; if anything, he left the matter to me to handle as I saw fit.
"And about the confiscated goods. Take half, Baron, for your trouble."
"...Half, you say? That’s worth around 200 gold coins."
"If not for you, that money would have vanished entirely. And I am not a monarch who is stingy with rewards."
Chills, conspiracy disposition, all of it—forget it. A monarch who rewards well is the best kind. I presented the one pouch of pepper I’d been meaning to offer up. The grand duke gave me a look, as if wondering why pepper, of all things, and out of nowhere.
"I found it in Count Palatine Heinlein’s residence."
"My, it seems you helped yourself before I could even give you a reward."
"You’re not going to give it and then take it back, are you?"
"Of course not. I’ll gladly accept the pepper."
And with that, my audience with the grand duke came to an end.
It felt like I’d traded a single pouch of pepper for 200 gold coins, and I was in high spirits. Of course, part of that money would go to the duchy army and my men.
Just as my monarch isn’t stingy with rewards, neither am I.
My men will be thrilled to take home a hefty windfall for the first time in ages.
Now it was time to prepare for the return to Breisburg.
Part of me wanted to share the new year’s blessings with Hilda in Feuzen.