Chapter 32 - 3-9
The great hall of the Malfa Castle keep, and the office of Sedias Thora, which is the small room adjacent to it. Peering out the window, the roofs of the arsenal spread out tediously, and the only scenery that suggests the season is a single zelkova tree. The leaves of the zelkova had begun to change color. Three months had passed since Marquis Delroy Sedias Thora returned to the capital; the short northern summer had faded into orange, and it seemed it was already ending. The precursor to winter became the wind, tickling people's skin with cold fingers and rustling through the leaves of the trees.
It had been a rushing summer. He had spent it burdened with two pressing concerns.
One was both auspicious and infuriating. Queen Yumeria Alish had conceived.
His Majesty had yet to declare a Crown Prince.
The departed Dravia had left behind three princes. All three were splendid young men.
Unless His Majesty appointed a Crown Prince from among these three, it would become a seed of misfortune.
Thinking this, he had visited the detached palace where His Majesty resided a week ago.
He had headed there determined not to be swayed by His Majesty's mood, but...
"I am about to bathe. Sedias, accompany me."
In the end, he was toyed with by His Majesty and ended up naked. His Majesty Swad Alish VII likely sensed Sedias's business and wanted to discuss it in the form of idle chatter.
Since it was an unofficial meeting, His Majesty was generous. After hearing the business,
"Very well," he had easily agreed while soaking in the stone bathtub.
—In the event that Yumeria's child is a boy.
Without delay, he would appoint Prince Yunias as the Crown Prince. The first child born to Dravia Thora. If realized, Sedias would be the maternal grandfather.
He was dissatisfied that a decision was not made immediately, but for now, this was sufficient for this matter.
There was one more pressing concern.
To discuss exactly that matter, Sedias headed to the church within the castle. Confining himself to a private room, he shared lunch with Priest Covet, a native of Delroy.
The priest had brought four letters and a map.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Army read the letters that had arrived from the east carefully. All four discussed the same political event.
"Is this true?"
The incomparably ferocious Kosa horse-people had begun active invasion activities in the eastern part of the continent.
Priest Covet spread the map on the table. He was a man with a large head, standing only about five heads tall. His face was square, and he grew a gloomy beard.
"This is the north," the priest pointed to a sliver-like area in the northwest of the continent.
His thick, short finger slid east across the paper. "The Plains Nations, the Kandasyata Plateau." He finally stopped at the eastern edge of the continent. "This is the nation of Byo."
"It is large."
"It is a large and wealthy nation."
"Are the numbers in the missionaries' letters accurate?"
The four letters had been written by Roma Church evangelists traveling the continent fueled by ideals, and delivered via southern merchants. Each letter reported the Kosa army's strength to be between ten thousand and fifteen thousand cavalry. There was some variation, but the numbers were nearly the same. What they all specifically noted was:
'There are no infantry.'
Meaning that even if there were some, they were too few to be counted.
—It seems they are not attacking castles.
"I wonder what kind of man this general, Wolf, is."
"Nothing clear is written."
Which meant he was not a famous person.
A nameless general and a force of only about ten thousand. Moreover, only cavalry. A hasty judgment could not be made. However,
—Is this not just a minor skirmish?
The Siddim military commander held this impression strongly.
After instructing that information continue to be gathered, Sedias finished his lunch.
"Be careful not to let this talk leak," he did not forget to warn.
If the lords of the east learned of this, those fools might cause an uproar. Siddim people are sensitive to the movements of the Kosa. They have no choice but to be so, for there is the history of the calamity of Great King Aframa. If the activity of the Kosa became known, the situation could become strange.
The great hall of Malfa Castle was a room where His Majesty resided during wartime, and where the military inspectorate was placed during peacetime. The inspectorate was the department for military supervision and also handled administrative affairs. Usually, soldiers of officer rank compiled documents with precision. When Sedias returned to the great hall on this day, about ten soldiers with swords at their hips were shouting loudly.
Sedias Thora approached with long strides and punched the temple of a soldier who was yelling without noticing Sedias.
"Quiet!"
The soldiers stood straight like trees.
"What is the matter?"
As soon as he asked, the soldiers began to speak all at once.
It seemed that their regular pay was not being paid.
When asked for details, it seemed that their tabs at the drinking houses had been deducted.
"You had tabs?" he looked at one of the soldiers.
"No..."
"You didn't?"
The soldiers gradually looked down. They must have had them. But what was this "deduction"? He had no memory of permitting such a thing.
"The tabs, you see, did exist."
Pushing through the wall of soldiers, an old man wearing glasses, which was rare, appeared. He was dressed in a long robe and wore a hood. He was likely a bureaucrat.
"It is by the instructions of His Excellency the Prime Minister. Soldiers who had accumulated tabs will have that amount deducted from their salary. This is the list of debtors." The bespectacled old man thrust a bundle of documents forward.
Sedias accepted them in silence.
He flipped through the documents, one page, then two. Home nations, names, and the amounts of the tabs were listed.
There was no point in talking to a petty official. The treasurer of the Siddim Kingdom was Gilma Rigardie.
"There must be some mistake."
Adding a smile, he returned the bundle of documents to the old man. He headed for the first floor. Since Sedias's office was on the fourth floor, it was not easy.
Gilma Rigardie's office was a small room facing the first-floor great hall. The first-floor great hall was also, during peacetime, an office where desks, chairs, and partitions had been brought in.
"Hello, I've been waiting for you, Sedias." The Eber person was leaning against the desk, crossing his long legs. He turned his large aquiline nose toward Sedias.
"Gilma, it seems there has been a misunderstanding. I'm sorry to trouble you, but I wish to confirm something."
"Now, now, Sedias. Please, have a seat." The Eber person moved a chair from the wall to the front of the desk for the Marquis of Delroy. "It's a troublesome story. However, I must ask you to swallow this."
Gilma moved behind the desk and sat in his chair.
"Swallow? Swallow what?"
"I wish to deduct the drinking house tabs from the pay paid to the soldiers."
Gilma Rigardie was a dandy Eber noble with red hair grown to his shoulders. Contrary to his appearance, he had courage. Sedias smiled cautiously.
"Drinking house tabs are a matter between the drinking house and the individual soldier, are they not?"
"However, those tabs have reached an extreme state of disorder. The amounts are recklessly large. The Royal Army has bought them up in bulk."
"The Royal Army... bought them? The tabs?" The Commander-in-Chief was speechless. Of course, he had no memory of buying such things.
"On my own authority, I decided that the Royal Army bought them," Gilma said calmly.
"Hey, just what—" Sedias finally noticed the dangerous situation.
"I would like you to be grateful." The red-haired Prime Minister lifted his large, sharply pointed nose. "The longer time passed, the more the situation would have worsened. Look at this."
On Gilma's table lay a bundle of poor-quality paper made from grass. There were probably several hundred sheets. Sitting deep in his chair, Sedias flipped through the bundle. They were documents summarizing the misdeeds of the Royal Army. The Royal Army soldiers, in short, ate. And they drank. They did not pay. On the contrary, those fellows often destroyed shops. He recognized one of the documents. One of the soldiers had burned down a drinking house entirely.
"Did you notice? Your Excellency, Your Excellency signed the document to compensate that shop. Do you remember?"
He had signed it about a month ago. He remembered.
"The problematic part is that, in order to pay the compensation, you permitted the issuance of certificates. Please read carefully. For the payment of the tabs accumulated by the culprit soldier, debt certificates were also issued. Do you understand? You instructed the issuance of Military Scrip."
"Military Scrip? What is that?"
"This is bad, Your Excellency. Using Your Excellency's signature as a precedent, it has been decided that the tabs created by the Royal Army are to be paid with Military Scrip."
"So, what is that!"
Gilma held out a scrap of paper on the table. Sedias took it, and
"W-what is this!" he recoiled.
It was a certificate with a length and width roughly the size of a hand with fingers extended.
"That thing has entered circulation, you see. Almost like banknotes."
The hair on Sedias's neck stood up. On the Military Scrip, along with the military flag, the Thora family crest was printed boldly in black.
—T-this is, almost as if.
It was as if the Thora family had issued banknotes without the Royal Family's permission.
The right of coinage and the right of currency issuance were privileges monopolized by the Royal Family. The right to create money could be called sacred and inviolable. To violate this was...
—Treason.
It was not an exaggeration.
"Now, now," Gilma began to laugh. "They aren't actually banknotes, so there is no need to worry."
According to Gilma, the Military Scrip had a payment deadline written on it, so it could not become banknotes. About one hundred and forty sheets were in circulation. They were passing from person to person, but when the date for exchange into gold coins arrived, the Military Scrip would naturally gather and could be recovered.
"This is bad for my heart," Sedias Thora slumped. "This is a problem, Gilma. A huge problem. This is an egregious overstepping of authority. To create Royal Army certificates on your own without my permission. This is your responsibility."
"I don't need your permission," Gilma snorted. "The Royal Army isn't yours; it belongs to His Majesty."
"Hey, don't mess around. This is no joke—"
"You are the one making a bad joke." Gilma raised one eyebrow. "Who do you think I am cleaning up after? Tabs from one hundred and forty shops. The total exceeds forty thousand. Such a large sum cannot be prepared immediately. There is no choice but to repay them systematically by setting a date. The citizens are watching. We have to show sincerity by issuing Military Scrip—and besides, this Military Scrip isn't all bad news. The Royal Army gets a commission."
A commission? The Commander-in-Chief noticed a discrepancy. Was there someone who had organized this?
Gilma explained, waving his aquiline nose.
First, a certain person went around to drinking houses and bought up the Royal Army's tabs at seventy percent of the debt amount.
"Seventy percent is quite greedy, is it not? Frankly, I liked it a little."
For some reason, the Eber person was in a good mood.
Second, that certain person asked the Royal Army to buy the collected claims in bulk.
"I agreed. When I had them checked, they seemed genuine. We couldn't just leave them."
Third, that certain person's commission was ten percent, and the Royal Army's commission was twenty percent.
"At this point, our young ones jumped at it. After all, the Royal Army is a money-pit, so the honest truth is that we want to save even a little."
Fourth, the debts are paid after being organized via Military Scrip.
"Stop teasing me." Both of Sedias Thora's eyes were pressed down from above by thick eyebrows. What was inside his chest was not anger. It was a quiet fighting spirit. "Who is this 'certain person'?"
"Sedias, do not play the fool and do something stupid," the Prime Minister made a scary face. "The Royal Army soldiers repeatedly ate and drank for free, payments were whimsical, and unpaid tabs were a daily occurrence. Assault cases were countless; they destroyed tables and walls, and even dragged waitresses into wine cellars. The fate of shops that refused the soldiers' visits is written in the documents you signed. There could be no greater failure of supervision. Likely, the misdeeds go back several years. The soldiers, simply for the sake of alcohol, casually left their real names in handwriting on the tab memos. This matter, this measure, is also a proposal to settle those scandals privately."
"It is a problem of the Royal Army. Give me the name."
"You'll be tripped up. If His Majesty..."
"No!"
Gilma Rigardie sneered.
"Yugis Necrat. The son of Urgil Necrat, fourteen years old—no, he should have turned fifteen on his birthday the other day. A student of the King's School—he is still a child."
Even the conqueror was left speechless.