LETTER 9

Miss March—

I apologize for the slight delay. I only now have the time to write you a letter once more. I have so much to tell you, but above all else, I truly need the hope you’ve always given me; because if you would allow me to be frank, things have only gotten worse.

I have been scrambling about like a madman, hurrying myself along to places I’ve only ever visited once every other month, strengthening friendships with the nobles whose names I could mention off the top of my head and making new acquaintances through them. Suzuki offered to take me to the places I needed to be, and as much as proper etiquette would have me say no, I was so desperate for results that I agreed to his offer. Occasionally, at least. I still took the wagon whenever I could, but each second spent is a second wasted, and I couldn’t afford that.

Let me preface with the worst news: I believe Lenamontis is headed for a civil war.

I still can’t believe I put that in writing.

Yes, Lenamontis has fractured—from its highest ranks to the lowest of stations, in dukedoms as far as Constantius to as deep as Aetius; everywhere I turn, the palpable tension in the air has shifted into a very anxious animo waiting to burst. As the Capitol prepared to celebrate the first anniversary of the defeat of the Demon King, a preparation of a very different kind was happening, which finally peaked in an emergency call for all nobles and magistrates.

We were only a little more than a week away from the anniversary. It was such an odd timing for a mandatory call, which was made not only to the dukes, but also to the marchions under them. I’ve informed all the marchions under the duchy of Constantius, and they replied with the utmost haste. The ever-loyal March of Lupus chose to send my dearest Leonie, freshly appointed as the Marchioness of Lupus, knowing that she was like a sister to me—there was definitely some worry because she was also betrothed to Suzuki, but I surmised that they wanted to help me put on some pressure, so I relented. Leonie was a knight, as well; she knew how to handle herself should things go wrong.

The pressure I had to put on had much to do with the state of the current Court.

To help put things into perspective, I will add some context. This entire state of affairs began when a letter from my father, who rarely ever wrote his eldest daughter a single word, suddenly came upon my doorstep not in Constantius, but in the Mansion.

“To my daughter dearest, my ever graceful young Charlotte Valeria, how do you do? Father writes this in the highest of spirits, as your chosen abode for the Constantius retreat had been nothing short of spectacular. With this opportunity, I—”

Oh, Father was always such a stickler for traditions. Is this how a father writes his own daughter? Even if said daughter has inherited his former duchy? Even if she was crowned Manus Dextra to the King of Lenamontis? All things considered, he’s still my father, isn’t he?

Skipping over the boring pleasantries and flowery words, his point was located directly in the middle of the letter, somewhere at the bottom of the second page.

“News of the abolition in Constantius has reached our ears, and while your younger siblings have yet to truly understand the gravity, this news has left me and your mother in a state most unfit to have even a moment’s rest after nightfall—and this has unfortunately been the case for days now.”

Of course the one time he chose to write to his daughter was when she turned his former duchy upside-down. In his defense, that’s hardly something worth blaming. The abolition quickly came with a mountain of consequences that barely left me with a wink of sleep, either.

Father expressed a few more concerns after that—the economy in Constantius was one, since we weren’t exactly exempt from slave use. What became of our rebuilding efforts? What became of the marches and earldoms under our dukedom?

Then, he mentioned the state of the people—how did they respond? Like the rest of Lenamontis, Constantius was very engaged in the conversation regarding slave treatment, especially since we were the first to enact indenture and later had to follow the royal decree for returnment. We were the first to cheer during indenture and the first to nearly break into fights during returnment. Worst yet, we were one of the places hit by the murders of important slaves. We were most definitely on edge, and Father was right in asking how the abolition affected sentiments.

Afterwards, he went through a few more things: the responses from the rest of nobility, what Rex Lenamontis had to say about the decree, how the Constantian aides responded to my proposal, what I did or said to convince them and the very King of Lenamontis that the decree was at all a good idea, the kind of retaliation that has probably been sent my way … okay, probably not a few. Funnily enough, it gave me a strange sense of comfort that Father was this worried about me. He wouldn’t say it for the world, but he never really hid how much his children occupied his mind, either.

As oddly sweet as that was, he was right to worry.

For once, even Suzuki was worried, too.

Let me answer all these as promptly as I can—Constantius is actually healing, at least socially speaking. The fracture could not be undone, and it had most definitely left a scar upon Constantius that could never truly be forgotten, but the abolition actually answered the slave-returners’ complaint, the one reason they mentioned about why they couldn’t support the slaves: legality. Now that Constantius had admitted slaves as human beings and refused to let humans own one another in terms dictated by gold, they no longer had any other excuse to not disobey the returnment bill. At the very least, it shut them up … although the quick pace with which we went from indenture to abolition definitely made them feel somewhat cornered about their stance. I can only hope, for the moment, that they’ve made peace with it.

Where Constantius doesn’t heal, however, is economically, and this is frankly my largest fear for the territory at the moment. Multiple, if not all, of Lenamontese agricultural dukedoms have cut trading ties with Constantius in all but official manner. This was the first reason behind my scrambling about. Constantius is relatively self-sustaining, but if these blockades continue, we would see our people start to starve in only a little over two years. No matter what moral position we’ve taken, we still face the same material needs, the same need for food for our bellies, the same need for roofs over our heads, the same need for safety from the elements. I can’t provide that by myself.

Constantius lands aren’t exactly infertile, but proximity to the Darklands has always made us focus more on self-defense rather than cultivation. Jumpstarting our agriculture would require budget, knowledge, manpower, and most importantly time beyond what we can presently afford.

I need the help of other nobles who have aligned themselves with me—any amount of help that could keep my people alive is good. I’m not in the position to be picky about my methods. I just need the Constantians to live long enough to celebrate the abolition of slavery, to smile as they did when they were first indentured.

However, even as these issues press on me alone, this was not the reason Suzuki was worried. If anything, I barely even had the time to talk to him about all this, and I’m not sure if he’s aware—although I do believe that he vaguely feels that something is amiss. The hint of Lenamontis breaking apart from the inside is so palpable in the air, and I believe even our stranger of a Hero could feel that.

No, the reason for Suzuki to worry wasn’t the clock counting down towards Constantius’ collapse. It was actually my personal situation that he was worried about.

My own situation began spiraling down not long after Father’s letter arrived—Paulina, a housekeeping maid that our head housekeeper Amelie treated as basically her right hand and best friend outside of her work as a maid, was suddenly found dead amidst the melting snow, out in the garden.

The response was very quick. As soon as the Vindex Regis heard of the news from the ninjas, Rex Lenamontis permitted us to dispatch a Holy Empire healer, usually stationed only to heal royalty and Court officials, to give a quick assessment of the situation. Miss Scarlet clicked her tongue during that check.

“That’s not murder,” she said with a piercing coldness. “That’s suicide—just not one she did out of her own will.”

The physician confirmed as much, although he mentioned nothing about the last part of Miss Scarlet’s conclusion. It was most likely from the ingestion of a very potent poison, he deduced. Miss Hojo was very quick to dispatch a small force of two ninjas to check on Paulina’s family and friends to figure out if there’s any foul play involved behind this—Miss Scarlet was still, after all, a trusted member of the Mansion. Even she knew not to screw around with her pranks under these circumstances.

And she was always the most sensitive to foul play among us all.

To begin with, where would Paulina even get such poison?

We tried using Miss Scarlet’s Cataclysm, the one she used at the Royal Court hearing with the Admarian messengers, but found no strangers around the Mansion. Paulina didn’t go anywhere suspicious, either. What was happening?

Suzuki tried to be there for Amelie, and the woman broke down—Paulina was only a little younger than her, but what she went through before they got acquainted was apparently somewhat similar to Amelie’s own experiences, and she was one of the first women Amelie saved with her Servant’s Aid Society. Paulina had always been a very fervent believer of the cause, which made her also a fervent supporter of Suzuki’s cause, and Amelie loved her very dearly for that. She was the closest thing to a sister that Amelie’s ever had in her life away from her family.

While the maid activities continued under the head housemaid, who took over for Amelie while she was in grief, the ninjas sent to check on Paulina’s family returned three days later with the grimmest of news: that Paulina’s family had been slaughtered.

During the time they were gone, Miss Hojo and Eus—one of the ninjas—took it upon themselves to check Paulina’s belongings for any clue as to why she would kill herself. Then, among the correspondence she’d had with her family, hidden very carefully, they found a letter. It was written very roughly so that the handwriting could not be identified, but clearly enough that it could still be read: Paulina’s family had been held hostage in their own homes.

The hostage-takers gave her very precise instructions to smuggle the poison into the Mansion, from making use of her errand schedules to dictating what she should say to whom while she was at the market. It was done in such a manner that it did not arouse the suspicion of the ninjas assigned to guard her—as we customarily sent for every Mansion inhabitant who had to leave the place for errands—and Paulina’s job, as it turns out, was to poison me.

Paulina might have been a simple maid, but she was not stupid. She knew exactly what I did in Constantius. She knew of the bill. She knew that I was fighting for Suzuki’s cause.

She knew that I was fighting for her cause.

She knew her family would pay the price for her failure—but instead of worrying about that, she chose the greater good.

She only sent that answer as her reply right before she decided to take the poison for herself. By the time the letter arrived at her family’s place, it was all too late for her. And the hostage-takers? They kept their word.

We had ninjas guarding our people, but not enough hands to protect their families, as well.

The report broke not only Amelie, but also Miss Hojo—she felt powerless to prevent the tragedy. It hurt the Vindex Regis—they felt responsible for not checking Paulina’s belongings just because she was an insider. It hurt me—the hostage-takers were too precise in their instructions that they must not have been your average bandit. They must have been sent by somebody with money, and their goal was clearly my head.

And it hurt Suzuki, who was sure he could’ve gone and saved Paulina’s family.

While I don’t necessarily disagree with that assessment, Amelie said that Paulina’s family was the one who gave her the explicit instructions the moment Paulina started working in the Heroic Mansion: should a day come in the future where she had to weigh their lives over the Hero’s, save the Hero.

The Hero must not be killed.

The Hero can save the world, but he cannot save everyone. Especially as Paulina was nowhere near that close to the Hero—she was a mutual friend, at best, through Amelie. The Hero could extend his protection, and the Kingdom must be more than willing to extend theirs, but they could only stretch their resources so much.

The Hero was someone deeply desired by many and deeply despised by the rest. The Hero will come under threat.

And should that day ever come, Paulina must never doubt her priorities.

As a nobody in the Mansion, the least she could do was not be a burden.

Amelie had never revealed this to Suzuki. Only to me. She knew it would only make Suzuki feel worse about himself. I know it would only make Suzuki feel worse about himself.

But Amelie revealed this because she had no idea who else she could tell this to. I couldn’t possibly burden her with my pain, could I? The sweet woman was twenty-two, Miss March, but the moment I saw the river she cried for Paulina, the more I thought that maybe seven years of a difference isn’t that far at all. We all feel grief just the same.

And my ordeals remain the same.

Paulina’s unfortunate passing was the first of many other increasingly present oddities that, thankfully, never managed to escalate so far as to claim a life afterwards. We’ve had efforts to assassinate us before, and we’ve had to survive these attempts countless times at this point, but now all the malice was not directed at the people around Suzuki in general, and they weren’t aimed at controlling him through blackmail or the like.

They’re now just outright murder attempts, and each one was directed at me.

And they’ve claimed the lives of Paulina and her family just for associating with me.

I would lie awake each night, keeping my ears sharp so that I could respond even before the ninja did. I would be deprived of rest each morning as Lady Dreyhilda helps with a Spirit Art that supposedly detects poison in my breakfast—I would need to see if Magic could do that as well so that I could at least cast it myself when I had to be on the go, because there is simply no way I am making my personal maid Maelys test each one of my meals for poison. She has been with me since I still drank from my mother’s breast. I’m not putting her in danger for my sake.

Every lunch was the same, except now that I often share tea or lunchtimes with other nobles, I had to always pray before each meal that the noble sitting across from me would not dare to try anything. I suppose it helps that I am fiancée to the Hero, or that I’m from a Ducal House, or that I’m the Manus Dextra, because at least nobles who wish to outright hurt me would know that the retribution they must face would not be easy.

I also had to pray that nothing happens to the noble sitting across from me because if anything did, it would be so easy to frame me for the act.

Every travel time, my eyes would be wide awake as I tried to scan every corner of every street I passed through; every evening, my body would ache, but I couldn’t afford to rest because a moment’s slip-up could easily spell my death.

Every night, the cycle started anew.

This was a little too much like the battlefield for my liking.

Suzuki had been especially irritated by these attempts at my life, and he’d tried to accompany me during the nights for as many nights as he could lately. Even Astrid and Miss Cath were sympathetic to my plight. Leonie had been coming to me each morning, her bright red hair a mess, holding back her tears, apologizing for her inability to always protect me because she now had to also take care of the territory she inherited—she was no longer a simple knightess in training, she was now the Marchioness of Lupus.

Throughout our lives, throughout the War, she used to be my knight, my dearest protector, but now upon her young back rests hundreds more lives than she had ever had to care for.

Leonie was the strongest girl I knew in my entire childhood, even as the shadow of death loomed over us all.

And now death is so close to me that she was reduced to tears.

I hated seeing her hurt like this.

My plight was one that was shared by the whole Mansion, making even Rex Lenamontis frown in Court whenever He noticed how pale my complexion was (His words, not mine), and He really refrained from mentioning the state of the Court because He knew exactly that it was what caused all this.

Yes, Miss March. My father was right to worry. The other dukedoms did not take the abolition in Constantius very kindly. Well, half of them. Half have started vocally considering abolition—but the rest had been silently screaming, “Charlotte de Constantia must be killed!”

In no time at all, Lenamontis was at a very real risk of falling into a civil war. In fact, Miss March, I do not see a way out of this yet. But I’ve spearheaded the movement. I’ve begun the real wave, the consequence of the momentum we’ve been gaining. First the indenture, true, but I took the leap of faith and established true abolition, and with the explicit consent of Rex Lenamontis, too.

It was why, when the Royal Court decided to summon all Houses of the nobility, the March of Lupus decided to send their former knightess of a Marchioness as their representative. Not only was Leonie my childhood friend, she was always my most loyal protector, and she had both the presence and battlefield experience to back that. They wanted her to support me. They wanted to help me put on some pressure.

My dukedom could not afford to look weak. I could not afford to look weak. I was constantly haunted by the ghosts of the assassins aiming for my throat, but I had to keep my face pretty and my head held high, because otherwise the dukedoms that wanted to follow in my footsteps would lose faith.

I could not afford for them to lose faith.

Constantius had become a pioneer, a precedent as Rex Lenamontis warned me, and I need the other dukedoms behind me to follow through. I need to stand strong. I need to set an example.

I write this as we wait for the meeting to begin, Miss March, because I fear that I may never again have the chance to write you a letter. The whispers of the other noble Houses have reached my ears, and I know exactly what they would propose at this meeting.

Should Lenamontis Royal Court decide to take my side, Miss March, they wish to secede.

In other words, no more ifs and no more buts. No more tension in the air. They would rather us all plunge into a full-scale war rather than lose their slaves. That’s how important they believe having slaves is to their livelihood.

Miss March, my hands are still shaking as I write this. I wish you were here to comfort me like you always did when I was still but a wee child.

With neverending prayers,
Charlotte Valeria de Constantia,
Ducal House Constantius, Kingdom of Lenamontis.

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