All the Noble Ladies

A parade of concerned citizens went through Rosamund's room in the early morning. First was Ekliptik, who failed to wake him up. Next was Nivelir, who was called by Ekliptik, and who also failed to wake him up. The duo then went to fetch Lilac, who mercilessly threw him out of bed.

"We really need to fix your sleep schedule," Lilac said.
"Speaking of sleep, Captain Vervain is asleep in the library," Nivelir said. "Ekliptik found her this morning."
"There is a man with her and he won't let us approach," Lilac added.
"He said somethin' 'bout a duel, but she's not dead, right?" Ekliptik said.
"A duel? You should've said so sooner," Nivelir replied.

"Please, I just woke up..." Rosamund whined. The group settled down for a moment while he was getting up and fetching a robe. "Captain Vervain has been challenged to a mathematical duel. The due date is today," he tiredly said. He had other work to do last night, and didn't let them know during dinner.
"Who is she dueling?" Nivelir asked.
"Viscountess Kuplung."
"Ah."
"Who is that? Do we know her?" Lilac asked.
"Nivelir and I met her once, didn't we? We had a meeting with her husband and she was there. She struck me as a highly intelligent woman. An interesting character, to be sure," Rosamund answered. "Considering her opponent, I hope you didn't distract her from her work."
"She's asleep," Ekliptik said.
"Right, then. Get out so I can get dressed. We'll wake her up together and see if she is feeling well."

Seven thirty. And he left the office sometime after one in the night. He had no idea when he went to bed or when he fell asleep, but he could clearly feel it was too early. But, fine. He washed up, combed his hair, got ready for the day. Handsome and proper as ever.

Teodolit joined the group along the way. The five of them walked into the library, where that lawyer was sitting and reading some files. Adanita was quietly snoring on her papers, still wearing the same clothes from yesterday.

"Good morning," Rosamund greeted the man quietly. "People are concerned for Captain Vervain's well-being. Surely we are allowed to wake her up to see if she is alright if you are here to witness the conversation?"
"Hmm... Very well, I will allow it. You are strictly forbidden from looking at her task or discussing the duel."
"We will keep a distance from the table, and you can confirm we are not carrying any papers with us."
"That is acceptable, Lord Governor. Thank you for understanding. Considering her background, she will be under even more scrutiny than a normal noblewoman. I am simply doing my best to prevent any possible slander or accusations."
"A highly conscientious approach to your assignment. Captain Vervain," Rosamund called.

She needed to be called a few more times before responding. Teodolit almost went to her, but he stopped the man by putting a hand on his shoulder. Adanita stirred slowly, stretching her arms and spine like a cat.

"Oh, you're all here," she said.
"You fell asleep in the library, Captain. I think it's fair to say we got concerned," Nivelir replied.
"Well, thank you. What time is it?"
"Almost eight," Rosamund said.
"Oh... Oh! My duel! I need some time. Don't disturb me!"
"Perhaps you could rest before-" he tried.
"It's fine! I'm done! I just need to check everything."

She was wearing her new glasses. It seemed they worked well for her. Rosamund was glad. He waved to everyone to disperse and keep quiet, taking Ekliptik and Teodolit away to explain to them how the duel worked. Happy to learn she wasn't in any kind of mortal danger, they decided to go and fetch everyone some tea. Nivelir and Lilac stayed, curious to see how it will go. They were noblemen, after all, and this was a matter of honor among ladies. They were curious, to say the least.

Rosamund sat on the windowsill bench, watching her work. Watching the soft glimmer on her golden beads, and golden oval glass frames. She was so focused, but he could see she was tired. Her eyes were clear, although surrounded by dark circles. Heh. Who's not taking care of themselves now?

By the time they were done with their tea, Adanita was done with writing everything down. She turned in the papers to the lawyer, who carefully sealed them inside a large envelope and placed them into his bag. Rosamund invited them all for a breakfast, and the zealous man went so far to keep the bag on his lap while eating. The conversation was pleasant enough, and their new addition to the group seemed completely at home among them all.

"If I may speak, Captain Vervain, I was very surprised when Baroness Mayberry called for us. I never expected I could have the honor of meeting you, let alone assist with an ordeal such as this. Is this your first duel of this nature?"
"Aye. I had duels with weapons before, though," she said. "I more or less expected something like this happening, though I didn't think it would be so soon. I don't think I particularly angered Viscountess, either... This may be a matter of honor for nobles, but I think it was also just for fun. That's just the impression I got from her."
"I never had the chance to ask you before, but where did you learn mathematics?" Rosamund asked. He knew she was highly educated in that field since the pirates took tests, but it didn't come up sooner.
"My first Captain taught me. He said I had a good head on my shoulders, and before becoming a Captain myself, I was a navigator on another ship," she said.
"Both brains and brawn on our Queen," Teodolit said. Adanita smiled at him.
The table agreed she was a highly impressive woman, indeed.

It didn't take long for Rosamund to convince Adanita to take a nap for a few hours. He already decided to accompany them to the Baroness. A duel on this level was worthy of him taking notice, and besides, he wanted to see it through. To be there for her. It felt right, he decided, putting on the finest outfit he had that wasn't the one he had prepared for the ball. He had his gun, he had his cane, his hair was combed and tied back. He will make sure he's the first to congratulate her on her victory and look perfect while doing so.

When they were finally ready to go, she looked refreshed, wearing her usual outfit. Tall and imposing with her tricorn hat and sky-blue coat, she wore a fancy embroidered pirate shirt with a deep cut, held together by a new corset. She wore the same boots as yesterday, but chose to wear her long trousers instead of a dress or a skirt. She had her swords on her waist, and her new glasses on a chain around her neck. Her confidence was beautiful to see. Rosamund helped her into the carriage and sat opposite of her, while her lawyer sat by her side.

By the time they arrived to the Baroness' house, they could see the entire street was crowded with carriages. At first he thought there must've been an accident, but he realized the crowd was here for the duel, too. The rumors must have spread overnight. Viscountess Kuplung was a very important woman among the ladies, and not even the men could hide their curiosity when the Pirate Queen was involved. The duel between them caught everyone's attention, and somehow mathematics became a proper spectacle.

Her outfit today left quite an impression on everyone. The crowd of mildly intimidated nobility was parting for them as they headed for the entrance to the Baroness' home. Another man came through from the other direction and grabbed Rosamund by the elbow.
"Rosamund!" he exclaimed, pulling him aside as Adanita walked into the house.
"Baron Mayberry," he greeted him in return. "How do you do?"
"There are women in my house. A horde of them," he said, utterly horrified.
"I see. Should I congratulate you?" he asked lightheartedly.
"I haven't had this many women in my house since my family tried to get me to marry anyone but Ansatz. What should I do?" Can't you get rid of them, his eyes begged.
"Could I have a cup of tea?" Rosamund mercilessly asked.
With his hopes completely crushed, Baron Mayberry released him and resigned to his fate. His house really wasn't made for this many people. Rosamund pitied him, but only a little. Adanita was waiting for him inside, he could see her taking off her swords. He should be by her side.

Another carriage stopped in front of the gates just as he was about to enter, and he watched the spectacular entrance of Viscountess Kuplung. Her dress was stained by ink and her long hair was quite a mess, but she was victoriously holding up a pile of papers, which she then dramatically gave to the man who was with her. He sealed it the same way as Adanita's were, and they made their way through the crowd, accompanied by Viscount Kuplung and a little boy he was holding in his arms. Rosamund politely greeted them and went inside, offering Adanita his arm to hold as they moved on. She accepted, gently squeezing him. She seemed both excited and nervous, but she managed to not let it show among the nobility.

The impromptu social event left the house overcrowded, although Baroness Mayberry was managing to keep the situation under control. The Viscount's son wasn't even the only child present, several ladies brought their kids of various ages. Baroness was sending them into the garden behind her house to play and not distract the adults from the duel. Her own two teenagers were sent to take care of the guests, since the family had only one - currently severely overworked - servant.

The ladies from yesterday were all gathered in the library. Several other highly important guests were allowed inside, which meant Rosamund, Viscount, and some of the highest local nobility found their place in there without issue. He entertained some light conversation, already feeling exhausted in the stuffy room. Not even the open windows were helping. Just when he was about to get up and ask Baroness Mayberry what she was waiting for, the clock struck three. She, two ladies, Adanita, and Viscountess gathered in front of the silent room. They opened the first envelope and started discussing Adanita's solution to her task.

"It was more of a guess, but I was sure that point M was there for a reason. It made sense that I'd need the angle between the lines from 76 to E1 and lines from E1 to C5. I only later realized that the sum of all angles between points and the angle of direction from C5 to D2 had to give the angle of direction from E1 to C5. I used the difference between the sum and the actual angle to calculate the error."
"It shows a good intuition, which is just as important as education when it comes to mathematics," Viscountess agreed. "I am very impressed by your ability to work this through with no background in surveying. Just so you know in the future, there are special tables we use for parallel calculation for all of these. They make things much easier."
"I don't think it is appropriate to judge the tidiness of my calculations. The only question is whether or not they are correct," Adanita replied.
"Do we all agree this solution is correct?" Baroness Mayberry asked.

The two ladies and Viscountess gave a very clear yes. The room clapped for her, and Adanita proudly beamed. She looked to him and he smiled encouragingly.

He barely followed when they talked about the task Adanita was solving, but he really started nodding off when they started discussing the distance between Hipparcos and the Capital. He wasn't a mathematician at all, and now suddenly they were talking about some triangles on a sphere, and how the sum of their angles was greater than 180°. That sounded insane. The sum of angles in a triangle is 180°, even he knew that. What were they talking about? Well, at least it seemed as if the ladies understood it themselves. Viscountess admitted that she was finishing up the task on her way to the Baroness, which certainly explained the ink stains on her dress. It seemed it took her far longer than Adanita, but the ladies all agreed her solution was correct and completed on time.

So... a draw.

Baroness Mayberry declared a small break, to think on what to do about this. Adanita and Viscountess Kuplung got surrounded by other ladies who went to look through their tasks. The ladies who had knowledge of surveying all agreed Viscountess Kuplung went easy on her, clearly taking into account how she was new to this. Meanwhile, the ladies who were well-versed in navigation and some "sphere trigonometry" let the Viscountess know she got a reasonably easy task, too. Rosamund found himself completely out of his depth, so when asked, he simply praised both ladies and agreed to all they said.

Baroness Mayberry clapped her hands. "How about this, then? As a tiebreaker, I will put a simple geometry task on the board. Ladies, you will have two minutes to solve it."
"Sounds good to me," Adanita said.
"I agree to this as well."

They arranged two tables for them, and Baroness Mayberry brought her chalkboard closer to them. Adanita proudly had her glasses ready for it.

Baroness Mayberry drew a square on the board. On every inner side of it, she drew a half-circle with the diameter of the side of the square. This created four petal-like shapes within the square. If its side was the length of a, she requested the ladies to calculate the area of the petals and turned the hourglass.

Well, this was simple, right? Rosamund vaguely remembered integrals, they should give you the area under a curve. Just use those to get the petals' area, all you had to do was... integrate a circle. Hm. How do you do that? Well, there surely had to be a way, Viscountess was already scribbling down a solution. Adanita was not, she was staring at the board in deep thought. Was she lost? Confused? This was highly stressful, did she freeze- no, she didn't. She frantically started scribbling something, too. Viscountess was comfortably done first, but Adanita made it in time, too. They presented their solutions.

"We can split this square into four smaller squares which each contain a single petal. If we draw a diagonal through the petal, then we know that half of the petal will be equal to the area of one quarter of the circle minus the area of this right angle triangle. Multiplying the area by eight tells us the total area of petals in this drawing," Viscountess said.

The ladies all agreed to her solution and clapped in response.

"If we calculate the areas of four half-circles, then we will count the area of each petal twice, and each area outside of the petal once. If we take away the area of the square from that, then each petal will be counted once, and each area outside of the petal won't be counted," Adanita said. Her solution was the same numerically, although her logic was completely different.

The ladies took a few moments to think on it and started clapping.

They started discussing the duel among themselves again. Adanita clearly solved her task first, since she came here refreshed and ready. Viscountess needed to work on it til the very last second and came here in the same clothes she wore yesterday, stained by ink. However, during the second round, Viscountess solved the task like a proper mathematician, splitting the problem into small parts and then using that for the whole picture. Adanita took much longer, although her solution was far more elegant. The tiebreaker failed.

"Excuse me, but I fail to see how this is even a question. Captain Vervain has no education in mathematics," Viscount spoke up. "Not to mention she is a commoner. She solved an extremely simple problem here in front of us, but are we going to take her word when she says she could handle a task-"
"Jacobian!" Viscountess shouted to stop him. She was red in the face from embarrassment, almost on the verge of tears.
He immediately shut up, warily looking around the silent room. It seemed it was dawning to him, slowly, the fact that he severely misread the situation.

In three sentences, the man managed to insult more or less everyone in the room. Dismissing Adanita's success due to her being a commoner while Baroness Mayberry, a woman of common birth, was in the room with them was more than enough for her to throw him out of the house this instant. Even with the difference in class. Claiming Adanita cheated while solving Viscountess' task was downright slanderous for her, the lawyer that was watching over her, Baroness Mayberry who hired him, and the rest of the room as it implied they could be fooled by her. It also brought into question her integrity, and even if he left the room without a formal challenge to a duel, his words were spoken in front of Rosamund of all people. If anyone sued him for defamation, the highest legal authority on the archipelago was their witness.

Rosamund patiently stared the man down. Let's see how a Viscount crawls.

The man tightly hugged his son and cleared his throat, trying to awkwardly break the total silence. "I, hm. I spoke up without thinking my words through. For this, I deeply apologize to everyone present. My words implied some serious accusations. I would like to take them back. I am willing to discuss reparations, if need be." His ears were a bright red color, and he was clearly uncomfortable. Rosamund was impressed.

Baroness Mayberry turned to him and he gave her a dismissive nod. He was satisfied, the rest was up to her.

"As proven yesterday, anyone can say things they don't truly mean when our mouths run faster than our minds," Baroness Mayberry said. "Considering the sincerity of your apology, I do not believe reparations are necessary. As long as this gaffe doesn't happen twice, I believe everyone in this room will be willing to let this slide."

He gave her a nod in relief, while Viscountess turned away to wipe her eyes. She gave Rosamund a small grateful smile, which he also dismissed. There was nothing he needed to be thanked for.

"Now then! Taking everything in consideration, I would say Viscountess Kuplung has finally met her match," Baroness brightly said. "Both ladies are highly intelligent and well educated in mathematical arts. The contract for this duel covered only the tasks the ladies gave to each other and the tiebreaker I proposed has only solidified the draw. I believe everyone in this room can agree that the ladies are evenly matched. Viscountess Kuplung, do you agree to a draw?"
"I do. Considering that I have failed to ensure my victory, I believe I should also rescind my right to request an item from Captain Vervain."
"I also agree to a draw. Viscountess is an impressive opponent, it has been an honor to compete with her. To be honest, I never really planned to take any token of victory either way." Adanita offered her a hand.
Viscountess let out a laugh and accepted a firm handshake.
"I believe the future Baroness Vervain has more than proven herself as one of us," she said. "The next time I will be planning a tea party, you should expect an invite."
"Same for you," Adanita said brightly. "I was thinking of throwing one on my ship, as a celebration after I gain my title."
"Oh! That would be delightful!" Baroness Mayberry said. "Which does remind me..."

The crowd of women slowly turned their heads to Rosamund. Uh oh.

"Lord Governor, you are a rather difficult man to meet," Viscountess Kuplung mercilessly said. "The last time I saw you, you weren't sure about the date of your inauguration ball."
"Or who you were going to invite," Baroness Mayberry brightly added.
"Lord Governor, it appears you do not understand that there is a necessary amount of time you need to give us to prepare for the event!" another lady spoke up.
"Not to mention your total neglect of social duties, my lord!"
"Three tea parties! I invited you to three tea parties, my lord!"
"You didn't even respond to my letter! All I wanted to know was the latest fashion in the Capital."
"Or if I could use your teleportation circle to visit my niece!"

The barrage of fearless demands continued as the ladies correctly pegged his lenient nature. Nivelir would have already arrested half of them while he was only trying to calm them down with words, pleading for them to settle down. Adanita was poorly hiding her laughter with her hand. At least someone was amused.

"Ladies, please!" he said as the complaints about his conduct slowly died down. "The invitations were to be sent out this afternoon. By the time you get home, you will surely find them among your letters. The ball will be a month from now. Everything you need to know is written on the invites, I promise. If you have any further objections, please feel free to send me another letter, or to schedule a meeting."

The room fell into total silence. For a moment, he thought the situation has calmed down, but he realized soon that it was simply shock. The women processed his words while he felt some strange, primordial fear crawling up his spine.

"Excuse me, Lord Governor," Viscountess Kuplung said. "Did you just say-"


"A MONTH???"