Clarissa’s Invasion

Clarissa’s Invasion

Clarissa’s Invasion

“Eheheheh. Everything’s perfect,” I said.

It was the day of our meeting with the lower city’s merchants, so I’d gathered together the many charms I’d made—including some spares—and prepared a list of topics to be discussed. Also with me were some recipes; the Othmar Company had suggested an exchange of recipes between Leise and Hugo. Leise’s were going to make up this summer’s menu for the Italian restaurant, so I was going to use this opportunity to judge them as an investor.

New recipes! Yippee!

Come third bell, I would be going to the meeting with Roderick, Philine, Melchior, his retainers, Brunhilde, and a combination of young scholars, as well as adult scholars from Groschel. The merchants were due to come before us, so as not to keep any of us nobles waiting. Zahm would announce their arrival and guide us to the meeting room when the time came.

“Lady Rozemyne,” Fran said, “the High Priest is requesting permission to enter.”

I granted it, then he opened the door. Hartmut entered at once, his usual self-assured smile replaced with a rarely seen look of concern.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“My intention was to wait until after your meeting to report this, as I understand its importance to you, but I cannot shake the feeling that things are even worse than I thought. I am afraid that... Clarissa has left Dunkelfelger.”

“Excuse me?”

Clarissa had chosen Hartmut as her fiancé so that she could become my retainer, only for him to enter the temple and take over from Ferdinand as the High Priest. Priests and shrine maidens were forbidden from getting married, meaning Hartmut would need to wait until I came of age and we both left the temple.

Upon hearing all this, Clarissa had become furious. “I don’t mind postponing our wedding, but you must allow me to move to Ehrenfest as your bride-to-be. I won’t let you delay my becoming Lady Rozemyne’s retainer.”

As with all women, Clarissa would be expected to resign from her workplace to have and raise a child at some point after her marriage. If she could get into Ehrenfest using her position as Hartmut’s fiancée, however, then she would be able to serve me nonstop for as long as their wedding was delayed. She had been quite forceful about how she wanted to move here as soon as possible.

Under normal circumstances, their engagement would have been canceled in a heartbeat—but these were no normal circumstances. Aub Dunkelfelger had agreed with Clarissa’s bizarre claims that she had “won the engagement through battle, as is tradition,” and that only she could cancel it as a result.

Only in Dunkelfelger, folks...

Hartmut had told me that, after discussing things with her family and Aub Dunkelfelger at the Interduchy Tournament, they had come to an agreement that Clarissa could move to Ehrenfest during the Archduke Conference—with Sylvester’s permission, of course.

“And did he give his permission?” I asked.

“He did. Aub Ehrenfest seems to have said that he would welcome Clarissa with open arms, since you are in dire straits without Lord Ferdinand, and a retainer from a top-ranking duchy would be an enormous boon.”

There was nothing strange about that—it was true that I was struggling without Ferdinand and that the assistance of a top-ranking scholar like Clarissa would benefit me greatly.

“But why did she leave now ?” I asked. “The Archduke Conference hasn’t happened yet, has it? Is she coming through the Royal Academy?”

Knights would take turns guarding the teleportation circles while the Royal Academy was out, but they were generally sealed off. To get Clarissa here, we would need to open the sealed doors and arrange for all of the relevant people to be in position—a significant change of plans.

“We didn’t receive any notice from Dunkelfelger, did we?” I asked.

“The aub and I only found out last night. It would seem that Aub Dunkelfelger deeply, deeply regrets his duchy’s involvement in what has happened to Lord Ferdinand. He muttered that if Clarissa’s early arrival would assist Ehrenfest in any capacity, that would be good too.”

Aub Dunkelfelger! Come onnn!

Clarissa’s trained ears had not missed this idle remark, and she had gleefully departed her home duchy with only a single female guard knight in tow for protection. Not wanting to trouble Ehrenfest any further, she had elected to take a land route rather than go through the Royal Academy. On top of everything else, she had left bright and early the day after the feast celebrating spring.

Clarissa’s parents had awoken one sleepy morning, expecting a comfortable day now that the coming-of-age celebrations and winter socializing were over, only to discover that their daughter had departed. They had immediately rushed to the aub to inform him. The archducal couple had paled upon hearing the news, thinking that Dunkelfelger would once again be troubling Ehrenfest, then contacted Sylvester using an archduke-exclusive line of communication to inform him of the situation and apologize.

“A very apologetic Aub Dunkelfelger asked Aub Ehrenfest to fetch Clarissa from Frenbeltag’s border gate,” Hartmut continued. “Clarissa’s parents are chasing after her as fast as they can, while Mother hurried home last night to prepare a room and everything else needed to welcome her.”

On the one hand, Clarissa’s abrupt change of plans was troublesome indeed, but on the other, we really were lacking manpower. There was no point weighing up the pros and cons, though; she and her parents had already departed, so there was no helping it now. Plus, it was the duty of a bride or groom to welcome their partner at the border gate.

Clarissa was going on a rampage, but she was at least being considerate. She had chosen not to use our border gate with Ahrensbach, which was closest to her, and was instead going to meet us at the one nearest to the city of Ehrenfest—our border gate with Frenbeltag. It would take her several days to travel through Old Werkestock and Frenbeltag to arrive there, which meant we had time to prepare.

“Hartmut, when will you be leaving and returning?” I asked. “I expect our plans for Spring Prayer will need to be adjusted.” The fact that the bridal brigade had left now meant that they would arrive at Frenbeltag’s border gate around the time we were going to leave for Spring Prayer.

“I will need to discuss matters with my parents before I can say anything for sure,” Hartmut answered.

“I wonder if there’s a law in Dunkelfelger requiring all acts of kindness to be equally bothersome...” I mused aloud. “We will need to give Clarissa a sharp word or two about checking others’ plans before acting.”

Having to change plans was always a pain in the neck, and that only became more true the more people were involved. For something like Spring Prayer, which required a tremendous amount of manpower, any change to our schedule was a nightmare.

I sighed just as Zahm entered the room. The merchants had arrived.

“Clarissa won’t be arriving immediately,” Hartmut said. “I will send word once we have more detailed plans; for now, let us go to the meeting room. It would be best to distribute the commoner charms before the scholars arrive.”

I nodded, then went to the meeting room with Cornelius and Monika, the latter of whom was carrying the box of charms. Everyone from Zahm’s report had arrived: the guildmaster, Freida, and Cosimo from the Othmar Company; Otto, Tuuli, and Theo from the Gilberta Company; and Benno, Lutz, and Mark from the Plantin Company.

Seeing so many familiar faces in one place really does ease my heart.

The last time we had met like this was when we had revealed that Ferdinand would be moving to Ahrensbach. Tuuli and the others standing at the back looked so much more like adults than before—which made sense, given that their coming-of-age was just around the corner. I was growing too, but I could only hope they noticed.