“It’s really starting to warm up now, huh?” I said.
“Yeah, though we’ll still have some cold days to get through. I recommend this.”
The snow had melted, the sun was finally out again, and that was when Lani showed up at Gramps’s mansion for the first time in a long while. Leni was with him too, but she’d gone shopping with Amur and the other girls.
“Is this a mandarin?” Gramps asked. He took the fruit Lani showed him, peeled it, sniffed it, and popped a wedge in his mouth. “Blecch! That’s sour! What is this?!”
It must not’ve tasted how he expected—he spit it out.
“Is it yuzu?” I asked.
“That’s right,” Lani said. “On cold days, you can float this in your bath to help you warm up. Not many people eat it plain because of how sour it is, but you can use the rind and juice in alcohol, cooking, and even sweets.”
When Gramps heard that it could be used in alcohol, he sniffed the yuzu again. He nodded thoughtfully and gave me an expectant look.
“All right, I’ll buy it.”
“Thanks! It’s 1,000G per kilogram, and I have about a hundred kilos. If you’re buying the whole lot, I’ll let you have it for 900 per kilogram.”
I bought all of it without hesitation.
“I figured you might want these too.”
Lani then pulled out three yuzu trees, which I bought as well. Their branches were trimmed back, but each tree was about three meters tall. If we were lucky, we’d get fruit in two or three years.
“Now, as an intelligence officer from the SAR, I need a detailed account of what happened to Lady Amur when she was injured,” Lani said, no longer smiling. He was here for intel on Chaos.
“Unfortunately, the king issued a gag order on that,” I said.
“I’m well aware, but I still need to ask you. Please tell me.”
I debated what I should do, and he continued. “Technically, the SAR is part of the kingdom, but in practice, we’re a separate domain. And regardless of her current standing, Lady Amur is an important figure in the SAR. The fact that she went through something so dangerous and her family—a viscount’s household, mind you—wasn’t briefed is unacceptable. We may have to consider the idea of being an autonomous region of this kingdom.”
I sighed. “If Queen Maria chews me out for this, I’m dragging you down with me.”
Faced with that threat, I had no choice but to spill the beans as long as Lani would share in any consequences I faced in doing so. He agreed to my condition without hesitation. Meanwhile, Gramps had slipped out of the room while I’d waffle over what to do. He had clearly wanted to remove himself from the blame.
“Hm, I guess Gramps won’t be getting any yuzu.”
I wrote him off and turned back to discuss the situation with Lani. The biggest issue we came to was...
“I think Lady Hana will understand the situation, but Lord Lobo might just storm over here himself,” Lani said. “He tends to go overboard when it comes to Lady Amur. And he’s a lot more mobile than he used to be, if anything. I’d say it’s almost guaranteed that he’ll be coming. Actually, he tried to tag along on this merchant trip and got lectured by Lady Hana...”
Lani said he’d received a thorough scolding and Lady Hana had said, “What are you going to do if Amur ends up hating you and it damages relations with the kingdom?”
That had been enough to make him back down for now, but if he were to find out that Amur had suffered serious injuries and that they might’ve been caused by a mistake the kingdom had made, there was no doubt in my mind that Lobo was going to show up.
“We’ll need to ask Lady Hana, Lady Sana, and Lord Blanca for help to prevent that from happening.”
“Come to think of it, I heard from Amur that he used to be the head of your organization in the SAR?” I said.
Lani told me that it was in the past now, and these days, Hana held all the authority. Apparently, there’d been complaints from within the group, mainly that it was a bad idea to have the intelligence division under the control of anyone but the family head.
“Right now, Lord Lobo’s job is to serve as Lady Hana’s proxy when necessary, but his main responsibility is actually being the festival committee chair.”
That was quite a fall from grace from his former position, but weirdly enough, it sounded like the role really suited him. Apparently, he was always the first to pitch new festival ideas to Hana. But really, most of the actual planning and details were passed off to the other committee members.
“So he’s just the idea guy?” I asked.
“Well, according to people who work with him, he handles the important stuff like getting permits and negotiating budgets, and then gives everyone else free rein to do the rest. So it’s actually a very easy environment to work in.”
Handling the hard parts and not micromanaging the rest? Maybe he was actually a pretty solid boss.
Anyway, there wasn’t much point in talking about Lobo any further, so I asked Lani for other updates from the SAR. He told me mostly about Yoshitsune. Since the child was the next in line to become the viscount of the SAR, he’d been getting a lot of attention. There were already talks of engagement.
“There has been discussion about daughters and relatives of powerful families, of course, but we’ve also heard from nobles outside the region. Some of them are just after the SAR’s influence or might even be aiming for a takeover. Still, it’s the first time outside nobles have sent proposals, so whether he accepts it or not, it’s the hottest topic in Nanao right now.”
Up until now, the SAR had only ever received honorary titles, but now that Hana had become an official viscount, her son Yoshitsune was suddenly seen as potentially being a major influential figure.