“I thank you ever so much for your invitation, Lady Hannelore.”
“Thank you ever so much for coming, and for granting me this time on your day of rest.”
“Worry not—as it so happens, this is the only day when my retainers can move freely at this hour.”
I turned my attention to those who had accompanied my friend into the room, and my eyes widened in an instant. All around her, there were magic tools that resembled Schwartz and Weiss.
Goodness! “Adorable” was an understatement!
“Eheh. Meet my retainers, made recently by Ferdinand,” Lady Rozemyne crowed. “The light-green one is Adrett. His main job is to search for documents in the Library of Alexandria. The brown one is Risa, and the red one, Nelly. They were designed to protect the library from attackers without damaging any of the books within. They would normally be stationed back home, but they serve as my knights here at the Royal Academy.”
Each time Lady Rozemyne introduced one of her shumils, she gave its feystone an appreciative stroke. She reached toward the last of the group.
“This light-blue one is Dinan. He is their captain of sorts, capable of both library work and guard duty. He can even speak, to an extent. Dino, this is Lady Hannelore, a friend of mine.”
Dinan turned his sharp little eyes on me. “Hannelore. Friend of master. Memorized,” he said. “Dino” must have been something of a nickname.
“Oh my. How adorable!” I exclaimed. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Dinan.”
“I asked to have guards shaped like Lessy, but the idea was refused, as such creatures would unsettle my fellow students,” Lady Rozemyne explained. She spoke as though hoping I would side with her, but I had to agree with Lord Ferdinand; having tiny versions of the grun she used as her highbeast wandering about the Academy would cause problems, without a doubt.
As we continued our conversation, Cordula and the others checked over the sweets Lady Rozemyne had brought from Alexandria and placed them neatly on the table. Only when my head attendant gave me the signal did I insist that Lady Rozemyne sit down.
“We brought some sweets for you to try—our own twist on a recipe we purchased from Ehrenfest,” I announced. “You once used Dunkelfelger rohres to make pound cake, did you not? Well, these are rohre cookies.”
Our court chefs had gone through extensive trial and error to make the best use of the recipe we had purchased during the spring Archduke Conference. Their excitement had resulted in a vast array of cookies for me to try—much to my own excitement.
It was thanks to the chefs’ research that we knew to chop the dried rohres up rather than put them in whole. They had taken the recipe one step further, sandwiching cream and rohres between two thin cookies, but we had elected not to go that far today. As wonderful as the treat was, it was hard to eat elegantly. More experimentation was in order before we could start serving it at tea parties.
Still contemplating the kitchen’s reports, I took a demonstrative bite of one of our cookies. Lady Rozemyne picked one up in turn, tried it, and then spent a good moment chewing with a contemplative look on her face.
“I see you have done wonders with the recipe,” she said at last, beaming from ear to ear. “You even reduced the sugar content to account for the sweetness of the rohres. I am so pleased to know you have such experimental chefs.”
She can tell that much from a single bite?
“From Alexandria, we have brought rikose tarts,” Lady Rozemyne continued. “We, too, have used one of our duchy’s specialty ingredients to help make Ehrenfest’s recipe our own. In truth, I wished to incorporate Old Ahrensbach’s more popular recipes, but I doubt we will achieve much on that front. Sugar is too hard to obtain now that the country gate to Lanzenave has been closed.”
My dear friend seemed troubled, and for good reason. Old Ahrensbach’s trade with Lanzenave had allowed it to dominate the sugar trade. Now that its gate was shut, its saccharine treats were far too costly to make.
“Old Ahrensbach relied too heavily on sugar, intent on flaunting their status as the only duchy with an open country gate,” Lady Rozemyne said. “Based on just how much they imported, we suspect the archducal family and nobles saw goods made with local products as fit only for commoners.”
She wished to pivot to recipes that used the duchy’s specialties, but most of Old Ahrensbach’s nobles preferred the flavors they were used to.
“Old Ahrensbach’s nobles are accustomed to Lanzenave spices and sugar, so I cannot simply tell them to stop wishing for more,” Lady Rozemyne explained. “Though, I must admit, it is thanks to their passion that we are making such fast progress on developing our own spices.”
Alexandrian nobles were immersed in research, eager to continue eating the recipes they had grown up with. Lady Rozemyne’s description of their laboratories warmed my heart.
“We have made the most progress with sugar, so we should start exporting some next year,” she informed me. “Dunkelfelger has the perfect climate for its production, so perhaps we could negotiate during the next Archduke Conference.”
Does she want me to pass this information on to Father before then?
“Because of everything that happened, the honey found in the north of Klassenberg and Gilessenmeyer has been in especially high demand this year,” Lady Rozemyne said. “I expect even greater changes to come next year, when the Zent starts reopening the country gates.”
This year, the Zent had put her all into redrawing the country’s borders and preparing the new duchies. She had announced during the Archduke Conference that next year, when things were more stable, she would restore our contact with the world outside of Yurgenschmidt.
“Is Dunkelfelger ready?” Lady Rozemyne asked.
“Our people have eagerly awaited the reopening of our country gate ever since your visit. However, as we acquired more land when the borders were redrawn, we are focusing our efforts there for the time being.” It would probably be a while before we asked the Zent to open our gate; it was more important that we integrate the Old Werkestock nobles and prepare our newly attained territory.
“There were no changes to Hauchletzte’s and Gilessenmeyer’s borders, so I suspect they will ask for their gates to be opened first,” Lady Rozemyne mused. “Gilessenmeyer in particular will want to regain their honor posthaste.”
I nodded in agreement, then asked my retainers to pour me some more tea. They acted at once, also putting new sweets on the table to replace the ones we had eaten. It must have been clear that the nature of our conversation was about to change because Lady Rozemyne’s attendants refreshed her drink before taking a noticeable step back.
Determined, I gave Lady Rozemyne a sound-blocker.
“So, what did you wish to discuss?” she asked.
“I think you could stand to be more considerate of Lord Wilfried.”
“More considerate of him...?” Lady Rozemyne echoed, her head tilted to one side. I could not tell whether she was scrutinizing me or truly did not understand my meaning.
“It comes across as rather rude to have made love songs exclusively with Lord Ferdinand when you were engaged to another,” I said, referring back to our conversation in music class.