The Battle Before the Battle

Good grief. No matter how much I do, it never gets any smaller.

After driving out the magistrate, I was left with a mountain of paperwork.

Documents were piled high on the desk in my office, and no matter how much I did, they showed no sign of getting any smaller.

"Romelia-sama, won't you take a short break?"

While I was struggling with the paperwork, Kairo brought me some tea.

"Thank you. Where's Katan?"

I accepted the teacup and took a sip. The warm drink was comforting. The pie served with it was delicious, too, its tart wild berries adding a pleasant flavor.

"Katan went fishing again. He said he was going to catch something big today, but let's not get our hopes up. Oh, yes, Romelia-sama, some villagers from a nearby village brought us wild berries this morning. This pie was made with them. We ought to send them something in return. What shall we give them?"

Katan seemed to have taken to country life and went fishing or took walks every day. Nanny complained constantly at first, but she seemed to be enjoying herself despite it all.

"But Romelia-sama, you came here to recuperate, didn't you? Yet all you do is work."

Seeing the piles of documents, Nanny looked exasperated.

"I'm sorry, Nanny, but I can't stop. Please understand."

"No, it's all right. Kairo understands now what Romelia-sama wants to do. You want to help people, don't you?"

Nanny understood me.

"Since you set out with the soldiers, letters of thanks and gifts have arrived from several villages. The people in the surrounding villages are grateful to Romelia-sama. This gift of wild berries is one example of that."

It had not been long since I started my activities, but it seemed the people of the domain were already learning about them. I was grateful.

"But I am a little concerned. Surely handling all those documents is more than one person can manage?"

Nanny glanced at the piles of documents.

I couldn't argue when she put it that way.

Although I had successfully driven out the magistrate, if I simply left things as they were, a new magistrate would naturally be sent here. Since I had no leverage over the next one, I was sure to have my soldiers taken from me and be locked in a tower like a princess in a story.

I had no choice but to appoint Katan, who had come with me from my family home, as the new magistrate.

The official version was that Katan, who had accompanied me here, discovered the previous magistrate's corruption and reported it. I sent a letter explaining that he would remain here temporarily as magistrate in order to purge the corruption.

I had also sent along the wealth the magistrate had illicitly amassed, so Father readily agreed. I needed to get everything in order before anyone noticed.

"Unfortunately, neither Kairo nor Katan can be of much help to Romelia-sama."

"It's all right. I'm doing this of my own accord."

Because of my machinations, Katan had ended up in the nonsensical position of acting magistrate, but I couldn't ask an old man who had followed me intending to spend his retirement peacefully in the countryside to devote himself heart and soul to managing a domain. Inevitably, I had to do it myself.

"Romelia-sama, you've always had trouble relying on others. There was that time when some baron's daughter was bullying you..."

Nanny began telling stories from my childhood. If I remembered correctly, garden parties had been held frequently back then, with children of nobles around my age gathering to play. For some reason, a baron's daughter had started bullying me.

"You should have told us, Romelia-sama, but you faced her all by yourself."

Nanny laughed as though she found it amusing, but I could only blush as she brought up embarrassing stories from my past.

I had been quite a handful as a child. Though I suppose I'm not much different now.

But what on earth had that girl been thinking? She had relentlessly harassed me, calling me a villainess and insisting that this was my fate.

I think she had watched too many plays or something, but she was a troublesome child.

"In the end, it turned into a huge brawl that dragged all her followers into it, too."

Now that she mentioned it, I did remember that happening.

With "Defeat your own enemies with your own hands" as our motto, I had grabbed her and beaten her senseless. Even I had to admit that it was wrong.

"I regret that a little. I was only a child."

Violence solves nothing.

Now I could say that it was important to use schemes and stratagems to settle matters so that conflict would never arise again.

"There were other things, too, that Romelia-sama..."

When Nanny looked ready to continue, I hurriedly stopped her. I couldn't bear to hear any more embarrassing stories.

"That's enough. Thank you for the tea. I should get back to work."

When I cut the conversation short rather forcefully, Nanny left laughing. She had been with me since childhood. Once she started telling embarrassing stories, there was no end to them.

"All right, time to pull myself together and get back to work."

First, I had to locate the secret ledger the previous magistrate had kept, examine it carefully, and submit accurate accounts.

Of course, it would be easiest to submit the hidden ledger as it was, but paying taxes with foolish honesty was something only fools did.

Since my predecessor had gone to such lengths to manipulate the accounts, I could fudge the figures just enough to increase our budget. An army was a money pit even without that. The more funds I had at my disposal, the better.

Even so, I couldn't make the same mistake as my predecessor, so any embezzlement had to remain within limits that could be explained away. When filling out the forms, I would make some of the writing slightly faint and enter the figures in a way that made them easy to misread.

There were even laws requiring fixed formats for the letters and numbers used in official documents, prohibiting variations in the ink's darkness or any smudging. But few people followed all those rules, and even if I was reprimanded, I would only have to pay a fine. If I bribed the inspector, I wouldn't even have to do that.

Naturally, my take would be considerably smaller, but that was the limit.

In general, unless it was exceptionally original, almost every form of wrongdoing had already been tried, and experts in the field could quickly tell what sort of fraud someone was committing.

Even so, wrongdoing has not disappeared from the world simply because there are not enough people to crack down on it; those who notice it just do not bother to punish every instance. If someone misunderstood that and did something too blatant, they would naturally be caught.

So one should keep one's misdeeds moderate and limit them to what can be explained away, while considering what will happen if they are exposed.

But even then, I still didn't have enough money. My predecessor had been siphoning off weapons, so our weapons and armor were in poor shape. Once wear and tear were taken into account, we could never have enough. Food was in short supply, too. I wanted to increase the number of warhorses as well.

There were so many things I wanted, but money was nowhere to be found.

There was so much to do before we could fight.