Thirty Kope and an Old Memory
It was a room he could never quite get used to, no matter how many times he saw it. A room so small that one person had to sit on the bed and the other on the desk chair just to deliver a report.
No matter how often he told Daisy to change rooms, she simply refused. The nearest room to the Emperor's was where the Emperor's personal guard was meant to reside — that was Daisy's conviction, and it was also court precedent. When he once suggested they renovate and expand the space, she refused again. Nothing was lacking, she said.
"The garden is right below the window, it's close to Your Majesty's chamber, there's a bed to sleep in — everything I need is already here, so why waste money?"
That was what she used to say.
But now, he could not bring himself to order her to change rooms. He wanted Daisy close by, and he knew perfectly well that if he told her to move, she would agree without a moment's hesitation.
"Why haven't you come to report? I told you to come every day, did I not?"
Franz asked, sitting on the bed and looking at Daisy, whose eyes were nearly closed with exhaustion.
"I did go. But I heard Your Majesty was speaking with Her Majesty the Empress, so I turned back."
Franz swallowed a curse. So the Empress had cost him another of those precious stretches of time alone with Daisy.
"Then you should have come back. Did you take my order to mean that a report could simply be skipped whenever conditions weren't favorable?"
At his anger, Daisy scrunched her face without opening her eyes.
"There's nothing to report, so why would I trudge all the way back? I'll give you today's along with tomorrow's, all at once."
She was making her annoyance entirely plain.
"In that case, why not report once a week? Or better yet, once a month."
"May I, really? If it's all the same, once a month would be lovely."
When Daisy's eyes lit up with genuine delight, a wave of hurt surged through him like a rising tide. To think she found the sight of him such a chore.
But Franz told himself it was all just karma he'd earned, and barely managed to quell the flood of emotion.
"Denied."
Daisy visibly deflated at that. Then, with her whole body, she signaled that if he had nothing more to say, he should leave.
Was it a lie, then — that she would serve me faithfully even if her heart was gone?
He was stung, but he had no intention of leaving, so he perched himself on the edge of Daisy's bed. The old frame sagged beneath him with a creak.
"What in the world is wrong with this bed?"
Franz said, furrowing his brow.
"That's because Your Majesty is heavy. It suits my body perfectly."
Daisy answered as if it were nothing. Well, after years of crossing one battlefield after another and sleeping on bare ground out of habit, she probably had calluses on her back thick enough to feel nothing at all.
"Are you planning to stay?"
When she rebuked him so openly, Franz cleared his throat.
"I haven't received today's report yet. And what did you dig up today?"
"Ha."
Daisy let out a long sigh before continuing.
"Today I ransacked every last warehouse beneath the Imperial Palace. The dust was so thick you'd have believed it was a pigsty rather than a palace."
"…"
"Most of the weapons were unusable, and the chairs — why on earth were there so many? I'll have to pick a day and order the servants to throw them all out."
Daisy brushed at her arms as though the dust still clung to her, then sneezed.
"Nothing else, then?"
At Franz's question, Daisy shook her head — and then, quite unlike herself, launched into a stream of idle complaints about how she'd never seen such a boring warehouse in her life. It was a signal: nothing left to say, so go home already.
But Franz still had no intention of leaving.
As his gaze wandered here and there, he spotted a grubby little pouch sitting on the desk.
"What's that?"
When Franz pointed at the pouch with a tilt of his chin, Daisy flustered and answered that it was nothing.
"Nothing, is it."
The moment he moved to approach, Daisy snatched the pouch into her hand and hid it behind her back.
"I told you, it's nothing."
Whenever Daisy acted this suspicious, there was always a reason.
Franz wrapped his arms around her shoulders to pin her in place, then reached out with his long arm and gently closed his hand over hers, the one gripping the pouch. Slipping his fingers into the gap between her thumb and forefinger, he pried her hand open by sheer strength and drew the pouch away.
However skilled Daisy was with a sword, and however strong for a woman, she could never best Franz.
"Your Majesty, that is genuinely low!"
It wasn't something she said often, but it was her usual protest whenever he overpowered her. Daisy hated nothing more than being weaker than a man simply because she was a woman, and every time she ran up against the limits of her own body, this was how she raged.
Hearing those words again made him feel as though he'd been carried back to the old days, and a smile escaped him despite himself.
What on earth was in this filthy little pouch that she was so desperately trying to hide it?
Then it suddenly struck him that he was holding Daisy in a tight embrace, and his heart dropped like a stone. They had shared life and death a hundred times over — things like this should have been nothing.
Abruptly self-conscious, Franz pushed her away at once. But Daisy seemed to think nothing of it at all; her face said only that she resented having her pouch stolen.
"If you use that much force, how am I supposed to win? You ought to fight fair."
Seeing her so utterly unbothered made it sink in all over again — her feelings really were gone — and his stomach knotted. Franz strove to hide the swirling tumult inside him and answered playfully instead.
"Survival belongs to those who don't scruple over means and methods."
As he said it, he opened the pouch, and coins spilled out. They were old ones, it seemed — a few decades past at least. But old money was still money. It spent all the same.
"You found this in the warehouse? I send you to find a heart, and this is what you bring back — hoping to swallow it all for yourself?"
Franz said, in mock exasperation.
"It's money nobody knew existed, isn't it? I found it, so it's mine."
"It sat in the Imperial Palace's warehouse, so it's mine. Everything in the palace belongs to me — have you forgotten?"
At his solemn pronouncement, Daisy muttered, quite audibly, about how becoming Emperor had made him a petty little miser.
"I'd say it comes to thirty kope."
"I was going to have a nice dress made."
Thirty kope was, as Daisy said, enough to buy one high-quality gown.
"I'll have your clothes made for you, so put this toward something fun instead."
"What? Why would you take my—"
"My money."
When Daisy sulked, Franz cut her off without ceremony.
"Go change. Let's drink in the city district with Matheus — it's been an age."
In the old days, whenever they were worn out from dealing with demonic beasts, they would often drink together around a campfire. The memory surfaced, and even Daisy couldn't bring herself to refuse.
"It does rankle a little, but since Your Majesty is offering to make my clothes, I'll go along. And don't say otherwise later."
No greed at all when it came to clothes or money, though.
Franz chuckled, and while Daisy went to the washroom to change, he gazed out the window. Finish the day well, and the whole day becomes a good one. It had been an exhausting day, but he had a feeling this night would be what he remembered it by.
Franz had not come out to the city district merely for amusement. He had a habit of disguising himself as an ordinary noble and drinking at a tavern, just to hear his people's unvarnished voices with his own ears. Not that Daisy and Matheus cared a whit for the welfare of the commons — they were simply busy pouring and drinking and having a grand time.
It was their first outing in far too long, and Daisy and Matheus were practically giddy; Franz, too, found himself in high spirits. And not only because it had revived old memories. Ever since Daisy returned, an invisible wall had stood between them, making everything awkward — but tonight, for the first time, it felt like things were back to the way they used to be.
Even Daisy, who always seemed vaguely bored with everything, looked genuinely happy. I should have brought her out long ago, Franz thought, wetting his throat with ale.
Daisy was already on her third cup, draining them in open competition with Matheus.
"Not a drop of your skill has faded. You haven't been drinking alone in your room every day, have you?"
Matheus asked suspiciously, wiping the foam from his lip with the back of his hand.
"It's in the blood. My grandmother drank too. And look at you — why have you gotten so weak? Anyone would think you'd been off searching for a heart."
Daisy burst out laughing.
"Laugh more. It suits you."
Watching Daisy's smiling face, Franz couldn't help himself and cut in.
"Thank you for bringing me out, Your Majesty. Though taking my money was, truly, a contemptible act, I shall forgive it — for the sake of this drink."
Even as she said she'd forget it, Daisy managed to twist the knife about the money one more time.
"You there. Tell me — money found in my palace. Is it mine, or Daisy's?"
Franz put the question to Matheus. Matheus could not answer. He could hardly call it a fine deed, the Emperor snatching a bit of money no one even knew existed from the person who had spent all day rolling in dust to find it. And yet, strictly speaking, anything found in the Imperial Palace was the Emperor's.
"So you think me petty as well."
When no answer came, Franz smirked and took a swallow of his drink.
"N-no, of course not, Your Maj— I mean, my lord. Surely you don't think I'd hold such an opinion."
"Neither of you — you or Daisy — has any talent for lying."
Matheus had no choice but to drown his silence in ale.
"Excuse me a moment — I'll visit the washroom."
As Matheus slipped away, evidently fleeing an impossible position, only the two of them remained.
"I knew you wouldn't fail to come."
Franz said at last, breaking the brief silence.
"How could I defy a royal command? Besides — I've always enjoyed times like these, with Matheus and with Your Maj— with you, my lord."
I've always enjoyed times like these. The words lifted Franz's spirits all over again.
"Lately, you've seemed rather bored with life. As though you had no attachment to it at all."
At his words, Daisy quietly lowered her gaze to her cup.
"The time I spent at Your Majesty's side remains with me as a memory. If what's left of it is friendship… will you be angry at me for presuming?"
Franz looked into Daisy's eyes, lit by the tavern's lamps.
Friendship.
He couldn't decide whether to be grateful that even that much remained of her, or to hate that this was all she had left him. Only one thing was certain: he had never known that single word could ache like this.