Everything Was for Her Son

Leona, the Dowager Duchess of House Klaus, was in the middle of her meal.

Yuri, her calves still bound in bandages, moved briskly about the table, rearranging the dishes to suit Leona's tastes and attending her throughout the course.

"Are you handling the task I gave you?"

"Of course, Your Grace."

Yuri nodded, her face dark. In truth, she was in a wretched state. The places she had injured tumbling down the stairs still throbbed, and the calves that had taken the cane had scarred over. That damned Esika had threatened to cut off the jewels shipped in from her natal house. With every circumstance turning against her, Yuri grew all the more frantic.

I have no choice but to see this through properly.

A clink of silverware made Leona's brow furrow.

"Yuri?"

Yuri, who had drifted into other thoughts, hastily bowed her head and set the utensils to rights.

And then it happened.

The door burst open with a crash, and Kalian Klaus came in on heavy, ringing strides.

Leona dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin, elegant as ever. Yuri stared at him blankly for a beat before flinching and withdrawing toward the wall.

Kalian's brow was set hard, his complexion somewhat pale. Unperturbed, Leona smiled brightly and inquired,

"I heard you had business that would keep you even from dinner. I take it the work is finished, Duke?"

"Mother. There is something I cannot understand."

His low voice was thick with bewilderment. The violet eyes that rested on Leona wavered.

"Whatever it is, do sit down, Duke."

Leona spoke gently, seeking to soothe a son who looked startled or angry, and shot Yuri a look. Yuri drew out Kalian's chair and gazed at him, but he sat without so much as meeting her eyes.

Water trickled as Leona filled his empty glass. Kalian's brow twitched again. His mother — his one and only mother — was looking at him with warm eyes.

"Has something unpleasant occurred?"

"I've just reviewed the budget allocated to Esika."

"……Ah."

The corner of Leona's lips twitched, then slowly settled back into place.

"And why the sudden interest?"

"Confirming that the household budget is being used appropriately is my duty as head of House Klaus."

"Oh, Kalian. How thorough of you."

Leona spoke as if in praise of her son's stiff words.

"But there was something I could not make sense of. You told me, Mother, that Esika's extravagance was so severe it strained the running of the house, and yet……"

Kalian's gaze was cold as he put the question to her.

"In the three years since her marriage, the ducal budget spent on her amounts to a mere twenty thousand rings."

A maid in the ducal household earned some five thousand rings a year; with seniority, two or three times that. A dress fit for a noblewoman cost twenty thousand rings for a cheap one, and fifty thousand if it was at all ornate. The gown Leona herself was wearing would have cost fifty thousand or more.

And yet the Duchess had spent, in three years, less than the price of a shabby dress. It was an absurd record, utterly irreconcilable with the word extravagance.

Leona's eyes flickered as she looked at Kalian.

"……So the Duke has come to accuse this mother of lying, is that it?"

In an instant the atmosphere at the table froze.

"I have not come to accuse you, Mother. I only wish to know the truth."

"The truth, is it……"

Leona's gaze turned cold as she lifted her cup and drank. Then, with a small sigh, she went on.

"Esika was raised as the daughter of House Brigate, a family that purchased its title with money. She never received the education that proper noble children like you did, Kalian. As Duchess, she was far more interested in what she could enjoy than in the duties she was meant to fulfill."

"……"

"To become a member of House Klaus, the vanity of the Brigates had to be stripped away. I believed I had to be stricter with that child, and I feared my soft-hearted son would fail to understand his mother's deeper intentions."

At her words, Kalian's hand twitched.

"So you are saying you lied to me."

"Kalian."

Leona looked at him as if the whole exchange wearied her.

"Who do you think it was that placed you in the ducal seat?"

Kalian's violet eyes trembled, thinly. Leona, rather, seemed to be reproaching herself — as if wounded that the son who had always believed in her so steadfastly now looked at her with suspicion.

"This mother has lived thinking of nothing but Kalian's success. I have made it so…… and the matter of Esika is no different."

"Even so, you should not have told me such a lie."

Kalian spoke firmly, without a trace of ambiguity.

He had thought Esika shameless, standing before him in a maid's uniform. And though she had, at some point, taken to wearing the same red dress day after day, the reason he had never imagined there might be a cause for it was his mother's words. The Esika Klaus in his mind had been nothing more than the woman his mother had described: so extravagantly wasteful she could endanger the ducal finances.

But when he learned there was a truth he had not known, he felt shame. And he felt a sense of defeat before Esika Klaus.

"Esika will never bow her head before me. She's never once indulged in that damned extravagance."

"……You're right, Duke. At the time it was a well-intentioned lie for your sake, but if the result was that you felt slighted, then that too was my error in judgment."

"……"

Leona's voice sounded sorrowful. Whenever she looked at him that way, Kalian's chest ached. Pity for the mother who had sacrificed her entire life for him filled his heart until it was hard to breathe.

"And…… I heard that you reassigned Esika's rooms, Duke."

"Yes, Mother."

Kalian's hand twitched. Esika's change of rooms had also come after a conflict with his mother. But…… he had not known she had been lodging in a room that cramped. However grave her faults, it had been far too small and tucked-away a chamber for a noblewoman to inhabit. And so he had ordered the rooms changed unilaterally, without consulting Leona. She might well take offense.

A moment later, Leona's voice came.

"You did well."

At the unexpected praise, Kalian's brow twitched. Behind him, Yuri clenched her fists.

"I was just thinking Esika seemed to have reflected enough, and I was going to suggest moving her rooms myself. This mother's heart has been uneasy all the while, you know."

Leona smiled, her face bright.

"With the Duke taking such an interest in household affairs, it seems House Klaus has nothing left but to grow more harmonious."

Kalian gazed at Leona blankly for a moment and thought, That's right…… Mother would never have done those things just to torment Esika.

Then he answered calmly.

"Yes. I too wish for peace in House Klaus. But I would ask you for one promise."

Leona's eyes flickered. Kalian was not a child who talked back — least of all in matters of the household.

"From now on, when you decide on any measure regarding Esika, please consult me as well."

Leona's brow twitched, ever so slightly. Kalian's expression was grave, his dark eyes pressing for an answer. The smile gone from her lips, Leona lowered her gaze and replied.

"……I shall do so, Duke."

House Brigate was a noble family of Prihatz, a region lying south of Torres, the capital of Turesia.

The place, bordering the sea, always bustled with merchant ships and traders, and the livelier the port grew, the livelier the Brigate manor became. Having aided the empire's economic revitalization through wartime trade, the Brigates had received a baron's title from the Emperor, and were now no mere jeweler's household but a merchant-noble house, prospering the region. Gossips liked to say that the treasures in the Brigate baronial vaults could scoop up the capital's lesser noble houses as easily as tossing them into a shopping basket.

"Esika has…… sent a letter."

Superot Brigate was the eldest son of the Brigate baronial house, and in place of his aging father he held full authority over the trading company. His appearance was striking — beautiful silver hair and blue eyes.

Three years ago, his only sister Esika had married into the prestigious House Klaus of the capital, Torres, and they had sent her off with a generous dowry, yet word from her had scarcely ever come. The etiquette of a ducal house was so exacting, they said, that even a blood brother's close correspondence might be counted a fault. They still sent jewels every month, if only through Yuri, Esika's childhood friend — but he could not help but worry.

He broke the seal and unfolded the letter. The handwriting filling the page was pressed down in careful, proper script — unlike Esika, and yet unmistakably hers.

Superot's brow moved at the word favors.

Superot's expression hardened as he turned to the next page.

A map had been enclosed. Upon a stretch of wasteland in the western region of Elmyur, a red circle had been drawn.

"This place is……?"

Superot's brow twitched.

As the wars of conquest had widened the empire's territory, the Emperor had wished to establish new hub cities in each region, and Elmyur was one of the western sites under consideration. Of course, a region called Chwihen was far more likely to be chosen; its waterways branched in several directions, making it far more accessible. House Klaus, Superot knew, had invested in Chwihen as well.

But the Elmyur Esika had circled was, compared to Chwihen, so poor in conditions that it held little charm for investors.

"Why would Esika want Elmyur……"

The last line of the letter read as follows.