Interlude – The Crumbling Order of the Republic
1
An ugly political feud escalates into civil war. Never had I imagined that, before we could be scorched by the fires the Kingdom and the Empire were stirring up across the continent, flames would come blazing up right under our own feet. The order of the Roscheld Republic, at the very time the conflict between Kingdom and Empire sharpened, began to crumble away at its fragile foundations.
Mid-September, Kingdom Calendar Year 1241.
That day I was in my own councilor’s office, hard at work preparing the materials for the debate at the council. The item on the agenda: ‘On the conclusion of an alliance with the Empire.’
The Empire’s new Emperor, Valtrune von Felsdorf. She, my dear friend from our days at the Philnotes officers’ academy, wished for the Empire and the Republic to make peace and lend each other aid amid the continent’s mounting strain. But I wanted to go one step further: specifically, that when the Kingdom and the Empire began war in earnest, the Republic would enter the fight on the Empire’s side. In other words, I was thinking of concluding a formal alliance with the Empire.
“…There, that’ll do.”
The materials to submit to the assembly finished, I stretched and let my weight fall back against the chair. That was the day’s work done; all that remained was to wait for the council three days off. I sat there, at ease, turning over such thoughts.
—That the Republic’s council had already ceased to mean anything at all, I never dreamed.
“…I-it’s terrible, Lady Raquel!”
The one who flung the door open in an obvious panic was the boy who served as my secretary.
“What is it, in such a state?”
“There’s no ‘what is it’ about it! Lady Raquel, please evacuate this place at once. Pursuers are closing in!”
—Pursuers? After me? It took me a moment to grasp what my secretary meant. I had no memory of ever having done anything to be pursued for, to begin with. Simply going about the daily duties a councilor ought to see to. Could that make a person hunted? Questions like these ran through my mind, but from the way my secretary was panicking, it was plain this was an emergency.
“All right. I’ll leave the office right away…”
“Please wait. To be safe, let’s go out through the hidden passage at the back. The entrance is very likely being watched.”
“Being watched…? Listen, I’ve been wanting to ask this whole time, who in the world are my pursuers sent by… eek!”
Whose doing was it. Before I could finish asking my secretary, the office shook hard. A sideways lurch, as though it were not an earthquake but something striking the outer wall. The unexpected shock put my hand to the floor.
“This is bad… they’re already, this far.”
“Hold on, what was that just now?!”
“The talk comes later! Right now, getting away safely comes first, above all! Lady Raquel, this way.”
Led by the hand toward the hidden passage.
“Wait. What about the other children who were in the office?”
“They’ve armed themselves to buy Lady Raquel the time to escape, and they’re facing down the enemy at the entrance.”
“…What are you… I don’t understand what you’re saying! Some of them only came on as part-time help!”
“They are people who, at the contract stage, agreed that in an emergency Lady Raquel takes the highest priority. This is, for them, a duty that goes without saying.”
“…No.”
It was true, such wording had been set down at the time of employment. That we would ever actually meet with an emergency I had never once dreamed. My secretary closed the hidden passage’s door behind us and fixed it fast with magic so it could never be opened again. From beyond that single door came the roar of magic flying back and forth and the violent clash of metal.
“Let’s go. We mustn’t let their sacrifice be for nothing.”
“…Why…”
Carrying a pain sharp as a nail dragged across my chest, I turned my back on the hidden door and half-ran down the path that led outside. The people who had worked alongside me at the office were precious to me. I had treated them like family. The shame of having used them as decoys and fled. The bitterness of being able to do nothing for them. Tears spilled over of their own accord.
“…Gaen. Explain it all to me properly, later.”
“Yes. Once we’ve escaped somewhere safe, I’ll tell you in detail. …What is happening now, and the report that will grieve you, Lady Raquel, as well.”
“——!”
My secretary’s face had gone pale, and he looked worn out to the depths of his spirit. Surely he too was in dreadful pain at having lost the colleagues he’d worked beside in the office. I reflected, deeply, on how my head had been full of nothing but myself.
2
The hidden passage led out into a nearby forest.
The forest, wrapped in stillness, ran with a cold air, and with sunset drawing near besides, the surroundings were dim and eerie.
“Lady Raquel, let’s hurry. If we press on ahead, it’ll be harder for the pursuers to find you.”
Gaen, my secretary, urged me on, keeping a wary eye on the direction the passage had come from. As he’d said, I pressed deeper into the forest.
After an hour or so of walking, we came out into a slightly open space.
“Raquel! So you escaped safely too.”
“Thank goodness. If Raquel’s safe, then there’s still hope.”
Called by name in voices I knew well, I was just a little relieved. Before me were the council members who had shown themselves in favor of building an alliance with the Empire, and the guards arrayed as if to watch the surroundings.
“Did all of you get away too, then?”
The council members gathered there numbered some thirty-odd. Even counting the guards and other associates, the number fell short of a hundred. At my question each of them nodded, then traded glances and wore bitter expressions.
“Yes. This is everyone, most likely?”
“The other councilors were cut down across the board.”
“Cut down, by whom…”
When I asked, Gaen, who’d caught up from behind, spoke up.
“By the radical faction of the council, the ones who opposed an alliance with the Empire.”
“That can’t be… you mean part of the council, who swore to bear the governance of the state through dialogue, resorted to force of arms?”
“That’s right. In fact, any number of the pro-alliance councilors were killed, and the councilors who protested their tyranny were murdered out of hand as well. …Lady Raquel, please hear this calmly. The truth is that your own father, the Council Chairman, Lord Lairott Nova, was slain by their hands as well.”
“…What.”
At his words my thoughts dulled for an instant. What… my father, dead?
“The Chairman sought dialogue to his very last moment, but they gave him no room to negotiate. They ran the Chairman through with a sword.”
“You’re lying… there’s no way my father is dead. Only yesterday he was so full of life—”
“Lady Raquel!”
“——!”
“…Please accept the reality of it. Your father, Lairott Nova, was killed. And now, the only one who can pull this Republic out of chaos is you, his daughter.”
“Even told such a thing, so suddenly…”
Gaen was surely telling me to take up my father’s role as Council Chairman in his stead. But of course I was in no way ready for this. To study the Republic’s governance while my father held the chairmanship, and only ten, twenty years on to at last aim for the Council Chairman’s seat. The design I’d drawn for my future had been built on the premise that my father still lived.
“…Save the Republic, you say. What would you have me do?”
“The surviving councilors here and their associates are people who support your accession as Council Chairman. Lead the people, carry the Republic’s future forward. Lady Raquel, we would have you become our leader, as Lord Lairott’s successor.”
I would govern this Republic with no order left in it? …No. Impossible. Absolutely beyond me.
“I couldn’t possibly do such a thing…”
I voiced the weak protest, but not one of the councilors around me looked at me as some green, half-formed member.
“Lady Raquel. The only one who can lead the council after Lord Lairott is you. We know it is a cruel thing to ask, but please.”
“There’s no one else with the power to draw people together the way you have. You’re the only one we can entrust Lairott’s place to. That’s what every one of us here believes.”
“…Whatever the case, to set the Republic back on its feet, we must raise up a symbol of its recovery. And that ought to be, not old codgers like us, but a young leader who will walk the Republic’s future.”
Every gaze fell on me at once. There was no way I could fill my father’s place. Everyone here had to understand that much. And still they told me to shoulder the title, because I was not merely a councilor but the daughter of Lairott Nova, that great Council Chairman.
“…I…”
To take on so heavy a charge was, after all, frightening. A single misjudgment on my part could cost many lives. From the moment I nodded here and answered their hopes, I would be, not a mere councilor, but the one responsible, carrying the fates of everyone gathered here.
As my heartbeat quickened all the more, there rose behind my eyelids the figure of a woman my own age who yet shouldered the greatest power on the continent: the female Emperor.
—Rune-chan, I’m sure, would set about leading them without a moment’s hesitation.
A space wrapped in unease. In a Republic broken by base violence, even hoping for a tomorrow was a doubtful thing. And amid it, each and every one gathered here was enduring the fear of being hunted themselves, and trying to entrust so much to me.
“…I cannot become someone as dependable as my father. To set the Republic right again quickly will be difficult, too.”
However much hope they pinned on me, the fact that I was a green girl did not change.
“I may err in an important decision.”
Even in a situation my father would have surmounted with ease, I might trip in unsightly fashion and come away covered in wounds.
“But I wish, with all my strength, for the Republic’s prosperity and peace. Just like my father, and like all of you here, I want, with no word of a lie, to protect the lives of the people who live in this Republic!”
The Roscheld Republic was a nation that prized peace, one that had waged no war for over a hundred years. Its very method of governance, ever since its founding, had been carried out by representatives the people chose, through debate piled upon debate. The road our forebears walked must not be made light of. That the history of the Republic built up until now had been trampled by an appeal to violence was something I could never forgive.
“If there are those who mean to use force of arms to rob us of the chance for open debate, then, as people of the Republic, we ought to stand against them with an unflinching resolve.”
My whole body trembled. A moment ago I’d been all but crushed by unease, and now an entirely different feeling had budded in me. A quiet indignation lit a flame in my heart. For me, this moment was surely the time to step forward.
“…I humbly accept your proposal. As my father’s stand-in, I will take responsibility, rebuild the council, and win back the peace of the Republic!”
Ah, I’ve said something grandiose, I thought. But before any regret over the words could come, I saw the relief-filled faces of my countrymen, and felt that making so bold a decision had been the right choice.
“…It’s settled, then. We’re counting on you, Chairman Raquel.”
“Lady Raquel, we will support you with all our strength.”
“I’ve little life left ahead of me, but I’ll stake the whole of my remaining days on you, Lady Raquel. Protect the Republic, I beg you.”
“Yes. I’ll give the best that’s in me.”
And so a new Council Chairman was born to the Republic.
3
—Five days after Raquel Nova’s accession as Council Chairman.
The Roscheld Republic sent a single written petition to the Valugan Empire. Its contents demanded the early conclusion of an alliance between Republic and Empire, and, on top of that, support in strength to put down the coup that had risen in the Republic.
In one corner of an encampment where countless tents had been pitched, I was in conference with Gaen, my secretary.
“Lady Raquel. The envoy bearing the letter to the Empire has departed the port safely. If the ship makes good progress along its route, it should reach the Empire in five days at the earliest.”
“Then, until we can receive the Empire’s support, we need to somehow endure and hold on. Gaen, how do the enemy’s forces stand?”
“At present, coups are breaking out in several cities of the Republic at once, but the local self-governments of each region are somehow resisting their armed control. However, the northern sixty percent of the Republic’s land has, it seems, fallen into enemy hands.”
Six-tenths of the Republic seized, and the remaining four under fierce attack. If the Republic were taken by the radicals like this, then rebuilding the council would be the least of it: even the rights of the people who lived in this nation might be trampled underfoot. Should the radicals gain command of the whole of the Republic, they might well side with the Kingdom and go so far as to conscript ordinary citizens by force. That worst case, at least, we had to prevent.
“…For now, there’s nothing for it but to work with the surviving self-governments and resist the radicals.”
“At worst, so long as we can hold the military port that lets us call in reinforcements from the Empire, retaking the cities that have fallen to the enemy remains possible.”
At Gaen’s proposal I shook my head.
“That would make the military cost of retaking each city far too heavy. The Empire is already bracing for war with the Kingdom as it is, and if we make a demand that places too great a burden on the Empire’s side, there’s every chance our aid will be refused.”
Rune-chan, the Empire’s present Emperor, may have been my dear friend in our student days, but in matters of diplomacy, if she judged as Emperor that a thing didn’t serve her own nation’s interest, she wouldn’t hesitate to cut it loose.
“Besides, the Republic is our nation. To rely on the Empire’s military might to weather the crisis is, I believe, a poor way of thinking in itself.”
To lean wholly on the Empire would rob my taking up the Council Chairman’s seat of its meaning. What we could manage, we ought to settle with our own people alone.
“And to begin with, there’s no guarantee at all that the Empire will lend a hand simply because we’ve handed over a petition.”
“…If the Empire’s help can’t be had, we’ll be forced into a considerably harsh fight. The whole of the Republic may be reduced to scorched earth.”
“Whatever the future holds, all we can do is give the best that’s in us. We’ll need to think, now, about what happens if we can’t borrow the Empire’s help, too.”
The position we stood in was a fragile one indeed. We were barely holding together a foundation built as if of straw, to be blown away at a breath. And so, for now, there was no road but to keep resisting the radicals while we prayed.
“It may be a rather dreamy sort of strategy, unusual for me. To move on the premise of borrowing the Empire’s strength.”
“That’s how far we’ve been driven.”
“Tell me, Gaen. Do you truly think the Empire will lend us a hand?”
Honestly, from the Empire’s side there was little advantage in lending us its strength. The council that had held the Republic together, the core of its central government, had collapsed, and the running of the state had ceased to function properly. However much the present council laid out a national course for the Empire, there was no guarantee anywhere that it would be realized.
I knew it was a sweet, naive hope. And yet, even so, that I clung to a single thread of hope in the Empire’s aid was because I wanted to believe my dear friend would reach out a saving hand.
“I believe. That the Empire, that Rune-chan, will come to save me.”
What Gaen thought, hearing those words, I couldn’t say. But he spoke then not in the taut, cold voice of before, but his face a little eased.
“You’re rather like a princess awaiting her prince on a white horse.”
“If I’m a princess, then to the prince I’m a truly wretched short straw to draw.”
As we talked so, the sun sank and the surroundings folded into darkness. Lights began to kindle here and there across the encampment.
—Our dawn lies far, far ahead.