Chương 124: Chapter 145: Projection

I skipped out of my science class to go chat with Lady Hanje. The sooner the better, after all. She had several appointments that would need to wait until after she had spoken to me, people whose plans and strategies depended on my own. I'm now, in many ways, the leader of the Harigold clan in all matters of inter-House politics. Since Nathan abdicated the position to chat with - Deep breath. I forced myself to calm down.

"Are you all right?" Lady Hanje asked.

"I've been hearing that a lot today," I said. We were back in her sanctum of secret silence, the sound-proofed cell she used for planning and preparation.

"Yes, I'm fine. I took a quick mental break to let myself be annoyed by my brother. It won't be the last time." I took the seat she offered and I sat down, tucking my skirt. She took up her charcoal pencil and readied it.

"It may occur once or twice for me to become exasperated with him as well," she said dryly.

"And I have never even met him in person." I slouched, and pressed my thumb and finger to the bridge of my nose, pinching it as if fighting off another headache.

"He went to the Fashion Week event. He sat in the overflow annex. Because he thought it would be more polite to his date. And he thought bringing her in on his title would be an abuse of his position." The tall woman shot me a sharp look.

"I would accuse you of making a poor joke, but your humor is entirely of the dry and understated variety."" Thank you. My roommate says I never make jokes."

"They're not funny, but they are there," she said.

"Now then, let's start with a mission statement. This next six months, what is your strategy?"

"At a simple mission statement? I would say it is to establish a minimum power base and defend myself against the wrath of the Freckentops I have so rightfully earned. Perhaps in six months I will change my mission to 'eliminating rivals and obstacles', but for right now I think I need to focus on weathering my new storm, and building a foundation to work from."

After all, I had spent the weekend telling anyone who would listen that the royal family of the Freckentops, currently on the throne, were the architects of the necromantic plague that was killing people and driving up food prices across the nation- an act of treason against their own citizens. I had blurted it out in mixed company, thrown it into the princess's face, pushed whisper campaigns among my allies, dropped messages with broadsheet editors, let myself be overheard talking too loudly about it...

I have been pushing that news out. And the people directly affected by that news were clearly annoyed-and-or-threatened by my actions.

"Even that may be too ambitious," Hanje said dryly.

"If you had to choose between those two?"

"I would not," I stated with a very precise inflection. The slight twitch at her cheek and forehead could have been the quashed remains of a smirk or a grimace. Subtle distinction with important differences.

"Very well," she said in a neutral tone.

"As a momentary sidetrack: you are aware that I will not take any open role in your family's business, my duties and those of the office vacated by Sisa Wellen have no overlap."

"I understand," I said.

"We are making provisions to see her duties done."

"Good," she said, then looked away from her pages to fix me directly with a fierce pale gaze.

"Now then, how the hell is it that my operatives did not find this? I am glad you resolved it, but my people had no indications whatsoever. And that potentially is a much larger problem in and of itself, if it's the first warnings of a larger threat internally." Ah, I think I could see what her concern was. I paused before I spoke, and made sure I did this carefully.

"If you are asking me whether you have any more hidden enemies within the ranks of your operatives? I could not say. I have reached the bounds of my information on this front. I knew the top names but I cannot be certain that there are not more traitors that have been hiding and protecting them.

Now, I'm no spymaster and I recognize that there is a huge swath of skills that I do not possess, but my recommendation based on only my observations would be to optimistically move forward as if nothing is wrong but maybe feed small amounts of false information to your people and see what gets leaked across to enemy factions. There may have been... but also Sisa Wellen spent plenty of time outside our circles and would not necessarily need allies in your ranks to get away with what she'd done." She nodded.

"That was most of my concern. The issue of the Meadwhites is less worrying to me- I never had them under as much scrutiny, they have their own vendeuse, and they have apparently had over a century to perfect their methods for contacting their... ancestor?"

"Ancestor," I confirmed.

"Have you already taken steps to have Harigold soldiers secure the Meadwhite vendeuse and their premises?"

"I should love to tell you yes to this," she sighed.

"But their vendeuse has always worked independently of my offices, and I have no direct contact. We sent a dropper to their front door, but the whole shop has moved to a new location with no forwarding." Meaning that their spymaster was just as hidden and just as secret as our spymaster was. I went still and quiet, she detected it. She looked at me with a suddenly-tired gaze.

"And, yes-" she admitted, "in retrospect that should have been one of the earliest indications I had that they were not fully cooperative. Typically her people and my people should have been tightly knit, but I let myself be held at arm's length. A mistake on my part. I will resolve that another time.

I'm currently caught at the unfortunate intersection of trying to wrap up a lot of issues left over from the past several years, and also coordinating all the next six months with the family after all the rather incendiary remarks you made on Sixthday night." She paused, and with an elbow on the table she turned her wrist to level a pointed finger at me.

"Now, I will need to know whether you can back up those allegations."

"I can and I will," I said.

"But the timing is somewhat out of my hands. My best evidence will not make itself available for some months yet." Her hand dipped, came up with a quill.

"I can guarantee dividends if you can tell me exactly when."

"Second week of Summerhigh," I filled in immediately. She dashed something onto a calendar on her blotter.

"Very good. I will organize around that. Are there any other specifically scheduled events I may stake on?"

"In the next six months? That will affect anyone but myself? And that has a firm timeline?" I said, considering.

"First weekend of Summerbuild I'm going to be working with the Eyellon family under contract to do some road demolition out at the Fissuring. And in Autumnhigh I am going on a dungeon run with a classmate that would be absolutely revolutionary for the field of historical biographies of mathematicians." She paused, darted a glance up through her eyelashes.

"Um. I just.. won't write down that last one."

"It's pretty niche," I admitted.

"I won't be offended."

"And that's it for major events that you can give me advance insight?"

"Ah, an uncharacteristically mild summer?" I said, drawing from a vague memory of a conversation. Some details are difficult. This is a video game I haven't played in fifteen years, after all. But, I'm pretty sure that was something Josse mentions before her romance route opens up.

"Oh, now we're talking," Lady Hanje said, putting bold notes at the top of her calendar and underlining them.

"But, other than that, not really," I said.

"Sorry, not all my information is given equal weight. But, uh, this time next year?... make sure all of our people are wearing clothes that are easy to run in. And possibly fire-retardant." She froze, and looked up at me with the hardest, sharpest, most knifelike gaze I've ever seen, and she is a woman of very sharp glances.

"You know a lot that you're not going to tell me, do you?"

"I will. In due time. And not a minute later."

"Good to know," she said.

"We will pursue that next year. I will schedule an extended session for you. But right now I am fighting for my life just to keep up with last weekend's events and the next six months' requirements. So I shall cut us short here. You wish to establish a power base, and to avoid losing ground despite the incendiary words delivered against the ruling family. Fine. Let us work with that.

Now, I see an opportunity to turn this season into one long push, since your birthday will land almost immediately before the Fall Fashion Week event. If we look at this next season as six months driving straight to that party, I think that defines our timing and goals, everything becomes about momentum." I lit up, leaning forward. She had notes in front of her that meant nothing to me, but I stared at them, just as rapt as she is.

"Tell me more," I said.

"I am inventing as I go," she admitted.

"But the timing of your birthday is potentially very auspicious. I don't think anyone within a step of your station has a birthday in that week, and so you will be uniquely positioned to take the crescendo week of the season and make it entirely about you."

"If I can keep Nathan out of the way," I added.

"Please do, I simply cannot make him part of my forecasts at this time," she said.

"He will not see me, he does not understand the stakes of this, he will not set a schedule.. frankly he is a liability to my work and I would consider it a great favor from you to me if you were to find a wardrobe to lock him into every weekend." She laughed a little eccentrically, hinting at a depth of stress and tension that she normally keeps very well concealed.

"I will proceed as if your brother will not be a problem. If momentum is the goal, then we make the announcement that the party will happen early, but we hold invitations 'til late. We announce the party will happen, and we announce that invitations go out in.. say, Summerhigh, so save-the-dates go out in Summerbuild and-""One moment," I said, looking at her calendar.

"I've got some investments that will be maturing in Autumnrise. I can sink a lot of money into these maneuvers in the weeks leading up to the next strategy reset. If we want momentum, we can take a full-court spread. A seasonal party in mid Autumnrise, the second Egg-vitational in late Autumnrise, my-""You're not really staying with that name though," she looked pained.

"Pitch me some alternatives," I said, but continued before the interruption could stretch out.

"And then my birthday in early Autumnhigh, immediately before the Fall Fashion Week. Nobody ever posts a party immediately before Fashion, they don't want to invite comparison. But if I'm hammering out events, one-two-three leading up to it, then we flip the script. I'm not competing with Fashion-""But that Fashion Week is an extension of your month," she said, drawing her finger down.

"It won't be easy.. wait, I take that back. It will be easy. It would be easy. Oh. All right, by tradition you'll have that last week to yourself with no argument. As for the week before.. well, if you brand it as your...

"egg-thing" second year, then you can bring in all your "returning champions" or whatever to build it out. Launch the success of last year to help out this year. The difficult one would be that first week you're aiming at, third weekend of Autumnrise. But if we press on that, then the momentum you build will carry over a week, and then another, and then another -""And we control Fashion Week going into next winter," I finished for her.

"Just in time to start eliminating enemies and obstacles."

"It's do-able," she conceded.

"From here, it looks feasible, even. But it will be expensive. And risky. How much money are you going to have liquid to pay for these events?" I told her how much money I invested with Kurumi Lautan. She raised an eyebrow but did not comment. I told her exactly which commodities I had invested that money into. She shook her head, told me she does not follow the market pages. I told her the projected numbers, and roughly what percentage of it I could sink into this gala venture.

She did some math on a scrap piece of paper, and then she leaned back in her seat and cupped both of her hands over her mouth.

"Never," she said, and choked a little.

"I have never had a budget like that to use." I gave a crooked sort of smile.

"That's probably because most of the family money stays in Meadowtam. Father prefers that everything that the duchy generates should stay with the people. Reinvestment into the production. Which is great from the perspective of a farmer, a road-grader, a teamster, a drover. But, he has been living in the duchy, handling duchy finances, talking to duchy residents, for decades. He never looks outward any more.

And that's why he's been blindsided by the tax proposal that he's been fighting in court for years, and the trade war, and the blight, and the sanctions. Father looks at Hearstcliff as a series of investments that are supposed to be paying into the duchy and its citizens. And so the budget for Hearstcliff affairs has been whatever was left over after he took his cut." I paused, and tried not to get too heated about this. The thing is, I can understand his position. And he should be correct.

Sending the profits of the trade back to the people that made it possible is not just morally correct, it's also very efficacious- in a vacuum. In a closed environment. But in the larger sphere of Hearstwhile, and its ludicrously corrupt politics? You need to budget a significant amount of money to a defensive campaign in the political sphere to push back against petty power-plays and banal intrigues.

"Anyway," I said, shrugging.

"It's good money for this, but it's peanuts compared to what's going back to the duchy. Even a skim off the trade profits from Meadowtam is an order of magnitude off what I've got to spend. The money I've got... well, it would not go very far in easing the plight of citizens of the duchy. But it would be a big deal here. I simply cannot make enough money to make a material difference in conditions back home. But I can make a big difference here if I spend it the right way. After years, I can end this trade war.

I can reverse the sanctions. Reparations for the Blight. End the bandit attacks and get favorable rates in market transaction. I can do that in a year, with a fraction the budget. And neither Father nor Mother or Nathan could do that."

"Sounds like you're talking your way out of a guilty conscience," Lady Hanje said.

"I frankly consider all of that outside of my scope. My job is big enough, complex enough, and detailed enough as it is. I cannot make myself take concern with anything outside the city. Now, you've got money. Enough for all three of those parties. Let's talk them out."

"All right," I said, stabbing my finger at the first of the three weekends we are blocking out.

"This one. People look to me for innovation and new ideas, especially something fun. So I'll be branding this as an autumn seasonal event. Harvest-ish. A masquerade."

"Autumn masquerade?" she said, nodding.

"Not often done, but it-""Not done," I said.

"I was not done. We're gonna go further." I could not push the smile off my face. I am finally going to get my Halloween. I've been trying to make this happen. As a child I did not have this much creative control. Now I've got the budget, the freedom, the opportunity, and the party planner.

"Monsters. We're gonna include elements of creepy monsters, genuine fear, ghost stories, harvest themes, superstitions, party games, horror, uncertainty, dread... and the relief that comes with them. Juxtapose danger and safety, give a brief scare and have people feel brave afterwards. I want them to be thrilled, and nervous. Excited and enjoying themselves. Stop short of overwhelming, stop short of terror- but a startle, a spook, a thrill of anxiety."

"You have some very general terms-" she started to say.

"Corn maze. Bobbing for apples. Haunted house attraction. Dark ride. Costumed actors. Soundtracks. Special effects. Storytellers, fog effects," I started listing off. And now she's holding up a hand.

"All right. You also have a lot of very specific terms as well. I think that you and I will hash those out over the next few weeks, we're planning a party five months in advance, after all-" I won't interrupt her to tell her that, from multiple years experience, five months is not too early to start planning a Halloween party!

"-but also there's the egg-race party. A tournament, and you pitched it last year as the 'first annual', which implies you intend to keep this going-""I believe that this will be the last time I take point on that. Going forward I would like the egg-race tournament to operate without me," I said.

"Either as a public trust or handed off to some trustworthy associate." Lady Hanje tapped another entry on a second page, some shorthand scrawl I could not interpret.

"This next egg competition, you dedicate it to Lady Wendy's memory. And going forward we can ask one of your cousins to administer the tournament. That's the exchange of stewardship."

"Perfect," I said.

"Masquerade. Egg race. Birthday party. Fashion week. Leaves us in full control of the narrative going into next season." It's a very aggressive schedule. I need to push hard and set my powerbase so that in autumn I have enough muscle to call some shots. And then I spend the next six months using that powerbase to establish that I can fight and win battles against the establishment. Culminating this time next year, where I can take my victories and roll them into established plot events.

If it works the way I envision, then by next summer I'm one of the most powerful people on the continent. I just hope I don't have to make too many more sacrifices to get there.