"Right, Celtine thinks I should ask for part of the profit instead of an upfront payment. This does make a lot of sense. If I was to accept your offer now and then see you make hundreds of times more with it, it would be a bit upsetting."
"Haha! What a smart girl. To be honest, I hoped you would not think about asking for a cut of the whole thing. Fine then, I"ll see what I can do and prepare the papers, we can talk about the real numbers once I"ve asked my house about that deal."
She said she was disappointed but she was still smiling brightly. Between a very big profit and a big profit, the difference wasn"t much, more so for extremely rich merchants.
"Then I"ll wait for some good news." He smiled in return.
Hopefully the amount would be large enough to share with the huntresses as well, they had played a good part in the operation as well.
She placed the piece of crystal in her purse to show to her family later and c.o.c.ked her head to the side. She suddenly seemed perplexed by something.
"Heya, it"s got nothing to do with what we were just talking about but, aren"t you taller than before?"
She used her hand to compare their two heights from the top of her head to his forehead.
"Back when school started, I was the taller one. I had not noticed since you always carry her around but, aren"t you growing way fast?"
Had he really grown that much? Ever since school had started, he had to ask Harriett to adjust his clothes a few times because they sometimes felt a bit tight but he had not realized how much taller he had gotten.
"I had not noticed either. It"s a good thing though right?"
"At least for Mabel it is yeah!"
After saying that loudly, she couldn"t help but laugh at the thought, throwing her head back in amus.e.m.e.nt.
Emp had gotten pretty used to that kind of comment since it was part of Aglaya"s strange plan so he didn"t really mind it and just waited for her to regain her calm.
"Speaking of the devil, where is she now? Aren"t you supposed to "protect" her?"
Emp was happy to realize he had now grown enough to understand the way she emphasized protect meant she didn"t feel it was what he was actually doing. He felt he had made a lot of progress in his understanding of how everyone acted between each other.
"I had a strategy cla.s.s to attend to and she didn"t so I left her in her room with Aglaya."
"Well, don"t be late then, I won"t hold you any longer. See you later!"
"Bye."
He waved her goodbye with Celtine as she strutted off.
That had been a fruitful meeting. He was happy with the results. Now then, he needed to get to his first strategy lesson. From what he understood, there would be no one else this time around.
He didn"t know what the teacher was like so he was a bit nervous to be the only student in the cla.s.s. He knew others would join in later on in the year but for now, if the teacher was a strange one, he would be forced to suffer alone.
Hopefully it would be fine.
He reached the a.s.signed room and opened the door without knocking. The cla.s.sroom was well lit by large windows and lined with maps and bookshelves. There were only a few desks making it obvious that only a few students bothered with strategy lessons each cycle. Instead there were many large tables holding all sorts of small figures of wooden archers, mages, spearmen, knights and hors.e.m.e.n. At the far end of the room, behind a tall desk, a man stood with his back turned towards the door.
The tall man wore clean clothes in green, a rigid military posture and short blond hair neatly arranged. When Emp got in, he was talking to himself and didn"t notice his student.
"...send me a single guy again. How come that out of a hundred students, only one or two show up every time. Should I apply to make them a speech on the importance of strategy. Even though we have the Muraciers, it doesn"t mean that their subordinate don"t need to know how a battle plays out. What is that student even waiting for?"
Maybe he should have knocked.
"Sorry teacher, I"m here already."
"I know you"re there, who do you think I am? I served on the battlefield for a long time under the duke. I followed him here because he convinced me that the younger generation needed guidance on strategy after our last battle but I remain a knight at heart. If I was to fail to notice a single kid walking behind me it would be a..."
While his speech was progressing, he had slowly turned around and his confident air froze when he saw the face of his student. His words trailed off in the middle of his sentence and his pupils shrunk in shock.
What was that reaction for? Did he see something frightful behind him?
The man gulped and spoke with a shaking voice.
"Gh, general! Sir! I"m at your orders."
With that, the man gave Emp a knight"s bow and stayed at attention on his knee. His reaction really reminded Emp of how the soldiers in red-water had reacted when they had seen his name.
"What"s going on, could you tell me?"
"That hair color, the eyes, the overall facial structure, there can be no mistake, you are a Muracier! I was rude to you earlier, my deepest apology."
The teacher lowered his head again to express his regret.
Emp was almost as surprised as he was. It was true that he had been told a few times that he looked like a Muracier and it was also true that he had their name but wasn"t that too exaggerated? He wasn"t related to them by blood, how was it possible for someone to guess his name just by looking at his face?
"It"s true that my name is Muracier but you are the teacher here so please, stand up."
"As you will sir."
Emp let out a groan as the man rose back to his feet. He was still not used to that sort of treatment. He would prefer if the teacher acted like a teacher instead of a servant.
By the way her feet balanced happily on his chest, he understood that Celtine was rather pleased by this turn of event. Maybe she was happy that some important teacher recognized him as a superior. Or maybe she just found this whole thing funny?
"Listen, no one is supposed to know who I am. My name is being kept hidden from everyone for a purpose."
It was a purpose he didn"t understand of course but there was still a reason behind it.
"I see, my apology again, if others had been here, I would have revealed the secret. I will refrain from showing my loyalty so openly in the future."
That was perfect but Emp felt he"d lose if he tried to get a better result.
"I"m not here to ask for loyalty or give some orders, I"m here to learn. As of right now, I know almost nothing of strategy or how the army actually works. The duke Jazay said that he"d turn me into the best great general yet and he chose you specifically to teach my friends and me. I hope you won"t disappoint."
His eyes shone with fervor.
"It will be the greatest honor for me to show the Muracier heir the ropes of the work. I understand now why the ancient was so lively as we talked about this batch of students. I am the viscount Gustave Halfoot and I will do my best to turn your mind into the sharpest of tools, no, rather, I"m certain it would be so even if I did nothing."
"Please, do your best to teach me everything and make sure that no one else finds out about my name. I didn"t have a lot of time in the past to learn about this so expect me to be totally ignorant despite my name."
"Understood, I see now why there are so many lessons with you on my schedule. You will not be disappointed, let"s start immediately."
In the end, the teacher was indeed a strange one but only because of his own name. Things turned out to not be as bad as he feared and once Gustave started teaching, things turned serious and efficient. Emp liked that sort of lessons were things were clear and logical, a knowledge easy to absorb.
Not only in that first lessons but in all the following ones too, the teacher applied himself to have him learn all things related to strategy, how to best lead soldiers, the structure of the army, the hierarchy and so on.
He showed him dozens of examples from the past, having him read old history books and showing him how each and every battle played out using the small soldier figures on the tables.
He would point out mistakes from both sides and their great ideas, how they used the terrain to their advantage, how they fell for simple traps, how to lead a war towards were one wants it to go, how to deny any significant advantage to an invading army, how to best use fortifications, how to take into account the wildlife while moving troops around, how to keep an eye on the supplies.
In brief, he was extremely knowledgeable on the subject.
Emp felt that he must have been a great leader in the army but Gustave denied it. He was a good a.s.sistant to the duke because he was extremely knowledgeable but he knew that it was not the only thing that decided the true ability of a leader. One needed to be able to make swift decisions, take initiatives and think outside of the box in order to counter any and all opponents. Gustave was no such man, he could recall large amounts of past battles to help but like he said himself:
"Each battle and each war is unique. If the same armies clash twice at the same place, one cannot a.s.sume that the end result will be the same. A true commander always comes up with a better way to outmatch his opponent. The past must be acknowledged and remembered but only copying it will lead to an easy victory for the other side. As long as they know what they are doing, that is. On this point, the Muraciers never failed. As you saw already, more than half of those strategies I showed you came directly from them."
Emp greatly enjoyed his time in those cla.s.ses. Mable would sulk each time but those cla.s.ses were really interesting to him. He didn"t know if all of this would ever be useful to him since he wasn"t sure yet how he would challenge the emperor of the green dragon empire but he really liked to hear the tales of all those old battles and he liked to think about how things could have possibly be turned around.
Like that, time pa.s.sed quickly for him. While his leg healed, he spent most of his time studying geography and strategy or practicing what Jaska had showed him.
He received many magic cla.s.ses in that time but he had not yet found the occasion to ask Heinrich about the tulips. Penny always stayed long after cla.s.s to ask him a myriad of questions and since he had other things to do, he didn"t want to wait the whole time. In any case, as long as he kept the tulips in his bag, nothing would happen to them so they could wait for a while.
It didn"t take too long for his strength to come back entirely and for his leg to work as it should. Looking at it, he could still see the old scar from the woodland horror but with it, there was now a large amount of smaller and shorter lines peppering his leg. Emp found a bit annoying that his two legs now looked like they belonged to two different persons.
The scars themselves didn"t disturb him, it was instead the difference between the two that he found displeasing. One was exactly like his leg should be while the other looked like he had been tortured for years. He wondered if he could go see a mage in the city who would be able to remove all those scars, then, his two legs would be alike again. Symmetrical things were so much better after all.
It was while he was harboring such pointless thoughts that a new dance lesson was organised by Blackbull. This time around, a few weeks had pa.s.sed and his leg had been fully healed.
He was made to wear his suit and met with everyone in the hall again. Like the first time, the teacher showed up with musicians and over their music, tried to impart the many dances of the court to them.
She expected absolutely nothing of Emp but he surprised her and everyone else by being able to easily mimic the movements she wanted the boys to do. Brenia even shouted "What the h.e.l.l!" when she saw him do them.
His movements weren"t flowing like any sort of good dancers of course but just like combat techniques, he found that it was easy for him to burn the specific gestures in his mind and repeat them afterwards.
Thanks to that, he didn"t slow down the lesson despite how he had missed the first one and everything progressed like Blackbull had planned.
Looking at the dances and their movements, Emp understood that they found elegance in flowing movements and ordered steps. This was no place for the energetic steps of the villager. The more he followed the movements and the music, the more he understood them. He held no hope of ever being a ruler of this s.p.a.ce like Nessa was but after a few approving nods from the teacher, he was confident he would not embarra.s.s himself if he was ever caught in a dance somewhere.
At the end of this second lesson, Blackbull decided that there were now enough talented people of both gender to attempt the real thing. She believed that the others would learn all the complicated steps more easily if they received the guidance of a good partner. Anyway, all those dances were designed to be practiced in pairs. (1)
Because of this, on the third dancing cla.s.s, she put a rotation system in place where all the boys and girls would switch partners once in a while to let all the good dancers lead the others on the right path.
Like everyone else, Emp had to dance with most of the girls in cla.s.s. Everyone around him seemed to be embarra.s.sed about doing this. At first, Emp didn"t see what was wrong with this, until he came around to dance with Rica.
Frits" lover was holding his hand and arm, in front of everyone. It could not be any clearer on her face that she would rather be dancing with Frits the whole time. Both Rica and Frits were really uncomfortable to dance with anyone else. It was at that point that he understood that this sort of n.o.ble dances wasn"t meant to be performed as a pair but as a couple instead. Maybe was it a form of courting? (2)
If that was really the case, it was no wonder that everyone felt awkward. Even he felt worse and worse the longer it went.
This however was nothing compared to how weird he felt when he got paired with Mable.
That day, she wore a bright blue dress that reached her knees and had no shoulders and only a string of flowery lacework as a short sleeve attached to its side, with long delicate gloves that were clearly forced upon her by Aglaya. He felt that it was just as bright as the usual her. This only made her tense face even more apparent as it clashed with the dress. His own face was probably similar.
He felt as if he was back in the forge with how much heat his embarra.s.sment generated. Mable was just as bad as himself and it only got worse with the grinning stares of everyone. They weren"t a real couple, everyone just a.s.sumed they would end up together and giggled at them. How were Frits and Rica able to be so close to each other all the time and ignore everyone else around them? Emp wasn"t able to do it and Mable could stand the stares even less.
"Would you all stop staring! We"re not doing anything strange! At least we can dance properly!"
That was true, Mable was so embarra.s.sed that she wasn"t fighting against the rhythm anymore, she was too busy thinking about all the stares. Because of this, Emp was able to somehow lead her into the proper instructed steps, focusing on that, he was able to mostly ignore the others.
After that, the others tried to avert their eyes, mostly because Blackbull seemed to be about to scold everyone and soon, their partners were switched again.
His dance with Brenia was much more lighthearted. Sure their performance this time around was terrible but at the very least, it didn"t feel awkward.
"How come you"re so f.u.c.king good at that? I don"t get it at all." She complained when their turn came.
Brenia had butchered the dances of all her partners up to now and was very frustrated. Emp decided to help her by giving her a tip she would surely understand.
"Just think of this as a fight. You have to answer all my moves with the correct counter, it should be simple to you."
"What?"
"Listen, when I do this, you need to counter by stepping up with your right foot and when I do that, you retreat a step this way. You"re holding my arm because I could stab you if you release it but in exchange, I"m holding on to your sword hand."
She seemed to have come to an understanding of the dance with that, She narrowed her eyes and concentrated for the next few movements. It wasn"t long before their performance improved by huge leaps. A victorious smile crept up her face and she stared holes into his face.
"So that"s how you did it. I can"t believe it"s actually working. I had my mind so set on how I hated this I had not noticed it was so similar. I still don"t like it but at least I won"t get mocked by all those n.o.bles anymore."
Emp was pretty sure no one here would dare mock her but he was happy she could improve so much with only a few tips from him.
Brenia had been bad but she was not the one that gave the worst performance. Surprisingly the worst practice dance was the one between Nessa and Zoran. He was fine dancing alone but with someone else in front of him, his steps would crackle and stutter like his voice.
He got so fl.u.s.tered in front of the best dancer in the group that he ended up tripping and dragging her down to the floor with him. Nessa shrieked as she fell, Zoran b.u.mped his head on the floor and Nessa used him as a cus.h.i.+on to not hurt herself in the fall.
Both ended up fine aside from the small b.u.mp on Zoran"s head. He became beet red and seemed downcast for the rest of the day but aside form that, nothing bad happened.
The rest of Emp"s dances went pretty well, excluding the fact that he found them rather embarra.s.sing now that he thought he understood what it was all about. The worse dance he had was with Josseline.
She was comfortable with the movements so she didn"t need to really focus on them. This should have been a good thing but she felt really chatty and her favorite subject were love stories. With how busy he had been, Emp had almost forgot that the only reason she was in school was to find herself a husband.
She spoke at length about all the rumors surrounding everyone"s love interests. It was all important information for her she claimed. She asked Emp what he thought about the different guys in cla.s.s and even those of the other groups they had met to help herself figure out who she should aim for. More embarra.s.singly she asked him how many wives he thought he would end up with.
"Mable makes one, then maybe Brenia and I feel you"re the kind that will uplift the servant girl too so that makes at least three. Will it be just that or will it go up to five? Eight? Thirteen?"
Thirteen?
"How did it even get up to thirteen!" Emp couldn"t help but retort.
"Five plus eight, you gotta follow Emp. Next up would be twenty one."
There"s no way he would marry twenty one person! Understanding what love was exactly was already a hurdle, there"s no way he would do it twenty one times over!
"No way. If your logic goes like that, where did you get the five?"
"I added Aglaya and me to the first three." She said bluntly.
Emp almost tripped hearing her confession but she was surprisingly nimble and managed to bring him back into the steps. Doing so, she brought herself much closer to him.
"Hoho ♪, watch out to not trip like Zoran. Mhnn, Juniper was right, you"re much taller than before."
Somehow, that comment sounded very threatening to him.
"You"ve got more than enough on your hunting table, a blessing, you"re obviously talented in many things, not that bad looking and you don"t seem like a bad person at all. On paper, you seem like a good prey."
A prey? Emp unconsciously stepped backward and Josseline had to save the dance once more.
"Aya aya, don"t run away. We"re already a year in and I"m no closer to getting a guy. At least help me figure out who I should go after."
"That"s hard to do." He complained. "I don"t know you enough but shouldn"t it be about how much you get along with them rather than their abilities? I"ve been told it"s about emotion and need rather than logic. I"m bad at this but I don"t think all that information on me and the others will help you figure out if one of us could fit with you well."
She made a pout Emp could have found funny if he wasn"t in her grasp and after exhaling deeply, she agreed with him.
"What you said is surprisingly helpful. Someone strong is only good to impress the friends, If I have to spend my life at a guy"s side, I"d rather we shared some interests. We need to be like a key and a lock, I like big keys but it"s pointless if he doesn"t fit me."
"A key and a lock?" Emp asked, confused.
"Yeah, or like a sword and a scabbard if you like that better. There are a lot of swords shape out there, they don"t fit all scabbards, it"s best to use only the one it was made for, no?"
"But... wouldn"t there only be pairs then? What about having more than a wife? What do they do with all the empty scabbards?"
"I"d say it"s because scabbards get worn out if you use them too much but that"s just a myth ♫. (3)
Seriously I don"t know, people are more complicated then keys and swords. A lover is like a partner. Just think about it, don"t you fit well with many persons already? That was easy for me to see already, there"s no way you can"t, you"re the one that brought this up!"
After that, the teacher switched their partners again and Emp was left thinking about what she had said. He had never linked the concept of a lover with a partner before. He felt closer to understanding everything now. A lover was someone you yearned to be with, got along well together and would be able to rely on for a long long time. Wasn"t it kind of like an amazing friend? Maybe he still missed something.
If he only took that as his definition of a lover, he"d be the lover of a great amount of people he knew. He would compare with the couple of lovers he knew but there weren"t many he could think of. He wasn"t there yet but he really felt close to the answer.
He let the biggest part of his mind thinking about this while he continued on with the dance cla.s.s. On Juniper"s turn, she informed him that she was ready to negotiate with him properly about what she called their "joint venture". He didn"t have a big part to play on this though, all his contribution had already been done. He told her he would see her soon about it and shortly after, the group was rotated again.
On the final dance of the cla.s.s, he got paired with Nessa. She was still having a lot of fun and spent most of her time with him leading the way expertly. Emp had not been bad up to now but this time, compared to her, he felt as if both his feet were submerged into mud.
"You"re not bad at all." Nessa complimented him close to the end. "I feel like with a bit more practice, any girl would feel dancing with you to be very pleasant."
"Uh... Thank you." Emp was way too focused on his steps to find something better to answer.
"Even Brenia suddenly got way better after she danced with you. What did you do? I"m very curious."
"I told her dancing was just like sparring or fencing." He said absentmindedly.
"What!?"
"They really are, it"s all about knowing the right answer and the rhythm of your opponent. The only change is that one of them communicate affection while the other just communicate death."
His words sent Nessa into some other world. After that, even though she danced with him until the end, there was no life into her eyes, it was like she had left her body.
After the dance ended, Nessa stayed frozen in place for a long time. Aglaya, Gytha, Mable and by extension Emp and Celtine stayed behind in the hall to wait for her. She stared into s.p.a.ce even though Mable was waving her arms wildly in front of her.
"Emp, what did you do?" Mable asked, displeased. "You broke her."
"I don"t know, I haven"t done anything special. I just told her how Brenia got better halfway through."
"Should we get her some soothing tea?" Gytha proposed.
Before anyone could answer, Nessa"s eyes snapped back into reality and she shouted loudly.
"Emp! Go to the training field together with me!"
"Right now?" Emp and Mable asked at the same time. "Why?"
"I think I got it! Get your sword quick!"
After adding on this short exclamation, she dashed out of the hall with the excitement of a small kid in front of a tasty feast.
***
(1) I say in pairs but in actuality, there are probably some that are made to be performed in trios. This seems strange but there are many people in the empire that are married with many women at once. If they were to dance one on one with each of them, this could take a while. I"m sure it would get frustrating for those waiting. Maybe they could dance between them, or make their hubby jealous by dancing with another guy?
(2) It is not really a form of courting, it"s all in good fun, Emp is just misinterpreting. Traditionally, "n.o.ble" dances had a lot of exchange of partners, either directly written into the steps or in between each short dance. They were meant to get everyone to feel closer to each-other than just a face you saw once from afar. I have no doubt that they were ma.s.sively used to pair your people of marriageable age as well but I do not think it was uncommon for married women to dance with friends and acquaintances as well.
Even if it is not accurate to real life, it is at least how it goes here.
(3) I"d say to get your minds out of the gutter but she"s doing it on purpose. Sadly, that scabbard joke is completely lost on Emp.
Also, It took me weeks to find how to make those music notes again! Praise the free text editing software.