thefictionvixens Chapter 168
Chapter 168
Chapter 168. The Invitation (4)
A townhouse in the capital, provided by the Royal Household.
It was a luxurious space adorned with gilded chandeliers and the finest velvet sofas, yet the air hung heavy and still.
Outside the windows, dusk was already settling over the land.
"Penelope, isn't it getting too late? The sun is already setting……"
"Weren't you just supposed to come back after coordinating the dinner schedule with the Minister of the Royal Household?"
Serena and Brigitte couldn't stay still for even a minute, pacing back and forth between the window and the entrance.
The original plan had been a meeting with the working-level staff. A session to discuss matters like kitchen access rights, ingredient delivery routes, and the banquet order.
If there were no problems, it shouldn't have taken this long.
"Could she have been kidnapped?"
Serena muttered anxiously, chewing her fingernails.
"Even so, that seems unlikely."
Just as Jurgen let out a hollow laugh and made his retort—
—Creak.
The sound of the heavy front door swinging open.
Serena rushed out at once. Jurgen rose from his seat as well.
"Penelope! You're so late! We were worried about you!"
"That's right! We waited without even eating dinner!"
Serena and Brigitte, who had been about to pepper her with rapid-fire questions, fell silent. It was because the state Penelope walked in looked strange.
"……"
She looked quite dazed. Like someone who had just been through an enormously shocking ordeal.
Jurgen stepped over and helped Penelope to the sofa.
"Are you alright?"
"Water, please."
Only after downing a glass of cold water in one go did Penelope finally let out a long-held breath.
"I met Her Majesty."
"Her Majesty — don't tell me, the Queen?!"
"Waaaah!!!!"
Serena and Brigitte's eyes went wide.
"It was a Private Audience. In the Glass Garden of the North Wing."
"H-how was it? The Queen? Is she beautiful?"
"……Don't even ask. She's absolutely terrifying."
"Does she shout at people? I've seen her from a distance once."
Any citizen of Britannia is curious about the Queen. Brigitte and Serena poured a flood of questions onto Penelope.
Meanwhile, Jurgen listened to Penelope's words and tilted his head.
He had sent her off thinking it was a simple working-level meeting, yet a Private Audience with the Queen? And without any prior notice? This wasn't standard protocol.
In that case, knowing the Queen's temperament, it was surely……
"Did she give you a mission and make you a proposal?"
"How did you……ah."
Penelope looked at Jurgen in surprise, then understood a moment later.
Right. Hanbin, who had served directly beside the Queen, was here.
"Just as you say. She commanded me to assist with the charity event at this year's Birthday Banquet. At the Central Square over there."
"Charity event, meaning……"
"She wants Y&P Trading Company to serve Braised Ribs to the fifty thousand citizens gathering in the square."
"……Pardon?"
Brigitte's jaw dropped. She must have misheard.
"H-how many? Five hundred? Or five thousand?"
"Fifty thousand."
That was no small number. In Nortaris it might be different, but doing that in Albion, where they had no foundation whatsoever, would break their backs. Serena, who had been reading the room, grumbled.
"I mean, even if she is the Queen, calling someone in out of nowhere and suddenly asking for fifty thousand……"
"But in return, if we complete it, she'll elevate Y&P Trading Company to a Royal Trading Company."
"Then we have to do it. The Queen is quite generous!"
Brigitte raised her hand hesitantly.
"Um…… what's good about being elevated to a Royal Trading Company? How significant is it?"
How significant? A tremor ran through her just trying to put it into words.
Penelope steadied her quivering voice and explained.
"To explain a Royal Trading Company — it is the highest honour a business entity conducting commercial activities in Britannia can hold……"
"……"
Penelope glanced at Brigitte and paused, then revised her explanation.
"It's as significant as twenty Royal Warrants."
"Waaaah!!!!!"
On top of that, various tax exemptions and automatic marketing to Britannia's citizens, who hold the Royal Household in high regard. Above all else…… For Penelope personally, the greatest significance lay in the fact that it guaranteed her independent authority — one that even the family could not easily revoke.
"That's enormously significant!"
"Yes, it is. However……"
Unlike Brigitte's cheers, Penelope's expression after finishing the explanation had set into something strangely rigid. Serena, who had been tapping away at a calculator beside her, also tilted her head.
"Hmmmm…… something feels off."
"You think so too?"
Penelope and Serena's gazes met in mid-air.
"Yes. The numbers don't add up."
Serena made her sharp observation.
"Simply feeding fifty thousand citizens a single meal and being elevated to Royal Trading Company is……"
"Right. Far too cheap."
Penelope bit her lip.
Of course, mass catering for fifty thousand people was not an easy task. It would require enormous funds and manpower.
Moreover, the charity event at the Birthday Banquet itself was a matter of considerable importance.
Once a year, on a single day. A political showcase where the Royal Household directly relieves the people and demonstrates the benevolence of the ruler. To put it a little strongly — the quality of the food distributed in that square on that day was the authority of the Royal Household and the dignity of the nation itself.
Entrusting that weighty responsibility to a single trading company was, in itself, an unmissable opportunity for Y&P Trading Company.
Yet compared to the reward of the 'Royal Trading Company' title?
This was practically being handed away for free.
Naturally, all eyes drifted to one person. The man here most likely to understand the Queen's true intentions.
"Don't you have any inkling about this?"
Penelope stared at Jurgen and asked.
"Let me first correct one thing. Even if you satisfy fifty thousand people, she will absolutely not elevate you to Royal Trading Company for that alone."
"What do you mean? Her Majesty clearly said……"
"What I mean is — if you prepare only for fifty thousand and nothing more, you'll be setting yourself up for rejection."
Jurgen rested his chin in his hand and recalled the temperament of the sovereign he had once served.
Mathilda Alcaion. An iron-willed queen who could coldly cast aside even her own children. The mercy she extended was for the sake of the people, not for the benefit of her subordinates.
"The Queen abhors incompetence. Especially the kind of incompetence that merely does as it's told."
"Doing as you're told is incompetence?"
Neither Penelope nor Serena wore expressions of understanding.
Admittedly, this was something that couldn't be grasped simply by being intelligent.
After all, the nature and patterns of capital politics and northern politics were entirely different.
"Think about it. At the Birthday Banquet, hundreds of thousands of people flood in every year. If Y&P Trading Company prepares exactly fifty thousand servings and nothing more, do you think the Queen will say, 'My, what a crowd. You've done your part'?"
"Ah."
In other words, the figure of fifty thousand the Queen had set was merely 'the minimum courtesy,' not a passing grade.
"What she truly wants is for every single citizen gathered in that square to leave satisfied, from the start of the event until dusk when it ends."
"Well…… something of that scale would be worth trading for a Royal elevation."
Penelope nodded as though she understood, but…… Jurgen folded his arms and sank into deep thought.
Queen Mathilda Alcaion. She was a thoroughgoing pragmatist.
Even if Y&P Trading Company achieved the transcendent feat of feeding every last citizen in the square to their fill, it was still difficult to call it an equal exchange.
There had to be a reason. A reason why it had to be Y&P Trading Company.
'Clarisse Rosemore.'
One name flashed through Jurgen's mind.
At present, Clarisse — the eldest daughter, here to resolve the succession issue of the Rosemore family — was in the capital. Drawn-out negotiations. A taut power struggle.
From the Royal Household's perspective, Rosemore, the overlord of the North, was a difficult opponent to manage.
But if, at this moment, the Royal Household were to lend its weight to Penelope — the family's most sensitive sore spot? And not just that, but hand her the formidable authority of a Royal Trading Company, entirely beyond the family's control?
Clarisse would grow anxious.
In a razor-thin political game, even a single tremor of unease could open a great crack. The Queen was clearly aiming for exactly that.
"Hmm……"
It wasn't a particularly pleasant feeling, yet there was no reason to view it purely negatively. For Y&P Trading Company, it was a clear windfall. Knowing the Queen's character, even a chess piece would receive a definite reward for fulfilling its role.
***
The capital, Albion. The Rosemore family's villa.
Clarisse Rosemore set down her teacup with a graceful hand. The fragrance of the finest tea leaves filled the room, yet her mood was anything but fragrant.
On the table lay a thin slip of paper, just delivered by an informant.
[ Main event of the Queen's Birthday Banquet. Organised by Y&P Trading Company. Queen and Penelope believed to have had a Private Audience ]
"Ha……"
A short sigh escaped Clarisse's lips.
The intent was unmistakable. The Royal Household was currently attempting to bring Rosemore — the overlord of the North — to heel.
In the midst of a taut tug-of-war over the succession issue, they had, of all times, pulled the family's most painful weak point, Penelope, up onto the board?
An unspoken threat and warning: 'If you refuse to comply, I will nurture this girl as a counterweight and fracture the family.'
If Y&P Trading Company brought this matter to a successful conclusion. What the Queen would give was obvious.
"Royal Trading Company."
Clarisse murmured quietly.
She would most likely designate them a Royal Trading Company.
Penelope making money was irrelevant. But Penelope possessing independent power, beyond the family's control— That was not good for Clarisse, and not good for Penelope either.
How had something like this become possible? They had been keeping Penelope suppressed all along.
One man's face flashed through Clarisse's mind.
"It was Jurgen……"
That commoner businessman she had encountered at the northern villa not long ago. The man who hadn't so much as blinked even when she had simultaneously offered inducements and issued threats under the name of Rosemore.
'You already have so much. You know Penelope has no intention of involving herself in the succession — so why go so far to torment her?'
They exist from time to time. People born with a dangerous degree of ability, regardless of rank or station.
Standing before Clarisse, he had been composed to the point of arrogance, and perceptive of the essence of things to the point of irritation. As though he occupied a position equal to or above her own.
Acting from a distance was slower than confirming things in person. She needed to see for herself what schemes that man was hatching this time around. And there was a need to make her foolish little sister understand, to her bones, just how presumptuous her actions had been.
"Send a message to Penelope's side."
Clarisse rose from her seat.
"It's been a while. I think it's time for the two sisters to spend some quality time together."
She could no longer afford to watch and wait.
She had been lenient enough for the sake of Hector Rosemore's dignity. From now on, it was time to act directly.