At the retired concubine's nod, the adjutant at her side and her grandson could not conceal their surprise.
"What do you mean, Mother?"
"Grandmother?"
"If anyone has betrayed the Dragon clan, it was none other than myself."
The retired concubine lowered her head.
"Could you tell us the truth about what happened forty years ago?"
"Yes."
Maomao.
The retired concubine opened her mouth in response to her question.
"As the previous head of the Dragon clan and the previous head of the Rabbit clan were close friends, so too was I friends with the Rabbit clan head's wife. She and I exchanged letters frequently. She would often help me with my troubles—telling me how my husband, a hot-blooded man, would frequently clash with the Empress faction, and how her own husband had thrown in with the Empress faction as well. Because our respective factions differed, the distance between the Dragon and Rabbit clans only grew wider, and we grieved over it together."
The retired concubine kept her head lowered, further hiding her face behind her round fan so that her expression could not be read.
"My husband was a straightforward man. He could never have looked favorably upon the Empress, who was said to have assassinated members of the imperial family and placed her own child on the throne. His loyalty to the imperial family only made his convictions stronger. However, the Empress was said to be the most capable ruler in several generations. I came to understand why the Rabbit clan sided with her."
Precisely because both sides could see the logic in each other's position, that was precisely why neither the Rabbit nor the Dragon clan could object when their paths diverged.
"The Empress began punishing those who refused to submit even after the previous emperor took the throne. The Dragon clan, which had started as a branch of the imperial family, was perhaps too well-connected for even the Empress to punish readily. Taking advantage of that, they came to be seen as the leaders of the anti-Empress faction."
Maomao and the others listened quietly.
"The men grew desperate, and the women were frightened. Wanting to unburden myself of my anxiety, I confided in her."
"Her being the former wife of the Rabbit clan head?"
"Yes. She never wrote back. She had her own circumstances, of course. She couldn't very well meet with someone she had been told was now a political enemy. Just when I had given up hope, she came to see me in secret."
The retired concubine let out a long breath.
"She told me that an audit of the Rabbit clan would be ordered by the Empress, and that if any evidence were found, it could be used as grounds to destroy the clan entirely."
"T-Then, it was you who set fire to the storehouse?!"
The grandson pressed his grandmother.
"Yes. Your grandfather, you see, kept important letters hidden in the storehouse library. Even if there was no intent to rebel, if those letters of invitation were found, our entire house would be destroyed. I knew he had hidden them in the storehouse library, but I didn't know the exact location."
That was why she had resorted to the extreme measure of setting the storehouse ablaze.
"So, so then, the one who stole the family treasure was Grandmother..."
"No, that is not right."
In response to the grandson's question, Maomao answered in her place.
"The matriarch believed the treasure figurine had melted away."
Above all, she had judged that the eccentric strategist was not lying.
"Then where on earth did the family treasure vanish to?!"
The grandson seemed not to understand, but the matriarch appeared to have realized it long ago.
"Why the Rabbit tribe became loyal to the Empress. Even though it was the Empress's secret order, why was she able to tell me about it. The motive for stealing the family treasure is connected to that as well."
"So the Chief of the Rabbit became loyal to the Empress in order to protect the Dragon tribe from her. Otherwise, the secret order would never have leaked, and she would have had no reason to take away the dragon figurine — which would be considered evidence of treason. If she were truly loyal to the Empress, she would have simply handed the figurine over to her."
"The Chief of the Rabbit... stole it?"
"In a sense, you could say the former Chief of the Rabbit made the right choice. Standing at the pinnacle of her tribe, she managed to spy on the country's absolute ruler. That is quite impressive."
Maomao let out an honest sigh.
"Is that why Grandmother has been shielding the Rabbit tribe...? Then why didn't you tell Grandfather?"
"...Grandfather was stubborn, and if I had carelessly let it slip, there was a chance the Empress would find out. The first time I was finally able to speak of it was after the Empress's death, when Grandfather had taken to his bed and was reminiscing about old times."
The matriarch spoke gently to her grandson.
She must have told him there was no longer any need to search for the treasure because the chief had learned the truth.
"My husband was grieving. He had believed she was someone with more backbone — someone who despised the notion of simply bowing to the crowd. He would say she had degraded herself into becoming the Empress's lackey. That is why he wanted to have a proper confrontation at least once, to say everything that needed to be said."
That would be impossible, Maomao thought. Children would be one thing, but if two people who each led their respective tribes were to fight, it would amount to civil war.
"Perhaps that is also why my husband insisted the Rabbit tribe had stolen the family treasure — to create a pretext for a fight."
"But the Rabbit tribe did not respond, did they?"
"No."
It was less a rivalry and more a one-sided spectacle. The Chief of the Dragon kept starting fights because he wanted to speak with his old friend again, while the Chief of the Rabbit kept silent to protect her friend.
What a twisted and clumsy form of friendship that was.
"Then, we..."
"Yes. You have been repeatedly spitting in the face of the very person you should have been grateful to."
The grandson slumped weakly against his chair.
"Everything we've said is merely speculation — it may not be the truth."
Maomao made that clear.
It was possible that someone from the Usu clan had stolen the gold figurine for its material value, in which case it had likely already been melted down into ingots long ago.
She couldn't take responsibility for something like that.
"Hmm~"
A voice came from beside Maomao.
The eccentric strategist was sprawled across the table, rolling around. All the sweets he'd brought with him were gone, and he had nothing left to do. He was gazing wistfully at the last remaining
crabapple
skewered on a stick.
"If it bothers you that much, why not go check?"
Rakan stared intently at the wall.
"Check?"
Maomao had no idea what he was talking about. She pulled back the soundproofing cloth hanging on the wall.
Behind it was a small room, with several people sitting inside.
This meant they'd heard every word of the conversation.
"What is the meaning of this?"
The assistant glared at Rahan.
"Oh. That's right."
Rahan clapped his hands together in an exaggerated manner.
"I had an appointment to meet with the Usu clan as well!"
Maomao glared at those ridiculous curly-framed glasses.
"In the same room? Deliberately letting them overhear?"
(What kind of person thinks like this?)
It was questionable whether he had even solved the problem of the Tatsumi clan — if things had gone poorly, they should have been turned away at the door.
"Then, please, do come in."
The people who had been eavesdropping from the small room filed in.
"I was wondering when the Rakan clan would ever arrive. So this is the sort of game you had in mind."
U no Motochika — likely Risu's grandfather — was composed. Maomao had heard he was in poor health, and sure enough, he was a gaunt, withered figure with a long beard, like a dried-up branch. He sat in a wheeled chair, and a middle-aged woman was pushing it.
"Forgive the rudeness, but we had no choice. We were told the matter had to be kept absolutely quiet."
U no Motochika entered the room.
"Yes. I considered this a fine opportunity to settle matters that have festered for years, so I tried a rather bold approach."
Rahan wore an ambiguous smile and bowed deeply.
The great lady of the Tatsumi household rose from her chair in imitation of Rahan and bowed as well. The grandson, on the other hand, seemed furious at having been overheard, but when the man who appeared to be his attendant pressed down on his head, he had no choice but to comply meekly.
"You were kind enough to help me forty years ago."
"...I'm not sure what you mean. Perhaps my wife meddled where she shouldn't have, but—"
The way he played dumb was hard to crack.
"Oh, speaking of which, you mentioned forty years ago — I had something in your keeping that I've come to return."
The attendant woman retrieved something from beneath the wheeled chair. The bundle looked quite heavy.
"Please, take this."
It was placed on the table and unwrapped.
Inside the bundle was a magnificent dragon figurine.
*(Holy cow)*
Maomao immediately calculated what it would fetch if sold — that was simply her nature. Though Rahan was surely doing the same mental arithmetic. Judging by the size and shape of the figurine, he would have been estimating its weight. It was heavy enough as solid metal, but considering the exquisite craftsmanship, it was worth enough to build a couple of mansions.
And U no Motochika's eyes glistened with tears.
"I was remiss in my studies. I never bothered to ask properly what the treasure was that Tatsumi boasted about so proudly. That is why, on that day, I could only be shaken."
U no Motochika spread open his palms. Burns — as though he had seized something scorching hot — scarred both hands.
The figurine that had grasped the cinnabar orb was a four-fingered dragon. Had someone else found it and reported it to the empress, the Tatsumi clan would have ceased to exist. He had seized the still-smoldering dragon figurine and hidden it. Those burns may well have been from that moment.
"I wanted to return it while she was still alive. At the same time, I feared that giving it back might provoke another rebellion. She loathed the former Empress Dowager, yet she revered the imperial family above all else — I should have remembered that. She would never have allowed such a thing."
Perhaps the reason she had accepted the role of auditor was that she trusted there could never be such evidence.
"If I go to the afterlife, she might punch me for jumping to conclusions."
"No. Knowing her, she'd more likely bow down and apologize. I'd get an earful from her, of course. Fufu, after all, I did burn a family heirloom."
The Grand Lady smiled, shedding a single tear.
"Th-this is our family heirloom?"
Her grandson stared at the dragon figurine. Amid his awe, his face also betrayed a look that said it would be no surprise if this thing got them accused of treason.
"Even if the heirloom has returned, we can never display it publicly, can we?"
"No. There's a written account of how we came to receive the figurine, including a record of how many fingers it had, but that burned up quite nicely."
The Grand Lady said this looking rather sheepish.
"We might be able to get by with just the dragon, but the number of fingers and the gem—we need to do something about those."
"Something just needs to be done about them, right?"
It was the eccentric strategist who had barged straight in.
"Do you perhaps have something in mind?"
The members of the U clan also kept a slight distance from the eccentric strategist. Just how much trouble had this person caused for everyone up until now?
"As long as there aren't fingers and a gem, it's fine, right?"
The eccentric strategist plucked the last remaining hawthorn from the skewer he had been holding. Then he jammed the skewer right between two of the dragon's fingers.
"..."
Everyone was too slow to react to the sudden movement. In the end, the eccentric strategist tilted the skewer hard, and a nasty cracking sound rang out.
The delicate fingertips were weaker than the rest, and one claw broke off and fell away. The yellow-orange gem rolled away along with it.
"That should do it."
The eccentric strategist placed the remaining red hawthorn fruit onto the dragon's broken finger. A sticky thread of candy stretched from his fingertip.
Time seemed to stop.
Just moments before, the atmosphere had been one of heartfelt emotion, but the Grand Lady's eyes had gone dry in an instant. The assistant man and the grandson had their mouths agape so wide their jaws might unhinge.
The members of the U clan were also staring with their eyes opened as wide as they could go.
As for Rahan, he had watched the whole thing proceed perfectly according to plan, only to have this pulled at the very end. He looked as though he had burned to ashes.
Even the guards were frozen. In the flow of everything that had just happened, no one would have ever imagined that the family heirloom would suddenly be destroyed.
So the first person to move was Maomao.
"What do you think you're doing, you idiot?!"
Maomao kicked the eccentric strategist without a shred of hesitation, unconcerned with who might be watching. The man, whose physical abilities were catastrophically poor, was sent flying spectacularly from his chair.
Normally, such blatant rudeness would have been unthinkable, but no one so much as reprimanded Maomao.
Rahan had miscalculated. Eccentric strategists were not the kind of thing you could factor into a plan.