The Abandoned Duchess Seems to Want a Peaceful Life - Chapter 21

Chapter 21: Negotiation and Market Price

"...Corn is originally animal feed. Asking the same price as wheat is rather exorbitant, isn't it?"

"I don't think it is at all."

Alexis was visibly put out, but Melfina answered with a cool face.

"I have invested a considerable amount of my private funds in expanding the fields of the Enkar region. Carriages, donkeys, farm tools, and, to keep the territory sanitary, livestock pens and the dogs to guard them. I also manage the livestock collectively and have hired people to take care of the pens. Surely Your Grace can understand that these were not paid for with a small sum."

In fact, as expenses go, it was quite a sum. Though Melfina's purse was made up of her private funds from the House of Crawford, plus the dividends from the territory and the mine given to her as her dowry, so she had spent it without hesitation.

*—It will all be taken away from me anyway once things end with Alexis. Better to use it while I have the right to.*

"And as Your Grace has just tasted for yourself, corn is already part of the staple food in the Enkar region. Moreover, since hardly any potatoes can be harvested this year, it will in practice be corn that feeds the people of the territory. Fortunately, corn is said to be relatively resistant to poor growth even when planted repeatedly, but there is no guarantee anywhere that the fields now in their second crop of the year will yield as abundantly as they did the first time, is there?"

When August handed over the pressed flatbread, Marie took it as if startled and moved on to the cooking. Eli, too, as if jolted awake, began chopping additional vegetables, and the sound of that rhythmic chopping echoed through the dining hall.

Melfina put a hand to her cheek and tilted her head slightly, as if to say, what a shame.

"When food runs short, people's hearts fill with anxiety. All the more so when it is the staple."

What matters most when buying and selling goods is the market price. Since the famine had already begun, if countermeasures were not taken in a hurry, the working population itself would shrink and tax revenue would gradually fall.

In the Alexis route, there had been an episode in which Alexis opened the ducal house's storehouses and distributed food to the people of the territory.

A lord's storehouse is, in terms of her previous life, straightforwardly like a bank deposit account. What is needed to protect a territory is an army, and what is needed to maintain an army is wheat.

In this world, wheat is a proper kind of currency. It can be sold to a brewery at a fixed rate, and it is perfectly common to pay craftsmen and laborers in ale.

Given that premise, a noble whose storehouses are not full of wheat is deemed short of funds, and his credibility is often valued low. Whether in public works or in dealings with other lords, he tends to be looked down upon.

And it is not merely a matter of noble face. A noble who cannot keep up appearances cannot protect his people. That in turn comes around to shake his very qualification to be a lord.

It was ironic that opening the storehouses out of concern for the people could endanger the lord's position.

*—Alexis, too, is a rather considerate lord toward his people, when it isn't about Melfina.*

There were lords who, not caring a whit about commoners, tightened the guard on their storehouses and were then burned out by uprisings. For a lord in the north, on land where the harvests are meagre, emptying the storehouses carried overwhelmingly greater risk than doing the same in other regions.

*—In the game, was there food aid from the House of Crawford? If there wasn't, it's all the more likely that Melfina's value in Alexis's eyes dropped even further.*

Alexis and Melfina were, through and through, a political marriage. A symbol of alliance who ate away at the ducal house's assets and was useless in an emergency must have been nothing but infuriating.

*—It's not something I need to worry about.*

Had Melfina settled into the ducal house as Alexis's wife, she would have been made to feel extremely small. But the relationship between Melfina and Alexis consisted of nothing more than two sheets of parchment, a marriage license and a marriage contract.

There was no need to feel sorry just because Alexis's scheme had gone awry.

"I, too, as a lord, have a duty to protect the livelihoods of my people. I would appreciate your understanding."

However much gold you offer, if there is no food to buy, you have no choice but to open your storehouses. And she was offering to sell him that food. From the start, Alexis had no chance of winning this match.

"...Understood. I'll accept the market price. However, I have a request of my own. I would like the Enkar region to continue growing corn and to sell it to the House of Oldrand. For the next five years starting this year, I would like the quantity and the price fixed, with the matter open for discussion after that."

After the sound of August spluttering, she saw out of the corner of her eye Cedric kicking his shin.

"...Are you sure? The epidemic may well have subsided by next year."

"It was a plague powerful enough to wither every potato across the continent at once, and the church has yet to identify what it is. Even if the cause and a spell to dispel the plague were developed tomorrow, how many years would it take to bless the fields of the entire continent...? In the worst case, not just the kingdom but every country on the continent might cease to function as a state."

Alexis's expression was grim, and August and Cedric were holding their breath.

Alexis's forecast was, realistically speaking, correct.

When the potato blight had spread in her previous life, it had raged for four years, and over a million people had starved to death or died of illness brought on by starvation.

In Ireland, which had been hit especially hard, it was said that between a quarter and as much as forty percent of the population abandoned their homeland as emigrants. It would be no surprise if the same thing happened in this world.

"—I see. Then, this year I will sell at the same price as wheat, but from next year on, with the quantity kept fixed, the price will be two-thirds of that; the year after, down to one half; and from the year after that, the price will be fixed at half of this year's, with the purchase quantity discussed each time. How does that sound?"

"It's a generous offer for me, but why do you concede so much?"

Unilaterally discounting for the other party is not good strategy in a negotiation. Alexis's eyes said that there had to be something behind it.

Of course, there was something behind it. "I" knew from my knowledge of the game what lay ahead.

In the middle of spring, the year after next, Saint Maria would descend upon this world. Whether she would be Light Mode or Hard Mode was uncertain, but the world would surely be saved by her.

What would happen, then, if they had signed a contract to buy huge quantities of grain at the same price as wheat?

Since a formal contract would be drawn up, the ducal house would be obliged to buy it, but pricing corn the same as wheat was an unreasonable valuation to begin with.

It was obvious that the ducal house would have to spend heavily on those payments, and that this would earn the resentment of the people of the ducal territory.

"In Enkar Village, too, the fields that have already withered have had the potatoes cleared and been disinfected, and other vegetables are now being planted. Once word gets out that corn is unaffected by this epidemic and saves people from hunger, the other farming villages will rush to start planting it, will they not?"

Corn was by no means a crop that grew only in Enkar Village. It was grown in small amounts across the whole continent, and though it needed fertilizer to ripen well, increasing it was not that difficult if one wanted to.

"—I suppose so."

"Corn is grown as feed, and so it is a vastly easier crop than wheat. It resists disease, and it takes only the short span of three months from planting to harvest. If I tell you that wheat takes eight months to harvest and cannot be grown in succession, surely you can see how easy a crop it is?"

"I see. You mean that the supply of corn will increase from next year on."

"Yes. Many people will grow corn, eat it themselves, and send the surplus to market. This year the corn planting season is already nearly over, and even if planting begins now, it is uncertain whether they can harvest reliably. The advantage of Enkar's corn will hold through this year, but conversely, it will gradually ease off around early summer of next year."

It would be better still to rip up some of the wheat fields to plant corn, but most nobles would never let go of their wheat anyway.

Above all, once the saint came, potatoes, which yield far more per land area than corn, would surely make their comeback as the commoners' staple.

When that happened, the price of corn would not just fall. It would be a crash that would make the bursting of the bubble look pale.

Melfina intended to plant the same amount in the Enkar region next year as this year, but by then the livestock would have grown in number. Pigs and chickens both love corn as feed. She was even thinking of sending whatever could not be consumed by exports to feed newly started livestock herds.

How dangerous it was to sign a contract to buy, at the same price as wheat and in the same quantity as during this famine, something that might become nearly worthless, something people would not want even if you paid them in copper.

In the worst case, he would be pointed at as a greedy lord who preyed on weakness and forgot the debt of the help he had been given, and that would hinder even normal trade and distribution.

Money is not something where it is enough to make a huge profit all at once.

No one wants to shake hands with a person who has no trust or credit.

"...Understood. I am grateful for your goodwill."

"This is a contract between equals, Your Grace. There is no room in it for goodwill or favor."

When she said it flatly, Alexis looked visibly taken aback.

"The Enkar region cannot be called a developed region, and we do not have the personnel to negotiate on equal terms with other territories. If Your Grace handles those transactions in one stroke and distributes the corn to the various regions, the advantage on our side is great. It is only natural to give back as much as the advantage received."

"I see... You are a fair person."

She took the hand he offered anew and shook it. A handshake signified agreement to a contract. Even before a formal contract was drawn up, once a noble and a noble had worked out their terms and shaken hands, it could be said that they would almost never go back on them.

"You flatter me, Your Grace."

Naturally, it was nothing so good. Better than the first terms though it was, this was a contract with the devil, and Alexis would be made to realize it only after the summer of the year after next.

Even half the price of wheat was, as a price for corn, exorbitant all the same.

Of course, Melfina had no aching heart.