The Year 723 After the Founding, Friday, November 4th

The Harvest Ball was one of the major social events of the year. All of the movers and shakers were invited and every noble living in town, or within several day's ride, was present, whether or not they had received an invitation. Among all the costumes, ranging from somewhat tasteful to extraordinarily, eye-dazzlingly flamboyant, there were three who stood out. It wasn't that they were the most extraordinary, far from it. However anyone who saw them invariably stopped for a moment and thought essentially the same thing, "Oh my god. They look like they were born to wear those clothes." On top of that their hair was perfectly coordinated with their outfits. If it weren't that leaving suddenly would have destroyed their reputations, a number of women attending would have fled in tears after comparing what they saw to what they were wearing.

A few sniffed and thought to themselves that while the outfits, and their accessories, were perfectly coordinated, they obviously weren't of the highest quality, such as what they were wearing. That rationalization lasted a few minutes. That was when Duchess Henrietta appeared in a similarly tasteful, and perfectly matched costume. Again it clearly wasn't made of the highest quality fabric, nor was she wearing the most flashy jewelry. However, everything from her shoes to her hair matched her to perfection.

Those still grasping at straws jumped on the fact that the husband of one of the first three women was clearly somewhat ill at ease. Their feelings of superiority climbed higher when someone identified him as a mere patisserie, albeit the most prominent and successful one in town. Their "I am a superior being" attitude was again shot down when it was noted that both Hiroshi Macklin and the Donetti brothers, Robert and Richard, were spending much of their time with him. It was astonishing. The most prominent banker in The City, and two of his partners, associating with a mere cook? Whatever could be going on?

One onlooker, who sidled close enough to eavesdrop on the conversation, eventually circulated back to her friends. "I don't believe it. Well, yes I guess I do because I was there, but still...."

After several "get on with it" remarks from her friends, she said, "They were asking him for financial advice! Apparently they're planning on offering a new service, one that will primarily be concerned with extending loans to already successful businesses that want to expand. This Sebastian Fukui was explaining how to tell if the business plan being proposed was reasonable or just someone with more ambition than ability. Since he already has five stores in The City, it was obvious even to me that he knows what he's talking about. It even sounded as if they might take him on as a permanent consultant if their other partners agree, and let me tell you I'd dearly love to know who those silent partners are. I've been trying to find out for almost eight years and haven't had even a smidgeon of luck. Have you?"

After all of them shook their heads "no," the biddies, um...ladies, turned their attention back to Blair, Miranda, and Akane, this time with speculation in their eyes rather than contempt. Their level of shock hit maximum when they found that those they sought were now chatting with Duchess Henrietta as if they were old friends, even the Fukui woman.

Something unnatural was going on. A duchess doesn't talk to commoners for more than 20 seconds except in two situations. The first was when they were childhood friends. The second was when said commoner had done the duchess a major favor of some kind and was receiving the attention as repayment.

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They knew that they weren't old friends. Oh, yes, the Donetti and Macklin women had been around in the background for several years, presumably because of their husbands' prominence, so there might be some sort of legitimate reason for the Duchess to speak to them. However, after talking amongst themselves, they determined that the Fukui woman had never been to one of the Duchess' affairs before.

That left the second option. One of them had done the Duchess a favor, and, given that it was the Fukui woman's first time there, there couldn't be but one answer as to who. Then the question arose: What was it that she'd done?

Now, you must understand that these women were not stupid. They were anything but. However they were set in their ways (more like frozen in concrete if you ask me), and had much too high an opinion of themselves. Finally they overrode their "innate" conservatism and arrived at the proper answer. What linked them was the perfection of their outfits.

There HAD to be a new stylist in town. The few ladies present who had been At Court finally admitted that what they were seeing here today showed skill far beyond what they'd seen in Milan or Rome. That led them to the conclusion that Duchess Henrietta had wanted them to reach.

If they also had access to such a stylist, should they be at an event in a major city or At Court again, their status would be siginficantly, and profitably, boosted, the latter being directly linked to the former. Instead of the usual machinations women such as they involved themselves in at a ball, they spent the rest of their evening trying to figure out how to approach Akane and worm the identity of this new stylist out of her.

By the end of the evening Miranda and Blair were working very hard not to laugh out loud at the several clusters of overly-dressed women scattered around the room, whose members were episodically peering at them, then turning back to their huddles and whispering to each other again.

Akane has been rather nervous about meeting the Duchess, but Henrietta had opened the conversation with fond remarks about Kaho's excellent performance in the City Exams two years earlier, which had led to Akane's nervousness being overwritten by parental pride. When Henrietta learned that Akane was a history professor at Ingvold, she positively beamed.

Her time was rarely her own, being almost entirely occupied by official duties which rarely allowed her outside The City's walls. But, no matter where she was, there was usually at least a modicum of time for her to read, so read she did. Growing up she'd become at first mildy interested, and finally a voracious reader of history. It all thrilled her. From reading about ancient battles, to histories of mercantile wars, and thence on to the writings of those who had explored and opened trade routes across the world. It was all enthralling.

She became even more excited when she learned that one of the twins who had helped her with her hair and her outfit, the one called "Yoko," was as ardent about history as were she and Akane. Then and there she arranged for Akane and Yoko to visit regularly, ostensibly to help with clothing, but in actuality to give her someone to talk to about something not related to work.

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Ptica stopped the playback, "It must be said that, at first, once the other faculty at Ingvold inevitably learned that Akane was regularly visiting the Ducal Residence, there was some jealous grumbling. That soon stopped when the headmaster revealed that the Duchess had, at Akane's request, agreed to fund several long-stalled research projects of various faculty members.

"While it's true that the Duchess arranged for their projects to be funded, it should be made clear that she didn't spend a single grosso of her own money. What she used was tax money that, by law, had for several decades been budgeted for "culturally relevant projects." She'd despaired of figuring out what the heck the phrase meant, as apparently had several of her predecessors, given that the amount of money currently being held in that particular account was huge.

"After consulting with her advisors, and being assurred that funding local scholars, and thus, in the long run enhancing the reputation of The City, was clearly "culturally relevant," she not only funded the research at Ingvold, but, over the next year....

"What?! Oh....all right.... I guess I must agree with you, it's not relevant to this class. If you're interested, come talk to me about it later."