A/N: Duo goes to town.

Chapter 4

I started taking up more duties befitting the Duchess, so it became much easier to ask Hilde and Howard the things that needed answering.

Case in point: "Hey, why am I so weak?"

Howard, dutifully reviewing the latest expense reports, looked up at me with furrowed brows. "What do you mean, Your Grace? Are you feeling unwell…?"

Hilde grabbed the teacup I'd had sitting nearby to stare into the nearly-empty contents suspiciously. "Poison?!" she muttered to herself in outrage.

"No, not that," I quickly reassured her. The maids were fond of me now, especially after I started increasing the vacation days allotted to them; I didn't think they'd risk poisoning me and losing their job benefits. "I mean, I don't seem very physically strong. Didn't I exercise? I'm so…scrawny."

Hilde made an aborted chuckle, then pulled on an expression like she hadn't just laughed at my expense.

"You don't need to be physically fit enough for fighting or hard labor, Your Grace," Howard answered instead, because Howard wasn't mean to poor, scrawny me. "Your health has always been excellent and your body is well-suited to the lifestyle of a duchess."

Translation: you're supposed to be frail and dainty, you pillow princess.

I wasn't buff but I was strong and quick on my feet, so being the maiden in a romance novel just felt really strange. I used to have abs, okay? Half my teenage years were spent in fistfights!

"Can I get…training…?" I asked unsurely. Maybe the culture was virulently against dandy men building up muscle. Where were my dandy rights?!

Howard looked as if I'd asked for the moon. Maybe physical training wasn't in the budget for now. "Nevermind, it's fine," I laughed off awkwardly. I'll just exercise by myself for now – who was going to tattle on me? Hilde? She'd probably spend the entire time hoping I'd make a mistake and somehow fatally injure myself.

"Oh, I want to go on a trip into town," I said, changing topic so Howard didn't catch wind of my secret plans to fill out. "Can I go alone?"

"No, Your Grace," Hilde and Howard answered in unison. Ooh, creepy.

"For protection, guards will need to escort you," Hilde added.

Eyes scanning the latest tax yields from one of the eastern cities of the duchy, I hummed in thought. "Is my face recognizable to the townspeople?" I asked after a moment.

It looked like Howard was catching on to what I was leading to, but luckily Hilde hadn't yet so she was the one that answered. "You were seen during your wedding parade when you first came to the Yuy estate, but you mostly entertained guests privately on estate grounds and merchants came here directly to sell their wares."

"So no one will recognize me," I nodded in satisfaction, starting to smile.

Hilde caught on. "That's not entirely true—"

"I want to go to the town market," I decided, steamrolling right over her. It was best for them to accept their fate now. "I'll go incognito. One guard should be fine."

"We can have the seamstress and the jeweler come here—"

I blanched. "I'm not getting more clothing!" I'd just gotten my clothes down to a reasonable number, why the hell would I get more?! "I want to see the food market!"

"Are the meals not satisfactory?!" Howard exclaimed.

I shuddered to think what the head cook would think of that comment. The poor man works so hard down in the kitchen, I can only imagine what horrors he'd been put through with other-me as his primary customer. Nevertheless, the problem was I had a 21st-century palate – which was ill-suited to medieval fare. If they kept salting and pickling everything, I was gonna die.

"I want to see what our people are eating," I deflected. "And seeing what's available in the market of the duchy capital should give me a good idea of what's out there."

They looked touched by the thoughtfulness.

I, on the other hand, desperately hoped there was something out there aside from pickled pig's feet.

My first foray into town included four people in total: me, Hilde, and two knights by the name of Asahi and Mikhail. The guards were part of the knights that had remained to guard the Yuy estate, the majority of the force having gone with Heero on his expedition. I think they must have only barely interacted with other-me, having none of the same fear responses (like the household servants) or reflexive abhorrence (Hilde), but knew enough about other-me's disdain for the Duke to be politely cold.

Trial run for eventual trip to the iron ore mine, BEGIN!

We donned commoner garb for the trip, the guards using cloaks to keep their swords out of sight. I did my own hair this time, relieved to finally have it in the low-hanging braid I preferred; the maids usually had it tucked up, or half-up/half-down in some ornate style that suited their tastes. Kaori kept trying to convince me to add a little bow at the end, but I had the last word – mostly by scampering out of the room as fast as I could.

To my surprise, we weren't expected to walk to town. Howard had prepared a drab carriage for us to ride in and even apologized for its mundane look. As this was my first ever carriage ride, I hadn't really been listening, circling around it excitedly and admiring both it and the horses.

The carriage driver, a middle-aged man named Frederick, seemed surprised by my obvious delight. I reigned it in when I noticed his and the guards' shocked looks, although I was amused to see that both Howard and Hilde just seemed to be resigned. I guess my shock treatment was working after all!

The town market was about a 30-minute ride by carriage from the estate. Held in the town square of the modest city the Yuy home was settled in, dirt roads gave way to pebbled streets that jostled the carriage intensely. It was a good thing I didn't have motion sickness, otherwise this would have been a very unpleasant ride.

The town market was home to various stalls of goods, people cloying in the streets as they perused at their leisure. It was boisterous and loud, children entertained by passing minstrels who juggled and jumped for their benefit. Livestock being sold were kept held in temporary paddocks, their owners calling out their prices to interested parties. Many of the stalls were food, either fresh produce grown by nearby farms or warm foods meant to be eaten on the spot. Other merchants peddled their more decorative wares, everything from jewelry to finery to delicate art.

It was like a full-scale Renaissance Festival, except there was no clear line between this and the paved streets of modern civilization.

"Hilde, should we eat first?" I asked excitedly, nearly poking my head out of the carriage to gawk at a meat pie stall.

Hilde knocked sharply on the wall of the carriage three times from her seat directly behind the driver, and the carriage pulled to a halt beside a bakery. Asahi was the first out, and after scanning the area for safety, motioned us to follow.

Feeling much like a child being escorted around their first state fair, I led Hilde to the closest food stall. I ordered enough to share and ignored the helpless looks on the knights' faces when I forced meat pies into their hands, although Hilde's resigned expression reigned supreme as she took slow bites of the shish-kabob I'd given her.

Meat pies were a favorite; the tender meat was soaked in savory-sweet spices, mashed with potato or soft-boiled carrot to keep the flavor. The shish-kabobs were hit or miss, some of the meat not fresh enough (Hilde had snatched it from me to throw it away) but the roast vegetables and chicken tended to be delicious. There were various places to drink beer and ale – I'd given them a try but I just couldn't stomach the beer here (to Mikhail's amusement) and the ale tasted even worse.

Once we'd had our fill – as decided by me, since the others wouldn't tell me if they were hungry or full if their lives depended on it – we made our way to the farmers market portion. There was no point in buying anything, as it was the local market so our cook at the castle would already have everything available as fresh as it could possibly be. The fare was similar: chicken, pig, and lamb were the primary meat stock, although there were some cows available for either slaughter or dairy. As we weren't a port town, the only seafood available were the fish caught by the winding river nearby, although we had no access to shellfish so crab and lobster were still a faraway dream for me.

I scrutinized the available vegetables with a critical eye. Tomato, potato, carrot, cabbage, chard, onions, and garlic. (Garlic! Something that could season the food aside from SALT!) Fruits mostly consisted of lemons, apples, and what looked to be small plums; grains consisted primary of wheat, barley, millet, and rice. RICE! I knew there had to be something other than wheat; it only figured I was being punished via death by bread because of other-me.

"Hilde, do we have rice?" This was starting to remind me of grocery shopping.

Hilde looked at me cautiously. "We do, Your Grace, but you expressed dissatisfaction with it and told the cook to never make it for your meal again."

Of course I did. Other-me was always out to get me in some unexpected way, that bastard.

"I've changed my mind," I told her. "Do you think if I buy Morris a souvenir, I could bribe him to make a specific meal?"

"As Morris is the cook, you can just tell him what you want him to make and he will do so."

"I'm gonna buy him something," I decided, ignoring Hilde's words.

It took a fair bit of time to comb the market. I'd actually managed to stumble upon someone selling pepper, cinnamon, and cloves, so that was bought immediately; I also added some ginger – an "exotic spice from past the Lagrangian sea" according to the merchant, Asahi and Mikhail looked very curious – along with some rosemary, mint, and thyme.

I thought Mikhail looked very dashing carrying everything that could flavor our meals aside from salt or vinegar.

I did end up buying some things, used either as a bribe (such as wine for the cook) or as a reward (mint for Mikhail, he looked so interested, and a tanned hide for Asahi), although Hilde just about had another heart attack when I offered her the small dagger I'd seen her eyeing in the nearby weapons shop.

Overall, I thought it was a very worthwhile trip. I got to try a little of everything, bought some goodies so I wouldn't be doomed to salted or pickled meals for the foreseeable future, and took good stock of what was available in town to the people of the duchy. The driver was waiting by the bakery we'd originally stopped at, so I bought him and the knights some meat pies, and then we all spent some time watching a minstrel puppet show as he ate.

I'd thought a medieval puppet show would show some horrifying Brothers Grimm story, or have a core fundamental morale, or even just be a glorified version of some past ruler; what it was instead was a story about a poor boy constantly losing his assorted farm animals on the way to the market, and then they turned up as different merchants trying to urge him to buy malicious wares.

I gotta say, loan shark goose was not what I had been anticipating when I first sat down but here we are.

I don't think this ever happened in the books. To be fair, I don't think Relena ever ended up in the Yuy duchy's town square; there had been a scene where she was traveling incognito throughout the kingdom, but those were limited to village inns. Most of her shopping was done as other-me had done: holed up in the palace or at an estate and having the merchant come to her. I guess only commoners actually explored town markets?

"Have I ever been to the town market before?" I checked with Hilde.

Hilde glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. "…No, Your Grace."

Behind us and keeping watch, Mikhail fiddled with his sprig of mint as Asahi circled the small amphitheater of audience members, idly munching on his mince pie.

"Too bad," I murmured. "That was a lot of fun."

10. Did not check up on the people of the duchy even once.

The medieval financial system was a study in possible embezzlement schemes. For the ruling nobles of Sanc, there was no differentiation between the taxes taken from their citizens and their own budget; instead of separating the funds into different accounts, such as those to be used for the duchy, those to be sent to the Capital, and those to be held by the noble family that reigned over the province – all of it was kept together, indistinguishable.

Aside from the necessary amount taken by the Capital each year, the rest of the currency (a mix of valuables, food, and actual coin) was kept in the safeguard of the ruling class. I could practically smell the Marxist revolution coming for them if the people of the province were suppressed for one irresponsible noble too long.

To the Yuy duchy's credit, they've had a long line of reasonable dukes, and Heero Yuy was no less capable. Even his staff, in addition to having to contend with other-me, were just as excellent, enough so that other-me couldn't do too much damage to the duchy itself. It was a good thing he'd died early in the books too, I don't think Endless Waltz could have dealt with a revolt subplot.

The issue was that though this world is the novel, it was also real – meaning I had to deal with the real-life repercussions of co-ruling a province. Among the political maneuvers of court life, the day-to-day accounting of the duchy, and whatever duties befell the Duchess of the Yuy estate, I doubt I'd be able to live in luxury without some cost.

First things first then – ensure the duchy was prospering. A rich duchy meant happy citizens, happy citizens meant no chance to Marie Antoinette me.

"We need to organize the provincial budget," I stated, one late morning. I had every available document detailing the cash flow of the duchy, along with lists of information regarding our available resources, and pinned up a map on the wall that showed every known town and village within our provincial borders. The setup had been the result of Hilde trying to painstakingly re-teach me the land and history I'd "forgotten," and I'd scribed most of the information lists myself to review.

Howard has started to look intrigued instead of terrified when I announced my ideas nowadays. It was a nice change from the constipated look he'd sported at the beginning, so I knew I was on the right track with him. Even Hilde had warmed up to me now, keeping her homicidal urges at bay and looking at me the way a student looks at a pop quiz full of true-or-false questions: knowing it could be better but it could also be far worse.

"While the Duke is still away on expedition, you are the acting lord of the province," Howard said. "Outside of large expenditures or mass slaughter, you are well within your rights to manage."

Nice to know that if I ever went on a killing spree, I'd have to watch the numbers.

"Do we have an official accountant?" I asked. The project was large enough, and though both Howard and myself were good at crunching the numbers, any additional help would be appreciated.

"Master Winner serves as the advisor for accounting, but he is with Duke Yuy at the moment, as he also serves as master strategist."

Damn, did Heero take everyone needed to actually work on reforms with him? I guess that would be better than leaving them here with other-me, but now that it was me-me, I wanted Winner!

From what I could remember from the novel, Master Winner was originally from the Kingdom of Lagrange; his family was nouveau riche, meaning they'd amassed enough wealth to be awarded a noble title but weren't considered true nobility by the snobs already in power. He'd been inspired by Heero on one of his expeditions and swore loyalty to him, joining him as an advisor and friend.

Which was all well and good, but I'd kill to have the strategist here now to help organize the budget! I guess the real question now is: how many accountants did it take to equal one Master Winner?

The answer was twelve.

11. Did not appreciate Master Winner's accounting skills when I had the chance!

A/N: Short chapter but the next one will be out very quickly too.

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