0. Overture

—Operetta: a light opera. A small-scale, comedic, popular form of opera that flourished in the late nineteenth century.

The night ball hosted by ‘that grand duke’ fully reflected its host’s refined and extravagant tastes.

The lavish revelry of a hot, sleepless summer night inevitably drew those who resembled him.

Young, excessively wealthy, and generally born to noble blood, yet utterly incapable of ever setting foot near the center of power.

In short, the younger sons and illegitimate children of wealthy, bored aristocrats.

Prosperous gentry-class businessmen who wished to imitate at least half the atmosphere of high society.

Or young ladies who occasionally indulged in a bit of deviation, and wealthy, childless noblewomen who had long since separated from their husbands.

Presenting the artists and artworks he had personally ‘collected’ at these evening balls was practically the grand duke’s sole hobby.

It also offered quite appealing benefits to both the artists and their patrons, the grand duke included.

Wealthy connoisseurs bought up artworks that suited their tastes without restraint, relieving their boredom, and the artists, in turn, obtained whatever they’d desired in one form or another.

A foreign painter who’d gone abroad under the grand duke’s arrangement and settled in as portrait painter to the consort of the North Veda Principality; a young sculptor who’d earned a fortune at an auction the grand duke hosted……

Most recently, the rumor going around was that a startlingly young composer who’d appeared out of nowhere had been granted a knighthood by none other than the Prince Regent, the grand duke’s legitimate younger brother.

The unprecedented event had circulated among gossip-loving connoisseurs for quite some time.

Yet for all that, ‘the’ composer himself, barely twenty-four, felt no particular emotion about it and simply sat wedged into a corner of a hall with few people around, puffing away at a cigar.

Brown curls trimmed carelessly around the time they’d grown unruly, a white wing-collar shirt with two or three buttons undone at the top, a beige checked vest.

The grand duke could always find the arrogant, prickly young man who stubbornly kept to Southern Empire-style modern fashion without much difficulty.

“Sir Eisenhaum?”

“I’ve asked you not to call me that. I know you’re mocking me.”

The young composer, Lloyd Eisenhaum, reflexively rose to his feet at the playful voice calling to him.

He did stand up in what he considered a show of courtesy, but the perfunctory nod and the way he crumpled his handsome face into a scowl made the whole gesture thoroughly half-hearted.

The young Grand Duke of Sarbat shrugged at the thoroughly crooked attitude, unsurprised. A clean concession, in his fashion. He had meant to mock him, after all.

Lloyd was the first and likely last person in Taren’s history to receive a knighthood for a single opera.

He’d simultaneously become Taren’s one and only knight who didn’t know how to hold a sword.

The problem was that the title he’d received happened to be a knighthood.

If his conscience had been consulted, a barony in some quiet corner of the countryside, or at least a baronetcy, would have been preferable.

Sarbat’s Grand Duke Karayan shook his head in disbelief, exhaling a sigh, as the composer clicked his tongue openly and made no effort to hide his disappointment.

“I thought I’d at least get a thank-you. Do I have to demand even the obvious on bended knee?”

“Well, since Your Grace was already abusing your authority, you could’ve pushed a little harder. That’s what power is for. There are plenty of other titles, so why a knighthood of all things? I’m deeply suspicious of some impure motive on the grand duke’s part.”

“All right, Sir Eisenhaum. I’m sorry. Squeeze in some sleep between fixing your scores. If you manage to replenish your manners while you’re at it, I’d be more than satisfied.”

Karayan raised both hands in an exaggerated show of surrender.

A clean capitulation, yet he took care never to stop calling the composer before him ‘Sir Eisenhaum.’

He’d been unbearably bored of late, and his mood had improved for the first time in a while; the grand duke hummed a little tune and beckoned with a ‘bartender’ to summon an attendant.

A man carrying a glass of blood-red wine on an elegant silver tray appeared and vanished smoothly from the corner of the hall with a polite nod.

Karayan savored the wine with a smile and handed a glass to his dear composer.

“Not drinking?”

The red wine from Sarbat, the prosperous southern domain under the grand duke’s rule, was renowned for its beautiful color and fine flavor.

After he’d noticed that Sarbat’s farmland was well-suited to growing red grapes and had aggressively cultivated the brewing industry, it became the domain’s primary source of income, to the point where cutting taxes in half posed no problem. Word had it that even the imperial family of the Southern Empire paid a steep price each year to purchase Sarbat wine.

Yet the aftertaste of that famously sweet wine tasted unusually bitter that evening, and after a few sips Lloyd Eisenhaum pulled the glass from his lips. His handsome brow creased in a strange expression for a moment.

It wasn’t the wine that had gone wrong, nor was he more sensitive than usual that day, nor was it because the grand duke kept calling him the ridiculous ‘Sir Eisenhaum.’

“Excuse me for a moment.”

Over the half-emptied wine glass, the vivid green hem of a woman’s dress caught his eye. It irritated him so thoroughly that Lloyd Eisenhaum turned his head away, pretending he hadn’t seen it.

The hair that cascaded in waves down past her waist was as blood-red as the liquid flowing through the glass.

The grand duke cut through the crowd of men and women laughing and chattering senselessly, took the red-haired woman’s hand, and drew her toward him.

Whether it was rage, hostility, or something closer to love and hate, his mouth filled with the bitterness of wine and he found himself tightening his grip on the glass without realizing it.

An incomprehensible emotion surged up from his throat, and when he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, the woman he’d hoped would never arrive before him was standing there.

Her hand resting lightly and gracefully atop the hand of the third most noble man in Taren.

She looked quite beautiful, quite noble, quite wealthy.

“This is Zoe Avril; this is Lloyd Eisenhaum.”

“……”

“My dear friends. One is a playwright, and one is a musician.”

Lloyd Eisenhaum chose not to voice the crooked remark that one title seemed to have been left out.

Zoe Avril, or Lady Avril. The grand duke’s mistress, a wh*re playing at being an artist.

The nobles of Sarbat and the grand duke’s guests called her that in private. Even though the grand duke had never formally referred to her as his ‘mistress.’

None of that mattered much. Most people understood it as the grand duke’s brand of romance, the kind that disliked having such a vulgar label attached beside the name of a woman he cared for.

“Why don’t you two exchange a greeting.”

“……”

“Come to think of it, you two are from the same place, aren’t you? North Lubelique, the white land. I think that’s right.”

Karayan twisted his mouth with a knowing air, arms folded.

The calculated manner of a man who knew something. Lloyd Eisenhaum bent at the waist so the distorted look on his face wouldn’t show.

His cold lips touched the back of the woman’s hand without a sound and lifted away. A polished Imperial-style greeting.

Karayan looked back and forth between the woman who’d trembled faintly the moment his lips made contact and the man whose face had crumpled with distaste. He smiled again.

“I have something I’d like to entrust to you both. The explanation can wait…… I’ll put it off for now. There’s no need to rush, but I’d rather not keep you waiting too long. Three months ought to be about right?”

“……”

“It’ll take considerable effort, from both of you. I’ll say this plainly…… don’t let personal feelings ruin the work. If there’s a misunderstanding, resolve it. Talk to each other. Engage actively. This is your story, both of yours. Do you understand what I mean?”

“……”

“I’m saying produce a conclusion by whatever means necessary. This will probably be my last commission.”

“……”

“Oh, and this goes without saying, but refusal isn’t an option.”

He drove that final word in like a nail.

Three months, a story, a conclusion, completion, the two of them, a last commission.

Having delivered his imperious command, the grand duke smiled pleasantly with his handsome face.

His manner was impossible to read, hovering somewhere between jest and sincerity.

An absurd thing to say. Lloyd Eisenhaum narrowed his brow in irritation, feigning incomprehension through a vague unease, and asked in return.

“……I’m not quite sure what you mean.”

The grand duke stroked his jaw with a low murmur.

Refusal, refusal, refusal, I can’t, I won’t, honestly I don’t want to.

The grand duke knew perfectly well the foul temper of ‘that composer,’ who couldn’t bring himself to say any of it aloud yet twisted his face into something ugly.

But even so. It couldn’t be helped. There was no room to accommodate anyone’s circumstances.

His mind made up, the grand duke stopped pacing with his hands clasped behind his back and turned sharply.

His violet eyes were firm, resolute, and laden with meaning.

“Make me an operetta.”

―So this story, which I offer to you, is about days that cannot be taken back.