After that, I went to the room provided by the young king, lay down on a soft, fluffy bed for the first time in a long while, and reviewed my strategy. I had to wait until it was time to act.
When the sun outside my window had completely set and the sky had been painted in darkness, I opened my eyes. It's finally time.
I took out my wand and placed the tip against my head. "Ey." With a little poof! I became a small mouse.
I had cast a spell on myself to change shape. I was tired, so I didn't really want to do it, but there was no way around it. My transformation let me move about with ease as I ran toward my goal, recalling the map I had asked the young king to show me earlier.
Since there was a possibility I would meet a violent end if I went down the wrong corridor, I chose to move through the attic instead of the dazzling palace interior. I pitter-pattered along the dusty floorboards until I arrived directly above the room of the king's adviser.
Peering down through a crack in the ceiling, I could see a middleaged man with his elbows propped up on a writing desk. A single soldier was standing at attention across from him, wearing the same uniform as the ones from that afternoon.
I could guess from the tension in the air that this wasn't a friendly chat.
"Well, how about it, Father?" the young man said.
"How about what?" The older man scratched his head. "The plan is proceeding well. Before long, it will be time to oust that king, I think."
"And when will that be? You've been saying 'before long' for a good while now." The young man's voice was strained with frustration.
Wait a second—I've heard that voice somewhere before. My tiny mouse brain tried to remember, and one person came to mind who bore a close resemblance.
I think the young man speaking with the older man is the soldier who seized me by the shoulder this afternoon. If I'm not mistaken…
"The king summoned a traveling fortune-teller to the palace, and I'm sure he asked her about the future of our country. It's likely that our plan is now known to the king."
The older man smiled. "That boy is utterly devoted to me; I doubt he would do such a thing. He probably just had her predict his luck for tomorrow."
"..."
"Besides, that traveling fortune-teller is suspicious, too. She's probably a petty con artist."
Ack.
"…The fortune-teller is just a young girl."
"Looks can be deceiving."
Yes, you're exactly right. I'm not simply a young girl, you know; I'm a witch.
Perhaps tiring of the conversation, the young man sighed heavily.
"Anyway, keep your promise," he said.
"Yes, I intend to, so you carry out your part of this, too. Your actions are critical to my plan, after all."
"…I understand."
The young man was about to leave the room when it happened.
The ceiling creaked, then broke open with a loud crack and crunch, and a witch with ashen hair and a wand in her hand tumbled down into the room.
I wonder who that could be?
If you guessed me, you are correct.
"…Hah, hah, whew…"
Ahhh, I must look so uncool.
My spell had worn off halfway through my mission. I should be more careful about attempting unfamiliar spells.
Apparently, the ceiling was just right for a mouse to peer through a crack to look below, but not a whole human body. It broke the moment I returned to my normal shape.
Maybe it was rotten with age? Certainly not because I'm heavy…probably.
"Wh-who's that?!"
When I stood up, brushing off dust, I found that the older man had a gun trained on me. It must have been concealed in his desk.
Well, he's prepared.
I waved my wand. Instantly, a bouquet of flowers blossomed from the gun's muzzle. It was a beautiful arrangement, if I do say so myself.
"Why, you—! Th-this is…"
In my admiration for the flowers, I had forgotten all about the fact that there was another person behind me. But turning around would have been too much work. Tonk. I tapped the floor with my wand and gave orders to the scattered fragments of wood from the ceiling.
The fragments suddenly sprouted green vines of ivy that flew toward the two men and captured them.
"You're the king's adviser, right?" I stared at the older man, whose hands and feet were now bound.
He glared at me with confusion and hatred. "Who are you?"
"Father, this is the traveling fortune-teller," the younger man shouted from behind me.
I nodded calmly. "He's right. Traveling fortune-teller, at your service."
The older man wriggled his body like a caterpillar, completely immobile. "…What do you want with me?"
"Come now, don't you already know the answer to that?"
"..."
Silence.
I turned around. The man who had escorted me here this afternoon was glaring at me.
"What are your intentions?"
And so I answered, "I intend to predict a peaceful future for this country."
After that, the two men were arrested when the palace guards came to investigate the commotion. They were brought before the king and forced to spill the whole truth.
Father and son had been scheming to take over the country.
As I suspected, the new currency had been counterfeit. Apparently, the experts who had told the young king the currency was genuine had accepted bribes from the adviser and were dirty fakes themselves.
The two had tried to plunge the country into chaos on purpose, creating doubt about the successor to the crown. Their plan was to direct the blame onto the young king and orchestrate his fall from grace. They must have hoped the adviser could become the new
king, with his son as his heir.
Well, that plan ended in failure.
Now they were locked up in jail. I didn't know what would become of them, but I didn't need to involve myself in this any further.
After the cross-examination of the two conspirators was complete, I was summoned up between the thrones to accept a gift from the young king.
"Thank you very much." I checked the contents and nodded. Inside my purse was a large number of antiquated coins.
As my second condition for predicting the future of the country, I had him exchange all the money I had earned for the old type, to rid myself of any counterfeits.
"I will exchange all the counterfeit money that circulated throughout the country." The young king sounded exhausted. "It seems the majority of the money in your wallet was counterfeit as well."
"I expected as much."
The meaning of my promise to predict the future of the country had become a bit vague. Since I had rid the young king of the real problem plaguing him, he was no longer in need of a fortune-teller.
I was relieved to find I didn't have to stretch the truth any further.
There were some things that worried me a little about what would come next for him and his people, but I would have to leave this place soon. I was a traveler, after all. As for what path this country would follow, unless someone really did look into the future, nobody would ever know. Including me, of course.
"But it is really too bad." The young king sighed deeply. "To think, he was lying to me all along."
"That's the thing about liars," I replied. "You can never see it in their face."