To Kristoff, royal consort and managing director, directors, and fellow shareholders,
With the rapid consolidation of Queen Anna’s diplomatic relations and standing across the world, Bjorgman House has enjoyed another year of solid profit – eleven per cent, exactly – thanks to successful expansion.
One example is our branch office on Ice House Street, in the British colony of Hong Kong at the doorstep of the Great Qing. Fine ice is in great demand throughout the hot and humid port, and through Hong Kong, the Princely House has been able to export its fresh, glacier ice further into the Chinese mainland, Japan, Malaya, and the Spanish colony of The Philippines.
Arendelle’s commercial diversification continues with rapid growth in many industries that Bjorgman has invested in. Sectors that our kingdom once had nothing to do with are joining our already dominant food and shipping sectors, from heavy industry to photography technology to mass textiles.
The Commerce Chamber was formed to unite the business leaders that represent the largest and nimblest firms in these diverse sectors, and through its elected leader, Kristoff, present our concerns regularly to the Queen and her government.
At present, the directors and Chamber’s main worry is the volatility in the markets, from Vienna to Amsterdam, due to the increasingly intense conflict between Her Majesty and the Mundilfari clan, led by Lady Viola.
We trust that Queen Anna will admit that the political differences between her and Lady Mundilfari have spilled over into mainland Europe and even beyond, drawing ever more states, from the Ottomans to the Great Qing, into a dangerous vortex. Of particular concern between Her Majesty and Her Ladyship are:
- The relationship between Northuldra and Arendelle (whether it should be a subordinate colony, an equal partner, or in a unique configuration that makes both regions “part of each other”), and:
- The question of Arendelle’s role as a potentially imperial state and how it will project its power. This has become all the more urgent since the commander of Viola’s private army, Hilde Von Altheim, devastated both Agrabah and the Southern Isles.
The latter was a unilateral act of war by Arendelle that Queen Anna didn’t approve. Only an unprecedented diplomatic treaty with the Qing Chinese, the Ottomans, and the British prevented Arendelle from squaring off against those major powers.
Of relevance to the second point is a recent run on the stock of three weapons manufacturers, Rothermere Weapons, Brunhild Arms, and Denton & Co. We’ve already warned the Bank of Arendelle: hundreds of thousands of Arendellian kroner have been flowing into a single account, from several foreign accounts in countries that Hilde led armies for.
We strongly suspect that Hilde intends to eat up these three companies and proceed, in a private capacity, to engage in military buildup and activity. At present, only the press barons of the Big Three papers know, and we know that each editor will frame the news differently.
Several months ago, the Commerce Chamber lobbied, on Kristoff’s advice, for the Great Assembly to vote down Viola’s Northuldra bill, which was proposed in opposition to Anna’s. Passage of the Countess’s bill would have approved a ground invasion of the north, but with that legal route denied to her by our parliament, the Chamber’s intervention led to Viola’s decision to deploy her warship, Muspelheim, in a bloody gambit with Anna that brought the kingdom to the brink of destruction. That bet also failed.
There’s no way around it: despite our professed distance from politics, the business community has consistently supported the queen and been a thorn in the side of the Countess.
As Viola’s right hand, Commander Hilde likely has compiled intelligence of Arendelle’s senior merchants and wealthy traders – many of them shareholders of Bjorgman and/or members of the Chamber. We petition the queen to bear this in mind as her political feud with Viola escalates. None of us, aside from Kristoff, dare to defy the Countess openly.
Yours sincerely,
Johann Hagen, tai-pan of the North Mountain Company, a subsidiary of Bjorgman House
The Arendelle Guardian 