章 9: Chapter 9
"Are you going to tell me what is going on with you and that prince who has been lying his way into my castle all these years?" Mercen asked in that soft, dangerous tone Shanna had learned swiftly to avoid provoking at all costs.
"Kallaar? He's a boy who likes to play games. His parents want him to be one thing; he's quite firm about being another. He's been traveling incognito all these years and asked me to keep his secret."
Mercen eyed her. "Have you been fucking him this whole time?"
"Not every time he's passed through, but when the opportunity presented, why not?" Shanna gave a biting smile. "I will soon be married, and I've had precious little chance to play. Were you so different at my age?"
He sighed, annoyed but unable to argue because he had started as her mother's lover and only later been considered as a consort, and had been lover to several others in court before that. "I hope you're not planning to marry him."
She scoffed. "Of course not. He's fun to dally with, but a man who ran off because he didn't like the duties he'd been given? Not really the marriable type."
"Who are you considering?" His eyes held a hard shine in the dim early morning light bleeding through the office window. Since her mother's death, every bit of bad news in her life had been delivered in that office.
Mercen wasn't rotten in manner, and was rarely rotten in means. Her life would be so much easier, in some ways, if he were the sort of bastard to scream and hit and leave a trail of bodies on his way to achieving his goals. But he wasn't. Instead, Mercen was charming and kind, bribed more often than he threatened, and was nearly always so cordial it was difficult for his victims to fully comprehend what was happening. Hard to say a man was evil when he never did anything but smile. The worst was the way he helped problems disappear and put people in his debt, and they realized too late he'd only helped them into a sticky web to be eaten at his leisure.
"Hanna, Berryn, Korth, Tuluna, and Cerrithi are my top choices," she said. "I'll whittle that down to one by the end of the two weeks."
"It would be better if you closed this matter in one week and sent the others on their way," Mercen said idly. "No point in dragging it out. Not Hanna or Berryn. Korth might be passable, though I have heard troubling things about his family recently. Tuluna, maybe. Why Cerrithi?"
Because Cerrithi was from a small but strong and highly respected kingdom, slightly too powerful to be killed off without serious repercussions. And should Mercen decide to kill Shanna instead, she rather thought Cerrithi would step up and not let herself be pushed around or bullied into subjugationespecially if Shanna managed to produce a child first. Cerrithi was damned fierce when it came to children. She was placid otherwise, but there were worse things for consorts to be.
Shanna pushed away thoughts of a pretty prince with freckles who spoke so sweetly of serving and protecting, and called her a lovely queen, and knew exactly how to touch and seemed to enjoy doing so. Infatuation and lust were poor bases for making sound decisions.
There was also the fact Mercen would have no compunctions about killing Kallaar. No, she needed to pick a consort Mercen would take for a pliable fool rather than an expendable one, who would help her finally get rid of him.
Before she could respond to his question about Cerrithi, he spoke again. "No, I don't think Cerrithi is a good idea. Weak chin." Mercen's smile was bright but sharp. "She never says more than ten words, and I know how much you love to converse, dear. You'd find her dull, and that always leads to resentment."
"I will certainly take your advice into consideration, Father. Will there be anything else? I hate to cut our morning conversation short, but there is much to do before the luncheon."
He waved her off. "Get along, then. But we'll be discussing this again, and soon. The choice is yours, by law and rightfully so " That spider smile reappeared, pretty and alluring and full of poison. "But I would hate for you to make a poor choice because of inexperience and pretty faces. I do hope you wind up happy, however. Tomorrow morning I will have papers that need to be signed, so if you have morning plans, cancel or reschedule them."
"Papers regarding what?"
"Unless you have time now all of a sudden, the explanation will have to keep until after the luncheon."
"Yes, Father." Shanna bowed and departed.
She let out a slow breath as she reached the hallway. Well, that was done for the day. Time to move on to other problems. Motioning to her bodyguards, she headed off. "We're going to the kitchens."
Meeting with the various staff to keep apprised of the running of the castle was a typicaland boringpart of her day, and her bodyguards were more than happy to leave her to the tedious work while availing themselves of the food and the flirtations of the bolder servants.
Which left Shanna free and clear to go about her real work. As her stepfather had blocked her from all the things she should be doing as queen-in-waiting, she had to use other means to see to her duties as best she was able.
Such as making certain the tax money went where it was supposed to. Mercen was no fool; he wouldn't waste money without ensuring more would be coming, but he had increased the tax rates to guarantee certain luxuries his mother had eschewed as frivolous and not worth the cost: the lavish hunts Mercen hosted three or four times a year; expensive entertainers from far reaching places; his bedroom, office, and other private roomsand those of his closest sycophantswere filled with costly imported goods they certainly hadn't paid for. Foreign dragons and special keepers for them, horses and hounds and that was only the beginning. A goodly amount was also spent on bribes and other underhanded dealings. Shanna also had a sneaking, but as yet unproven, suspicion that he dealt with pirates, smugglers, and other such brigands. There was too much money moving in and out of the kingdom for taxes to cover. So far, she hadn't been able to find most of it, only the places where the records claimed it was.
On the other hand, Mercen wasn't the only one who could embezzle royal funds.
After making certain her bodyguards were occupied, Shanna slipped out of the kitchen and through the servants' halls, nodding absently to the few she passed. She headed down a stairway into the dark wine cellar, not bothering to light her way as she walked to the old, patchy wall at the back. After taking out the ring of keys her mother had bestowed on a miserable day when she'd forced them both to accept she would not be getting better, Shanna pulled away a bit of rock and unlocked the secret door. After pushing it open, then shutting and locking it behind her, she moved to the table where she kept all her notes, reports, and the most accurate financial records she had managed to cobble together from the fake ones in the records room. Her life would be infinitely easier if she could find his real accounts, but she'd had no luckmostly because he wasn't stupid enough to leave her alone in his office. If he wasn't there, at least one of his precious guards always was.
Not bothering to sit, she updated her financial records with numbers recently committed to memory, then triple-checked when that week's runners would be arriving. As she could not keep apprised of the goings-on of the kingdom through conventional means, she instead employed various runners to travel the kingdom and keep her informed. She'd never wished harder for siblings, though she supposed it was also possible they might have sided with her stepfather and against her. Still, she'd always envied those who had siblings they could trust and rely on.
Thoughts of relying on people sent her mind spinning to Kallaar, and reminded her of her final task in that room. After going to the cabinets in one corner, she unlocked one and pulled out the small ledger in which she had collected meticulous notes on all eighteen members of the council, three to each province of the kingdom.
Shanna lifted her skirts to stow the ledger in the special pouch she kept sewn into all her petticoats, then finally headed out.
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