December was the month the nobility were obligated to be generous. Callida found it somewhere between amusing and annoying that “charity” was a social expectation in the Lion Tribe rather than an automatic practice. It made sense, though, that to ensure the needs of the “little people” were met in a tribe where the nobility hoarded a disproportionate amount of the wealth, a weeklong event of giving sponsored by the palace had become standard practice as the weather became more bitter and the needs more dire.
There was a certain genius to the way the event was hosted too. Every nobleman household was expected to donate to an auction where they were then invited to bid on arranged lots of exorbitant luxury items. This hit the nobility twice in glorious fashion. The proud noblemen with deep pockets would carefully select quality items to donate to the auction knowing that their peers would be appraising the items and judging those who donated them, and then they would pay through the nose to beat their peers in the competition to outbid each other during the auction. And they called it “fun”.
The proceeds of the auction were then used to buy up the needed goods collecting dust on store shelves and in warehouses for distribution to those who could not afford to purchase the necessities. Excess funds, for there was always excess, were put towards other charitable projects.
This morning’s council meeting had been set aside to discuss the plans and arrangements for this year’s charity week, and it was one of the few mornings Callida had opted to stay longer than her military report since her agreement with Verum to meet privately in the evenings instead. She stood quietly at attention by the western wall listening to the proceedings.
“The requests and invitations have been sent to every noble household,” someone reported. “The stewards have prepared a place to receive the pending donations, and work crews have been assigned to help sort the items into lots.”
“Very good,” Verum approved casually and turned to the committee head reporting on distribution preparations. “How are your arrangements coming along, Councilman Stips?” Callida was invested in this report, even though no one in the council aside from Verum knew she was the hidden brains behind it. She and Verum had spent well over a week of evening meetings just scheming ways to better fulfill the needs of the people throughout the tribe.
“We have teams in every main city as you requested, Your Majesty. Booths are being set up in central locations of the cities for the distribution days, and carts have been arranged to deliver goods to outlying locations. Our teams have been meeting with local officials to assess the needs of their cities and satellite communities, and they are haggling with reliable, local providers to solidify deals to meet those needs. We’re in good shape provided the auction rakes in the needed revenue.”
“Do you have an estimate of what we need to raise to meet all the needs?” Verum asked.
“We do, Your Majesty,” Stips said, becoming awkward and hesitant. “Because of the reformed organization this year, the total is… higher than previous years.”
“Well, the goal with the reorganization was to ensure that the needs of people in more obscure locations would be met. Previously, they’ve fallen through the cracks. We were also hoping to maximize resources by actually targeting the specific needs of each location instead of simply throwing resources at them and hoping that’s what they needed. It makes sense that the known needs will be higher once they are intentionally accounted for. What is our fundraising goal, Stips?”
Councilman Stips looked down at his notes and sighed, growing quiet. “We’re estimating one hundred thousand Tankam, possibly more once the last few teams report back.”
Verum’s eyes widened, as did Callida’s, and the council seemed to freeze in momentary shock. Previous charity week events had only required a small fraction of such a sum. Clearly there was a great deal of need that had been routinely overlooked. “Well, the good news is that I think we will be able to cover that. The less good news is there won’t be much left in excess for other projects. We’ll need to prioritize those projects much more carefully this year. I would like to see a sample of the reports from your teams, Councilman. We’ve clearly been ignoring a lot of problems for a long time for the total to be so high,” Verum said what Callida was already thinking.
“Certainly, sire. I’ll prepare copies of their reports for you to evaluate. I should note, the members of my committee have been auditing the reports to make sure the charitable money is being used appropriately. So far, everything appears to check out. A substantial chunk of the money will be going toward shelter: home repairs or builds and rebuilds. Especially along the northwest border, there are several areas that have not yet recovered from the war against the Griffin Tribe, and our population has not yet recovered from the loss of so many of our young, able-bodied men who could provide the labor for such projects.”
That hit like a punch to the gut. Callida choked back a lump forming in her throat and stepped forward. “Your Majesty, with the cold already upon us, speed is of the essence to provide your subjects with reliable shelter. In advance of charity week, can we dip into the charitable trusts from previous years to purchase the needed materials and dispatch military units to provide the needed labor for these constructions? I could have units ready to travel as early as tomorrow morning, and the trusts could be replenished with the proceeds of this year’s charity auction.”
Verum smiled at her and then turned to the council, playing things more conservatively since Spahen’s commentary. “Council, I put it to you. I have to agree that speed is of the essence here.”
Predictably, Councilman Trebax was the first to stand and offer his opinion on Callida’s idea. “I think we can all agree that shelter is an urgent need this time of year, but simply throwing money and manpower at the issue is… misguided,” began the silky breakdown. “To my knowledge, the military does not train their men in construction or to develop skills with any tools beyond weapons of war. Sending men without the skills to perform the required labor is as meaningful as sending a pair of shoes to a man with no feet.”
“If I may, Your Majesty,” Councilman Stips stood again to mediate, “both the General and Councilman Trebax are correct. For these types of projects, we will need a combination of skill, labor, and materials. Our committee’s teams have reported that the areas most desperate for these projects do have skilled artisans; what they lack are the resources and manpower to get the jobs done in a timely manner. For this reason, General Yudha’s idea to support these efforts with military manpower has merit. However, we also need to source the construction supplies before such labor would even be useful. Funding is the first issue that needs to be addressed.”
“What of the General’s idea to use funds from previous years’ charitable trusts to get things moving?” Verum asked, and Stips nodded patiently.
“The idea has merit if the council is willing to be flexible with shifting the funds around.”
“It is decided then. How much money is needed for these construction projects, Stips?”
“Upwards of fifty or sixty thousand Tankam, Your Majesty, but, realistically, fifteen thousand would get things started.”
“Then we need to find fifteen thousand Tankam available for reallocation? While that is being procured, Councilman Stips, it would be helpful to know where manpower is needed before deploying military units, perhaps while the greater council discusses the reallocation of funds, you and your committee can identify where manpower would be best served?”
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“Certainly, Your Majesty,” Stips said with a bow and led the aforementioned committee of councilmen out of the throne room. While Verum launched a discussion about where to find the needed seed money, Callida tuned the council’s deliberations out, her thoughts threading in and out of inchoate burdens.
She’d been back in the Lion Tribe for less than six months; the war was a relic of past memories, and yet it was ever present where she existed. She was still fighting on the front lines in the back of her subconscious mind, and whenever her conscious thoughts were quiet enough, she could still make out the cries of men dying all around her, their shouts and grunting and straining and screaming… the clang of steel on steel, the thud of flesh hitting dirt, the whinnies of terrified horses, the whiz of arrows, the blare of warhorns, and the violent thrum of her pulse coursing with adrenaline.
Callida snapped her mind out of the darkness and forced her brain to engage in something more present. The irony of no longer being at war was she didn’t have enough to busy herself with to prevent her mind from drifting into the traumas of past battles. She cast her thoughts about, seeking something to focus on.
She could think about her secret mission again, but there wasn’t much to really ponder on still. Spahen and Erkunden had confirmed that her instincts about Trebax and his friends had been accurate. Ablenkung had since found an excuse to search their rooms and found cryptic, unsigned notes bearing the same rose and dagger seal pressed into black wax. It further connected the group together, but the evidence was circumstantial at best and didn’t tell them anything new. Spahen was working on that. He was practically a member of that clique now, and it was only a matter of time before he got more out of them — like finding out who “she” is.
“She”...
Oh, Buhne was on paternity leave. Callida smiled a little to herself remembering the letter she’d gotten from the Bear Tribe.
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Baby Parrot is a girl! We named her Ruhe. Mother and chick are both well.
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But it did mean that they were a man down — a man down, and still so much ground to cover. And Callida felt helpless to speed things along.
Thinking about it gave her anxiety.
Anxiety was better than listening to the screaming in the back of her mind.
March. They had until the end of March, tops. Flore was due sometime around then, so they had less than four months to wrap this up. They needed to be making more progress.
The anxiety was building.
How was Flore doing? No news was good news. She would be entering her third trimester in a few weeks, but she wasn’t out of danger yet. She’d lost a pregnancy at seven months before — and once at six months.
Anxiety became a mental frenzy.
And what if their best efforts failed? What if Flore returned without a babe in her arms? What if Squad 14 couldn’t get to the root of this conspiracy? What if… what if Flore brought a newborn home only for it to be murdered? What then?
She was breathing a little too hard, and she was getting lightheaded. It gave her something new to concentrate on, so Callida worked to curb the hyperventilation, holding her breath between quick, shallow inhales.
The incoming panic was successfully averted.
She needed something new to think about — something calming.
Rogue. Her mind settled into wishful thinking and daydreams. Primordials, she missed him! How was he doing? Was he happy with something to work on? How was he filling his time? What nerdy geek-outs had she missed out on since he’d left?
Had the rumors of her non-affair with Verum reached his ears yet?
Her mood fell.
Was he jealous? Hurting? Feeling betrayed? Was he angry?
Would any of this be worth it?
Commotion around her, Callida looked up and realized that the council was being dismissed, and Verum was beckoning to her. She straightened up and met him by his throne as he stood up to stretch.
“You’re scowling,” he teased and poked the spot on her forehead where her eyebrows had knit together. Callida automatically batted his hand away, and he broke into a grin. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” she answered quietly, and Verum’s grin froze as he studied her face.
And then he changed the subject. “I think the meeting went well, don’t you? We have an actionable plan, money pending the approval of a vote this afternoon, and, with any luck, you’ll be deploying soldiers as work crews in less than a week.”
“Mn,” Callida hummed distractedly.
He was disappointed by her lack of enthusiasm; she could tell because his sigh gave him away. “Hey,” he called her attention back and waited for her to meet his eyes before a premeditated hand on her waist reeled her in slightly. “I’ll see you tonight?” he whispered.
She forced her lips to twitch upwards and nodded in confirmation. “See you then.”
***
“You, the big guy subbing in crew four, come help unload these carts.” Ablenkung quietly accepted the orders, moving to where barrels of grain were being stacked against a storage room wall. It had been a chaotic week preparing for the charity auction and now sorting through the goods to be distributed to those in need. It was all hands on deck; all but three crews of palace servants had been asked to skip their normal maintenance tasks to instead facilitate this event. The three exempted crews included the manservants assigned to the king and his council, the crew responsible for maintaining the guest quarters, and the maids assigned to the queen.
It took a minute for Ablenkung to piece together why the queen’s maids had been exempted: these maids were assigned to tend to two queens and not just the one on retreat for her health. Currently, they were exclusively waiting upon the dowager queen — the king’s mother.
But while the king’s manservants and the guestwing crew were obviously kept busy with their regular tasks, the queen’s maids were… underwhelmed. And for that, they stuck out: a huddle of very pretty young women clustered around a table in a back garden, sipping tea and watching all the other servants scramble. Ablenkung curiously observed one of the stewards approach this congregation to request their assistance only to be met with raised, judgemental eyebrows and a cold silence that ultimately ignored his request. The steward then backed away, browbeaten and muttering apologies, and Ablenkung returned to work pondering what he’d witnessed.
Stewards outranked maids. Clearly there was more here than readily met the eye — some crappy palace politics, no doubt. The queen’s maids…. No. The queens’ maids. They served both.
And then it occurred to him that Stag’s last report held intel that an unnamed “she” was somehow connected to all of this and possibly the mastermind behind the conspiracy they were investigating. Through the maids, the dowager queen was a “she” with the means to access the private, invisible, behind-the-scenes comings and goings surrounding the young queen. It was just a passing thought, but it was one that rooted firmly in his mind and demanded attention. Ablenkung began weaving together an unfounded argument for why this might make sense.
The dowager queen was more shadow and rumor than flesh and blood. He’d never seen her before — never strolling the gardens, never even leaving her chambers. Why? Why would a woman free from any responsibility with access to all the wealth she could ever want confine herself to her room? Illness, or perhaps depression or disfigurement might keep her locked inside. Or the complex social pressures and expectations of the Lion Tribe that he didn’t have a prayer of unraveling… or political drama….
Full stop. Political drama.
That would make sense given the political nature of the conspiracy. But then, why would the dowager queen want to prevent her own son from fathering an heir? On a purely human level, that didn’t seem to make sense, but then, sometimes families got messy — especially royal families.
It was just a hunch, one that he felt silly about, but the dowager queen seemed to make sense as a hidden hand behind this conspiracy. After all, her husband had been the hidden hand behind the Great War for decades before Beta discovered and exposed his nefarious addiction. Somehow it didn’t feel like much of a stretch to assign this conspiracy to his queen.
What a couple, Ablenkung snorted to himself in wry amusement and then wondered how it was possible for two sociopaths to raise someone normal enough for Beta to trust and care about so completely. Maybe the queen being psychotic didn’t make as much sense as he thought.
“Hey, you, could you help me with this?” someone grunted behind him, and he turned to quietly help the older servant lift a heavy barrel onto the growing pile. “Thanks.”
“Mn.”
Regardless, he’d forward his hunch on to the rest of the team later and at least mention the queens’ maids, but for now…
“I’ve got another cart to unload over here,” someone shouted.