Zalbaag Beoulve was offering a bow to Duke Druksmald Goltanna, though he looked peevish. “I admit to surprise,” he was saying, “As I thought Baron Grimms would be in attendance. I’d thought to discuss the connections between these bandit groups, else I’d be still with my own men in pursuit.”

“The commander of the Blackram Knights pursues an urgent lead in Zeltennia, I’m told.” Goltanna scratched at his belly, which strained against his doublet. Goltanna was still solidly built even at fifty-six years of age, but he was keg-shaped beneath the layers of finery, and his mustache, which dropped below his chin, was always uncomfortably damp. His were the only eyes in the room that kept glancing towards the frieze, unapologetically. The Black Lion was a man of secrets—if the Northern Sky had its numbers, the Southern surely had its subtler arts—and he wanted her to know that he was full aware of her intent. “I shall have one of my attendants convey any message you’d like. Communication and cooperation are surely key in unearthing these rats before they nibble anything more of value.”

Her eyes slid to one side, where Confessor Rousseau was meeting with one of Goltanna’s sizable entourage, whose absurd hat of station marked him easily for Bishop Haimirich Canne-Beurich, who was the highest church representative in Zeltennia and also fully in Goltanna’s pocket. He was older even than the Duke, and clutched at his crook like it held him up as he nodded at some report that Rousseau gave. She scowled.

And further back were two of that wretched Council of Nobles themselves, talking to Goltanna’s Galgastani pet. The one pointedly not looking at the dark-skinned Baron of Bolmina was the Earl Carston Sovlique, who was of little consequence—he was there only to give the benefit of numbers to Baron Etgar Minadette, who was laughing at some jest, standing with the posture of a man for whom all the world turned.

Her fists crushed into her gown. She stood up straight, checked herself and her crown and marched towards the door that would admit her. She heard Ser Garland’s spear tamp the floor twice. “Her royal majesty, Queen Louveria Atkascha.” And she entered with all the imperiousness at her disposal, looking at none of them, sweeping in like a thundercloud. She commanded all of their attention, which was as it should be, as the sun would wilting flowers.

Or perhaps, she thought darkly, as meat would hungry sharks.

She gave them a moment’s pause to judge the degrees to which they bowed. Rousseau offered a perfunctory bowed head, but Canne-Beurich did not even bother with that. The rest, however, showed the proper deference. “You may rise, gentlemen. We would see as always good works performed here in the name of all our lands, Ivalice.” She’d rather hold meetings such as these in the throne room. In that space, the differences in their stations would stand in relief. But this was how things were done, and to suggest the move would raise ire, would suggest she... well, that she was making a statement of power, which is exactly what she wanted to do. But she was only acting as proxy for the ailing king, and to push too hard would not secure her position, but rather the opposite. Some of these men were hungry. But she did not sit, so that they could not sit either. “We thank especially our cousin for making the long journey from Zeltennia.” She afforded Goltanna a nod. “We hear that the roads are less safe these days, explaining his decision as always to come bearing larger entourage.”

Goltanna’s look was dry, save for that wet-wick mustache of his. “Your majesty’s compassion is endless, and so I speak with pride in informing you that the roads grow safer daily—indeed, both Skies fall upon the bandits who have been ungrateful in the face of your largess.”

“Oh? We are gratified to hear that these traitors to the crown are put to rout, as we’d heard quite the opposite.” She looked to the Knight Devout. “Is your success greater than my hearing?”

Honest, honest Zalbaag Beoulve shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking uncomfortable. “It would ne’er be my place to correct Your Majesty in any matter.” Goltanna glared at him.

“As always, Ser Zalbaag, you do your family’s honor proud in the realm of loyalty, though perhaps less so of late in that of results.” She waved her hand, casting the matter aside. “Surely, Lord Goltanna wishes only to reassure us of your mutual further endeavors. But we would remind you both that it is the leaders of such rebellions who most concern us, for examples must be made. My husband our king has saintly patience for much, even in his illness, but little for the act of treason. Folles and his ilk must be made corpses for true for the safety of our citizenry. We’ve a mind to let them swing from ropes at Golgollada itself for high- and low-born alike to witness.”

“As in the tale of Balias and the demon Leviathan,” offered Rousseau with a grin, “to fell a serpent, the head must be removed.”

Her nostrils flared. Zalbaag coughed. Goltanna’s eyebrow raised. Canne-Beurich looked like he was asleep.

“Mayhap the Confessor has dealt for too long with heretics and not with people of Quality,” offered Etgar. “Else he’d consider that speaking in those terms to a ‘head’ of state might be considered... inappropriate.”

Chastened—or faux-chastened—Rousseau looked down. “I assure you, ‘twas only mine intent to affirm Her Majesty’s edict. Indeed, the site of Ajora’s own death by hanging might be too good for bandits of their sort.”

“We shall take your... advisement into consideration, Confessor Rousseau.” Louveria’s lips thinned. “To return to matters of import, we understand that the Marquis de Limberry meets with our brother to the west.” She did not know why, but she did not say such. To admit that she and Larg were not communicating would be a sign of weakness.

“He did separate from our caravan at Dorter and continued on west,” Goltanna admitted. “He bid me pay Your Majesty all respects, but hoped that you’d find it no insult, as he was not himself the party summoned to this chamber.”

“The Marquis is a never-ending font of humility,” Louveria said. “One suspects it comes from being ground under Ordallian boot-heel.” Goltanna took the comment in stride, but behind him, the Baron of Bolmina tensed. She couldn’t remember his name, and didn’t care to re-learn it. At the Baron’s side, a dark-skinned scribe with his hair pulled back scribbled notes on the meeting without ever looking up. Likely the man’s spawn.

“I’m likely to blame for the Marquis, Your Majesty.” Etgar Minadette bowed. He was frustratingly handsome, young features under a mop of brown hair and possessing a rogue’s eyes. He held a majority stake in Zeltennian trade and he had the charisma to leverage that coin into a significant seat on the Council. He had a reputation for being noble in more than title, but that reputation didn’t stop him from raising his star higher by the day. “Duke Larg did offer me of late some measure of support in matters commercial, and the Marquis hopes to finalize some agreements of trade, that he might increase the coffers for rebuilding Limberry.”

She raised her chin. “It is often that “matters commercial’ are beneath the crown, when they do not pertain to taxies levied.” She tried to look thoughtful and curious, despite knowing the answer to her inquiries before she asked them. “But we hear the whisper of rumors in the halls of Lesalia, that it is your hope to open a corridor of trade to the east where there yet is none.”

Etgar’s face fell.

“We hold the Council’s enterprising nature in esteem,” she continued, “For it keeps our kingdom not only solvent, but thriving, a hub of commerce and culture that does past generations and present proud. But though Ivalice has ceased hostilities with Ordallia, we shall not open trade at this time. For with the king’s ill health, we cannot allow the possibility of open borders, that spies might enter in the guise of merchants in a time of weakness. And indeed, these uprisings trouble us, that they divert our knights away from the borders, where they might serve as a source of security and properly investigate traders of that sort. As ever, the safety of Ivalice must be our prime concern.”

Etgar’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he managed a “Yes, of course, Your Majesty.”

She faked a yawn. “Mayhap mon cousin could lower the tax by... hm, no, one percent is enough. You shall recoup some cost, and the people will see that Lesalia does not forget them.”

“As Your Majesty wishes,” grumbled Goltanna, “Though I’d point out that this will slow the rebuilding effort. Sal Ghidos is in much the same state it was the day the war ceased, and Limberry...”

“Bishop Canne-Beurich.” She rolled her eyes as Rousseau prodded the old man. “Could not the Church of Glabados send some aid to those poor souls of Sal Ghidos? The good Duke has left them to poverty and ruin.”

“Hm? Oh, well...” He dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. “Your majesty, Mullonde is leery of sending its agents to close to the border when matters are so fraught...”

“Come now, Bishop.” She clucked her tongue. “We speak not of Templars and Confessors, but rather some charitable abunas with a mind to feed and clothe the less fortunate, as blessed Ajora himself would have done. Unless you suggest that the Duke has let the town fall to inquity?”

Goltanna was turning purple.

“I commend Your Majesty in turning to the church.” Zalbaag said without irony. “Those only recently liberated from the Ordallian heathens could use the return of the light of Ajora.” It was refreshing to have Ser Zalbaag there, a man with virtually no guile. She should make greater effort to point his sword-tip in directions to her benefit.

The Baron of Bolmina leaned forward, whispered in Goltanna’s ear. Louveria’s eyes fell again upon the little scribe, no more than sixteen, who continued to scribble at a pace possessed... even when none were speaking that he could hear. Curious. Goltanna, for his part, seemed to find himself and cleared his throat.

“Since Your Majesty is “shining the light” of your own compassion at present, I wonder if we yet might appeal to your more beneficent instincts in another, not wholly unrelated matter.” He rubbed his belly through the straining clothes. “A matter of housing.”

“Do you not let the Baron sleep indoors, then?” She jested, but other than a wan smile from Zalbaag and a muffled chuckle from Sovlique, nobody seemed much amused. “Very well. We shall hear your proposal.”

“Mm.” Goltanna puffed up a bit. “Your Majesty is well-familiar with the stated grievances of the banditry, regarding owed funds. And all assembled here agree with the crown’s assertion that such grievances are falsehoods, truly.” She glanced at Zalbaag, but he was merely listening intently. It had been the Council’s assertion, in fact, but when she had agreed, it had become royal decree. “We do allow, however, that some of our loyal soldiery did suffer hardship upon war’s end, returning home to lands that had suffered Ordallian looting and destruction.”

“Our heart bleeds as ever for the loyal knights of Ivalice,” she offered, “though to suffer loss in war is inevitable, tragic though we may find it. How are you proposing to redress this ill, that does not draw from coffers we know to be less than full?” For in truth, there was next to nothing left. Reducing the tax a single percent was a symbolic gesture she made in compromise, but the war had left the kingdom with nothing but the unburnt fields west of the Algost and the private stores that men like Minadette and Sovlique were sitting upon. And she could not afford to take a loan and fall into the Council’s debt.

“I have met with the Council upon this matter. The Marquis, as well, was most insistent that we provide for the welfare of his land’s liberators.” He gave a nod to the Knight Devout. “Begging pardon, those liberators of our own territories.”

“They fought no less bravely,” said Ser Zalbaag, and bowed.

“Just so! And so we think to offer them not coin, but opportunity.” Goltanna’s mustache twitched. The Camp Groffovia established just east of Bervenia, in order to protect that holy land, now lies all but empty with the border secure. But it need not lie in waste, as ‘tis all but settled land. We think to offer the land as the site of a new village, under my provenance and responsibility, for the families of knights who seek a fresh start at war’s close.”

“We have never halted the movement of our citizenry,” she said dourly, already suspecting where this was going.

“The land will need new leadership. We, the Council and I both, think to ennoble—or further ennoble, that the land can be governed justly.”

“Mullonde views this proposition favorably,” said Canne-Beurich unnecessarily. “For those who defended the place of Ajora’s birth to find new, honest lives at its borders is a path that walks in line with the faith.”

So: enrich the Council of Nobles with further numbers, and allow Goltanna to amass knights at Lesalia’s border. Else, denounce a plan whose details would and will filter out to the commoners, and raise further rebellion, embolden the Order of the Ebon Eye and the Grounded Doves—and make a further enemy of the Church of Glabados, to say nothing of the Marquis, who was a loyalist at his core. It was no decision at all.

She gazed over to the Council members in attendance, and saw Etgar whispering fiercely in Carston’s direction. Which meant that Etgar had no idea, that he’d only been brought before the court as a patsy, a voice she could shout down so that Goltanna’s actual plan would be a compromise.

...Which meant Rousseau had known all along. She did not look in his direction.

The people of Lesalia already spoke of her in hushed tones as a tyrant. They already spoke of hoping the illness of the king would spread to his son.

She closed her eyes. Goltanna had the grace not to smile. When she opened them, she looked at last upon the Baron of Bolmina’s stoic expression.

“Baron, forgive us, as our memory is oft-distracted by worry for our husband of late, that we forget your name.”

He bowed low. “Ulric Navarre of Bolmina, Your Majesty.”

“You are modest indeed, to only whisper your idea to your lord the Duke.” She nodded to him. “Your proposal is accepted. We shall receive a list of names to consider the addition of further peerage to the realm.”

Sovlique gasped. Goltanna flinched.

Whether it was his idea or not, let all of Ivalice know it was the Baron’s idea. Some would not care for matters of race, but some would. And Goltanna would not be the hero of the people for his maneuver. It was no victory, but it was the only play she had remaining.

She favored the Earl with a look. “Lord Sovlique.” A rat-faced man with a thin mustache, his earldom included the aforementioned Sal Ghidos, and yet he’d not seen fit to speak up regarding its fate. “In the matter of our Southern Sky and its valiant knights, we rely often upon the wisdom of Count Orlandeau, yet he could not appear before us this day.”

“Er...” He looked to Goltanna for aid.

“With Baron Grimms on the hunt for banditry, the Count stands watch over Besselat, as ever in service to the crown,” the Duke mumbled.

“We suspected as much.” Did he even know of this plan? Or had he approved it? “We task you, Lord Sovlique, with relaying to the Count what has occurred here.”

Puzzled: “I serve your will, Your Majesty.”

“Indeed.” Her hand found the arm of the chair by her side. Let them puzzle over that decision. “We grow weary, and must relay this news to the king, that he may affirm that we speak his intentions.” She stood, and everyone bowed. “Ser Zalbaag, you’ve no doubt matters martial to consider, but at your earliest opportunity, we bid you relay the decision to your brother and mine, that the Northern Sky knows the movements of the Southern.”

Which was also why he’d weathered the comment from the Earl Carston Sovlique as he mounted his saddle, prepared for a ride in the other direction, toward Besselat. “Unwise to turn one’s back on goblinkin,” he’d muttered before spurring the chocobo to a trot. But he had a rough, lonely ride ahead, and Etgar Minadette sat opposite the Black Lion to discuss the funding of Groffovia. In the ways that mattered most, it was not Ulric who was on the outside.

He let the “squire” help him into the carriage, and then offered a lopsided smile as the young man hopped inside with an easy, graceful motion. The benefit of youth. He tapped on the outside of the carriage door and the driver pulled on the reins, setting them out of the royal city.

Their path would take them through the farms of Grogh Heights, the Free City of Bervenia, and eastward along the Finnath towards Zeltennia, where he would confer with Goltanna before heading south for his barony. It would be some days of travel with only this sly-eyed boy for company, and so they did not speak for the first hour, Bolmina settling instead on the comforts of a recent tome amongst his effects, an accounting of the Nildahme tribe penned by Grand Duke Gerrith Barrington. He wondered if a line of it was true.

The boy glanced at the book’s title, then at him, then returned his gaze to the passing fields of wheat.

Ivalice rolled on by, in a quiet that bespoke a luxury beyond even the manor or the seat at Goltanna’s table. It made the book’s contents too distasteful to continue reading. He closed it slowly, watching the young man study the passing countryside with a serious air.

“So, did you enjoy your visit to the court?”

The young man gave him a sardonic smile, but he spoke with respect. “Lord Navarre. I thank you again for your courtesy. My father had long wanted me to glimpse the royal prominence in person.”

“It is no courtesy to pay a favor to the Thunder God.” Bolmina lightly tossed the book, letting it thump on the carriage’s floor. “An exceptionally smart man, to place you as my scribe. She did not give you a second thought.”

“In honesty I suspect she’d not have done so if I’d appeared at the side of the Baron Minadette, but one makes the most secure moves one can.” His hair was pulled back in a squire’s tail, but the sides of his head were shaved down in a very cosmopolitan style. Barrington’s book stated that those of the Nildahme fashioned their hair into the approximation of animals, in tribute to spirits. But this boy, whose arms were the softer brown of mixed-race parents, had the most rational, inquisitive gaze he knew. He leaned forward, let the carriage bounce over a divot in the road before speaking.

“And so what did you take from today’s meeting?”

The young man leaned back, hands threaded in his lap. “She attributed the Duke’s maneuver to you in order to humiliate him.”

Bolmina rolled his eyes. “There are many who think I’ve not the wherewithal to devise such a scheme on my own. The Duke will be the one celebrated for its enactment.”

“Unless it fails.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you think it shall?”

The false-scribe took another tack. “It is oft-believed that our queen acts without the king’s endorsement—that, indeed, he cannot. But what I saw today was a woman besieged. She lost much ground in a single meeting.” His head tilted. “Either the claims are falsehoods, and she seeks only what she has always claimed—Ivalice’s solvency as it weathers the king’s ailment—or there is a piece of information that we now miss.”

Ulric straightened. “Explain your reasonings.”

“I do not believe her a fool, even if some of her decisions were foolish.” The young man’s voice was low, as to speak such of the crown was tantamount to treason, even only in observation. “Thus, since to enact such a plan—to take control of the crown—would be folly were she not to have power in reserve to call upon, she has either lost that power, or holds cards we cannot see.”

“You believe she does not operate with the support of the Northern Sky, as Duke Goltanna would claim?”

“The Duke would not claim so in a public forum,” the young man chastised the elder, and were he any other, Ulric might demand satisfaction. But instead he considered. The only representative of the Northern Sky present for the court’s meeting that day had been the Knight Devout, who was certainly loyalist but had no power without the sanction of those members of Quality whose stations lay above his.

“For her to appear with the Northern Sky at her back would suggest that she had not independence as a ruler...” Bolmina tested the words aloud. “Indeed, would weaken her position as the voice of the king. But you suggest that her decision is motivated instead by other factors.”

The young man shrugged. “I know not the answer. And such will I tell my father. But as you bid your farewells to Lord Goltanna and the others, I did hear something peculiar, from a court librarian. A member of my brotherhood died of sudden malady within Lesalia’s walls only a year past. ‘Twould be about the time of the prince’s baptism at Mullonde, I believe.” He frowned. “Milord, might I make a personal inquiry?”

Ulric nodded. “I serve at the pleasure of your family, as I do of any honored house of the Southern Sky.”

He steepled his fingers. “What think you of Lord Minadette?”

“Hm.” He sniffed. “Personally, I find him quite insufferable... But I will say that I believe he is a good man.”

“We are in agreement on that score, then.” The young man finally smiled. “Thank you, Baron. You’ve done us a great service today.”

“I consider it a service paid by watching you work.” He smiled back. “You’ve eyes to rival your elder sister.” The young man’s face darkened. “I apologize, Orran. Do I misspeak?”

“While I have not met her in person myself, I can attest to my father’s affection for the Thunder Maiden... however, she is no daughter of House Orlandeau.” Orran Durai shook his head. “And as his ward, ‘tis not a claim I’d like to often challenge, lest my intent be mistaken. But we have not heard tell of her in years.”

Ulric Navarre rubbed his chin, glanced outside at the farmers working, with cares beyond the chess games played by noble men and women, ‘till one day they found their fields aflame without even the literacy to read an accounting of how they’d been placed in the path. All of them, like the Nildahme, just a quill-mark away from extinction even under peacetime. He tried to imagine Goltanna’s knights out in those fields and couldn’t.

“I’ve sympathy for you, Orran Durai. I’ve no family left to speak of, let alone the burden of the Orlandeau name; but each of us has much to shoulder in this new Ivalice, and each of us stand upon shifting sands at the best of times as we do so.”

“From even the lowest hog, the finest perfume,” Orran quoted. “We shoulder what we must, for our children’s sakes.”

Bolmina scowled. “You are far too young to think of children.”