Puppets and Puppeteers

Chapter IX - Business

"I'm sorry".

"Good". Astrea smiled. "Naava, serve the tea. It seems we can negotiate".

After I served the tea, she presented her proposition.

"Llywellyn, you can easily recognize that you do not have the abilities necessary to be the duke. And, with our house decay and all the problems father and grandfather generated, you won't be able to keep the name alive for long. But it's not viable to get one of father's multiple illegitimate sons and put him in the chair either. The branch families, that are just as stupid as father, will put so many obstacles in those kids' way that the house will be ruined before they can take charge. We need to change now. The fields can't survive for long; if we wait until father passes to change the leader, the land would have already died".

"But I'm an idiot and the other kids are not an option. What do you want?"

"Before we called you here, Sybil researched about all father's children. We could separate the real and the frauds; we also identified which ones could be usable for us." She signaled me to give her the list. "Yessica, 19, the daughter of a maid, grew up as a farmer and has a great potential as a botanist, if she has the right teacher – which we can provide; Johanson, 27, he doesn't know about his father, and grew up to be a great constructor in a small town up north, but his business lack capital; Keila, 23, an assistant accountant, her mother was a swindler and tried to get money out of the family, but the daughter is a good woman who wants a new life; Lion, 13, was abandoned by his mother in the Conwenna door, and sent to an orphanage, grew up with farmers but they lost their land. If we can get these people to help you, we might be able to seize control and save the family".

"Those are all nobodies, a bunch of people who would come for our money if they can".

"Just wait, then. Soon, you will have no money. The way father spends, you may have to sell your clothes to buy food".

He clenched his fists.

"Still, even if I ally myself to those people, we still need to take dad out".

"Cerys prepared a gift for us. We sent someone to the Conwenna main house to get the account documents. Using that, she wrote a petition with all our names requesting father's interdiction, claiming he is uncapable of administrating the funds and to uphold a moral behavior. Cerys is really, really good with money. With just a look, she could find out how much money the house has been losing annually and how long it will take for them to go bankrupt. Using that, the branch families' council, those money hungry bastards, will agree that it's in their best interest to take father out. Otherwise, they will end up not receiving anything. I just need to have someone ready to take his place when we take him down. Someone who is on our side. Because if the Conwenna want to keep going against us, be it supporting the second prince or mining our interests, then it's better if you fall". She smiled as she said that. "Naava will give you the full contract, with all our conditions. You have until the end of the day to sign it. I don't know if you have memorized every detail of this room, maybe I can draft another contract in a few weeks, so you have enough time to do that. Or I can just change my plan and use one of the kids I mentioned before. It will be a harder battle, but I will find a way".

With that, she said good-bye and left for the reunion.

"How did it go?", prince Ewan asked. Everyone was already inside, but he was waiting on the door.

"I believe he will sign the contract until tonight".

"You didn't threaten him, did you?"

"A little".

He sighed at her answer.

"As long as you didn't leave any evident marks".

"I didn't leave any marks. I just put the sword against his throat. It didn't even touch his skin".