winter: Year 253 of the Bynding
The light catches on the edges in the rock like the way it used to catch on his favorite bitch, Plunder, who passed on just a few months back. Didn't she used to sit like that, too, or is his mind producing artificial parallels that reinforce the potential ones he's already noticed?
"But how do you track everyone's votes?" Evonalé asks, her confusion cutting through Aidan's distraction. She voice is sharper and higher-pitches than Kitra or Ferrel, especially when they're droning on.
"There are a few methods," Kitra says. "Governments like that will generally have records of who can vote, and employees who track that and such. It's easier with smaller groups, but that can also cause problems for making it more obvious who votes what. Some limit voters to landowners or persons in the census. I've heard the Nard do it by collecting votes the same time as tax payments."
Evonalé chews her lip. "So I'm pretty much going to have to get everything hired and set up on my own and hope the attare don't figure out what I'm doing until it's done."
Aidan blinks. He keeps forgetting that nobility here isn't like that back home, which was descended from the fact that Salles originated from a collection of independently-governed colonies that united.
Grehafen has royal appointments and ensuing nepotism...which is a lot of how and why Evonalé has been able to implement reparations. The monarch is the government, here, not a head of state, so all tax money is literally and legally hers, for her to divvy as she sees fit.
Nobility in Salles have legal ways of interfering with their ruler's actions. Nobility here do not. That doesn't stop either from seeking to manipulate or use illegal ways.
Which, in hindsight, explains why she has never seemed to properly understand how Salles works. But "Why didn't Sil teach you about governments?"
Evonalé's blink admits he asked that aloud even before she answers, "I don't know."
Aidan sighs. "I actually understand a lot of what I know she skipped, when teaching you. I don't agree, but I understand. The government thing, though? No. I should have noticed that one sooner, too."
She shrugs helplessly.
He sighs. Maybe he'll have a chance to ask his cousin while he goes to the Cave of Ascension. Thinking of which...
He tries to lift the rock. Tries.
He releases it before he hurts himself. "I'm going to need help with this."
Kitra gives Ferrel a long, meaningful look.
"We can't go to Salles, right now," Ferrel says quietly.
Well, no, not without getting targeted by the people surely taking advantage of his father's death...which means Silva probably isn't there, either, or at least shouldn't be.
"I didn't mean... That wasn't a request. I'm just considering how I'm going to get that to the cave." And dear Creator, what about William and his wife? They're civilians, not battle-trained at all.
Aidan rubs his hurting head.
Evonalé chews her bottom lip and frowns at her slate. "What if you take June with you?"
He stares at her in astonishment.
His wife just continues, as if there's nothing odd about suggesting he return to his native realm with the woman who the old heirs of Grehafen had... Suffice to say June hadn't exactly wanted to be the late prince's mistress.
"I need to stay here and focus on this. Salles expects you to, well..." She gives a little wave. "Feed their expectations, buy yourself time to think maybe they can work with you?"
Evonalé's astuteness on this particular form of social dynamics and navigation makes him wonder how much of her difficulty with other areas stems from her trauma. This, she had to learn, for her own safety-- and safety was the same reason she had to be oblivious of other areas.
"I think that ship's sailed," he answers her. "I married you."
"Because of the treaty, so blame your dad. You can take June, say I never let you leave and you're all for humans now. She would enjoy that, I think--the lie, not..." Evonalé pauses. "I guess she might be up to it if you're interested. You could always ask."
Kitra is staring at Aidan, of course.
He sighs and reminds his wife, "I don't want a mistress."
She shrugs. "You could."
She has never expected him to be faithful. No matter how many times he tells her he only wants her, she treats it as a description of his current choice, one that could change. It would probably hurt more if it bothered her. As it is, her casual acceptance that he could theoretically prefer another, someday, mostly makes him sad.
Sad as it is, she's even more distrusting of promises—and she hasn't exactly made him any, either. That bothers him a little, sometimes, but he's sure she would tell him if she wanted another lover. Maybe in a confused rant as she struggled with the prospect of a woman taking a second lover, but she would tell him.
He would like to think he could be the sort of man to let his wife be comforted by another, especially when he's not available, but...he's pretty sure he isn't. He likes that he's the one who takes care of her.
In hindsight, that might've been part of his issues with Lallie, since she illustrated how Evonalé had other helpers and didn't need him. Aidan dislikes what that says about him, but better to be aware of what he dislikes about himself than to pretend it doesn't exist.
"Are any of the montai still here? The rock has to come with me, and I can't lift it."
Evonalé eyes the rock. "As far as I know, the closest montai right now is, um... Lallie's brother. Dakadza! That's his name. I knew that. Why did I blank on it?"
Aidan doesn't mind Dakadza, but he's pretty sure the man is sleeping with Geddis--a cousin that Aidan doesn't particularly care to run into. They have never gotten along, maybe because she can't stand Evonalé, for whatever reason. "I'll figure something out."
"I'll ask him," Ferrel says. "I'll go to Breidentel--Geddis..." He pauses, gaze shifting in a visible cue that he's accessing his Sight. "I want to visit her."
"You don't have to go," Evonalé says. "If you're concerned about your own safety, I can hire more guards."
Aidan stares at her pointedly.
It takes a few seconds for her to realize, "Oh, I need to do that anyway. Yie, where is my head at?"
She jots a bit on the slate. He's never figured out if her notes are in elvish or just illegible.
"Okay, you two will leave in the morning--"
"Kitra will stay," Ferrel cuts in.
Kitra goes stiff. "Fer--"
"You need to be here. I need to be there," he says patiently. "We'll deal with the repercussions when they come."
Suspicion tickles Aidan. "Your wife is your warden?"
"Effectively," Kitra says, scowling at her husband with fearful eyes. "It's not called that, and technically they can't forbid us from doing things separately, but..."
Yeah, social dynamics give all sorts of room to manipulate that sort of thing. "They can leverage it to cast doubt on his rehabilitation?"
The others' expressions remind Aidan why he usually avoids identifying manipulation tacks. Most people don't think like that. Not naturally.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" Evonalé asks. "Like, I don't know, a formal request for you to check on Breidentel while your wife guards me? Just thinking out loud, here."
"That could go either way, since they're questioning your sanity--which means they might try to claim you're under AMaC's jurisdiction. Just remember you are not fae, yourself, and therefore you're not under their jurisdiction, regardless."
Aidan sucks in a sharp breath, understanding the implications of that. "They're claiming to have jurisdiction against all forms of rogue magic."
It has been a potential consequence of AMaC actively usurping control of all fae and part-fae--and realms around the world letting them, relieved to avoid the burden of dealing with the high rates of insanity among the fae. This is the first Aidan has heard of them actively seeking to subjugate someone without any faery magic whatsoever, though.
Ferrel's grim smile unsettles Aidan's stomach.
"They've been doing it for a while," Kitra says softly, eyes on her husband. "There was one case to the southeast where they got a realm to hand over their leader by arguing that various social reforms the leader was implementing were obviously evidence of diseased thinking, which meant the leader had fae in the ancestry. None has been found."
"Fire the attare" slips from Aidan's lips, through the rushing sound in his head. "Makish take them! Evonalé, you know I avoid meddling in your choices--usually avoid meddling--but if AMaC is pulling that, we can't afford to wait them out. Find or invent a legitimate-sounding reason to rethink how you're handling them--a miscarriage or something?--and clean house."
Her dark eyes narrow at his vaguely dog-shaped rock. "Don't be cruel," she scolds gently. "Miscarriage isn't something to lie about, and it's not a... Okay, it's unkind to use it as a tool."
"And the fae insane asylum stealing you is kind?"
"I didn't say that. You're panicking."
This isn't something to take lightly!
"You're panicking, Aidan," she insists, enunciating clearly. "The situation in Salles is plenty of reason for me to restructure Grehafen. I just haven't wanted to do that because Father..."
Her father had done that, to the harm of many.
She swallows. "I haven't seen a way to toss the idiots without resorting to his methods, but I just got an idea--thank you, Ferrel, and take Aidan with you in the morning."
Aidan stiffens. "Evonalé--"
"Go with your cousin," Evonalé insists. "It's even on the way to Salles, sort of. You can't be here for my idea to work."
Kitra releases a startled chuckle. "What's your idea?"
Evonalé's skin goes red, and the increased heat is palpable even across the slight distance between them. "Er," she says. "Um. Can we just say it's kinda like what we did with my sister and leave it there?"
Aidan laughs, long and hard, mostly from shock, but there's anger in it, too. "You're going to blame me for the infertility and pretend to want a lover."
"It'll give me a reason to be paying more obvious attention to them and their records, and it'll give the jerks incentive to tell me about illegitimate children to prove their, uh, virility."
And the way the men speak of such things will give evidence towards how consensual those pairings will be. It's an excellent idea.
An excellent idea, but... "I can't watch you do that."
His wife smiles sadly. "I know, Aidan. That's why I'm ordering you to Breidentel."