Chương 213: Chapter 234: Minister's Luncheon

I was able to snag a little bit of the familiar in small doses here and there. At a get-together for the heir of Duskare and all his closest cousins and friends, I got to sit with Quarl for a bit and see him in a different setting. Kurumi and I ran across each other quite by coincidence and surprise at a restaurant opening that we had both been invited to.

And it was less by coincidence and more by begging that I got Larianne, Vancy and Elica to accompany me to the anniversary luncheon being held for the Minister of Education.

"Wait, one of the cabinet ministers has their wedding anniversary and it's a luncheon not a gala dinner?" Elica voiced her surprise.

"Well, she's getting up in years and she doesn't like to stay up late," I protested.

"And so that's why the attendance is a bit on the low side. Just low enough to get those stupid whispers talking again if I show up. I need some chaperones to bulk out the attendants so if you guys won't come along then I'm gonna have to bribe some down-on-their-luck liveries to show up just so that this is officially a business meeting and not part of the secret plot to get me married off."

"How much you bribing?" Larianne said, without looking up from her crossword.

"I could use some walking-around money," Elica jumped on that train.

"I still need to buy out a couple liens before my income straightens out."

"Better us than some strangers, right?" Vancy smiled along.

"I was gonna lob a dozen crowns and some dinner invites for some baronials," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Bribing countesses and earls is a different budget altogether."

"We're worth the expense," Vancy promised me.

"We elevate the profile of the occasion and add clout to the outcomes." I un-rolled my eyes back down and leveled a suspicious glance her way.

"You don't talk like that. I talk like that. Vancy, have I been a bad influence on you?" Anyway the three of them let themselves be bribed to attend this luncheon after strong-arming me for ruinous concessions like veto picks of our first four weekend destinations, a favorable cameo in my next stage-play script, and some straight questions about why Septimus Ebonder was acting so cagey about my presence. Needless to say, that's gonna come around to roost.

The other condition that they united behind was that I have to ride in a carriage with them.

"I can just send us through a portal. It's easy," I mutter darkly as I take my seat opposite from Larianne.

"Oh we know," Elica said, snapping a fan dramatically to flutter in front of her.

"We are all, all quite well-acquainted with that glaring eyesore you travel about in. I had to make a healer's appointment, Natalie. Floating specks in my vision that were not going away. Your stupid void damaged my retinue."

"Retinas," I said. I was being helpful. She did not act like I was being helpful. She scowled like I was being a know-it-all smartass.

"I grant that it is superbly dramatic when you disappear in a column of unearthly light, but I'll not press my own face to the lighthouse windows just to avoid a dozen minutes worth of a coach ride. Especially when I know that I am stumbling about and making a spectacle of myself blinded and blinking on the other side of the ride." Elica turned away and clacked her fan shut. She did not tuck it into her sleeve, she held it close so I could tell she was going to use this for a few more dramatic gestures.

"Besides," Vancy added.

"It's really fun to ride in a carriage with you! Even more than usual. So we're following a carrot here as well, you see."

"Really?" I was skeptical.

"How do I make a carriage ride better?"

"Temperature, noise, distractions-" Vancy started a list.

"Smells," Elica added to her list. She wrinkled her nose. Huh. So, yes, I do condition the air around me. After a certain point, sorcerous affinity stops being so much a spell that one would activate to achieve certain results and starts being a pleasant helpful relationship between a natural element and oneself. For example, as if the air itself was a friend of mine that would watch out for me with small notions and nudges.

Much like I would hand a friend an extra fork if I was near the cabinet and we both needed forks, that sort of off-handed gesture you would never think twice about. That is what it is like when the air keeps noxious smells, inconvenient breezes, uncomfortable temperatures, abrasive noises, stinging insects, pollen and dust away from me. And for my friends when they are near me.

"Also the ride is smoother," Larianne pointed out. She was still working on her crossword book, pencil scratching starchily across the pressed-pulp paper. That is not normally something that people do in a carriage with steel-rimmed wheels. Oh, right, because the carriage's axles, leaf springs and wheel rims are also looking out for me. They behave a little differently than they normally should, compressing a little or bending a little to keep things pleasant.

I know that I make a big deal of the simple pleasures of having my belongings clean themselves for me, and my clothes put themselves away, and I hardly ever have to get up and go reach for something like everyone else. But even in a hundred smaller ways that I'm barely noticing these days, I go through life just a little extra insulated from anything unpleasant. I'm almost certainly quite spoiled by it. But given the opportunity, wouldn't we all rather be spoiled if we could?

The three in this carriage certainly feel that way. Elica freely opens the window to gaze out, Larianne works her puzzle book, and Vancy did not bother locking the door when we got in, as if she trusted that I would protect us just in case someone grabbed the handle from outside. Something tugged at my brain, something wanted to be remembered.

"Why are we going to lunch with a minister?" Vancy said.

"I mean I know about the part where Natalie is not allowed to be seen in public unless she is in a large group because the gossips that get interested in her are apparently all militant and whatever in some weird way. That part I know about and fine fine I get it sure. But explain why the thing that we're attending is this thing?" I leaned back.

"There is some background to this. But it's not all that gripping. First of all, any occasion with a minister is a good chance to raise profile. Even if the guest list is small and the venue is a café and there's no entertainment, this still goes in the society pages. And to a large pie-slice of the city, the measure of how important and well-liked you are is determined by how many times your name is reported in the society section of the broadsheets.

To them it doesn't matter that this is going to be us and a dozen of the minister's coworkers all sitting around a soup course and a bowl of bread, what matters is that a minister is high-profile, sits high on the page, and our names are prominently displayed. It's about bulking out the political support."

"I hate that it's so boring to be important," Elica groaned with self-pity.

"But you're right."

"Further than that," I continued, "is that the minister in question is holding her anniversary dinner in midday instead of fashionably crepuscular because she's very old and does not like to stay up late. In fact, she is very old, and in a very highly-placed appointed office serving the council's committee services. That means that she is not only due to retire soon, but that the post she is leaving will be in high demand.

And it is expected to be passed to one of her high-ranking subordinates, most of whom are here attending this luncheon. The 'coworkers' I mentioned. So within a few weeks or months they could all find themselves desperately scrambling to distinguish themselves and get the appointment. Which means that they are going to be looking for someone who can sway a lot of votes, such as myself.

So in addition to an anniversary, this is also an audition to see which of the prospective replacements will be getting my support, which in turn means who among them will be the new minister who is personally indebted to me." Vancy stared open-mouthed.

"What." She shook herself like she'd walked in the rain.

"Wait, really? We're going to go eat soup and determine who the next minister of education is while we're in our second year at Academy? Is this real? This can't be how things work." Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. She looked around the carriage to see if I was messing with her. As if I could fool her. But Larianne and Elica were both nodding sagely along- unlike Vancy, they had House-backed vendeuses to consult about things like this.

And Vancy, for all that she is always very well-dressed and up-to-date, is flying solo and unaffiliated. There's lots of reasons to envy her that, but it does mean that she's not seeing behind the curtain. Weirdly, she still has pretty much the same understanding of politics and process now as I had right after I had left prison. All I could really see at the time was shiny chandeliers, gilded banisters, fancy titles and elaborate rituals of presentation and patronage and primogeniture.

And somehow all of that turned into alliances and antagonists and then by some kind of alchemy the whole kingdom was controlled by this stuff. Not so very long ago all of this was just as opaque to me, too. And now I'm talking about it with ease. Now I'm taking it for granted. But also I'm desperately waiting for the chance to burn it all down. I have not forgotten where I've come from. Vancy sat back, looking very impressed. She's got good eyebrows for it.

"Wow, that's really something. It'll probably be pretty convenient to have the minister of education owe you for an endorsement. Hah, I'll bet that if the minister owes you a favor, then the Academy provosts would probably need to stay on your good side!" She was very pleased with her joke.

"Larianne, I'm sat too far away from her. Would you please put a hand on her knee and give some good, earnest eye contact for me? Thanks. Vancy, if this luncheon goes well for me, I will have hiring and firing authority over the deans at the Academy," I said, with a tone gentle and direct enough to match the body language Larianne was providing for me. Elica snapped her fan open.

"You are all so very, very strange." She glared around and fluttered it around in the air-conditioned carriage. Vancy has gone out with me before to society events. Not a lot of them, most of her calendar is focused around whichever events seem like they'll be the most fun or have the most people she likes to hang out with. Sometimes she just lets the food set the mood and picks her venue from the menu. I won't lie, I envy this so much.

But there've been several times already that her path and mine have crossed out on the circuit. Elica and Larianne I run into all the time, we're on similar tracks with similar parameters. Vancy's our odd-one-out for weekend plans. But usually at least when we're all out on the gala circuit what we're doing looks similar. Unless you're aware of the strategy and the angles, socializing over canapés all looks much the same.

So on some level she just always assumed that what we were doing was a lot like what she was doing. And then we took her to lunch to meet the minister of education and all of her favorite sycophants. The minister herself was nice enough, pleasant in the way that some people can get when they're old enough, established enough and secure enough that they can do whatever the hell they want and nobody ever gives them a reason to get sharp. Basically, what I originally took Quoissi Eyellon for.

She sat at her table with her wife and kept the conversation rolling, just whatever thoughts popped into her mind, even if they maybe reflected the sentiments and popular viewpoint from about forty years ago and made younger folks a bit embarrassed or scandalized. She wasn't mean, but she was still kind of awful. I had sat at the other end of the table, appropriate to a guest of honor. Fortunately that put us at a little too much distance for her and I to interact too very much, but that was fine.

Both of us could get what we wanted from this exchange without sharing more than a few words of each other's company. By putting ourselves in the same room, on the same page, we both made ourselves more relevant to the eyes of the self-elected scorekeepers. The rest of the party orbited back and forth between us.

Her ass-kissers wanted to stay in her good graces for the sake of the present, and wanted to get into my good graces for the sake of their futures, and they flitted back and forth bringing flattery and gossip and snide insinuations about each other. It was like my own campaign for advancement, writ small. The usual face of office politics when everyone can tell the boss is about to step down.

I spent the two hours chatting amiably and making small notes to myself which of the almost-interchangeable flunkies was actually impressing me. Elica and Larianne sat to my left, contributing little bits here and there, adding a question I had not thought to ask or just keeping me company. They wove in and out of the conversations with the apple-polishers, the language of sinuous insinuation. Vancy sat across from the table and sometimes remembered to keep her mouth closed.

She was shocked, genuinely shocked, to see this side of the three of us. She knew that politics happened at things like this, but she had never seen the sausage being made. And now, to truly mix the metaphor, she was looking at us like we were dogs walking on our hind legs and buttering bread. And it made me nostalgic a little bit. I felt like I was looking through time at the girl I'd been a year ago, looking back at me.

I was practically speaking a different language, and I was taking one promise here to trade for two favors there, and this backhanded compliment for those rumors, building my stock among them until they all ate out of my hand. By the time we folded our serviettes and rose from our chairs, all of the leading candidates for the job had sworn a fairly precious boon for my support and consideration. So it literally did not matter which of them I picked, whoever got the job would owe me big-time.

Boy they were gonna be shocked when I decided to support the one that was most competent. Probably never crossed their minds that would be a factor of my favor.

I insisted on paying the bill for the table, partly because it's expected of a guest of honor, partly because it's the only way to make sure that this extremely frazzled serving-maid is going to get the tip she deserves, partly because I've got more money than the rest of the table put together, and partly so that the bureaucrats who had put themselves in charge of the kingdom's education by dint of being good at paperwork would all go stand on the curb and find their carriages while I hung out with my friends a little longer.

After I had countersigned the check for our expenses and stamped the bank chit, I reached into my sleeve and handed our server the kind of tip that can change the course of someone's life. Platinum clinked, and she went pale. Of all the people at that table I'm confident I'm the only one who has ever worked in the service industry, and I'm not going to let a fresh start as a princess make me forget what that's like.

"Don't carry that alone," I told her.

"Get someone you trust to walk you home." She nodded shakily. Elica was sputtering indignantly while Larianne and I took her by the elbows and carried her out of the restaurant. On the streetside I let Elica harangue me about what constitutes an appropriate gratuity and how the balance of civilization rests on certain people not getting ideas above their station. Well, too late; with that money the shaken waitress had a new station.

Larianne and Vancy flagged a carriage for us and I cheekily flicked a silver to the driver before we stepped inside. Elica went cold and quiet, glaring at me as I unrepentantly overtipped again in front of her. Inside, I could not seem to adjust the atmosphere conditions enough to warm Elica's glare. Larianne came to the rescue with a distracting new subject of conversation.

"So, Natalie, did I overhear that you've finally hired a butler?"

"More fair to say that I hired a friend that is trained as a butler," I said, slumping back.

"This should make a lot of things easier going forward." Elica immediately brightened.

"Wait, does this mean that we can finally bring servants into the dorms? We are allowed our own staff?!" She clutched her hands before her, eyes big and round. I regretted the need to immediately dash her hopes but I did it anyway.

"Sorry, no," I said.

"He's running affairs at the Harigold residences in the city, he'll never be coming anywhere near the Academy."

"Dammit," she immediately switched to sulking, arms crossed and cheeks puffed.

"You know you could change that rule, right? You're influential. There were four different people at that party that could fire every dean at the Academy and all of them were showing their tummies for scritches."

"Ew," I said.

"I'm not going to change that rule, Elica."

"Well why not? What's the point of being important and influential if you can't change the rules to suit yourself?" Because that's exactly where self-serving corruption begins and ends and lives, I thought in the privacy of my mind, the only place it's safe to have thoughts like that.

"Elica, what would you say if I told you that the rules I'm most likely to change are the ones that unfairly favor me?" She tapped her chin.

"Wait, I've heard of this... ah! Masochist, is that the right word?"

"Ew," I said again. The conversation wended around a bit. These girls know about my troubles, about Nathan, about how badly I need to be free of the fear that my brother is going to give up the pretexts and try to destroy me, or worse yet try to help me again. I don't tell them much about Gedes, and they don't ask much. To them, butlers are not much of a point of interest. If you've seen one you've seen them all. No, the impact this would have on my plans was actually of more interest to them, this time.

"So you've got him taking care of your paperwork and dispatches and all that bureaucracy so you don't have to?"

"We-e-e-ell, that and because it makes me feel gross and corrupted to interact with that stuff. City government is a swamp, everyone who immerses in this material winds up just as corrupt, and I won't have that be me too. I feel like if I actually tried to learn this stuff well enough to keep myself safe from my brother's spy games I would lose a big part of my soul. I'm just not up to that kind of ethical dilemma."

"Okay, but... that's a really weird place to make a moral objection. I mean, you kill a lot of people."

"You can't stop the bleeding if you keep your hands clean." I didn't mean for that to sound flippant, but when it's said out loud it sounded way too casual.

"Nat, don't take this the wrong way, but some people will hear you say things like this and conclude that you like killing and hate paperwork."

"Oh, that's just unfair, nobody likes paperwork!" I protested.