You're the Queen - Now What? [CK2ish Character-Focused Quest]

• Queen Vanessa Secures Vayok Lake With South Zarsim Alliance!
• Road Reconstruction Well Underway!
• The Queen's Justice: Measured and Fairly Applied!
• Queen Vanessa's Trade Boom!

Rykall looked at the various broadsheets from across the Kingdom, spread out on the table. The Crown had of course printed their own broadsheets and had them distributed - for free - to inns and taverns and posted on public notice boards, handed out on the street.

But people knew to consider official royal news with a bit of a suspect eye. Rykall had reached out to people his family knew printing their own broadsheets delivering local news or the like and offered payment and incentives to get them to put out their own - accurate - reports on all the things Queen Vanessa had done.

Smart people would figure out that the Crown had paid for some of this, true, but it would still have an impact, to see so many privately produced broadsheets, and the royal Broadsheets, all trumpeting the same news. Everything had gone out two and a half weeks ago, and the results were already proving to be quite good - his family's contacts across the Kingdom were reporting buzz from the mercantile classes especially.

One of the things they'd had emphasized in a well-regarded dwarven-printed sheet out of Eaglecrest was the degree to which the Crown's debts had shrunk under Vanessa's wise and careful leadership. Debts that some people had imagined might take years to repay were being whittled down steadily due to a combination of frugal living (for a queen) and wise management of the Kingdom's resources.

That, from what Rykall had heard, was doing the troll's share of the lifting when it came to convincing a lot of the merchants that the Queen really did know what she was doing. That the Crown was in steep debt was hardly secret, but it wasn't as if the Queen made a habit of publicizing the details of that debt. But with a bit of work on their part, and some selective 'leaks' from the Palace, they could present clear evidence of all the debts the Crown had paid down - people who had loaned to the rebellion repaid in full, multiple banks had been repaid entirely - they even had a quote from a representative of the Royal Bank of Zedarsh as to the speed of Halrun's debt repayment and saying they'd be happy to loan money to Halrun in the future as needed.

Hard, verifiable proof - or at least, close enough - that the Crown really was paying down the debts, while also doing everything else...

It was convincing more and more people that Vanessa was a stable, long-term investment. The Kingdom was doing well, and would continue to do well.

---

Stamp, sign, file and send on to the capital.

Stamp, sign, file and send on to the capital.

That was in large part the entirety of his job, overseeing this particular estate in the Royal Demesne. He approved purchases, verified sales, signed off on payments to the laborers, and so forth. The majority of the time, there wasn't much to it. The same paperwork, the same information, very little changed, overall. Just write down some numbers and sign, stamp, file and send on to the capital.

Except the peaceful tranquility of his pleasantly repetitive existence had been disrupted. He'd counted himself very lucky to land this position after the Civil War - good pay, easy work,not much difficulty. Solid, stable. Not much chance to skim off the top, admittedly, but the fact that he was likely to keep his position for decades made up for that.

But after 10 months, he'd gotten used to things being done a certain way. A nice, simple way. The way that his uncle had done it back before Syrokis started purging the royal service. The way his grandfather had done it.

There were specific ways you did certain tasks.

And then -

And then Keeper Axecavern handed down new orders, an entirely new way to do the paperwork. He supposed it did save paper, and ink, but it was a damned of a thing trying to make sense of it, trying to make it work was wasting his time, and that, he found frustrating. And he knew he wasn't alone.

Too many changes, too much. They'd introduced a whole raft of new techniques for the farming, and new tools and new orders for where to take and sell the excess crops, and now this? Too much change too fast was not good for him, his peace of mind, the ease of his job, or the laborers.

Stamp, sign file and send onto the capital.

He'd also be sending a letter of protest about all this. Probably wouldn't do much, but he was going to give that Keeper Axecavern a piece of his mind. Queen Vanessa wouldn't kill him for that, wouldn't even fire him, likely, if he was polite enough about it (and he wasn't attacking her Majesty, of course not). But the Keeper needed to know this was unacceptable, and he knew he wasn't alone.

---

"Excuse me?"

"All the funds we earmarked for the expansion of warehouses, the establishment of new supply bases, getting more arrows and bolts and spears, building more carts and getting more horses?" Rienne nodded at her staff officer to continue, "It's gone missing."

"How exactly do five Dureks go missing?" Rienne asked carefully.

"With forged purchase orders, complicit suppliers and a shuffle of paperwork and reassignments. Frankly, we're lucky we caught it this soon. All the people who would have been assigned to guard the new supply dumps were reassigned with forged orders, and the people assigned to 'replace' them were entirely fictitious soldiers or the real ones never got their orders, even though copies of them made it here to your office."

The staff officer was standing ramrod straight, and frankly, did not sound happy to be saying this. His tone was pretty flat and dead and he seemed to be bracing for getting busted down a rank or two, or worse. An understandable concern, but one Rienne wasn't quite ready to resort to. Yet.

"But Lieutenant Reyvolis got suspicious about the reassignment and went looking... and found that the supply dump didn't exist at all. He reported that, and then things started to unravel. Unfortunately, while we caught three in the Quartermaster Corps, and one civilian clerk handling personnel, we don't know who was behind it, and none of them are talking yet. There's got to be more, and there had to be an officer of some rank behind all this." He gestured to the stack of papers in front of her. "There's a number of possible suspects, but which one or ones..." He grimaced. "The problem is that myself and your entire staff are suspects."

"I take it this isn't you confessing."

"Of course not, I would never do anything like this, High Marshall, but it does mean that we may not be the best people to investigate this. We're all - to be honest, High Marshall, we're all looking sideways at each other while we try to find more evidence."

Rienne sighed. "I'll look at the evidence. And..." she inhaled. Ideally she could just confine all the suspects to quarters or barracks as appropriate, but that was a lot of suspects, she could tell, just glancing at the first sheet of the stack of papers. "Get me four couriers." She said that part to one of the soldiers guarding her office, rather than to the staff officer.

She looked back at the officer. "You and the rest of the staff are to consign themselves entirely to wargaming scenarios and drawing up contingency plans for the time being." She'd have to borrow some clerks from Rykall to keep up with the paperwork... and probably pass this entire investigation off to Itrick, but she'd look over the evidence first.

---

"...and there we are," a piece of stone was laid atop the mortar and blocked off the last of the passage entrance.

Master Mason Evecladra was not used to being called in for something like this, nor used to having armed guards watching her moves and those of her workers so closely, but this was the palace, and they were sealing up passageways that could be used by potential assassins, so she supposed that it made sense.

"That's four passages sealed up completely, and..."

"Ten more." One of the guards said.

Evecladra nodded. "Alright then. Break for lunch," she gestured to her workers, "I'm going to need more stones."

---

---

"The bandits that were dealt with, when questioned, did eventually lead us to some names of the merchants who bought the goods they stole, and sold them, usually off the books," Itrick had only been directly involved in that stage of things, to make sure none of the bandits could lie, his magic preventing outright mistruths, though most of them had been able to withstand his power enough to not be forced to be honest and speak all the details.

After that, most of the work had been done by investigators in the field.

"There were of course, more than one, but the greatest culprit, and the reason why I've asked you to come here today, I'm afraid to say, is the Veldrek Redhammer family." The Veldrek family, within the larger Redhammer clan, was hardly that connected to the main Redhammer line that ran the titular bank, anymore than Rucdorn Relcred Axecavern was to his bank-owning distant cousins, but they were still a wealthy and connected dwarven family.

Unlike the Relcred Axecavern's, who were in the market of selling dwarven made goods out to the rest of the world, the Veldrek Redhammers were more generalized wholesale merchants. Wealthy, of course, and with ready access to financing via their cousins, and over the last 200 years and change, had built themselves into quite a major player in Eaglecrest and the South Tarkos Thanedom. Their caravans and the shops they owned made them a lot of money, and that money made them many friends in Eaglecrest and elsewhere.

"That's quite a charge," One of the representatives of the Eaglecrest Council sitting in front of him said. "Against a very well-regarded family in the Free City."
"Agreed, which is why I deemed it worthwhile to reach out and offer the council the full details of the case, rather than merely invite them to represent the charged party alongside their barristers, as per the relevant terms of your treaty of annexation with Halrun."

"The latter of course being something even Syrokis refused to give in his later years," another representative noted. "That's the part you're not saying."

"Well, her Majesty swore to uphold all the laws of the realm, but she also believes in supporting those who support her, and in providing due respect where it is indeed due. Eaglecrest has been nothing but supportive of Her Majesty's reign so far, and your city is, more than any other, the reason Syrokis was overthrown."

It was obvious flattery, but that didn't mean it wasn't useful flattery, one just needed to be a little careful about expecting it to be enough all it's own.

"These are the results of my investigators work and my own," he gestured to a stack of parchment to the left side of his desk. "The testimony of multiple bandits, verified to be true by my magic and the blessings of Askiran and further investigation. They identified the middlemen they used. Questioning those middlemen led us to merchants in Westcrown, Port Lest, Tairos and of course, the Veldrek Redhammers in Eaglecrest." And also one of Valefor's distant cousins on the non-Trovus side. Valefor had taken one look at the evidence and how little his distant relation had actually done to cover themselves from scrutiny and washed his hands of the man.

Not that Valefor had said he would intervene to protect a more skilled relation, but his investigators had reason to believe that the cousin they could prove was guilty was working with one much better at covering their tracks, and oddly enough, that cousin had - the same day Valefor (in his capacity as Count of Vannecht) had given Itrick's investigators permission to enter his County - asked by the Count to oversee a family investment in Blerren.

Blerren could be prevailed upon to hand the cousin over, if they could prove his guilt, but...

(Not that anyone could prove what Valefor may have done. The cousin did have a history with Blerren and was used for similar tasks before. And they couldn't prove the cousin had done anything wrong anyway.)

The three representatives looked at eachother, sharing a few gestures and half-started sentences and then:

"We'll have to go over this, but in principle, if the Veldrek Redhammers are guilty as a family of buying stolen goods and financing banditry, they absolutely should be punished under the laws of the Realm and the laws of Eaglecrest. But equally, the Eaglecrest Council would be remiss in their duties if they merely stepped aside and let the Crown prosecute such an important family without comment."

"Of course. Please, consult the evidence and consult with your superiors." Itrick nodded. "And while I have no reason to suspect this would happen, I do, out of duty as much to Askiran as the Crown, to remind you that informing the Veldrek Redhammers of the details of the investigation and the evidence against them before they are called to trial would be quite illegal."

The representative that hadn't spoken yet quirked an eyebrow. "Of course. I would expect no lesser reminder from a man of the Crowned Scepter's Church. I hope the Eaglecrest Council can get back to you by this time next month. We promise all due consideration and care to the delicate nature of the matter."

Itrick had assumed they'd play for time, but he wasn't concerned that they'd let the Veldrek Redhammers off. The bandits had caused enough problems for other Eaglecrest Merchants... most likely the delay would be mostly used to position mercantile interests close to the Council to capitalize on the collapse of Veldrek Redhammer fortunes - many of the family's assets would be seized by Crown and Free City, and set to auction. There were innocent members of the family, and some of the less guilty members would also get away, most likely... but the case was very solid.

The matriarch of the family and all the rest of the venerable elders of the family were definitively guilty. There could be no disputing that, and the papers he'd provided highlighted exactly - sometimes to the point of itemized lists - how much her financing of bandits had cost other well-connected wealthy families in Eaglecrest.

Interest against interest. It was not his favorite way to ensure smooth conviction, but it did the job and most importantly, it prevented economic chaos in the aftermath, which could have many ripple effects.

No. Best to keep things orderly and smooth.

---

"Selissa has invested a great deal of resources into North Zarsim, but in the end, how much has that worked for you? Tollren Vorel has done little to win over the people of the south, and his armies don't have anyone of King Gaius's caliber in command."

"Nor do they have the forces you have provided to buttress Gaius's front lines." The Selissan ambassador pointed out, fingers steepled.

"Well, we had to offer Gaius something to induce him to change patrons," Arandel said.

"Have they?"

"I'm sorry?" Arandel arched an eyebrow.

"Have they changed patrons?"

"Obviously South Zarsim retains cultural and trade ties with Morvak, but I think King Basil's withdrawal of most of his 'advisors' speaks to the reality of the situation." Arandel could have offered to show them the sternly worded note sent by Basil to Queen Vanessa, all but whining about Halrun stealing his client state out from under him.

Granted, it was in suitably diplomatic language, but one learned to read between the lines.

Basil might even be inclined to do something about it before he died, but Arandel had to hope Regara and her faction would advise against it, at the risk of damaging their own plans. Invasion over a 'stolen' client state was flimsy pretexts even for Morvak...

Arandel's scrying had made it clear that there were plenty of people in Selissa who were ready to wash their hands of King Tollren. Not to the point of letting Gaius claim the entire kingdom - not that Gaius was so foolish as to want that - but still. The Zar Civil War had been a bottomless pit of men and money for years, scooping up mercenaries from across the region, especially after the end of the rebellion against Syrokis.

Selissa had stayed in, throwing good money after bad, because they wanted a stable, profitable client of their own, one that could be a hingepoint against Morvak.

But now they had that. And the possible profit had begun to look increasingly slim as the cost of the war mounted.

Arandel had played to that pressure point. Money. Selissans loved their money, and they loved investments that paid off. And hated the ones that couldn't.

He traded words with the Ambassador further, offering more assurances that South Zarsim was firmly in Halrun's orbit, and that Gaius had lost patience with Morvak before even reaching out to Vanessa.

Finally:

"May I dispense with the usual niceties, Keeper Synvara?"

"For a moment, Ambassador," Arandel nodded.

"Parliament has approved a number of loans taken out by the Crown to finance King Tollren's effort to suppress the unlawful resistance his rule. If Tollren must recognize the independence of south Zarsim, than his ability to help the Crown repay these loans is... much reduced. And there are many in Parliament who would rather take the bet on Tollren than accept a complete loss so soon. However, if Queen Vanessa could see her way clear to assisting with that, then I think Parliament could see it's way clear to convincing His Majesty that it may be time to rethink our Zarsim strategy."

"And what exactly do you have in mind, Ambassador?"

"The assumption of Selissa's debt to the Geltric Bank that was taken up as part of financing King Tollren. 102.25 Dureks as of now, at an interest rate of 4%"

Arandel didn't react to the interest rate. Four percent was leagues better than Halrun could ever hope for for a very long time, but Selissa was Selissa. Assuming a debt of just over a Hundred Dureks at 4% would still represent quite a lot of interest over time.

"And Selissa would completely withdraw from the civil war?"

"As long as Gaius did not try to take any territory that he and his backers did not originally claim in their declaration of rebellion, then yes."

Arandel was no military man, but if Selissan financing dried up... King Tollren likely had six months at most before he was forced to surrender and grant South Zarsim independence. Mercenaries paid for by Selissan coin were nearly half of Tollren's forces by now, having taken heavy casualties from Gaius's generalship early in the war.

Six months, assuming he didn't see the writing on the wall and sue for peace sooner.

It was a heft cost, yes. On the other hand, Halrun was managing it's debt well, ending the war would reduce the subsidy to South Zarsim, and solidify the kingdom as firmly in Halrun's orbit.

[ ][Debt Assumption] Accept the 102.25 Dureks at 4%. This will be added to Halrun's total debt load.
[ ][Debt Assumption] Don't accept the debt. With your support, financial and military, Gaius does still have an advantage. Press it more, make the Selissans and North Zarsites lose more men and money and they'll likely accept a deal better for Halrun and South Zarsim later.

---

"And to the left, now forward. To the left again. Turn. And spin. Then right. And - stop."

Vanessa let out a breath and stepped away from Essinya, feeling a flush in her cheeks - and the pale woman in front of her had a redness to her face and the top of her neck as well, though it was quickly fading as she took several quick, shallow breaths.

Weddings between royalty of two Kingdoms often featured elements of both realms cultures. But the Kingdom of The Necromancers was significantly different from Halrun in ways none of Vanessa's other suitors's realms would have been.

That included ways great and small... and the formal dances.

Formal dances in Halrun and much of the Tamildan speaking world, while subject to regional variances, tended to be very formalized and prizing a certain, naturalistic elegance in how one held themselves. Vanessa was not especially well versed in this dance style, which tended to involve the two partners holding hands and moving in parallel as much as it did having them face one another, forming specific patterns on the floor based on the specific dance.[1]

Darkmoon Forest favored a very different style. It was a slow, careful and almost stiff style of dance, not much moving beyond a prescribed area within whatever the dancing area was, trading off which foot led, which partner let, and more. But also critically, you didn't touch your dance partner - but you stood so close to them, limbs so close to being entangled, that the lack of touch was almost irrelevant to how... oddly intimate the dance felt.

Vanessa had very nearly tripped Essinya twice now, as they practiced the steps of the dance - having already practiced the Halrunian dance they'd be doing - her legs and Essinya's crossed over one another's paths, her hands close to Essinya's face, Essinya's close to her waist, their own faces close as they drew close, then pulled apart.

"Very good, Your Majesty," one of the Necrotic triplets, who was instructing Vanessa in this.

"Hardly." Vanessa countered, indulging the fact that honesty was her prerogative.

"For someone who only heard of this style two days ago? You are doing better than some might expect, Your Majesty." The triplet assured her.

"He's not lying, Vanessa, I promise." Essinya said quietly. "I tripped my partner more than once when I was learning this."

"And you were how old? Twelve?"

"Ten, but it is not an easy dance to get right. It is traditional to dance with a more experienced partner, if you don't already have someone to bring to the floor."

"So all the parts where you're making up for my mistakes on the spot?"

"Well within accepted norms." Essinya promised. "And if I may be so bold, I would say, even if you practice your traditional Halrunian dances better than I do, I think you're enjoying these dances just a little more." She offered a small smirk.

"Made entirely possible by you helping to... cover for my slip-ups, Essinya," Vanessa said in a low, almost husky whisper.

"Your Majesty, Milday Essinya, if you could please save your flirtations for the wedding ceremony itself," the triplet interjected, before Essinya could reply. "We do need to continue practicing-"

"I think it's time we took a break for a moment," Essinya cut in. "Wine, watered for the both of us, and the privacy of the room."

The Necrotic servant by the door nodded, and then Vanessa gestured to her own servant to fetch wine for herself as well, accepting Essinya's command.

Lady Castea and the triplet present both hesitated at the command but Vanessa also confirmed it was time for a break - she needed to rest her legs and feet for a few minutes anyway - and they left the room. There'd be Death Knights and Royal Guard outside the room, but they'd at least have a short time to speak before they needed to resume practice.

"Now then, Essinya, I believe that after our last meeting about the wedding you were telling me about your work with shadowstuff illusions?" Vanessa said, sitting down in a chair once the room was emptied, gesturing to a chair next to hers for Essinya to sit as well.

"I was. Specifically on the way I made the illusions have the... well, illusion of solidity..." Essinya dove into the details - there was more the two of them could discuss, would need to discuss, but their shared joy in the inner workings of magic was firm solid ground at times like this.

And Essinya smiled quite beautifully - if subtly - when she spoke about her work

---

There were many servants in the Royal Palace. Maids, launderers, cooks, servers, assistants, nightsoil attendants, specialized cleaners of the statuary and artwork and gods knew what else. It was impossible for Vanessa to keep track of them all - that's why she had stewards and castellans and majordomos.

Vanessa did her best to recognize faces and names, but she put the most effort for those of of the servants that were in and out of her chambers the most. Not just anyone was trusted to bring her food or drink, or make her bed, handle her clothing, and clean her chambers.

There were ways to poison someone through their clothing, their sheets, leave traps in their chambers - it was frankly dizzying, and Vanessa had been stunned just how many ways to kill her existed when Valefor and Commandant Vandalain had listed the off, including successful examples in the past - kings, nobles, well-to-do merchants, and even mages.

(That mages might seek to kill their rivals was unsurprising to Vanessa. That one mage might seek to do it by bribing a mage's servant to drip a slow-acting skin contact poison into their boots every night for a month was less so. It seemed mildly offensive, really. At least have the decency to kill your rival by slipping a cursed object into the clothing?)

And so, recently, Vanessa had decided to put some time into learning more about her closest of servants. She knew their names and a few basics already, but a little positive regard, and the occasional bonus - they were already well paid, but still - seemed like it might go a long way.

"I understand you sister's son has been given into your care, Garia?" Vanessa asked the maid tugging a new clean sheet over the mattress.

"I -" the maid started, then nodded after a moment, "Yes, he has."

"Is your sister well? You've been here regularly, so I don't think she'd have passed." Vanessa hardly handled requests for leave from her servants, but it was generally policy to let them attending weddings, funerals, births, and so forth as much as was practical. Even Syrokis had largely done that - with his closest servants, at least.

Garia looked over her shoulder at Vanessa, casting her eyes down quickly after a moment, then shook her head. "No, no your Majesty, she's not - she's not ill or anything like that." She returned to her work. "It's just my sister is - well, she's a useless sot, if you'll forgive my frankness your Majesty. Sold nearly everything she's ever owned for more drink, and then everything she makes when she can find work goes to more. She'd sell my nephew if she could, and finally I couldn't take it, so my husband and I convinced her to let us have him. Had it all done official-like at a shrine of Tyria a week back."

"Very kind of you to take him in." Vanessa praised. "I'm sorry about your sister."

"She's made her choices, Your Majesty. I've not had much hope for her in years." Garia shrugged, begging to fluff a pillow. She paused, "Begging your pardon, your Majesty, but why - why do you ask?"

"Put simple, Garia? I see you and the others who are trusted enough to service my chambers more often than most people, and I find myself wondering about all your lives. Working in the palace isn't exactly easy, and there are simpler jobs out there."

"Simpler, Your Majesty, but not better paying. Raising two daughters isn't cheap, and now with my nephew..." she shook her head. "My younger daughter, Resa? She's a clever gal with her numbers, and my husband and I are hoping to send her to learn to do the books for merchants or other shops or the like."

"Resa is... seven?" Vanessa hoed she was right.

"Eight, two months ago." Garia corrected hesitantly, and Vanessa nodded.

"Eight then. So not quite an age for an apprenticeship yet."

"No your majesty."

"And your eldest is fourteen?" Garia nodded. "Does she work in the palace?"

"No, she clean at in the mornings for a few shops. Nothing fancy, but it brings in some coin."

"She'd make more working here in the palace, even if she wouldn't be given anything truly sensitive. Do you think she could match the pace of work?"

Garia's expression brightened a moment, and she nodded quickly, eagerly. "Yes, yes, your Majesty, I do believe she could,"

"Well, when you're done here, tell Treloris," the chief maid, "to come speak with me. I'll tell her to give your daughter a chance here in the palaces, let her learn the way things are done here and see if she could can do the work."

"Thank you, your Majesty!" Garia said quickly. "That would be - that would be very kind of you."

"You've been nothing but an excellent maid, Garia. If you've raised and taught your daughter to be even half as efficient as you, I think the Majordomos will be thanking you."

---

1: https://www.medievaldanceonline.co.uk/the-basse-dance Loosely based on this.

---

Voting open. Go ahead and vote as you wish. Rejecting the Selissan offer now does not preclude trying again later. A Strong Hit would have of course offered better terms, more options. If the war in Zarsim goes Gaius's way and continues to go his way, then you may be able to wring better terms out of Selissa and North Zarsim later. Finance post coming this coming weekend.