The Pig's Birthday
His methods had been wrong—wrong by a country mile—but the intent itself had been for his son's sake.
"There's no way. The father who's left me to rot all this time?"
Hearing Cassion say it made my conviction wobble ever so slightly, but I kept my voice steady. "I may have leapt to conclusions about him coming to lend you strength, but I'm quite certain His Majesty won't interfere with your business or mine."
"And if he does?"
I shrugged. "What does the alternative matter? Whatever His Majesty is thinking, one thing is certain—we're climbing to the very top either way. Since we're going regardless, we may as well assume the version that works in our favor."
I jabbed a finger toward the ceiling, once, twice. Now that my mind was made up, there was no reversing it. The only road left to us ran straight ahead, and I had no intention of turning back anyway.
"Haah... fine. Let's say you're right and His Majesty doesn't hate me. Then what? My letters go unanswered as it is—am I supposed to request an audience?"
"Requests for an audience are all cut off at Julia's end. Frankly, I have my doubts whether Your Highness's letters ever reached His Majesty at all."
I'd found it endearing that he'd tried at all, so I hadn't said anything at the time—but when Cassion mentioned the letters, I had suspected Karman never received them. Julia could easily have intercepted them along the way.
Now that she knew I was coming and going here, there was no chance she'd let her watch over Cassion's household slacken. No matter how busy she was with Phoenix Bank.
Julia had form, after all. Once before, she had intercepted letters bound for Karman, and it had ended in raised voices between them. That was just the once she'd been caught—the odds were far better that she was a repeat offender. Afterward, Karman went on to replace everyone around him suspected of belonging to Julia, but... that was something that wouldn't happen until much later.
"My letters... never arrived?"
"It's possible. So meet him in person and ask. Whether he received them and simply never replied—and if he didn't, why."
Cassion sank into thought for a moment, eyes lowered, rubbing absently at his thumbnail.
"Is there a way?" he asked. He had made up his mind to meet Karman.
"Would I have brought this up without a way to make it happen? Dayson's birthday is right around the corner!"
Cassion's brow furrowed. "How do you know when Dayson's birthday is?"
"Huh? I'm sorry—what?"
"Don't tell me... you proposed to Dayson before you proposed to me?"
How on earth did the conversation end up there?
"As if! Don't you dare entertain that thought even in your dreams. I hold that Dayson in less regard than dust!"
At first I was flustered; then I was furious. Cassion flinched at the violence of my reaction, and hot breath came huffing furiously out of my nose.
"Okay. Yeah, got it. I know you hate Dayson," Cassion said, watching my face warily.
Had I overdone it?
"Then why would you say something so disgusting?"
It was a little embarrassing, losing my composure over a single remark—but there was nothing for it. Dayson, Count Kolkos, and Julia were the buttons that set off my rage.
"Well, from where I stand, it's the kind of thing a man could misread. You claim to hate Dayson, yet you know his birthday off the top of your head—that's odd, isn't it? If I told you I knew Julia's birthday, wouldn't you find that strange?"
The comparison hit far too close to the bone. Goosebumps prickled up my arms.
"Understood, Your Highness. Let's pick up where we left off. About Dayson's birthday."
"Right. That pig's birthday."
"Please don't insult the pig."
"I can't bear to put his name in my mouth. What else am I supposed to do?"
"Then let's simply never say it."
"Deal. First thing we've agreed on in a while."
Somehow, every conversation with Cassion kept wandering off down side paths. Perhaps because we had so much to say to each other and so little time. Or perhaps because, at least on the surface, we were the same age, and sharing the same enemies made it easy to relax around him.
I had better wrap up the original topic before it slipped away again. "As I was saying—the birthday of the one whose name we don't speak."
Cassion nodded. The way his body listed over the table told me his strength was beginning to run out.
I rose and fetched cushions. Without being told, Cassion bent forward, and I slipped one behind his back and another in front of his stomach. He gathered the front one into his arms and rested his head upon it.
Next time I'll have to bring him a teddy bear. It would suit him so much better than a cushion.
And there I went again, thinking useless things as I watched him hug it.
"Hurry up and talk. I'm tired," Cassion urged. I hastily shelved the pointless thought and pressed on.
"You see, princes are usually given a morning banquet on their birthdays."
"They are?"
Cassion looked as though he were hearing news from another world. Come to think of it, he had never once had a birthday banquet in his life.
Karman, you awful, awful man! I couldn't bring myself to defend him any longer. To think that, on top of shutting this small, delicate boy away in a castle—small, yes, though no one in his right mind would ever call him delicate—he hadn't even seen fit to mark his birthday.
"Your Highness, on your birthday, I'll throw you a banquet—dinner, luncheon, breakfast, the whole works."
"What rubbish are you spouting? What would you even do for the birthday of the one whose name goes unsaid? Just get on with the story."
He could brush me off all he liked; I had already resolved to show him the full measure of my devotion when his own birthday came around.
"The whole royal family attends. And a handful of nobles as well."
A separate banquet was held in the evening, but the ministers the king held especially dear were invited from morning onward. Since no one could know which prince would inherit the throne, the unspoken message was clear: make their acquaintance early, and stay close.
My father received an invitation every single year. This year, the card had come too.
Even after Father passed, the card kept arriving. But it never reached my hands—by then the matter of my guardianship had been settled, and Count Kolkos received it, attending in my place.
It had been right around the time I'd started growing close to Dayson, so there was no reason the invitation couldn't have been passed along to me—and the more I turned it over, the stranger it seemed. Had Count Kolkos kept it from me to shore up his own power base?
"So you're suggesting we go there?"
"Yes."
"And do what once we're there?"
"Get his blessing on our marriage."
He slumped his full weight against the cushion I'd wedged between his side and the table. I'd braced for some grand reaction; watching him simply go limp sapped my energy in sympathy.
"Talking to you wears me out."
"Which is your way of saying you like my plan?"
He shook his head, though he raised no objection.
"Your Highness, does it trouble you that I'm pushing this so fast?"
"What is there to trouble me? If you're right, then marrying you means nothing but good things from then on."
His tone didn't exactly drip with conviction, but I let it pass.
"But more than that—Diana."
His voice was growing fainter by the word. He'd be asleep before long.
"Yes, Your Highness. Go ahead."
The color lingering in his face was slowly draining away. I found myself wondering when the day would come when he could romp about until he dropped and still beg for more.
"Do we really have to call that fellow 'the one whose name is too much hassle to say'? It's exhausting."
I supposed even the length of the phrase was too much for him.
"Fair enough. Let's just go with 'that bastard.'"
"Or better yet... let's not mention him at all..."
And with those words, Cassion slipped into a deep sleep.
So much for 'I can't sleep when there's someone else in the room.' What a barefaced lie.
I gently smoothed back the hair that had tumbled over Cassion's forehead and called for Flac.
"Yes, my lady."
"Please carry His Highness to the bed."
Only once Flac had carefully lifted Cassion and laid him down did I take my leave of the palace. A peaceful afternoon, the first in a long while—and I prayed, with all my heart, that the peace would last.
A stretch of comparatively calm, quiet days followed. Thanks to the uproar I had unleashed at Phoenix Bank a while back, the bank's reserves were draining away by the day. Its president threw himself into damage control by every means he could devise, but the situation only went from bad to worse.
It was just about time to start toying with the bankruptcy card.
Jenice set out snacks on the table.
"The president of Phoenix Bank will be shopping for someone to hand the bank over to."
Loomdrax's hand shot out first. He delivered the line around a mouthful of snack—almost word for word what I had been thinking.
These days, Loomdrax was staying at the estate in the capacity of my tutor. I could still picture Matthew's face going white the day I first presented him as such. If I needed a teacher, Matthew had complained, wounded, why on earth hadn't I said so beforehand?
From then on he had trained a wary edge on this unfamiliar outsider. Loomdrax played the genial gentleman to perfection, but Matthew was having none of it—a man did not survive well over twenty years as House Ehrenberg's butler by being easy prey.
Matthew announced that he would personally vet whether Loomdrax was qualified to serve as my teacher, and Loomdrax, thanking him graciously for the opportunity, followed him into his study.
Even knowing what a formidable swindler Loomdrax was, I had secretly been a bundle of nerves. My misgivings proved utterly needless: he strolled through Matthew's exacting examination without so much as a wrinkle in his composure. According to Jenice, in front of Matthew he had been the very textbook image of a fine educator.
"You weren't even in the room. How do you know all that so precisely?"
"...I heard about it."
Truly, no one under that roof picked up news faster than Jenice. She never left my side, yet when and where she heard half of these things remained an eternal mystery to me. At any rate, even the deeply suspicious Matthew had been taken in, and quite beautifully at that.
At this rate, who's to say I won't be next?
Stay cautious, I warned myself, and we moved on to discussing the next move.
"Build a friendly rapport with the president of Phoenix Bank. Introducing yourself as a major investor would be an elegant way in."
"He might ask me to invest a fortune."
"Then look reluctant. Tell him Phoenix Bank's present state hardly inspires confidence for a sum that size. And don't forget to slip a few questions about the bank's management into the conversation."
Loomdrax set down the cookie he was eating and kicked himself upright on the sofa, sitting properly at last. Cookie crumbs scattered in every direction. It astonished me every time, this conduct that wanted nothing to do with the courtesy that was supposedly his true self. To think a man like that could turn into a gentleman in the space of a heartbeat.
"Diana."
"Yes? Go ahead."
"I'm being serious right now."
A swindler announcing his own sincerity—the notion inspired exactly zero trust. I gave a perfunctory nod.
"Become my disciple."
"I'm already your disciple on paper."
And here I had assumed he was working up to something. What drivel.
"I'm telling you I'm serious?"
Only then did I turn his words over in my mind, properly this time.
My expression crumpled. Loomdrax was telling me to become a swindler.