Read Puppets and Puppeteers :: Chapter IX - Business (Part I)

It has been one week since the prospectus duke Llywelyn Conwenna arrived; also, a week since his imprisonment started. We have guards stationed in the perimeter and only one maid to serve his meals. Except for her, he hasn’t seen anyone. Princess Astrea sends him letters every day, questioning him. But all his answers were considerate inadequate.

Today, Mrs. Wa Yuexi scheduled a meeting. Her associates, Ms. Ionesco and Ms. Bandyopadhyay, have been working with some selected servants to collect some materials. Even as the head of the servants, I’m not fully aware of the objective behind all this. Earlier, they asked for a grand room and positioned many plant pots and animal bones. I had the strange sensation that some ritual would take place in that room.

“Naava”, the princess called me while they finished organizing, “I’ll see my brother for a moment. But it won’t take long. Tell the maids to help them finish and come with me. Oh, and bring some tea. Brother must be thirsty”.

“Of course, your highness”.

We went to the distant room where her brother was being kept. She opened the door and the prospectus duke looked at us. I haven’t seen him since they brough him here; his demeanor has changed completely. His hair was a mess; his normally shaved face disappeared; his eyes were red signalizing the lack of sleep.

“What do you want, dear sister?”, he hissed.

“Don’t forget, brother. You are a guest in my room. I’m allowed to go wherever I want here. While you, must behave. And, according to my maid’s report, you’ve been a terrible guest”.

“I’m not your guest, I’m your prisoner”.

“We are not there, yet. If you were our prisoner, you wouldn’t be in such a beautiful bedroom, and you wouldn’t have a bathroom”.

“You are not allowed to...”

“Shhh”, she said with a finger on her lips. “You better not say what I’m allowed or not. You’re in my house, and here I’m the one giving orders. You must obey them. Otherwise, things will get much worse. You don’t want that, do you?”

“You fu...”

He tried to say something, but she put one hand on her lips and the other quickly drew the sword she kept under her skirt.

“Now, let’s all calm down. I don’t want to dirty the floor. Have some respect for the maids’ work, won’t you dear brother?”, she smiled. “Naava, get some pen and paper. Take note of everything. Ah, and if this doesn’t go well, send my other brothers some letters”.

“Other brothers?”, duke Llywellyn protested. “I’m your only brother”.

“You forgot about dad’s terrible habit of making kids and abandoning them? I can’t believe it! Especially when those kids are coming for your neck every single day”.

“You are betraying me to ally with those frauds?”.

“Well, I may have left my house, but the Conwenna name stuck to me. I can’t let it be dragged in the mud because the family is full of incompetent men. You can let the family be ruined, if you want, but I’m a filial daughter. I can’t do that”.

“You are no filial daughter; you are a deranged wench”.

Before he finished his words, Astrea had drawn her sword and positioned it against his neck.

“I thought we could have an amicable and polite discussion, but I’m starting to believe I can’t. What do you think? Should we go back to talking or should I give you another sword and let’s see who draws the first blood? Let me tell you before that Ewan is a great teacher, and we have spent a lot of time using this blade”. Duke Llywellyn couldn’t say a word, his eyes stuck on Astrea’s that showed the soul of a killer. He stayed there for a few seconds, sweating like a pig about to be slaughtered. Finally, he murmured.

“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”.