I underestimated him. I seriously underestimated the king. Births outside of wedlock weren’t that uncommon, so I didn´t think he would probe too deeply into me. And yet he probably did.
He couldn’t have found out I was a vampire. The whole army who could possibly know was dead, the slaves I freed didn´t know, and I freed all of Arthur´s servants from their miserable lives.
Mary wouldn’t talk, she had too much to lose, alongside with Tom. Hannah … shouldn’t have the time and I highly doubted she had the guts to do so. The only questionable person who knew about my race was this whore, which was part of the reason I was in front of Hannah´s room with two letters in my hands.
“Wake up!” I hammered against the door with my fists until she finally opened her door, sleepy from all the running. “Here, bring that to Tom, and then go back immediately. Ask Mary for a permit or whatever you need for that. Afterwards, you go back and give this letter to Mary if Tom comes to this Mansion. Understood?”
“Uhh …” She muttered and rubbed her eyes. I didn´t know how long she did run the day before, but it must have been quite a long time. Her knees looked as if she fell quite a few times as well. Not that I cared.
“And keep an eye on Mary. If someone hurts her, I will do the same to you. So it´s better if you throw yourself in front of her from the very get go.” My motivational speeches were on point again. For real though, if Mary died, Hannah would follow suit soon afterwards.
I smiled happily as she nodded and twirled around on my heels. Without further ado, I strode down the hallway, took the stairs down into the foyer and boarded the carriage soon afterwards. This time, Hannah wouldn’t accompany me to the palace. Well, if she was with me, she could very well underline my innocence because I behaved like normal, or she could fuck everything up. And I had to avoid that scenario as much as possible.
The ten minutes towards the palace were nerve wrecking. I constantly went through all the possibilities I mapped out through the night, went through the answers I prepared and tried to ignore all the worst case possibilities. Dealing with the king at this stage wasn’t planned at all.
Nevertheless, my short journey came to an abrupt halt in front of the luxurious entrance. Unsurprisingly, a butler helped me out of the carriage. Thus far, everything was normal, even though the butler let me to another destination. Obviously, I chatted with him a bit along the way, but he neither knew what was going on, nor what the king could want from me.
I wasn’t let inside the throne room directly. Instead, I had to wait another twenty minutes, possibly to weaken my spirit or make me nervous. I knew such tactics too well to mind them. And so, a guard let me into the most important place of this building. He didn´t search for any hidden weapons, which was definitely a good sign.
With a clear mind, I strode into the luxurious room over the red carpet and curtsied a few metres in front of the king. At first, he had absolutely no interest in me as I stood there, my gaze directed slightly towards the ground while he talked to an advisor of some sorts.
Ten guards stood in front of the pillars which were holding up the ceiling. They didn´t focus me, but they certainly all had an eye on me. None of them seemed too bothered by my presence though.
Still a bit tense, I noticed how the king´s advisor stepped away from him and proceeded to walk to a smaller door. The king finally focused his attention on me.
“I heard you and my son got closer?” I showed absolutely no reaction and kept my usual smile, but my mind was racing. The wording on the letter we received seemed a little off for this to be a friendly conversation about his son. So in a sense, this could very well be a ruse to make me relax.
“A bit. We had quite a few friendly conversation, but I don’t think he likes me that much.” I said and blinked a few times in an attempt to portray myself as rather flustered.
“Is that so? You seem to have a rather tight grip on him though. I must admit, it was rather interesting to watch how he helped the butlers for a whole weekend.” He said and laughed loudly. Truly, this must have been a fascinating sight for everyone.
“You are exaggerating, your majesty.” I replied but couldn’t help but to smirk a bit as well.
“Maybe, maybe not. But it is a fact that he talks about you rather often … even if it isn´t always in a positive way.” Well, so far, so good. The prince was boosting my popularity, which was exactly what I wanted from him. And yet, I couldn’t help to think that this wasn’t the real reason I was there. “In any case, you aren’t here today because of your relation to my son. Mr. Schlaumeier informed me you are quite intelligent.”
“I never heard such things from him.” I said and frowned slightly. It was true that I could have dumbed myself down a bit in our lessons, but then I would have to listen to his boring lessons.
“And you probably never will. You must be some kind of monster for him to praise you while you are around. In any case, I wanted to chat with you about all kind of things. Politics, economics, you name it.”
“Your majesty, I doubt I am wise enough to take on your advisors in that regard.” I admitted.
“Your opinion may differ from them though. You apparently have quite the unique perspective.” He said, resting his chin on his hands.
“If you insist.” I said with racing thoughts. If this was some kind of trap, I couldn’t really avoid it.
“Great. You have a hundred gold coins, what do you spend it on?”
“That depends on my situation, your majesty.” I stated.
“Let´s say you are poor.” Drugs. Gotta escape reality somehow.
“Education or for a long lasting income.” I said firmly.
“Middle Class?” Still drugs. My business partners probably wouldn’t mind one or two joints at a meeting.
“Valuable property.” I stated.
“A noble?” He asked swiftly afterwards.
Drugs? Well, that would be too close to reality.
“On the citizens.” I answered, completely in line with my angel-like behaviour.
“And if you are at war?” He was changing the situation so swiftly, that I started to wonder when the tricky question would come.
“On peace …” For my innocent image! For real though, even in war times drugs would do wonders.
“What if you are losing? If the enemy doesn’t want peace?” I paused a second and closed my eyes.
“Your majesty, I am not a military advisor. I have my own opinion on the war with the elves, but this is frankly speaking not the place for me to voice them.” I stated.
“Mr. Schlaumeier wasn’t wrong. You are rather quick to catch up. Go on, say what you think.” He said, a smile around his lips as if he found a new toy.
“Your majesty, it is a wonder the elves didn´t attack right away after we lost our army. There must be more to it than we know, so maybe they aren’t in a position to attack themselves. Peace may be possible in this case.” I stated.
“We highly doubt that. Everyone in my court prepares for an attack around spring.” And I highly doubted that. The elves had a few problems on their own and their king was cautious of me. He had no reason to attack, especially because I was bringing him exactly what he desired.
“You asked for a different opinion.” I said, a bit quieter than usual.
“And you delivered. How would you deal with the latest catastrophe without any money to spare?” asked he, changing the topic once again. Either he wanted me to make a mistake, or he desired to cover as many topics as he could.
“Are you saying …” This king either didn´t want to spend a dime on his citizens, or he was as broke as my own family.
“The war has a higher priority.” If he wouldn’t be able to calm the impending anger of his citizens though, there would be no war to fight for though.
“… incentivise others to take care of the problem.” I said. On the one hand, stating this was quite the risky move because I usually wouldn’t say something like this as Lucy White, but I hoped for him to ask Mary to do it.
“And how would that look like?” That question was relatively easy to answer. After all, I had already planned out everything.
“Host a donation gala. Make it a race for the nobles to gift as much as they can towards a good cause. They can profile themselves as saviours while the citizens can use the funds to rebuild.” And when the local nobles refused to help, the king could use them as a scapegoat. Problem solved, no matter how it went.
“You are quite shrewd.” He stated after a longer pause.
“As long as I can help others …” I whispered, just loud enough for him to understand it.
“Great. Take care of it for me, will you?” He baffled me. I wanted him to ask Mary, not to push it onto me. Either way, I would do most of the work, but no noble would support such a donation gala.
“… I … couldn’t possibly. I´m only ten years old.” I muttered.
“Ah, I may have misspoken there. You will take care of it.” This man … I seriously didn’t understand him at all.
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“It´s … an honour.” I claimed, even though the exact opposite was the case.
“You may leave now.” What in the world had gotten into him? I knew I was capable enough to do what he asked me to, but there should be no reason to chose me. Zero. There had to be way better candidates than me with a better record. Especially my age was a real problem.
Hesitantly, I turned around, fully expecting to be stopped again. There had to be more to it, nobody would be insane enough to do what he just did. I assumed he wanted me to relax, now that it was over, but it didn´t really work. As such, I wasn’t really surprised as he spoke to me again as I was halfway out of the room.
“How old were you again?” I turned around slowly, my smile still plastered on my face.
“Ten, your majesty, ten.” I explained. Slowly I was starting to understand why I was here. It was probably because of a hunch. Nothing more, nothing less.
“You sure don’t act like it.” He said, seemingly convinced that I wasn’t what I claimed to be. The distance made reading the light in his eyes an impossible task as well, leaving me with nothing but my intuition to guide me through the rest of this conversation.
“I hear that quite often.” I said, which was kind of true.
“That may be because of your knowledge.” He stated. If that was the only clue he had, he would be going nowhere.
“Pardon?” I asked, as if I didn´t knew what he was talking about.
“Your opinions are quite unique, but still founded in reality. You must have read quite a few books in the past, despite living as a farm girl.” He said. True, my origin and knowledge didn´t fit at all. But I could claim whatever I wanted about my past and he had no way of actually confirming it … he shouldn’t have.
“My mother did send me quite a few books.” All my knowledge came from books. It was pretty easy to prove as well, if he really wanted to.
“Interesting. And who taught you how to read?” That was the first question that threw me slightly off guard. I expected him to talk more about my knowledge, definitely not about a very distant thing in the past.
“My father, your majesty.” I claimed reluctantly.
“Literacy is quite low amongst the villagers.” Well, we never lived near any village, but whatever.
“He was exceptional.” I said. With no way of refuting my claim, that should be it.
“I heard so as well. Hiding a noble for so long must have been quite the herculean task.” But he still probed further into the topic, as if there was something to gain from it.
“Indeed. It was.” I said, slowly grasping what he found out about me.
“Do you miss him?” He asked, a smile on his face that said more than anything else.
“Dearly.” I stated quietly.
“I have good news for you then. He is alive and well.” My thoughts froze in place for a milliseconds. This was what he found out. We should have killed the guy after burning down his house. Afterwards we should have thrown the girl into an orphanage somewhere far, far away and the problem should have been dealt with.
I didn´t know how, nor had the audacity to ask the king, but he must have found out part of the truth. I opened my eyes wider, but quickly closed them again. It was an attempt to show him that he caught me off guard, which was only partly the case.
“You must have found a pretender. My father is dead.” I said. There was still hope the guy wasn’t trustworthy enough.
“He was paid handsomely though. Two times in fact as he guided my soldiers to the hood your mother later claimed to be your home.” It was way too soon for that. It was only announced that my father died a few days enough … which meant the peasant betrayed us from the start. “You are not the person you claim to be.” He squinted his eyes. The soldiers around me gripped their weapons tighter, but didn´t charge at me yet.
“And what did I claim?” asked I, tilting my head out of curiosity. It wasn’t a complete change in behaviour, but enough for the king to feel a bit satisfied.
“You are Lucy White, daughter of the duchess of the east and a peasant.”
“My birth was properly documented.”
“That can be forged, especially for someone as wealthy as a duke. And it is too bad the only person who could testify your birth is dead … on a sidenote, where have you been raised if your father isn´t the peasant?” He asked, changing the topic once again in an attempt to squeeze out the truth. I shortly considered introducing the only person I had faith in to lie to the king to play my father … but it was Tom I was thinking about …
“.. in the mansion.” I answered. Every servant there was dead and those who left before that wouldn’t be able to testify I wasn’t there. Claiming I was raised there was possible, but quite hard to prove or disprove.
“Sadly, nobody can actually prove that fact either … who is your father.”
“…” I needed something to convince him. A dead butler as my father wasn’t going to make it. We had no reason to choose another human as my father then which is exactly what we did.
“Lucy, you are quite the bright girl, aren’t you? You know what situation you are in.” I knew very well. Everything I worked on so far would crumble away if I couldn’t convince the king. And I only had one way out of it.
“… I can´t” I said slowly.
“You leave me no other choice. Guards.” The knights, walked towards me, their hands on their swords even though they were still in their scabbards. They didn´t see me as a threat at all. Well, daylight shone into the room, so there was basically no way I could win. If I fought that is.
“Wait!” I shouted, seemingly in panic. Not everything was lost. The guards stopped walking towards me as the king lifted his hand, convinced he would hear the truth now. “There is no father.”
“Excuse me?” He asked after a short chuckle.
“I don’t have a father. My mother got pregnant without having any intercourse.” I simply claimed. I couldn’t make up an imaginary father anymore, so I stuck to the truth as much as possible.
“Lucy … that a laughable attempt.” He said and squinted his eyes.
“My father is a god.” I claimed.
“And that is blasphemy.” He said, not really furious, but quite agitated.
“That is why we tried to hide everything.” I stated. It was a plausible answer for everything so far.
“You would have to prove such a thing.” Even though it was extremely unlikely I spoke the truth, he couldn’t rule it out either. After all, nobody ever saw an eleven year old girl who would brazenly claim to be a demigod.
“I can … you need to give me some time though … I haven’t inherited any godly powers.” I said.
“And how do you want to prove it then?” He asked, finally waving the guards back to their posts.
“I´ll ask my father.” I seriously didn´t want to. Asking Aska for something was always a hassle, especially because he was probably still furious because I asked the whore to intrude into my mind. But there was simply no other choice. I had to ask the most unreliable god I could think of. My torturer, creator and person I loved.
“Hmm … you know what? Sure. You have a week. If you try to run away, or do anything stupid, all your family assets will be confiscated.” I hadn’t convinced the king so far, but getting a postponement to my sentence was definitely better than anything I could have hoped for. For a short moment, I saw something in his eyes. Curiosity. I was partly saved by goddamn curiosity.
The White´s family had nothing to put against the king. Our standing was already destabilized by the looming threat on the horizon and we were politically alienated due to our stance on the war. Curiosity was what saved me, but it was honestly better than anything I could ever hope for.
“Thank you, your majesty.” I said and curtsied, deeper than ever before.
“You may leave now.” He said, satisfied with the result. After all, he had nothing to fear, except for the wrath of the gods. The second reason I wasn’t thrown into prison. Except that, there was absolutely nothing we could use against him. Searching for something within a week was also quite the impossible task.
So, I had to do something I absolutely hated.
Praying.