Once she has the hang of it, she begins to draft a letter from King Bartholomew to her mother.
Dear Margaraux,
I’m glad we could settle upon a new marriage contract for Daphne and Bairre—I know it was not the original match, but I wholeheartedly believe that they will one day be the right king and queen to lead a united Friv and Bessemia.
On that note, I’ve reason to believe there are rebels in Friv who are conspiring against that future and mean to move against us. I humbly ask that in the interest of our alliance, you assist in sending troops to put an end to it. Perhaps you could use your influence with Temarin as well, since their power in war is legendary and they, too, have a vested interest in our united future.
Your loyal ally, Bartholomew, King of Friv
Daphne reads the letter again, wondering if perhaps she should specify what Temarin’s interest is, but she decides it’s better to let the imagination of the rebels run wild. This on its own will be enough to work Cliona and her group into a frenzy. Satisfied, she picks the seal up and holds it over the candle for a moment before pressing it to the paper, beside the forged signature, and pushes down, just as she saw the king do. When she lifts it, the wax seal is there, yellow with a spot of bruise purple in the middle.
That done, she wraps the king’s seal in a thick wool scarf along with the sample of his handwriting. She hides the bundle in a box she brought with her from Bessemia—a plain wooden thing on the outside, but with a hidden compartment in the domed lid just big enough for her purposes. Then she fills the main compartment of the box with another wool scarf that she bought in town with Cliona, and a letter from her to Sophronia.
When Sophronia comes back to her sitting room after lunch, she finds Violie waiting with an armful of papers, looking quite pleased with herself.
“Please tell me that’s not my correspondence,” Sophronia says, eyeing the stack—there must be hundreds of papers there. She knows Beatriz is prone to rambling in her letters, but this seems like a new extreme.
“They’re bills,” Violie tells her, dropping them on the round table, which has been cleared since Sophronia’s earlier coffee with Queen Eugenia. “I did a bit of asking around, but this was all I could access. It’s only for your household, but I thought it might help.”
“Did you look at them yet?” Sophronia asks. She knows she’ll find no war chest funds noted alongside her dressmaker’s bill, but Violie is right—it will be helpful. Especially since, until recently, Sophronia’s household was Eugenia’s.
Violie shakes her head. “No, Your Majesty. I’m afraid I can’t read, so it would all be gibberish to me. But Mrs. Ladslow—she’s the woman in charge of your accounting—assured me that all the relative documents are here.”
“Oh,” Sophronia says, cheeks reddening. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“No worries at all,” Violie says. “Did you want to take a look at these? Or should I bring them back to Mrs. Ladslow?”
“No, I’ll take a look,” Sophronia says, sitting down at the table and reaching for the topmost piece of paper.
“Would you like any tea? Coffee?” Violie asks.
“No, but some help would be appreciated,” Sophronia says, motioning to the seat across from her.
Violie hesitates. “As I said, I can’t read.”
“That’s fine,” Sophronia tells her. “I’ll read aloud and we can pick our way through. You’ve been in Temarin longer than I have. I’m sure you have insights to add.”
“If you say so, Your Majesty,” Violie says.
“Sophie,” Sophronia corrects. “You can save yourself some breath and I can stop expecting my mother to be standing behind me.”
Violie smiles. “Sophie, then,” she says.
“This one is for the brunch I hosted last week for Leopold’s cousin’s daughter’s birthday,” Sophronia says, scanning the sums. She reads the numbers three times to make sure they’re right. “It cost ten thousand asters? I wasn’t aware we were giving out stardust-coated gold nuggets as party favors.”
Violie laughs. “You aren’t far off, actually,” she says. “The sparkling wine was imported from Cellaria. Five hundred asters a bottle, and the guests were quite thirsty. There were other costs, but I believe that was the biggest one.”
“Who arranged the menu?” Sophronia asks. “I don’t recall approving any of this.”
“Queen Eugenia said you shouldn’t be bothered with such minuscule details, so she reused a menu from a previous brunch she hosted,” Violie says.
Interesting, Sophronia thinks. Five hundred asters a bottle isn’t unheard of for sparkling wine, but for a brunch? And the fact that it was imported from Cellaria piques Sophronia’s curiosity. She wonders what else that money paid for.
“I remember that sparkling wine,” she says after a moment. “Can you find the name of the vineyard? Since Eugenia is so fond of it, I might want to order a bottle for her birthday.”
If Violie thinks it an odd request, she doesn’t show it. “Of course, Your—Sophie, I mean.”
Sophronia goes back to reading. She decides to break the stack of bills into groups—events, clothing, décor, food, and other. It quickly becomes clear that other is primarily made up of gifts to various courtiers. She recognizes the bill for the bracelet she had sent to Duchess Bruna when she hired Violie from her, one thousand asters, but there are others she has no knowledge of. In the last two weeks alone, she appears to have made gifts of everything from a prize Frivian stud horse to Lord Verimé to a summer estate on the southeastern border for the Croist family.
“I have yet to meet half of these people,” she says to Violie. “Did Queen Eugenia arrange these gifts as well?”
Violie frowns. “If so, the request didn’t come through me, though it’s possible there is still some confusion between your household and hers. Perhaps the gifts were billed to you as a mistake.”
Or Eugenia is using me to cover her tracks, Sophronia thinks. Not all of the gifts come from Cellaria, but Sophronia notices that all of the luxury items, like jewels, silks, wine, and apparently even horses, weren’t bought in Temarin but imported from other countries, meaning the money spent didn’t go into Temarin’s economy at all. A coincidence, maybe, but the coincidences are piling up, and combined with Sir Diapollio’s letter, a sinking suspicion has firmly taken root in Sophronia’s gut.
It isn’t proof, she reminds herself. She can’t go to her mother with anything less than solid proof.
When she’s halfway through the stack, she pauses, rubbing her temples to stave off the headache blooming behind her eyes.
“That bad?” Violie asks.