He grimaces but doesn’t disagree. “No,” he says. “The crime rate has even gone up in recent weeks. I just heard that the jail will have to have twice-weekly executions now because the cells are too full.”
Sophronia nods. “So,” she says. “All of those people—even more people—have decided that even though they very well might die for it, it’s worth stealing. How desperate does a person have to be to make that choice, Leopold? Those boys were children. They should have been out playing with their friends, like your brothers do. Instead they decided to risk their lives stealing from people more fortunate than them. You should seek to understand why.”
He doesn’t speak for a moment, so she continues.
“It’s a question I’ve been thinking a lot about,” she admits, seeing her opening. “And I even took the liberty of looking over my household bills. I’ve spent well over five million asters, just in the two weeks since I arrived.”
He frowns. “Is that…a lot?” he asks.
Sophronia forces herself not to roll her eyes. “Yes,” she says. “Even one million asters would be enough to buy food for everyone in Kavelle for a month. I checked. And most of it went toward gifts for people I’ve never met, parties I never wanted to throw, services I never requested. Did you know that the curtains in our bedroom are steamed three times a day at a cost of a hundred asters a steam? Which is a lot,” she adds, because he still looks confused. “I believe most of these payments are billed recurrently every week or month, left over from when it was your mother’s household. It’s an oversight, easy enough to fix, but I suspect we might find similar oversights in your own records, and the records of other households that the crown supports financially. Your mother, your aunt, your brothers, anyone else who relies on your kindness. Our kindness.”
Leopold’s brow furrows. “You wish to examine their accounts?” he asks. “I can’t imagine they’ll take kindly to you monitoring their spending.”
“They don’t have to know,” Sophronia says, offering him a small smile. “Unless I find something truly alarming.”
“I don’t know, Sophie,” Leopold says. “It’s our money, and we can afford the luxuries our station demands.”
“Our money,” she repeats, staring at Leopold for a long moment as something clicks into place. “Leopold…where do you think our money comes from?” she asks.
He shrugs. “Never really thought much about it, to be honest, but I imagine it’s in a vault somewhere, maybe beneath the palace?”
It takes all of her self-control not to shake him. “It comes from taxes, Leo,” she says. “Every month, we collect taxes from the people for the privilege of living in our country. They send money to their landowners as well, whatever duke or count or earl owns the ground their house sits on. Almost every last aster in the palace comes from the pockets of the same people who are so desperate for money they are willing to risk their lives to steal it.”
He stares at her as if she is speaking gibberish. He sits up a bit straighter, his brow deeply furrowed. “Are you sure?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“I had no idea,” he murmurs. Silence stretches out between them, Leopold deep in thought and Sophronia watching him. It’s possible, she thinks, that he is not cruel, merely oblivious. She isn’t sure if that’s better or worse.
“Leopold, can you request the latest tax laws from around the country?” she asks him.
He nods. “I’ll ask about it today,” he says.
“I’d also like to take you up on your offer to join in on your council meetings,” she says. “When is the next one?”
Beatriz finds Gisella in a compromising position—her back pressed against the wall of a dimly lit corridor, her arms snaked around the neck of a handsome boy Beatriz vaguely recognizes as the son of an earl.
When Gisella hears her clear her throat, she tears her mouth away from the boy’s and blinks at Beatriz as if coming out of a daze. She doesn’t appear at all embarrassed by the circumstances, instead offering Beatriz a bright smile, her red lip paint smeared.
Beatriz immediately likes her even more.
You don’t need to like her, her mother’s voice whispers through her mind, but Beatriz ignores it, just as she always tries to ignore her mother’s voice, with mixed results.
“Your Highness,” Gisella says, shoving the boy’s shoulder away and dipping into a brief curtsy.
She might not be embarrassed, but the boy is, his face turning as red as Gisella’s lips as he hastily falls into a deep bow.
“Lady Gisella,” Beatriz says, trying to stifle a smirk. “Might I have a word?”
The boy bows again, stammering out an apology Beatriz doesn’t pay attention to. Gisella links her arm through hers and throws the boy a brilliant smile.
“I’m sure I’ll see you again soon, Lord Elio,” she says before following Beatriz down the hall.
“Your lip paint,” Beatriz tells her.
“Oh,” she says, pulling a silver compact mirror from the pocket of her gown and opening it, examining her reflection and running a finger around the line of her lips, cleaning up the red smears. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, it seemed to be going well,” Beatriz says. “Pas said you were looking for a husband—it looks like you found a handsome one.”
“Yes, well, if I don’t find one soon, my father will pick one for me, and I certainly don’t want that,” Gisella tells her, rolling her eyes. “Elio is wealthy enough to appease my father but young and handsome enough that it doesn’t seem like a total chore. Besides, he’s so frightened of me I doubt he would deny me my freedom. I could do a lot worse.”
It occurs to Beatriz that Gisella could do a lot better than a boy who’s terrified of her, but she can’t deny there is some logic there. And she can’t even bring herself to pity the other girl her choices—she still has more than Beatriz does.
“I wanted to thank you,” she tells Gisella. “For sending Lord Savelle my way. I was finally able to make his acquaintance and learn news of my sister.”
And, she doesn’t add, now that she’s made his acquaintance it has become easy to maintain it. She has taken to joining him on his morning walks in the sea garden. The first couple of mornings, it was difficult to force herself out of bed, but she quickly began to look forward to the walks. They don’t talk often, but the silence is comfortable and the conversations they do share are refreshing to Beatriz after all the false friendliness of the Cellarian courtiers. He’s told her, quite honestly, about his early years in Cellaria, the adjustments he had to make, the resentment he’s felt. He’s told her about Temarin, a land she knows she might one day see, though it will look quite different under her mother’s rule by then. He’s told her about his daughter, too—little things, like her favorite color and how she had a terrible singing voice but he misses the sound of it. He’s shared himself so freely that Beatriz can tell he’s been lonely, but she belatedly realizes she enjoys their morning strolls so much because she’s lonely too.