Chapter 21 #2
“She’ll be fine, Scottie. Let her rest and process.”
“What do you do when you find out your political enemy has the same blood in their veins as you? I didn’t think she’d have to return to Perrigwynn.”
“She can return the way she came—by Helo One. The flight is forty minutes. As for when your political enemy is your cousin? Well, I don’t recommend starting a war,” he said.
She smiled. “Speaking of…how was lunch with your mom?”
“Things went…well,” he said with single nod. “I took a page from your book.”
“What page would that be?”
“Forgiveness. We chose love over war. Anger, hate, resentment, all of that is so exhausting.”
Scottie zipped up her rucksack, leaving the painting of Wenthelen with Kate. “Do you think we did the right thing in telling her?”
“Why second-guess? We’ve told her. What’s done is done.”
* * *
Michael
Perrigwynn Palace
Port Fressa
Four days later, he gathered in the Audience Room of Her Majesty’s private apartment with an esteemed company of leaders.
There was Prime Minister Elias Goodwill, Lord Andrew True, senior lord for the House of Lords, MP Julian Dalgaard, leader for the Commons, Antone Cross, senior member in the Cross family—known as Dad to Michael—Edric, king consort, Prince John, crown prince, various members of the privy council, the Solicitor General, the chiefs of the Lauchtenland Investigative Services and the Crown Investigation Bureau, Lady Royal and Her Majesty, and least of all, Michael Cross.
Yet he was in the thick of things. Not tucked in the corner, disappearing among the tapestries in his dark suit and tie, hearing but not listening.
After his initial delivery of the news to Her Majesty with Scottie, he returned to Wenthelen Chapel to blow the dust from the books on the highest shelves.
It’d been a long two days, trekking up and down the mountain, renting a cottage by the outfitters—nothing like the day he’d been there with Scottie.
Without her, the chapel cellar was moody and dusty, and the flickering lamps were hot and devoid of any romance. The research was shoulder-aching work.
More than anything, there was no Emmanuel. No sense of wonder or purpose. Even the bread those days had been stale and the wine goblet nearly empty.
Now, the leaders of Lauchtenland had heard the story of the Fickles and were inspecting the proof.
“So these pamphlets were from the last Lord Midlands?” The queen, wearing a white glove, lifted the pages of the collected pamphlets, leaflets, and circulars produced by the duke asserting the rights of Lauchtens as citizens, not as subjects. She shifted her attention to Michael.
“Correct, ma’am. Beginning from 1770 until 1821.
But we see in these letters”—he pointed to a collection of twine-bound woven paper with fragile and aged edges—“between Bane Fickle, King Louis the Fourth, and the Cross advisor about the royal rights of the Fickles. However, in these letters between the king and Isaiah Cross, His Majesty merely believed Bane was inspired by the American and French Revolutions. Or somehow inspired by the antics of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. In the end, the king determined to wait him out. Giving in would be, in his words, ‘a chink in the royal Blue armor.’”
“You’ve read all the letters?”
“I have, ma’am.” More than once, mulling over every word, thinking through all possible conclusions. He’d been up late going over the details, unwilling to let anyone catch him out for missing something.
“So did the Lord Midlands from 17”—she glanced at an open pamphlet—“1770 want to dethrone the Blues or join them?” Her Majesty released a spiked sigh, her skin pale, her eyes tired.
Michael exchanged a knowing glance with Scottie. She’d warned him the queen had a rough go of it lately. Only this time, GBS was not the source of her trouble. Their visual glance lingered for an extra moment. Then she broke away, being interested in what his dad, Antone, was saying.
But Michael took her in—standing with confidence in this room of leaders, dressed in black slacks and jacket with a pink top, her hair in a loose weave. Her presence seemed to fill his senses. Since that day at the chapel where Emmanuel touched him, he knew he was changed. But how much?
Dad spoke his name, so Michael tuned in to the conversation.
“—scoured the chapel archives, then together we combed through those in the Royal Records Muniment Room. In our best summation, Lord Midlands wanted to be acknowledged by the House of Blue as a descendant of King Magnus through his daughter, Wenthelen, who was never officially recognized by the Church or government, as she was born out of wedlock. Though in the documents found in the Wenthelen Chapel, she was recognized by the king as his daughter and sealed by the standing bishop of the day.”
“But never by the Crown.” PM Goodwill was studying the archives set out on the long, square-legged table.
“Let me recount. In 1549, a Caspas Fickle married the illegitimate daughter of King Magnus the Third and became a nobleman. He prospered. His wife, Wenthelen, daughter of the king, had many children. The Midlands flourished. Over time, the Crown fretted over their success, and thus imposed a tax. Then descendent Bane Fickle picked a fight with the Crown, citing his own bloodline was of the Blues.” Hands locked behind his back, he returned to the rest of the circled council. “Why was the land taken in 1821?”
“He didn’t merely pick a fight. He fought back.
The Midlands were being taxed an exorbitant amount,” Michael said.
“You’ll see in the government tax records.
The duchy drew all sorts of tradesmen and artisans, weavers, tailors and haberdashers, milliners.
” Michael retrieved the first map of Ribbons Avenue from the table.
“The shops were along here. Manufacturing grew north into the farmlands.”
“The records Michael uncovered,” Dad said, “showed that eighteenth century Midlands’ wealth far outweighed the rest of Lauchtenland’s GNP.
High taxes were the government’s way of getting what they considered their share.
They couldn’t annex any of the land because King Magnus the Third’s charter had strict and irrevocable provisions. ”
“Magnus had to know how this gift and title would be perceived by the peers of his court,” the queen said.
“Bestowing land and title to poor, no name, albeit industrious, Caspas Fickle, invariably put a target on his back. The charter had to be irrevocable. Such lavish gifts were typically rewarded to victors in battle or those devout to the Crown. So why grant such a thing to Caspas? Because the man married his no-name, commoner daughter.”
“Magnus gave Caspas a kingdom within the kingdom.” Indeed. The prime minister got the sum of it.
“No, Elias,” Edric said. “He gave his daughter a kingdom within a kingdom because she couldn’t be recognized for who she was, for who Magnus wanted her to be.”
Michael was impressed. The king consort so deftly summed up the first chapter of their story. As Finn loved to say, Mike drop.
“Yet by the late seventeenth century,” Scottie said, “Wenthelen had been blotted from the House of Blue history.”
“Save for the chapel named after her.” The queen retreated to her chair with the aid of her husband. “Get to the bottom line. Why were the Midlands confiscated?” She glanced to Michael’s father. “Antone, please ensure these letters and journals and records are added to the Muniment Room.”
Dad nodded for Michael to answer Her Majesty’s question.
“The Lord Midlands’ efforts to provoke the Crown into a conversation about their Blue blood, his pamphlets, and stump speeches got him labeled as a rebel.
In 1821.” Michael presented the tender document revoking the Fickles’ right to the Midlands.
“King Louis the Fourth claimed Lord Midlands was treasonous and inciting sedition. The parliament and courts sided with him, thus allowing him to revoke the irrevocable charter.”
“In modern terms,” Dad added, “the Crown staged a hostile takeover.”
“So we created our own enemy, which now exhibits in MP Hamish Fickle. How much does he know?”
“Nothing, really,” Michael said. “Only that land and titles were taken, causing severe hardship, making the Fickles outcasts, and sending them into poverty. As previously stated, any documents they’d collected burned in a fire.”
The queen accepted a cup of tea from her husband. “Do we win points for the irony of making his case for him?”
“The question now is what shall we do?” This contemplative inquiry came from the prime minister.
“We fix it, of course,” the queen said, in all of her majesty. “We restore his title and hope that little popinjay can bear it with dignity. We restore the fortune stolen. Calculate the taxes levied at the higher percentage and—”
“In modern money?” Edric demanded. “It could be hundreds of millions of dollars, Catherine.”
“I’m not sure Hamish Fickle could handle that sort of windfall.” Prince John entered the conversation. “He’d go mad.”
“I’m inclined to agree with His Royal Highness.
” MP Julian Dalgaard weighed in with his south Port Fressa accent.
“His whole identity is wrapped up in the common man, the chap fighting for a better life, pulling himself from poverty to achievement. No, no, MP Fickle identifies as one who has worked hard and beaten the ruling class. An influx of riches will… Well, we’ve no idea what it will do to him. ”
“There’s a bigger concern. He’s not earned it,” Dad said. “Her Majesty said it best when she reminded us land and titles were always given to warriors and leaders. To men of valor who served the Crown faithfully. Loyally. We cannot say those things about MP Fickle.”
“Besides marrying Magnus’s daughter, what did Caspas Fickle ever do that was noble?” The prime minister raised his teacup in expectation of an answer.