Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
The day had hardly begun when things took an unexpected turn. It turned out they didn’t need to hunt down the traitor as his own family turned him in.
Lord Harris Petturi, the son of the duke—whom she’d not seen since the day before while her mother lay dying—asked for an audience with the new queen. Ensconced in her new office, Avera grimaced when Gustav told her.
“Must I see him? I’ve endured quite enough fawning for one day.” She’d been hard-pressed to eat her midday meal given the numerous interruptions.
“He claims it’s about the murders,” Gustav murmured.
The statement piqued her interest. “Send him in.”
Lord Petturi entered. He appeared nervous, or so the tic by his eye implied. He wore fine clothing, if ill-fitting, on his lanky frame. At least he wouldn’t be there to put himself forth as a possible consort as he’d been long married with several children.
“Your Majesty.” He bowed deep. “Pardon my intrusion during this grievous time of mourning.”
Not in the mood to dance with words, Avera got straight to the point. “Lord Petturi, I’m told you know something about the assassins that felled my family?”
“I do.” A bead of sweat on his brow and his wringing hands showed his angst. It took him a moment to get the words out. “I know who hired them.” A pause saw him swallowing hard before he whispered, “It was my father.”
“The duke?” The queen’s personal advisor, the man who’d essentially run the country following the monarch’s orders. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” A low reply that had Gustav creaking as he shifted his position behind her seat.
Avera clenched her hands in her lap. “You have proof, I assume.”
Petturi nodded and the words came rushing out. “It began when I noticed large sums of coin missing from our coffers a few months ago. When I confronted my father, he claimed he’d used it for an investment. Only, he wouldn’t tell me in what.”
“That hardly makes him guilty,” she pointed out.
“There’s more.” The lord wrung his hands and stared at the floor.
“Go on.” Avera rose and stared out the window instead of at Lord Petturi as it seemed to make him twitchy.
“Over the past while, I noticed my father behaving oddly. Disappearing for hours, returning late at night, cloaked head to toe as if he didn’t want to be seen.
I assumed he had a mistress who was blackmailing him when the money went missing.
My mother would have been most devasted to find out her husband was dallying elsewhere.
Given he kept taking funds from the coffers to the point we began to run short paying bills, I chose to follow him one night, determined to confront him and his mistress.
Only, it turned out he wasn’t meeting with a woman, but a ship’s captain in a tavern. ”
Gustav, who’d been silent until that moment, asked a sharp question. “This captain, was he Daervian or foreign?”
“Foreign, Grand Rook. Captain of a merchant vessel dealing in mostly silks and spices from Merisu. After seeing my father hand over a sack of coin, I confronted him and asked what he was doing as it seemed very suspicious. He said something to the effect that he was investing in our family’s future and that I’d soon see.
Then the heinous murders happened.” The lord dropped his head and his shoulders hunched.
“You accused him?” Avera asked.
He shook his head. “Nay, Your Majesty, I never had the chance to ask for he was in the palace that entire day. However, his actions nagged at me, therefore I went into his office and dug around, hoping to find proof he hadn’t done what I suspected.
I found nothing and I was in bed before he arrived home.
This morning…” He paused. “This morning, I returned to his office to look again and noticed a loose floorboard. Upon prying it free, I found a box with missives inside. My father has been trading correspondence with the Assassins’ Guild in Saarpira. ”
Gustav sucked in a breath. “He’s the traitor.”
Avera whirled from the window. “You have those notes?”
“I do.” Lord Petturi dug them out of a pocket and held them out to Gustav.
The rook glanced through them with a grim expression. “These are very damning.”
“I’m aware, sir.” Petturi looked utterly crushed. “He’s my father and I owe him my very life, but what he did… Murdering our queen, the heirs, even a baby…” he whispered.
“You do realize there is only one punishment for this kind of treason,” Avera spoke softly.
“I know, however, I had to come forth. Not just because his actions were wrong but to also pledge my loyalty to you, Majesty.” He dropped to a knee.
“I swear, I knew not what he plotted. If I had, I would have stopped it. Our country was—is—prosperous because of the royal family. I don’t know what my father thought to accomplish.
I have never had interest in a higher rank. Would never have wanted to be king.”
“What of your brothers?”
Lord Petturi snorted. “None of them are even fit to run our family business let alone a kingdom.”
“You did a very brave thing.”
“Not brave, the right thing,” Petturi corrected. “I just hope when you punish my family for my father’s actions, that you at least spare my children.”
“I can do more than that, Lord Petturi. So long as you speak the truth about not being aware, you and your family, mother, wife, children, even your brothers, will not face penalty. But your father will be hanged.” That was, he’d be punished after Avera asked—screamed—why?
As duke, senior Petturi had been almost as powerful as the queen already.
Blame his actions on greed, an ugly facet of humanity that led to horrible acts.
“Your Majesty is most benevolent. I swear you will not regret this,” Lord Petturi’s fervently replied.
“Where is your father now, milord?” Gustav asked, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
The man shrugged. “I’m afraid I do not know. He’d left the house before I’d risen for the day.”
“I’ll find him,” Gustav promised.
“I’m sure you will,” Avera said. “But first, if you would, please escort Lord Petturi to the dining hall and ensure he’s given refreshment before you depart to arrest the former duke.
” She gave Gustav a look and the rook nodded in understanding.
Petturi junior would be detained on the off chance he had a change of heart and warned his father to flee.
“If milord would come with me.” Gustav held open the door but before he closed it, he glanced back at Avera. “I will leave four guards outside this door. Majesty is not to leave this room until my return.”
“And if you don’t come back, am I to wither away?”
“I will return with the traitor,” he promised.
Gustav technically did, with a corpse at any rate.
It would appear the former duke realized his plotting had been uncovered and hung himself in his stable before the Grand Rook’s arrival.
A pity because a public execution would have done much to boost the people’s spirits.
Morbid, and yet there was a savage satisfaction in seeing criminals, especially murderers, get their due.
The bright spot? With the traitor uncovered and dead, not only did people stop whispering she might have done it, Avera started to relax. The threat had been uncovered. No need to be so vigilant.
Not according to Gustav who claimed it seemed too easy. Avera agreed but at the same time, worried about letting paranoia control her. Still, it didn’t hurt to be cautious.
Except for that short excursion into the city, Gustav remained glued to her side, although he did allow her to sleep alone at night after checking every cabinet and cranny in her room and setting not just a pair but four knights outside her door.
The next few days after the traitor’s death were a blur filled with funeral preparations.
The sendoff for her mother would be elaborate given the queen had been well-loved by her people.
Despite Avera being shunned by her siblings, she didn’t shirk on their funeral rites, and she ensured they were accorded much ceremony and pomp.
To Avera’s surprise, she shed a few tears as the barges of wood were pushed out onto the Lake of Tears. Those last moments with her mother had given her something she’d never expected: the love she’d always wanted. She only wished they could have had a chance to truly have a relationship.
After the funeral, life as the queen truly began even as her tiara ceremony hadn’t yet occurred.
As per tradition, it wouldn’t happen until the following week, but that didn’t stop the visitors from arriving early or the seamstress from bullying her about fittings.
Avera had begun to dread seeing Violette with her measuring tape and tin of pins.
Avera had to gently remind the seamstress that she preferred a simple gown, not something with waves of frothy skirts and a too-tight bodice.
Her sisters and mother might have favored those, but Avera liked to breathe.
Already her wardrobe had been subtly adapted, her worn and comfortable gowns replaced with richer fabrics and slightly more ornate designs.
A few days after the funeral, Gustav said, “It’s time.”
“Time for what?” she asked.
“To stop hiding in your office.”
She wanted to refute his claim only she had been. “Not hiding, working.” Trying to grasp the current state of Daerva, reading all the documents that arrived daily wanting the queen’s attention.
“There’s more to work than signing things.”
A nudge that led to Avera holding her first audience where she sat on the uncomfortable throne as lords and ladies gave her condolences and pledged fealty before the coronation.