Page 7 of A King’s Trust (Heart-Mage Trilogy #1)

7

A HIGH ORDER

E very paper he set on the corner of his desk to be filed away with the seneschal was replaced with three more awaiting review. Four hours into his work, Beau’s hand, neck, and shoulders were cramping. The horrendous silence in his rooms weighed so heavily he could feel it pressing down on his back, forcing him slumped against his desk.

It wouldn’t have been so bad with Elias beside him, but it was Elias’s day off. He hated Elias’s days off.

For the thousandth time, the urge seized him to simply grab a swath of papers and sign them, unread, and for the thousand-and-first time, he sighed and reminded himself that he was going to do this right. To do it like Char would have done it.

After the disaster of the missing artifacts, he was terrified someone would discover he didn’t know what was going on before he could get through these papers and catch up. He’d been unknowingly neglecting so much.

Massaging the back of his neck with one hand, he stood and did a lap around the room. Then he tied the latest stack with a ribbon, sealed it with green wax and his signet, and rang the bell to summon Theodore.

“G’morning, Highness,” Theo called, mouth full of pastry he’d shoved in all at once to free his hands. “More for Master Ferrial?”

Beau held onto the papers until the boy had dusted his hands off, then passed them over. “Yes, thank you. No need to run—nothing time sensitive in here.”

Theo shrugged and smiled. “I like running.” As Beau let his door shut, the heavy, too-fast footsteps of a child growing into long limbs pounded away down the hallway.

The prince sat heavily and picked up a record of payments made to Lord Lamont. He scanned it, eyes catching on the small section at the bottom that recorded historical payments. The same large number, repeated month after month. It tugged at his memory.

Setting the sheet aside, Beau dug through another stack he’d made of inventories and reference lists. He flipped through until he found the minutes from a court session three years prior. It’d been included, he assumed, because it detailed approvals for allowances paid to three lords for taking in wards of the palace, orphans from a conflict at sea with Sharzhakaman that sunk a pleasure ship.

Yanking the paper from the stack, he scanned down until he found Lord Lamont’s name—there, next to a number much lower than what appeared on the record of payments. Beau paced with them, searching from one to the other for what he’d missed.

The description line on each was the same: Ward allwce. ref: Miss Alyna Vernier . But the payment made by the palace pursekeeper monthly was nearly triple the court-agreed amount.

Setting those aside, he thumbed through to find similar records for the other two lords. Twenty minutes of searching rewarded him with payment stubs for Lord Tirel and Lord Tremblay, the two counts in Lamont’s duchy of Estforet, each showing records of payments too large. Why on earth had the leaders of Estforet been compensated so much?

He rang the runner bell again.

“I need Master Ferrial. Is he busy?”

Theodore shrugged. “He’s having his midmorning tea, Your Highness. I think he was impressed with your work.”

“Why do you say that?”

“When I was leaving, he said, ‘That boy’s digging like he’s looking for buried treasure.’ He seemed surprised, is all. Should I run tell him he needs to come up?”

“Yes, please tell him I expect him shortly.” The boy fled with the grace of a foal, grinning as he turned the corner.

Master Ferrial made good speed for a man well into his sixties, and he hardly seemed to notice the horrendous state of Beau’s study. He bowed at the precisely appropriate angle, but the prince was impatient with niceties. “Have a seat, please,” he said, pulling out his chair for the man. He’d laid his papers in a neat array on the desk, shoving the stacks aside.

“I found something interesting,” he continued as Ferrial took a seat, reaching past his shoulder to point at the numbers that did not match. “We’re paying an absolutely exorbitant amount to these three lords every month. I looked, and we do have wards fostered in other holdings, but there’s nothing like this happening on those accounts. I wasn’t sure if I was missing something, or…I don’t understand what’s happening here.”

The pursekeeper stared down at the papers for a long time, though there wasn’t much to take in. He licked his lips, a deep frown line pinching between his brows. Twice, he cleared his throat, but then stayed silent. Finally, he spoke.

“You’re correct. This is an interesting discrepancy.”

“Is it a mistake?”

Master Ferrial stood slowly and leaned on the back of the chair with both hands, not turning toward the prince. “Are you asking, Your Highness, if my office is aware of the difference in what was agreed in court and what is being paid?”

“I’m asking if it’s a mistake,” Beau reiterated, “and if it is, how easily we can rectify it. My father rejected several requests for aid in court in the last two weeks that totaled less than this. If we can recover money paid out in error, we can give more with intent.”

Now Master Ferrial did turn fully toward Beau, the crease in his brows deepening. He cleared his throat yet again. “These payments are not being made in error, Your Highness. They were changed to this amount eighteen days after the original request was approved and signed.”

“Changed by whom? Was there a reason given?”

Ferrial tilted his head, studying Beau with narrowed eyes. “Court decisions may only be amended by the king or approved agents in which the king has vested authority to do so. The late Prince Charmant, gods rest his soul, and you are the only two provisioned this authority.”

“So Char changed it?” Beau asked, plucking at his lip in thought. That didn’t make sense; these men had taken on no additional responsibility or risk with these wards. There was no reason to increase the payment, which was already higher than a normal foster allowance because of the urgency of the situation.

“Your Highness,” Ferrial said, a faint edge of incredulity in his voice, “by the signature on the order of revision, you did.”

“My signature?” Beau looked at the papers blankly. “Is it here?”

“No, I keep the original orders of revision in my office, and you requested in your letter that no copies be made.”

Beau met the man’s eyes, aghast, looking for some indication of a joke. “I didn’t sign anything like that. I didn’t even know I had that authority.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. Those are things you were managing by correspondence and haven’t touched since Char died , his father had said. And now this.

Who the fuck was sending letters to the palace, pretending to be Beau? Who had known what Beau could do? Who could’ve signed his signature?

“I think I’d better take a look at what you have in your office with ‘my’ signature on it,” Beau said. “But first, can you help me fix this? Do I need to fill out another—whatsit—order of revision? I can re-propose the requests from Lady Ovanne and the Barbeau brothers tomorrow afternoon and use these funds, if we can get it cleared up today. I know the Barbeaus need to be back on a ship by the end of the week with news, one way or another, and Lady Ovanne will want to let her sister know before the baby is born.”

Master Ferrial’s mouth fell slightly open. “You…didn’t sign this.” Hand pressed to his mouth, his eyes went far away, every sheet of paper the man had ever seen flicking past his mind’s eye. “Gods,” he breathed. “Yes, I’d say we do need to take a look.”

In Ferrial’s office, they found dozens of forms with Beau’s signature on them: undoubtedly, indisputably Beau’s signature, and not one on anything the prince had ever seen.

“I don’t understand,” Beau breathed, touching yet another signature that had to be his. He would’ve staked his life on his own fingers having penned it if he hadn’t known for a fact he’d never seen a Request for Payment: Custom Saddle he’d put his signature on file with Ferrial when he turned thirteen, but until Beau started working through this paperwork, he hadn’t really had cause to sign anything.

Except that one letter to Char when Beau was seventeen, right after he left for the isles, that went unanswered.

He rotated his signet ring on his little finger. Char had given him that ring. Had it made for him. Beau had treasured it because his brother thought of him.

“Master Ferrial,” he said hoarsely, “do you happen to have a receipt of a payment to the jeweler who made my signet ring? It would’ve been—” He cleared his throat, which had gone froggy. “—ten years ago. Early spring.”

The man began to open drawers, humming thoughtfully to himself, and Beau sat back in his chair heavily. Ferrial had nice leather seats in his office, much more comfortable than the one Beau’s desk had been equipped with. The low lamps in this room guttered in a constant draft, but it was otherwise extremely cozy, all warm woods and leather, with row after row of meticulously maintained folios of papers on shelves. In the next, larger room, scribes at their desks scribbled furiously, the sound of scratching pen nibs broken only occasionally by a cough or quiet word.

“Here we are,” Ferrial said, passing a crisp paper to Beau.

He scanned it, sank deeper into his seat, grew queasy. “That’s for a ring and a stamp.”

“Yes,” Ferrial said, nodding. “It’s very common to have them made as a set, since the stamp can be easier to use for seals.”

Beau bent, resting his elbows on his knees, afraid he’d be sick on Ferrial’s carpet. “Char didn’t give me a stamp.”

Silence. The scratching of pens. The creak of leather. Beau’s own breathing too fast, thready with emotion he couldn’t name.

“What are you saying, Your Highness?” Master Ferrial asked carefully, eyes wary and sad and fixed on Beau so he couldn’t bear to look up at him.

“I…” He couldn’t speak the words. “Nothing. I’m not sure what I’m saying yet. Um, can we…can we focus on the ward allowances for now?”

“Yes, of course,” Ferrial said, the small spectacles on the end of his nose catching flares of lamplight. “And I’ll spend the evening identifying any other recurring charges in your name, so you can decide whether you want to reverse them.”

Beau nodded. “Thank you.” He bounced his fist against his mouth, fighting to find the words for the tangle in his head. All he found was another, “Thank you,” and then he left.

B eau could’ve cut the tension in the room with the knife at his hip, and the burning hatred directed at him from Lord Lamont made him wish he had the knife in his hand. He didn’t let the anxiety bleed into his voice though.

“It’s a simple enough question, Your Grace. How did this mistake go uncorrected for so long? It’s too significant an amount of money to have skated past your pursemaster unnoticed.”

“It’s not my responsibility to correct your mistakes, Your Highness,” Lamont said, radiating fury.

Beau took a steadying breath, fighting down defensiveness. “Are you a peer of the realm, Lord Lamont? Your responsibility is to Granvallée. If you believed you were receiving an unearned share of the kingdom’s wealth at the expense of others who have need of it, it absolutely was your responsibility to correct that mistake.”

Heading off the explosion from Lord Lamont, the king raised his hand for silence. “It’s not like Master Ferrial to allow an oversight of this magnitude. Can you speak to this, Ferrial?”

“No,” Beau interrupted, seeing the alarm on Ferrial’s face. “It was not Master Ferrial’s error. The proper forms were submitted to make the change, but—”

“You called me down in front of the entire court when there wasn’t even a mistake?” Lamont shouted, ire purpling his face. “Your Majesty, am I to bear such insults from your son?”

“Lord Lamont, my apologies,” the king began.

Beau interrupted a second time, and he saw fury tick up into his father’s eyes. “The request was made fraudulently, which we would’ve discovered had Lord Lamont and his estate immediately noted the overpayment.”

“Fraudulently?” Lamont shouted.

The king ignored him, turning narrowed eyes on his son. Barely above a whisper, he hissed, “In whose name was the charge ‘fraudulently’ made?”

Beau swallowed. “Mine. But—”

“Lord Lamont,” King Fortin said, standing and waving the petitioners to their feet, “please accept my formal apologies for the inconvenience and confusion of this session. There is no complaint against Estforet or your person, and this session is now adjourned.”

He swept away from the table and through the back door of the hall. Beau followed as quickly as he could disentangle himself from the table’s drapery, Elias in his wake.

“Father, I spoke with Ferrial yesterday. There are dozens of—”

“How could you embarrass me this way?” Fortin’s face was paler than usual, lined so heavily his features were almost lost in the deeply graven creases. “Casually accusing the Duke of Estforet of stealing from the crown, when it is your mistake that has been—”

“It wasn’t my mistake!” Beau shouted. “Someone has been—”

“—siphoning off funds, not to mention the egregious —”

“—using my—no, I have not been siphoning —”

“—overspending with no thought of—”

“—for fuck’s sake, listen to me, I’m—”

“—anyone but yourself and don’t you dare use that kind of language with me, I—”

“—I’m trying to fix the—”

“Enough!” Fortin shouted, incandescent with anger. “I am your father and your king ! You will hold your tongue with me.” When Beau opened his mouth to explain himself anyway, the king snapped, “A high order from the crown.”

Beau’s mouth clacked shut again. A high order ? Disobeying that meant a prison sentence, at best, and he’d invoked it to shut up his own son? Frustration, disappointment, and outrage at the unfairness of it all warred in Beau.

He raised his hands in helpless claws, then turned without a bow or a dismissal and left. Elias matched his furious pace through the corridors toward the stables.

Beau wanted to explode in outrage, but the high fucking order held his tongue. In the sunlight of the yard, grooms and footmen and cook’s assistants were everywhere, so he held it in longer. At the stables, the stablewoman, a stocky grouch whose hair leaned more salt than pepper fixed Elias and Beau with a stern stare.

“I hope you’re not planning to ask for your horses,” she said. “His Majesty’s orders—you two are a flight risk. No tacking up Tempest or Pormort unless the king or queen say otherwise.”

The low growl in Beau’s throat was involuntary, but as soon as he recognized he was doing it, he stopped. This wasn’t the stablewoman’s fault. “Fine,” he snapped. “I’ll walk.”

He strode into the aspen forest south of the palace, where the pale trunks grew tall before shooting out the first branches and the underbrush was low and scrubby. With visibility so clear, there was no need to stay on the trail; Beau stomped a straight line into the trees and threw back his head for a wordless shout of anger.

“I’m losing my fucking mind !”

“You absolutely sure that ship hasn’t already sailed, Highness?”

Beau threw a dark look at Elias, in no mood for jokes. His First did not look chastened, but he did at least bob a bow of his head and mutter, “Sorry, Highness.”

“I hate this place so much. Nothing ever goes right here. Nothing’s ever good enough here.” He hurled a stick as far into the shade before him as he could, scattering a burst of chattering birds. “They hate me so much and they won’t let me fucking leave !” His shout carried forever in the forest.

Elias let him spend his energy on chucking rocks and sticks at nothing for several long moments before speaking again. “Maybe you can visit him this evening and explain things when emotions aren’t running so high?”

“Difficult to do without speaking, which I’m currently forbidden from doing in his presence,” Beau said bitterly. In the most mocking voice he could muster, he muttered, “ A high order from the crown . If he thinks so fucking little of me that he won’t even listen when I speak, why does he want me to be king? Appoint a different heir, hand the throne off before you die so the transition is peaceful, and be done with it.”

“There’s no one else—”

“I know there’s no other option, Elias,” Beau snapped. “I know I’m the last fucking choice available. I know.”

“You’re not—”

“Okay, fine, maybe I’m not the last choice, but I’m the last choice that doesn’t cause any immediate violence, so I guess I’m one notch better than civil war,” he said, his voice rising in volume again as he lost control of it.

“That wasn’t what I was saying at—”

“Stop trying to make me feel better!” Beau shouted, sending a squirrel skittering up a tree in a frantic rush.

When its panicked chittering ended, the forest was quiet for a heartbeat or two. Then Elias said, “Is that a high order from the crown prince?”

Beau dropped the stick, stricken. He closed his eyes, took in a deep breath, held it, and then released it again. “I’m sorry. I’m…you’re right, I’m not listening. Please, speak your mind.”

“What I was saying is there’s no one else with the same interest in fixing what’s broken that you have,” Elias said. He set one hand on Beau’s shoulder and tugged Beau’s knife out of its sheath with the other. He lined up shoulder-to-shoulder with the prince and threw the blade, sticking it in a tree a few paces away.

As he talked, he retrieved it and handed it back to Beau, gesturing toward the tree. “You already have power, and now you want to use it to help the kingdom. The other dukes are the only ones with any chance at the throne, and they’re obsessed with gathering power, money, followers, what have you. They’re not looking outward. And your efforts to make change threaten what they gather.”

Beau hucked the blade, and though it didn’t spin as prettily as when Elias did it, it did stick point-first and hold, wobbling. Elias continued, “You’re pissing them off, and obviously that’s not ideal , given that you’re trying to make connections, but it means you’re doing something . You’re the best choice for king, and you’re doing it.”

The prince exhaled, flexing his fingers as the guard retrieved the blade again. El’s argument was logical. It didn’t make him feel better, so even if he had issued the ‘high order’—meaningless from any mouth but the king’s—El wouldn’t have been in violation of it.

“Someone’s been using my name to leech from the palace for years. Someone’s emptied the vault of magical artifacts,” Beau said. Elias threw the knife and hit his first mark perfectly. “Paibona is raiding our southern border and Sharzhakaman and Altagna are flirting with an alliance to the north. The nobles are indifferent to me at best and despise me at worst. I don’t have power. If I’m making any fucking difference, it’s to make things worse . This entire house of cards collapses on me the moment my father’s last breath hits it.”

He winced at his phrasing. Angry as he was, the thought of his father’s death made his chest ache until it could’ve cracked in two. “Perhaps I can convince him to live forever.”

Elias slapped the handle of the knife into Beau’s palm. “I suspect he would if he could.”

Beau shook his head, not in denial of Elias’s statement, but in refutation of the world, of the way things were. “I’m running out of time, El. My father’s getting weaker, and the mess I’ll inherit is messier by the day. And at some point in the next few weeks, my mother’s going to marry me to someone if she has to tie me to the altar and speak the vows by ventriloquism.”

“Pick someone, then,” Elias said, shrugging. “It will happen whether you control it or not; take control of it.”

“If it’s that easy, why don’t you do it? I’ll abdicate in favor of you. Have at it.”

Elias chuckled. “I’ll immediately order you to marry me, make you Prince Consort, and fuck off to the woods. You’ll have to rule anyway, you just won’t get to wear the really fancy crown.”

“You’re so mean to me, Elias. One of these days it’s going to really hurt my feelings. Let’s head back. I need to talk to Master Ferrial again, and I’m still allowed to speak to him .”

“You know what else we could do?” Elias said.

“Hmm?”

“Ask Mistress Dubois for a second list of nobles who are kind to their servants. Might give you a good place to start, in terms of picking a wife.”

Beau nudged Elias with his shoulder. “That’s it, you’re in trouble now. You’re in violation of my high order.”