Chapter 16: 16 - Enemies and Allies

Mid-October. The court session this morning was a dry rehashing of the previous afternoon’s debate on water rights and which of two cities should be required to help supply a small village of farmers toiling exactly between them. Spahen mused irritably that he’d been attending the Lion King’s court meetings for two months and he had yet to make any sort of headway with anything relating to the primary mission. Getting close to any of the councilmen had proven frustrating. The social politics of the Lion Tribe were way more complicated than the actual politics. Lions were suspicious, conniving, under-handed, manipulative– no. No, they were just different, and surely lions would find fault with the way bears did things too. But it made so much more sense now why Beta had struggled to integrate into the Lion Tribe. She was one of the most brutally straightforward people he’d ever met, and that was saying something coming from a tribe where people usually didn’t say much unless they had something specific to communicate. Where the Bear Tribe was efficient, the Lion Tribe was pedantic thorough, and Spahen found himself regularly lost in details as his mind wandered to other things.

… like how to break through the impenetrable cliques of pre-established social circles.

After that first day of introductions, Spahen had only managed to exchange a few brief comments with Councilman Trebax in passing. The seven men in the Trebax et al. clique that Beta had identified as suspects kept to themselves on the opposite side of the room. Two months in silent observation from across the room had given him only a few insights.

First, relative to the average age of the rest of the king’s councilmen, these men were young with only Councilman Gemma and Councilman Placo appearing to be in the more average fifties to sixties range; the other five were somewhere in their thirties, possibly younger.

Second, they were all contrarians of the Lion General. Some, like Trebax, artfully and subtly picked her ideas apart or contested her assertions; others, like Councilman Laniger, regularly championed arguments in direct opposition to hers; and then there was Councilman Unguis who deliberately tried to bait her into fights at least once a week. It amused him how little this seemed to bother Beta; in fact, she seemed quite oblivious (or at least apathetic) to their concerted efforts to undermine her.

Third, they were all frustrated for obvious reasons. The Lion Tribe court consisted of an assemblage of two hundred and twenty well-educated, ambitious men serving as advisors to a young king with ultimate executive, legislative, and judicial power. For all the advisors’ bluster, at the end of the day, the only thing that mattered was the king’s vote, and the king’s ear was permanently bent to the will of the Lion General, someone who was easily the least qualified advisor (on paper, at least) in the room and only attended the morning meetings. Most big things discussed in the afternoon meetings would be shelved until the king could get Callida’s opinion on it, and then, regardless of what the council had come up with in the hours of debates the day prior, he would align his opinion with hers nine times out of ten. To be fair, Callida’s was the only viewpoint securely founded in pragmatism and separate from the larger complications of nobility drama, so nine times out of ten, her ideas genuinely made the most sense. However, from the ambitious, young councilman’s perspective, Callida was an exhausting force to contend with — which also amused Spahen greatly.

Spahen had been playing his role well. When required to have an opinion, he’d remained as neutral as possible, sometimes foregoing his vote entirely. He wasn’t there to improve Lion Tribe policies; he was there to help the king sire an heir by catching those who were sabotaging those efforts. But it had been two months of quiet observation and nothing more. It was time to take a stand.

“Do we know where the farmers take their produce to sell?” Beta asked boredly, and Spahen found himself stifling a small chuckle. He knew exactly where this was heading.

“Uh, no,” the councilman presenting the case said, frowning at his notes.

“Well, it would seem to make sense that the city benefitting from their labor should be the one to supply the village with water,” she stated simply, unwittingly undoing two hours of debate the previous afternoon.

“And if they both benefit?” the Lion King prompted.

“Then the cities should split the cost of supplying the village with water. Maybe one provides the water while the other provides the labor to dig the needed aqueducts, or perhaps they each dig a certain number of wells?”

Spahen watched the king gnaw on a knuckle in a failed effort to hide laughter. “Very good, General. I think that’s a very sensible approach.” It was now or never. “Councilman Legatus, what–”

“I beg your pardon, Your Majesty,” Spahen said, standing up to address the court for the first time ever.

“It’s Councilman Spahen, is it not?” The king appraised him curiously.

“It is. Your Majesty, forgive the impertinence, but we discussed this matter at length yesterday as a whole council. We had an actionable plan that we all came here prepared to vote on. What is to become of that plan?”

The king’s eyes widened a little with surprise. “I’m not sure I understand what you are suggesting.”

“Then let me speak plainly,” Spahen said, taking a small step forward. “This is a pattern I’ve observed since I joined your council two months ago. Far be it from me as an outsider to tell you how you should run your council meetings, but you consistently ignore and subvert your council as soon as the Lion General opens her mouth, someone who is arguably the least qualified in this room to offer Your Majesty advice on these matters. Certainly the Lion General is unmatched as a soldier and battle strategist. When matters of security or war are admitted to this council, it would be foolish not to seek her advice. But the Lion Tribe is not at war. These are matters of public affairs and policy. It does not make sense to seek and side with her opinions so consistently unless….” He trailed off, leaving the comment unfinished for he himself had not finished the thought. But the silence that blanketed the room was pregnant with a suggestion he had not intended. Perhaps he should have spent more time thinking this through, and a glance at Beta, her body on high alert and eyes downcast, made something in his gut clench. He’d inadvertently struck a nerve, and he determined to close out quickly. “Your Majesty, if hers is the only council you care to listen to, why do you insult the rest of your councilmen by holding these meetings at all?”

Spahen took his seat, feeling unexpectedly guilty for the carefully controlled expression on Beta’s face. She was trembling, and it almost looked like she was trying not to cry. Primordials, what did I say!? While the king fumbled through a declaration of dismissal to the council, giving Beta the opportunity to bolt, Spahen obsessively ran through his statement. “It does not make sense to seek and side with her opinions so consistently unless…” you know something about her resume that the rest of us do not. Or something like that. That was the sentiment in his head, but he’d left it open to interpretation. Unless… you think she’s smarter than over two hundred of the most educated men in the Lion Tribe. Unless… you’ve been conspiring with her and supplying her with the solutions you like the best in advance. Unless….

“You’ve got a lot of gumption.”

“Sorry?” Spahen turned distractedly to find Trebax looking up at him, mirth is his eyes.

“My compliments, Councilman Spahen. You’ve actually said what the rest of us have been thinking for years.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Lion General look so… disquieted before,” Councilman Unguis snickered, and Spahen hadn’t noticed him for how distracted he was; he nearly startled. “My only regret is that I wasn’t the one to provoke her.”

“You’ve only been trying to get under her skin for… how long now?” Trebax said, sharing a laugh with Unguis.

“I’m just impressed that you dared to suggest an affair between them. We’ve all thought it at some point or another, but you actually said it,” Laniger added in a whisper, and a helplessly disoriented Spahen finally took in his surroundings and registered that four of the Trebax clique had crowded around him.

“Wait… an affair?!” That clenching in his gut twisted. Oh, Primordials. What have I done? This wasn’t the Bear Tribe. Clearly.

“... and as an outsider, too. Very astute. Were you aware of His Majesty’s history with the Lion General?”

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“Uh, just that she was his bodyguard for a while,” Spahen stated dully, his head still spinning unproductively through ways to correct his unintentional mistake. And then he remembered that this was the whole reason he’d said anything to begin with. He needed to focus — to capitalize on the moment.

“... Bear Tribe way of speaking. It appears to be much more direct.”

“It is,” Spahen laughed socially. “Our council meetings in the Bear Tribe are a lot shorter for it.”

They laughed, and Spahen pressed the advantage. “Would you care to join me for lunch?”

They glanced at each other, each nodding his head subtly. “Thank you, yes,” Trebax agreed for the group and then led the way to the back door. “I, for one, would like to get to know you better, Spahen. Do you like hunting?”

***

Verum sat at his desk, drumming his fingers rapidly against the lacquered wood in a vain effort to release some nervous energy while he waited. Councilman Spahen’s comments last week had been…. He couldn’t think of the right adjective. How do you describe something that was surprising, upsetting, confusing, and generally landed like a punch to the gut while simultaneously making you feel relieved?

A month and a half ago, Callida had said no to his plan to fake an affair. It was a solid plan for drawing out the conspirators, but he understood why it made her uncomfortable. But last week…. While he had no direct confirmation, Verum had assumed that Councilman Spahen was Callida’s inside man unless he’d misread all the signals — which was possible, actually. However, if he was correct, and Councilman Spahen was her inside man, why would she suddenly change her mind and give him the order to promote the rumor of an affair?

His anxiety was less about her changing her mind, and more about how she’d been behaving since the councilman’s statement. She hadn’t been playing up the rumor — far from it. She’d been ignoring him, refusing him eye contact during council meetings, keeping her head down, only speaking when directly addressed, her statements succinct and lackluster. Every day, she was the last to arrive and the first to leave. She seemed… upset. Maybe she was just really, really hamming up the discomfort of being caught in an affair? But it wasn’t adding up, so Verum’s fingers kept drumming.

The knock on the door interrupted his concentration, and Verum made eye contact with Captain Pius standing sentinel across the room. A silent nod was exchanged, and his bodyguard answered the door.

“General Yudha,” Pius greeted her with a showy bow and stepped aside to let her in as Verum stood up in acknowledgement of his visitor.

“Pius, you may go. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Verum dismissed him, watching as Callida took up an especially rigid stance just inside the room and fixed her gaze on a faraway point nowhere near where he was standing. She didn’t look simply upset. She looked… angry. He’d clearly missed something.

The door closed behind Pius, and Verum stood studying his friend, trying to assess the situation without provoking her further. “You summoned me, Your Majesty?”

Yes. She was definitely angry. Verum sighed back into his seat, knowing better than to approach her when she was ready to spit fire. “Let me have it, General.” Venomous eyes shifted to dagger in his direction; Verum met them with as much composure as he could, but, honestly, she was a little terrifying when she was mad at him.

“I. Cannot. Believe you,” she hissed. “I… I’m at a loss for words, Verum! I told you no! I told you in no uncertain terms that your plan was unacceptable, that I wouldn’t do that to my husband. So what do you do?! You go behind my back, plot with someone else to launch those rumors despite my feelings? Where do you get the gall?! I… I cannot believe you!! How dare you? Just… how dare you?!”

Incredulity left her shaking her head, rage left her trembling, and Verum left the silence following her impassioned snarling to linger until he was certain she’d finished. “Will you kill me if I try to defend myself?”

She threw her hands up with indignation and stormed over to the couch to perch aggressively on the very edge of the cushion, arms and legs crossed in front of her defensively, head cocked in a challenge to the side, jaw clenched from carefully controlled rage. Verum took that as permission to cautiously sit across from her in a high, wing-backed chair. “Callida, I didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?” she spat.

“Look, you told me on Memorial Day that you didn’t want to playact an affair. You told me that you’d find another way. Despite frustration with your response, I accepted it, and I trusted you to make an alternate plan happen. I was actually sitting here wondering why you didn’t just tell me that you’d changed your mind.” He stopped talking to gauge her reaction; she wasn’t giving him anything to work with as her posture and expression remained unchanged. “Callida, please. I swear I didn’t go against your wishes. You told me no, and I’ve been respecting that.” She remained unmoved, and Verum growled in frustration and dropped his head into his hands.

“You don’t exactly have the best record for making honorable choices when you’re emotionally compromised, Verum.”

Now he was angry — angry and bitter. He stood up in a huff and moved to the hearth to dig his fingers into the corner of the mantle. “So that’s it? You won’t believe me?”

“Should I?!” Callida launched off the couch to match his bitterness by the fireplace. “Tell me honestly what’s going on in that head of yours!”

“I–!” He turned away to tamp down a rising temper, releasing a few deep breaths before trying again. “I did already. No lies, no hidden meanings. Councilman Spahen’s comments last week… shocked me. I didn’t go behind your back.”

When he looked up again, Callida was searching his face, scrutinizing him, trying to decide if she trusted him. “No lies, no hidden meanings?”

“Callida, I swear. You can ask the councilman himself! No lies, no hidden meanings,” he all but begged her to believe him, and slowly but surely, some of the tension left her body. He relaxed a little when she began to wander the room, measuring her breath and stretching out tight muscles as she systematically willed herself to calm down. “I guess the question then becomes, what do you want to do about this?”

She rolled her neck out with a slight pop and sighed. “I don’t know. At this point, attempting to deny an affair would only seem to confirm one.”

Verum flopped back into the wing-backed chair and nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

He chuckled wryly and shook his head. “I just barely convinced you to not hate me. I’m not going to incriminate myself with suggestions.”

“You think we should take advantage of the situation,” she observed shrewdly.

“All I’m saying is the cards are down whether we wanted them there or not. Anything we do to combat the rumor will only serve to confirm it; going about our normal routine, the rumor might eventually fizzle out; but if we use this to catch the bastards behind this conspiracy, later we can say the rumor was planted intentionally to set them up.”

“That’s assuming a lot.”

“It’s dependent upon your mission being a success, yes. How confident are you that you can nail these guys?” he countered, and the question had the intended effect. Callida’s brow pinched in a scowl. She was weighing the options against how confident she was in the success of her assignment.

“I don’t like this, Verum.”

He stood up with another heavy sigh and crossed the room to where she was still debating their options. “I know. I don’t like it either, but we can’t change it, so how are we going to proceed?”

She was shaking her head again, her nose flaring in extreme distaste. “I will not do anything overt.”

He couldn’t help the grin quirking one corner of mouth. “You want to use this to our advantage then?”

“No. We are going to go about our regular routines.” She huffed, unwillingly adding, “but we might start holding the occasional evening conferences in your study… kind of like this.”

“Oh? And what are these meetings about?”

She smiled mischievously, a good sign that she was warming up to this plan despite her reservations. “Spahen was right about one thing, Verum. Always siding with me is frustrating to the rest of your councilmen. Perhaps we should confer privately before you discuss things with your council so you can instead guide their discussions?”

“Hm. That’s a thought.” And then he had an idea that would almost certainly seal the deal. “If we’re discussing things in advance of the council meetings, I won’t need you during the actual meetings except to deliver reports on the military. I can’t see you complaining about getting out of council meetings early.”

“Is this your way of putting a positive spin on the situation and incentivizing my cooperation?” she asked suspiciously.

He smirked. “Maybe.”

“Well, it’s working,” she grudgingly admitted and began a burdened circuit around the room. “Alright. You win, Verum. We will neither confirm nor deny the rumors of an affair. We’ll let things take their course, and I will plan on meeting with you for an hour or so in the evenings instead of sticking around through council meetings. Deal?”

Verum smirked again and nodded once. “Deal.”