Chapter 824

“Ok. Fine. Seeing as nobody else is talking,” Jara’s quick glance between Kat and Lily as well as the emphasis on the word ‘talking’ left no room to doubt what she meant, “perhaps we should go over the other major topic? Gaston’s alleged murder and Belle’s crusade against the Lord of the 8th over it? Can I actually get the full details of that?”

Kat nodded, “Well, Belle believes the chances are pretty high that Gaston is the 8th’s bastard son. He was one of the few people she slept with around the time it was confirmed she was pregnant. She suspects that after he remarried he might have been cleaning up loose ends with regards to his bastard children. Alternatively... she thinks he might have tried to invite the 8th to his wedding with Zuhra,”

Zuhra burst out into laughter and the rest of the room turned to face her. She tried to stop and explain what was so funny but every time she got a moment of air and tried to work out what she was going to say she ended up devolving back into a fit of laughter. It was pretty clear that something in Kat’s statement wasn’t right, but what... well... that would have to wait till Zuhra got a handled on herself.

When she finally did, albeit with the occasional chuckle still in her answers, she said, “Gaston. Gaston wouldn’t do something that stupid. I... I mean... I know his mother had a bit of a skewed perspective on him but... but that’s just silly. He’s no idiot. Risking such a confrontation over a wedding invitation. Oh... oh his mother would think something like that.

“But...” Zuhra’s mood quickly plummeted... “but he did always have a bit of an inflated sense of... hmm I hesitate to call it justice.... hmm. He liked to enforce rules, or just things he perceived as wrong. Either worked fine... but he didn’t really know the best way to go about that sort of thing. I still remember hearing the story of how he told off a bunch of other kids for loitering one day. I wasn’t there for it but Marem told me the story a few times and it was hilarious.

“What worries me... is that while I can’t see him risking himself to invite his potentially real father to our wedding... I can imagine him confronting the 8th, father or not, if he found out about the fact the 8th was causing troubles for the orphanage...” Zuhra let out a sigh, “I didn’t tell him. I think anyway... but I wouldn’t be surprised if I left enough clues behind that he could take that information to someone who did know and either pretend to be in on it or just use his personality to find out. I doubt it was the matron...”

“It wasn’t” added Kat, “I’m sure Theresa would have mentioned something about it if it was. She didn’t think anything odd was involved in Gaston’s death. Even if she said it was a tragedy she thought it was a sadly common event. Not anything malicious,”

.....

Zuhra nodded, “Yeah that sounds like the old woman. Did you know she doesn’t actually get paid anymore?” Kat nodded, “Huh... I’m a little surprised she told you that. She doesn’t like to wave that particular flag for no reason. I only know because she mentioned she couldn’t pay me for my time when I helped out at the orphanage,”

“Wait hold up, the orphanage director of the 8th district doesn’t get paid AT ALL?!” hissed Jara. “How does nobody know of this?”

Zuhra waved her hand up and down in a ‘sort of’ gesture. She glanced at Kat who motioned back towards Zuhra. “Ok I guess I’ll explain it. The 8th deigned to reduce the orphanage’s funding a few times and eventually replaced almost all of it with a land allotment further into the city. The orphanage has to grow its own food, and surplus to pay its workers now. Theresa technically gets paid but all of it gets donated straight back to the orphanage. It happens automatically now as well, so I don’t think she’s even seen her pay bag in a few years at this point,”

Jara out a groan as she messaged the bridge of her nose. “What the heck is going on in the 8th district. Murders, extortion, it sounds like adultery as well. I imagine there’s at least some forgery going on as well, maybe even supported by the 8th. Dammit. This shit is exactly why I don’t want to go into politics when I get older!”

“Why?” asked Zuhra.

Jara turned her unimpressed glare to Zuhra. “Well, propriety dictates that I can’t just set the investigators on the 8th. It’s both a politeness thing and a bit of a social check and balance to ensure I can’t just cause trouble for no reason. The fact that this issue is at over a year old really doesn’t help things either. I’d need to hire my own private investigators that can’t really be tracked back to me... but after so long I’d probably not be able to do anything about it...

“I also have to pretend that I know none of this when I meet the 8th. I have to act like all of the accusations against them are completely unconfirmed even when I have some trusted advisors who think he’s guilty, I think he might be guilty, all while just... doing nothing. I certainly can’t tell my parents because they’d probably let him know. Because that’s the polite thing to do. ‘Yeah I know you’re a scumbag who takes money from children, murders young men and women and probably promotes corruption across your district but because we can’t prove anything we need to look into it. That ok mate?'” grumbled Jara.

“Oh...” said Zuhra.

“Oh indeed,” hissed back Jara.

“Sorry... I just... ok yeah... I apologise again for my earlier comments about trading places with you. I don’t think I could deal with this sort of thing carefully at all... I’d probably send in a bunch of guards or just an assassin. Wait... do you have assassins?” mumbled Zuhra.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Jara shrugged and said, “It’s fine I forgive you. I do understand why those checks are there. I could potentially ruin a completely innocent person just by investigating them thoroughly enough. Either by taking the time to keep them from doing business until they run out of money or just telling the guards not to be careful and let them break things to search for ‘hidden documents’ or ‘contraband materials’ and what not.

“So it’s a sort of reasonable precaution... doesn’t make me any happy about it. As for assassin, officially no. Unofficially... probably not? That’s the sort of thing I doubt my parents will tell me about until I’m officially the Lady of the house and honestly it’d surprise me more if my mother didn’t know how to contact some assassins quickly. I do suspect they aren’t in the city, or at least don’t have a major presence in the city. No successful assassination attempts have been made on The Ten after all. Other people... not quite so lucky...”

“Do you think the 8th hired a proper assassin for Gaston?” asked Kat.

Jara frowned at the question and thought it over. “Hmm... that’s... that’s actually an interesting question. I mean... to set it up so cleanly I think he would have had to... but the potential response time makes me wonder. I imagine unless it was just removing bastards the 8th would have needed time to call them in and Gaston would have been able to spread whatever damaging lies or truths he had before that... yet nobody he was close to seems to know any of the specifics. Hmm... Zuhra was he acting strange at all before he died?”

Zuhra couldn’t help but wince. “I... I don’t really know? I mean... I wish I did... but I was very... um... how do I explain it... floaty? Gaston and I were getting married and that happiness was keeping me... rather inattentive. My mind was alight with all sorts of wonderful scenarios revolving around our wedding and... well frankly I wouldn’t have noticed anything strange if Gaston had walked into my room with just a tie on,”

Jara raised an eyebrow, “Surely you would have noticed something strange about that,”

Zuhra blushed deeply, “Um... yes... something. Something indeed...” Zuhra let out a light cough, “I mean... perhaps that was a bad example. The point is though... any little details that I might have noticed at a normal time were certainly ignored. I was experiencing the best few weeks of my life. My love had just proposed to me... I didn’t really have a lot of room in my head for anything other than overly sweet thoughts and plans for my future. If he was acting a bit off... well... Gaston was always rather good at keeping things a secret. Keeping one more, even a large one, while I was so distracted...”