Page 123 of The Infernal Battalion

“They’re not my friends,” Matthew said. “They’re the boys that I got drunk with, or cousins I saw at my father’s parties. None of them care about me. The less popular I am with my father, the less I hear from them. Strange how that works.” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t have many real friends, and none of them are rich enough for this sort of thing.”

“I’m glad you won’t be troubled by pangs of conscience, then.” Raesinia found that she was, a little. Phineas had seemed like a nice enough person. If things go badly, we’re going to make a lot of lives very miserable.

She gritted her teeth. Let them complain to Georg. I’ll do what I have to.

The carriage rattled under the looming gatehouse and around to a rear drive, one of several that led into the labyrinthine bulk of the Keep itself. Jo and Barely were waiting to escort Raesinia to the courtyard, where she met Cora.

“I wish you’d let us come with you,” Barely said, as they walked through the wood-​paneled corridors, past the stiff-​necked Life Guards. “Anything could happen out in the city.”

“I appreciate that,” Raesinia said. “But anything could happen in here. If Georg wants to hurt me, we can’t stop him, and I can’t imagine anyone else daring to cross him now.”

Joanna signed something, and Barely gave a bitter laugh.

“What did she say?” I’m really going to have to learn to understand her.

“Old proverb,” Barely said. “The quickest way to die is to underestimate your enemies. The second quickest is to overestimate them.”

Raesinia snorted.

Cora was waiting beside a decorative stream, near where it ran into a grated archway and under the wall. Barely and Joanna kept watch for interlopers, though the yard was empty except for the occasional hurrying servant. Cora was bouncing on her heels.

“Is he in?” she whispered.

Raesinia nodded and held up five fingers. Cora’s face lit up.

“Five hundred thousand marks.” Her eyes went glassy as she calculated. “Banks require ten percent in equity. We’ve been getting our derivatives at four or five percent, less handling fees, a little for...” She went quiet. “Call it a hundred million, give or take a million.”

“Give or take a million?”

Cora shrugged. “The exact rate is hard to predict.”

Raesinia shook her head. When they’d paid five thousand eagles for Danton Aurenne, that had seemed like a fortune to her. It probably was a fortune to almost anyone. The amounts Cora talked about now felt dreamlike and unreal.

“Are there even a hundred million marks?”

“You mean physical coins?” Cora laughed. “Almost certainly not. If you count bank deposits, outstanding credit, metal value of—”

“Never mind.” Raesinia pressed her hands to her temples. “Is it enough?”

“I think so. I’ll need a couple of days to put the appropriate transactions through.”

“Then what?” The broad outline of the plan had been Raesinia’s, an idea that would never have entered Cora’s tidy, rule-​abiding mind. Once it had come to actually implementing it, though, she’d been dependent on Cora’s acumen. As usual.

“Then we move to the next step,” Cora said. “The warning shot.”

*

Raesinia’s negotiations with Goodman had taken on a slightly dreamlike quality as well.

Officially, her engagement to the second prince, and the deal that had brokered it, was still a secret. But there seemed to be no secrets in the Keep, and it had become clear almost immediately that Goodman knew everything. Raesinia knew that he knew, and vice versa, which meant that they were both well aware that their meetings had become a farce. Goodman continued to stick to his guns on the matter of Vordanai debt, even while he knew that his monarch was preparing to overrule him.

Maybe it’s just for public consumption. There had to be some people in the Keep who didn’t know the secret, and probably a lot more outside. It would look strange if the negotiations stopped, especially after the king had ordered the navy dispatched to Vordan’s aid. Or else he’s maneuvering against Georg and the other Honest Fellows. By maintaining his resistance, Goodman might be intending to show that he wasn’t willing to be bullied, or possibly he was setting himself up to win future concessions from the throne.

It was impossible to know, and for Raesinia’s purposes it didn’t particularly matter. All it meant was that she had to sit through sessions that had long since become utterly rote. She would be on one side of a table, with Eric beside her, and Goodman would be on the other with a gaggle of aides. Raesinia would read her statement, which contained an offer to negotiate a settlement on Vordan’s prerevolution debts. It was the most generous offer Cora thought they could afford, but it was clearly unacceptable to Goodman, who in turn would read his own statement about the sanctity of contracts and his unwillingness to impose burdens on private bondholders.

Then they would bow to each other and leave through opposite doors. Inevitably, there was a small crowd waiting outside, kept at bay by Jo and Barely. Nobles and other palace hangers-on congregated in hopes of a quick word from Raesinia, who ordinarily didn’t oblige them. Today, however, she paused as a young man in a smart suit stepped in front of her and begged her pardon.

“Your Highness,” he said, when he saw she was looking at him. “I’m Count Edward Holish. I was hoping to invite you to a small gathering—”