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Her second puzzle is about a knight who always tells the truth, a knave who always lies and a normie who sometimes lies, and sometimes tells the truth, depending on what he ate for lunch.
She takes all her five minutes and gives them a solution just before the gong. The chairperson of the jury says it’s correct. She asks Camille to explain her reasoning. Camille presents the assumptions and their logical consequences, which led her to the only possible conclusion. The jury members are satisfied.
I turn to Angie. “Holy cow!”
My PA’s face lengthens with bewilderment.
The final puzzle is a math problem with a numeric series that Camille must complete. Staring at the series, I try to add or subtract a constant number. It doesn’t work. Dividing and multiplying fail, too. This sequence makes absolutely no sense to me. But it does to Camille. She solves the puzzle within four minutes and explains how she did it.
Unbelievable!
The jury retires to deliberate. It’s composed of anonymized nobles and commoners that are renewed every year, so it’s reputed to be fair.
The point of this contest isn’t to flatter the royal ladies or to allow them to shine. It’s to challenge them. When it was launched in 1800, the royal ladies had an image problem. Deservedly or not, the growing bourgeoisie had begun to see them as mini-Marie Antoinettes. They were perceived as idle, purely decorative creatures, while the bourgeois women contributed to society in much more meaningful ways.
As is often the case, the men had an easier time. Few accused the male royals of being lazy. They were the ones running the country.
Luckily, Mount Evor’s reigning couple at the time was smarter than the French royals beheaded a decade earlier. They launched a vast and ultimately successful PR campaign designed to not only improve the image of the royal ladies, but to teach them to be humble. This contest, which forced them to become proficient at something, was part of that campaign.
Later, in the nineteenth century, our monarchy became constitutional. Not only did we elect deputies and a prime minister, but we introduced a general vote system for everything of importance. The image of the royal ladies improved. In fact, it has never been better than today in the twenty-first century. I doubt that our founder Isidore Pox-Face himself was more popular than the Reigning Prince Richard, his mother, his brother’s widow Felicia, the Crown Prince Theo and his younger brothers and sister. The principality worships that bunch.
If I weren’t related to them, I would’ve called this secular worship a cult.
As the minutes pass, I find myself rooting for Camille to win. The minx solved all three logic problems that she was given. And they weren’t easy! I was unable to crack any of them. But she did it, undeterred by my lack of confidence in her ability.
The jury returns with the verdict. Elise Pontet, Theo’s soon-to-be wife, won the grand prize for her mind-blowing portrait of the crown prince. Camille is the runner-up, which proves that the jury was fair once again. Its members were able to put aside any resentment they may have felt for the Trailer Witch and awarded her honorable second place for “an admirable show of exquisite logic.”
I’ll be damned!
CHAPTER11
CAMILLE
Louis and I get out of the car in front of the austere modern building and climb the steps to the entrance. An unadorned sign above it reads MESS: Mount Evor Secret Service. Unlike bigger countries where the internal and external security is managed by distinct agencies, in Mount Evor it’s all under one roof. And what an ugly roof it is! Considering how many beautiful buildings there are in this area, it beats me why this sinister eyesore had to be erected for MESS.
Unless… intimidation of citizens was the desired effect.
Before we can get in, armed guards ask us to show our ID cards and state who our appointment is with before they verify it with their computers. After that, we pass a biometric scan and metal detector. A security officer at a desk behind the first checkpoint gives us badges in exchange for our IDs to wear at all times while we’re in the building.
Another security officer escorts us through endless corridors and up the plainest staircases I’ve ever seen. The glaring, cold light makes the purely functional interior spooky. There are no carpets, wallpaper, posters, or plants—not even inside the offices! Given that my little nation lives to make their surroundings full of character, color and comfort, this grimly minimalistic design is as un-Evorian as it gets.
On the other hand, there’s no shortage of wall-mounted CCTV cameras. They give me a jittery sensation that my every step is being watched. Which it probably is.
We cross numerous MESS agents. Some wear black suits as one would expect. Others are dressed more casually. Some are equipped with earpieces and others have walkie-talkies. An agent rushes into a room with a folder tucked under her arm. Others perambulate up and down the corridor alone, in pairs, or in groups. I catch snatches of conversations and some of the hilarious nicknames the agents use for one another: Groucho, Snappy, Bighead…
“Cactus? Really?” Louis turns to the security agent accompanying us. “Who chooses these monikers?”
“The analyst in charge of attributing code names to field agents,” our guide replies impassively.
“That analyst must have a peculiar sense of humor,” Louis says.
“She does, my lord,” the security agent agrees unexpectedly.
He unlocks a door using his badge and a combination that he types into the keypad.
“Or maybe,” I put forward, “it’s her way of signaling that the field agents have an attitude problem.”
Laughter dances around Louis’s sexy lips as he whispers in my ear, “Or maybe she’s the one with the attitude problem.”
