Power shift
Kenneth, who was King Torbjörn's councilor for foreign relations, was the one to bring the news to the other members of the Royal Council sat at a semi-circle shaped table:
-Princess Helena got the opportunity to prove that she actually does know a spell that can counteract the effect of "love pills". Mages are coming to the outer Saimaa island on which she lives to learn it. Some people are spending enough time with her to realize the rumors are just that. It's only a matter of time before the false information that was disseminated after her escape loses its hold.
Tobias, the councilor on matters related to magic, pounded the table in frustration:
-How did she do it without breaking any laws? One of the purposes of that false information was to take all credibility away from any demonstration she could do on herself or a volunteer. Only the parents of a child who had the pill forced upon them would be desperate enough to give her a chance to demonstrate, and that foolish princess has too many morals to arrange for such a thing to happen.
Kenneth explained:
-A sweet seller – and no, the Princess Helena has not started selling sweets during the last six months – forced a "love pill" onto her host's ten-year-old daughter. Prince Sune was the other child involved in the would-be "test", so he knew to not ingest the pill given to him and was able to get the girl out of the sweet seller's room before things really started.
Kenneth was referring to the window that happened between the pill being ingested and moment the body was lost to much of its owner's control in favor of an overwhelming craving for both giving and receiving any form of affection. Vivian was the next to speak:
-Tobias, do you remember when I told you to not underestimate the lack of morals that exists outside this room and your own person? This is precisely what I was talking about. There are other people besides you who make children take "love pills" in the name of science, and it seems like either Adam or Ylva Solberg was acquainted with one of them without knowing it.
While all seven of them were in theory of equal power, facts put Vivian one step above everyone else. The number of seven councilors was partly intended to avoid any ties while voting for a course of action. However, one particular councilor position, that was currently held by Vivian, had come to be the one breaking most ties. Part of the wisdom councilor's job was to listen to everyone else's point of view on various issues and come up with a solution that was feasible considering all that had been put forward. Whatever decision she came to would officially become the King's once a second meeting happened in his presence. During that second meeting, the six others were only to present the parts of their point of view that Vivian had retained for her decision and the minimal reasoning necessary to keep them from looking arbitrary. Because of this, Vivian was the person the councilors for magic, foreign relations, national relations, nature, money and law needed to convince the most with their arguments, convincing each other being only secondary. Over time, the need to be on the wisdom councilor's good side had turned into an expectation of deference to them. In turn, the wisdom councilor tended to have an authoritarian attitude towards the six other councilors, regardless of relative age. Vivian continued speaking:
-If she gains the public's trust, she may be a problem. Some people may want to see her and Prince Sune on the throne, maybe even in the Royal Council. We need to make sure she stays out of the public's favor. Tobias, you already played the "that secret magic laboratory with a bed and shackles in it is absolutely not mine, it's Princess Helena's" card. I'm going to be disappointed if you don't have any back-up plans.
Tobias suddenly adopted his idea of a relaxed posture, which always managed to come across as slightly smug:
-As a matter of fact, I do. Tell me Randi, what is the status of the rumors according to which Prince Emil is still alive?
Randi was the councilor for national relations and had to stay aware of everyday happenings among ordinary citizens as part of her job.
-Enough mages have examined the grave for anyone willing to believe it to know that it isn't Prince Emil's body in there. A couple of different people were thorough enough in their investigation to figure out that the body is actually Tuuri Hotakainen's and that there aren't any remains of Prince Emil or Tuuri's trio-mates among the burnt remains that have been buried elsewhere. There doesn't seem to be much of a consensus about what to make of this information among those who are listening. Remarks go from "it was a giant fire in the Royal Palace, of course there was a lot of human error involved in dealing with the dead" to "I bet he's secretly working to get his throne back". The latter possibility is doing a good job at distracting some of the sharper minds from our other activities, if anything else.
The smugness in Tobias' expression only increased:
-In that case, I have a couple of… props that may interest all of you.
If it weren't for the fact that a spell was necessary for her to even move on her own, Tobias' "flesh puppet" could pass for a two-year-old girl:
-I had plenty of opportunities to harvest genetical material from Princess Helena and Prince Sune, and use it for some of my own experiments. This one, I set to age at a natural pace, and to take after Princess Helena. She is completely unaware I made it. One word from any of you, and it can turn up where you wish: orphanage, underground slave market, home of a father who has had to care for it after its mother abandoned it.
Randi spoke:
-I see how this could help us with Princess Helena's reputation. I'm afraid I'm failing to see how this has anything to do with the question you asked me about Prince Emil. Unless you're considering him as a possible father, which seems needlessly complicated considering the number of times you've probably cornered Princess Helena and Prince Sune into doing things that could realistically produce a child.
Tobias was more than happy to answer:
-I grew another one of those. A boy, or rather a young man of nineteen years in terms of appearance. It takes after Prince Sune.
Among King Torbjörn and Queen Siv's two sons, Sune had always been the one considered to resemble a younger Emil the most. Everyone knew who, exactly, something made to look like a nineteen-year-old version of Sune could pass for, especially if nobody had seen the real one in three years. As all six councilors besides Tobias seemed in deep thought, Tanja, the councilor for matters of law, spoke:
-Their legal status if they are discovered by someone who will be taken seriously will be tricky, to say the least. Not to mention that as long as there is no body, even we cannot be completely certain Prince Emil didn't survive the fire, regardless of our official stance about it. Should he happen to be alive, however, this may be a good way to draw him out it the open and make sure he's no longer a potential problem.
xxxx
Being dressed for a temperature much higher than the current one didn't change the fact that she was sweating from just about everywhere it was possible to sweat from. This had also brought her to the realization that the fabric of her dress was more prone to clinging to her body when a little wet than she thought it was. A couple tunics and a light cloak had been offered to her, but they only made Helena feel more uncomfortable and retained more of the excessive body heat that badly needed to escape. In addition to this, just about anything that could be taken as an indication that she was romantically involved with a person who wasn't Sune would attract unnecessary and unwanted attention towards the person in question, especially from Tobias. The combination of the real situation, the official story and what those who could handle neither often imagined had somehow resulted into many acting as if Helena and Sune were betrothed to each other, even though it had never officially been the case. The cold, hard, fact that Tobias' treatment had left both of them unable to fall asleep without the other physically being in the same bed didn't help matters.
This brought Helena's thoughts back to one of the reasons she was back in the Scandi Royal Palace after half a year of self-exile in Finmi. Between the memories that her own mind prevented her from visiting and those that had never had the opportunity to form due to the nature of the experiment Tobias had been conducting that day, her memories of those two and a half years of regular torment were very patchy to say the least. She was still dead certain she had never been pregnant during that time. She, however, had a slight idea of how a child related to her, or at least something that could pass as one to a mage looking for kinship, could exist. It had been impossible for her to not notice that something was off about Tobias' body. Her first tip-off had been the fact that she had only ever had to actively prevent conception after her forced "sessions" with Sune, while those with Tobias had never required it. When she had first noticed this, she had assumed Tobias to merely be sterile. But during those moments where she had been unable to do anything but watch while her body either moved on its own or let things happen, she had noticed other odd things: his hair was always the exact same length, his nails never felt different when dug into the same part of her body a handful of days apart. As his own body had been getting closer to that of an adult man, Sune had noticed a couple of strange things, as well. There had also been many more or less serious injuries inflicted upon Tobias during those times, some accidental, some very voluntary. She was sure she had seen cuts heal under her very eyes, and the man quickly recover from, if not outright shrug off, things that should have done a number on the inside of his body. For someone who liked boasting about his various accomplishments, especially to her and Sune in circumstances in which they were unable to leave, Tobias had been strangely insistent that Helena was imagining things the one time she had asked him about it. She wouldn't be surprised that if a realistic and mostly functional fake human body could be made with the help of magic, it would still require some actual human component somewhere along the line. This only made her even more intrigued by the news of Emil being found alive, that had come to her ears a strangely short time after patrons at the tavern had started accusing her of having abandoned a child she had never had.
A guard came into the waiting room and addressed Helena and Sune:
-The two of you are next.
As both of them stood up, Stig, Lalli and Sigrun did so as well.
-I hope you'll understand that I'd rather have my own escort with me.
The guard nodded. This wasn't a rare request for people of high status who knew themselves to be on metaphorical thin ice with whoever they considered to be in charge between the royal family and the True Rulers. Nobody had ever been allowed to be in a secured room with enough people to overwhelm the guards that were inside, but enough of a retinue to fend off an assassination attempt was usually tolerated. For all she suspected that this whole situation to be a trap, the only way for Helena to get an idea of the exact nature of the trap was to step right into it.
As she entered the room, Helena promptly spotted the little girl on Vivian's lap. Vivian was just as Helena remembered her: chin-length dark brown hair ornamented with her function's silver headdress that was a little fancier than the that of the other councilors, a matching silver breastplate worn over a simple dark green long-sleeved dress. There was an orphanage in Mora that literally existed for the current councilor of wisdom to sponsor to the extent to which they considered fitting and help their public image. Children from that orphanage under the age of three were all dressed in the same simple outfit, which the girl was currently wearing. If this was indeed a ploy Tobias had come up with, it made sense for the girl to have been "found" in Vivian's orphanage. The place had so many charges that it was believable for a single child to be overall ignored until attention was drawn to them. She next looked at the high judge's bench at which Tanja was sitting, her dress the same shade of gray as her hair. While being a qualified judge was a requirement to be the councilor for law, having them judge one's own case indicated that the matter was considered high-profile. To her right was Randi, her surprisingly curly and messy elbow-length straw-colored hair battling with her headdress for the title of most visible thing on the top of her head in spite of the low ponytail in which it was secured. The best solutions to various situations, that included a child's custody, were sometimes things that weren't spelled out in the law, yet would work best for everyone involved. Randi was there to make Tanja aware of the existing publicly acceptable solutions if they were needed, which made Helena really wonder what kind of outcome the True Rulers had planned for. Helena scanned the spectator benches, and was relieved to see no sign of Tobias. This made Vivian the most likely to be the mage who would test for kinship. The contents of a wheeled chair installed in a corner of the room, however, caught her eye:
-Emil.
Before she managed to get a good look at him, Tanja's voice reminded her of the reason of her presence:
-Let's do this kinship test already.
Helena sat in the defender's chair, while Sigrun took the seat that would have belonged to her legal representative if she had come with one. Stig and Lalli were to keep an eye on Sune and watch for any sudden moves in the room. Vivian got up from her seat, walked to Helena, shifted her hold on the toddler in such a way that the arm carrying her was also holding her hand, and used her free hand to hold Helena's. This was going to take a while, even for someone as experienced a Vivian, so Helena decided to give the little girl a good look. She quickly saw that the girl lacked any in-born life force, and was animated entirely by an elaborate set of spells. Helena could also detect plenty of surveillance spells just by looking at her. Whatever the toddler was seeing and hearing at the moment, chances were that it was going right back to whoever had cast the spells in one form or another. That, combined with the likely identity of the little girl's maker, explained why Tobias had not bothered to come. Helena got a glimpse of what the plan was: declare that they were related, make the girl her responsibility, give the True Rulers an extra pair of eyes and ears into wherever the girl was brought and Tobias a means to force himself back into Helena's life. As she continued looking, she noticed there were at least a couple of other spells whose function had nothing to do with animating the girl or using her as spy.
-You're this this child's mother.
Vivian collapsed before Helena had the time to pull the toddler out of her arm. The court medic rushed to examine her, while Helena asked for Sigrun's tunic and wrapped the little girl in it. Whatever had struck Vivian had come from the girl, so she wasn't taking any chances.
-Someone used a spell through the girl! Whoever wants to handle her must avoid any skin contact!
Meanwhile, Vivian's eyes opened, and she sat up:
-Calm down Princess, I'm fine. Whoever did this seems to have merely wanted to cause a scare. They will be found and dealt with. It does seem that I hit my head a little upon falling, though. I should get this checked properly. I seem to have done what was needed of me here anyway. Tanja, Randi, the rest of this is in your hands.
Vivian left the room on her own two feet, if followed by a worried court medic.
Helena gave the room a quick survey, and could tell from Tanja and Randi's faces that they definitely hadn't expected what had just happened. She however also knew that it wasn't going to affect them for much longer: according to Tobias, double-crossing was almost routine among the True Rulers. It took Helena a few moments to realize that the toddler wasn't moving at all. Worried about what it could mean, she lay her down on the floor in the lateral security position, and examined the spells contained within her. The more thorough examination told her that whatever had hit Vivian wasn't any of the spells permanently nested into the girl; having the surveillance spells be of any use, however, required her to be a good channel for long-distance magic. The channel could be used by just about any mage who noticed its presence, which seemed like a foolish thing to overlook, but kept whoever was doing the surveillance from being the only possible suspect. One of the things Helena found made her raise an eyebrow: there now seemed to be a human mind inside the girl, despite the fact that Helena had perceived such a thing to be absent from her mere moments before. The sound of Tanja's gavel interrupted both Helena's train of thought and her magical investigation:
-Does the child require medical assistance?
Helena addressed Tanja:
-Not that I can tell. She seems to have merely fallen asleep and looks like she will eventually wake up on her own.
-I see. In that case, here is the situation. I understand that those who feel they will be inadequate parents may abandon their children. I have also been wary of parents coming take their children back, as they are often doing so for selfish reasons that are harmful to the child. Your actions during the last few minutes have shown you to be more responsible than many parents who have actually come to me with the intent of getting their child back. I hence consider that this child can be put under your care.
Tanja's gavel resonated a second time.
xxxx
The quarters they had been given for the night were in portion of the palace that had been rebuilt after the fire. The bedroom for the women and Sune had already had a bed for the girl when it had been shown to Helena and Sigrun. The girl had yet to wake up, and Helena was reading through her – most likely fake – records from the orphanage. Making those fake records had required coming up with a name for the girl, and Helena saw no immediate reason to change it, since she actually kind of liked it. She would still need to test pronouncing it around the girl several times in case it was the trigger word for some spell nested inside her that was best not activated too often, if at all. She had tried to find out more about the mind that was now inside the girl, but the spell that worked as a mind container of sorts prevented her from doing just that. Without that knowledge, her own mind had gone to the worst-case scenario, which wasn't that far-fetched given the lack of any encounters with Tobias during the day. She didn't dare ask those living in the palace for any news of him, as she didn't want to be mistaken for caring about his well-being. She didn't know what to do besides looking out for anything odd, and telling the others to do the same. On the off-chance she was right, however, it was probably best to put the girl somewhere she would be out of Helena's everyday life, yet well cared for, all while being unlikely to see or hear anything of real use to the True Rulers. This excluded any relatives she had in Scandi. Adam's house would maybe work, but didn't quite fit the "out of her everyday life" requirement. She could maybe ask Stig and Lalli if she could live somewhere on their island. The two of them had gone to the market with Sune to get some food, as nobody in the group was in the mood to trust anything brought in by palace servants.
As she wanted to go straight to bed after eating, Helena decided to wash up and change into her sleepwear while waiting for the men to come back. Once she was done, her attention was drawn to the fact that the girl had been laid onto the bed in full clothing aside from her shoes, and the closest thing she had to a blanket was the tunic belonging to Sigrun in which she had been wrapped earlier. Helena thought it might be a good idea to wrap her hands in bandages, to limit the risks of whatever had happened to Vivian happening to someone else. Sigrun poked her head into the door just as Helena had located the first aid kit:
-The guys are back with food. Any preference on where to eat?
-Here would be best.
The room had both a balcony that let fresh air in and a low table big enough for everyone to sit on cushions around. A noise coming from the smallest bed told Helena the girl had woken up.
-Janine?
The girl, who still looked tired, didn't respond, be it in a visible way or via any of the spells nested inside her. This made the name in the orphanage records even more likely to be one that hadn't been associated with her until very recently. Helena, Lalli and Sune all feeling a little awkward around her had resulted in Stig being the one trying to figure out if she liked anything among the food that had been brought from the market. Come to think of it, Helena wasn't sure Janine even needed to eat. She didn't remember ever seeing Tobias doing so. The toddler eventually found interest in a type of vegetable garnished pastry that was usually hated by children, but adored by adults. She was small enough that only one of them would be enough to fill her stomach. As the meal drew to a close and what hadn't been eaten was being put away so some of them could have it for breakfast, Helena noticed that Sune's shopping bag was still bulky:
-Is that more food?
Sune grabbed the bag and started fumbling inside it:
-There was a stall selling child gloves. We remembered what had happened to Councilor Vivian this afternoon, so we got her some.
Sune handed her a pair of light blue thin gloves of a proper size. Helena had to admit it would be more practical than her idea of using bandages.
-And what else is in there?
Between them, the three men had apparently decided they absolutely needed to get Janine a nightgown, spare underwear, a second pair of gloves, a hooded tunic, an undershirt, a pair of pants, a nicer dress, a couple of hair ribbons, socks, an extra pair of shoes and a cloth doll. Sune looked a little embarrassed:
-I hope you don't think it's too much. I'm guessing you don't want this treated as if we just had a child or something like that. I went with it mostly because I thought it would be a good idea to at least get her out of the orphanage outfit.
Helena sighed:
-They arranged to dump her on me precisely so I'll look bad if I try getting rid of her or seem to not be caring for her. I'm not exactly in a position to complain about you guys getting her stuff if you feel like doing it. How do you feel about an early night?
xxxx
By mid-afternoon the next day, Sigrun barely even dared think the words "at least that day can't get any stranger". The previous evening, little after Helena and Sune had fallen asleep for the night, a servant had come with the news that the councilor who had spent two and a half years tormenting them had been found dead, and had apparently been so since some time in the afternoon. One of the consequences of this had been, of course, that they could say goodbye to their plan of leaving the palace the next day; anyone leaving it during the following week outside of a very restricted number of reasons would immediately make themselves suspicious. This, in turn, had made it impossible for Helena and Sune to refuse an invitation to a private lunch with Sune's family, including whoever or whatever had been standing in for Emil in the courtroom. In turn, this had made Sigrun, "Stig" and Lalli realize they had run out of good reasons to hide their secret from Helena any longer, and decide to tell her and Sune the parts of it that they now absolutely needed to know before going to the lunch: they had been helping an Emil who was unmistakably the real one hide in Finmi ever since the fire three years ago, and knew exactly where he currently was. This meant that it was literally impossible for the one from the courtroom, that Helena would see again at the lunch, to be anything else than an impostor. The lunch itself, combined with what they had learned during the morning, had left Helena and Sune really needing to have an afternoon nap. The only information Helena had delivered before falling asleep had been confirming Lalli's suspicion that the fake Emil was something similar to Janine.
Janine, while looking less tired than the previous day, still sounded like whoever had made her had not found it necessary to give her even toddler-level speech. She seemed to see and hear people perfectly fine, on the other hand. "Stig" was keeping her busy, while Lalli was catching up on his own sleep after having been on watch for most of the night. As soon as Helena had found out about her tormenter being found dead, the time synchronization between the apparent time of death and the moment at which she had first perceived a mind inside the girl had not been lost on her; in fact, it only seemed to confirm what she had already been suspecting. Sigrun couldn't help voicing her concern:
-Doesn't it disturb you that the guy who hurt Helena and Sune could be in there?
-If it's him, being treated like a two-year-old child who just got adopted into a new family can't be fun. In that case, I'm making him pay it back well within the bounds of the law. If it isn't him, it feels wrong to shun whoever is in there because of the surveillance spells.
-Even if it's not Tobias, how can we be sure it's someone who has nothing to do with the surveillance spells in there?
As soon as the sentence left her lips, Sigrun realized that they had yet to discuss who – or what – could be inside the girl besides Tobias' mind with Helena. That bunch of nobles and merchants was smart, so having the mind inside the girl actually being the one Helena would suspect, especially after Tobias would be found dead, seemed too simple a plan coming from them. On the other hand, she also knew it was a bad idea to make a plan more complicated than it actually needed to be, and maybe that level of complexity had been sufficient for what they needed. This still raised a question of its own:
-If it's not Tobias in there, who would it be?
From "Stig's" expression, Sigrun could tell she had hit the nail in the head. "Stig" only had the following to say about the subject:
-I haven't lived here for three years and wasn't exactly paying attention to the political scene when I was. I think this is something we should ask Helena and maybe Sune once they wake up.
Janine, who had so far seemed to find having the doll being wiggled in front of her to be a perfectly satisfying form of entertainment, suddenly grabbed the doll out of "Stig's" hand and got close as she could to his face. As neither Sigrun nor "Stig" were mages, it was unfortunately impossible which of the forces animating her had been triggered by "Stig's" words. Whichever force it was, it either quickly found what it was looking for or gave up its investigation. The girl's attention shifted from "Stig's" face to the doll she was holding, then the room as a whole. She next toddled all the way to Helena's night table that had her travel-size jewelry box on it, grabbed her broad silver bracelet and arranged it on the doll in such a way that it now looked like the toy was wearing a breast plate over the dress that was its only item of clothing. After a little extra rustling, she found a metal hair accessory that, once pressed on the doll's forehead, made it look like she was wearing a silver headdress. Once she was done, she seemed very insistent that "Stig" get a good look at it. Sigrun couldn't help but comment:
-I don't know what you're trying to do, but do you mind letting me have a look at it as well? This one can be a little dense at times.
-I am "a little dense at times"? When you have you mind set on something, even Mikkel has to tell you it's not a good idea at least three times before you let go.
Sigrun wasn't sure what to make of the fact that the little girl's immediate reaction was a look that seemed to say "is it me or I am I the most mature person who's currently awake?". While the noise didn't seem to have disturbed Helena and Sune a tiny bit – or maybe they were just that tired – Lalli started shifting a little. He was soon awake and came to see what was happening. "Stig" quickly shared their worries and asked for his input:
-Nobody is watching through her right now. The doll looks like the lady in the green dress like this.
Janine energetically nodded. Sigrun had to admit it was far from obvious, considering neither the doll's hair nor her dress looked anything like Vivian's.
-So what does it mean? Do you want to see Vivian?
The girl seemed pensive, then answered with a brief, but visible nod.
-We'll ask Helena whether this is a good idea or not once she wakes up from her nap, okay?
Janine seemed disappointed at Sigrun's words, but the rest of her response consisted of getting the two pieces of jewelry off the doll and putting them back in the box in which they belonged. Lalli spoke again:
-Are you Tobias?
Janine shook her head. "Stig" sighed:
-Lalli, of course she's going to answer "no" to that, regardless of whether it's true or not. Wait, this means we can ask her "yes" or "no" questions to which she would not lie.
Sigrun felt she had to point out the obvious problem with the idea:
-And what kind of question would that be, if whoever is in there is bent on deceiving us?
Before anyone awake could come up with an answer, a noise came from "Stig" and Lalli's room, which was closer to the main hallway than the one in which they currently all where. Janine was left with "Stig", while Sigrun and Lalli entered the room to find that someone had collapsed on the bed. It didn't take long for Sigrun to recognize the mess of straw-colored curls that made Reynir's hair look tame. Further examination revealed fresh whiplashes and a lack of proper clothes.
While Helena hadn't needed to actually use any of the spells Tyra had taught her in exchange for being taught the counter to "love pills", the was little room for imagination as to the circumstances in which Randi had received those whiplashes. For now, sympathy overrode any resentment Helena had against Randi for being part of the handful of people who had known what Tobias was doing to her and Sune, had done nothing to stop it, and most likely participated in disseminating the false story in which Helena was the person who shouldn't be trusted:
-Randi, who did this to you?
-Vivian has been acting strange since she fell yesterday. I made sure she was examined by three different mages with medical knowledge, and they all told me it wasn't serious and she just needed to rest it off for a couple days. She cares enough about her work that there is only one way to make her stay in bed that long.
Helena saw where this was going:
-You two had started seeing each other before Sune and I had to run away. Are you telling me she's the one who did this to you?
Randi nodded, and tears streamed down her cheeks:
-It was the first time she did something like that. We did get "love pills" involved a few times before this, and it was fun. But this time, it looked like she wanted to see how much she could hurt me and have me still want her. She started with telling me cruel things, then started injuring me. Then I realized that she had forgotten how fast I burn trough the pills, so I ran away a soon as I could.
As Helena wondered who in the world forgot how long "love pills" acted on a regular partner, she realized that what Randi had described sounded worryingly familiar. Had Vivian taken to Tobias' idea of a good time? Her mind somehow came up with an even more sinister possibility. Could she have been completely off the mark as to where Tobias had sent his mind before "dying"? But if this was the case, what had happened to Vivian's mind? As if to answer her question, Janine climbed onto the bed and pressed a handkerchief under Randi's eyes. Randi winced at even that brief contact, before clearly realizing the oddity of an artificially-created toddler coming to dry her tears. Helena voiced the idea before anyone else could:
-Vivian?
The little girl turned to her and nodded. Helena's legs found themselves unable to support her as she realized, what, exactly had actually happened in that courtroom the previous afternoon.
