The girl was supposed to help the situation, not make it worse. Frowning, he snapped his book shut and dropped it on his desk, giving up on his reading for the time being as he considered the situation. He had already known that Grimiore's boy wasn't one to be swayed by feminine wiles. They'd tried that before he'd started adding political alliances to that harem of his, and he'd either brushed them off or ignored them entirely.
It wouldn't have been so bad if he'd even had a girl or two in that little clutch of his, but no, the man couldn't even come up with something sufficient to breed with. After all, it wasn't unknown for a king to take a bastard child and make it an official heir if he never married. But could the boy be relied upon to manage his own affairs? No. Instead he'd actually developed a system for gauging his slaves and didn't even try to keep some of the more promising ones around.
The man just didn't understand that slaves were things, and the mindset was more than slightly annoying. True, those things were rather intelligent, like a hunting beast or a riding bird could be, but that did not make them something that the king of a country should listen to. You did not take advice on war from a chocobo. Likewise, while one should value the object that a slave was, by no means should it be the slave's choice to come and go as they please, request favors, or anything else of the kind.
At this point he was sorely regretting not having taken the chance in the wake of the prior king's death to deal with the head slave while he was still a small child. If nothing else, there had been the chance to break the child's spirit, and that might have led to him being discarded by now. That chance had been foiled while Lucretia had attempted to get rid of his contract.
They really had underestimated his magical studies at that point, and now the family simply couldn't be rid of him, though they could try. They couldn't kill him themselves, and he was attentive to assassination attempts on his person. He honestly couldn't say they bothered him. It just proved that the boy wasn't a complete fool and was aware of a way to use some of his resources. Unfortunately, it seemed he only knew how to appropriately use a few.
The advisers, at least, agreed with him on this matter. They did not like the freedoms that the king was giving his prized pets. It might not have come to their attention at all had he not overturned the ban on slaves wielding weaponry, and if nothing else good came of that event, at least now they were aware. It had been chaos at first, and it was no good trying to reinstate it, because many had taken the change and run with it, turning slaves to guards, sword showmen, and a few other things they had previously been banned from due to the law. It would have caused more trouble than it was worth to put it back in place when it had been so quickly adopted by the upper ranks. At least he'd kept firearms out of the bargain, meaning that the king's prized little warrior wasn't nearly as worthwhile as he might have been without the prohibition.
That was one refreshing instance in a slew of far too many failures. The little spy was still attending meetings, though at least the boy hadn't been able to dispute them to bring any other. After all, the oldest of the slew had always been there, he would tell no enemies, but what of the slaves that had formerly been enemies? They weren't to be trusted, and he made sure that the other advisers backed and realized the extreme error in the current arrangements.
It didn't seem to be working quite as he anticipated though, but that wasn't a real worry. He was here to ensure that plans stayed on the track they should be on, whether the king cared for the idea or not. He was just the king, and a king should not overturn the plans carefully laid by his predecessors simply because he did not agree with them. That was not the way things worked.
Thus he arrived back at the topic that had initially made him set aside the book. How would he manage to get the princess to do her job? She was supposed to use that overzealous excess of pride that she had and demand the king be rid of his pets to be solely devoted to her when it came time for their nuptials. Instead it appeared that she was taking pains to form a friendship with the man's pets. This, of course, only made him more displeased, so he took the time and careful effort to make sure that all of the available tutors and trainers of her preferred, not to mention far too physical, activities were well distracted to other locations.
It wasn't so difficult considering that war was on the horizon if but one of those alliances of the king's were to be broken. Kill the warrior, and Cemere would cry broken treaty. Kill the little prince and Acadia would be in an uproar. It didn't matter if either was doomed for death before coming into the tender care of their nation, it would merely be the fact that that token had been smashed liberally all over the wall. War would bring about innovation, and the king was trying very hard to stay in his way.
If he managed to push through his ideal however… perhaps he'd yet be able to test just what exactly it was that fueled a priest. He always had wondered how they worked, and he hadn't been able to learn. War would give him plenty of opportunities, he was certain, because what kind of king wouldn't fight with his men?
Certainly not one worth following.
Hello! This is the first author's note for you guys, and I have to give special thanks to sinfulseraph and nanaG for reviewing and letting me know that someone out there was, indeed, reading this story. I'm glad you guys like it and I hope others decide to give me their thoughts too. - Skeren