Bree felt like she misheard Dion as she blinked her eyes and very slowly asked, " Who agreed to his request?"
"It’s you, your majesty," answered Dion looking slightly harassed. " The duke published the official copy of the docunt that has your stamp on it, apparently it’s authentic and everyone is going really crazy because of this."
" But I never stamped on his docunt, how can that docunt be considered as authentic?" asked Bree looking like she was going to lose her mind. She placed a hand on her forehead as she tried to rember what she did with the docunt that Duke Cilantro sent, if she wasn’t wrong —— then she placed the docunt in the pile of rejected docunts and said she will further consider it, so how co the docunt that was rejected by her yesterday was suddenly stamped?
Ahmar who was sitting on the bed heard what was going on at the threshold of his room and then he too slid off the bed with a slight wince, though his wounds were mostly healed, that one long gash at his back was yet to be completely healed. So, even if he only made the slightest mont, it was quite hurtful.
" Isn’t it clear? There was only the royal seal stamped on the docunt," said Ahmar as he walked up to Bree and placed a hand on her shoulder. " But there was no signature on the docunt since the Copy quill was banned from the royal palace... from what I can see, there seed to have been a break-in, inside the royal office and soone deliberately stole the docunt and stamped it with the royal seal making it look like as if the Queen did it."
" That’s what I believe too as well, second consort," said Dion agreeing at once with Ahmar. " But the thing is that the ministers seed to have gone on a riot, if this continues then we will have a hard ti reining in the managent of the Empire."
" They are just trying to throw tantrum," said Ahmar as he walked to his closet and pulled out a shirt before throwing it around his shoulders. "It’s pretty clear what’s going on, the ministers are not upset with the raised taxes, they are upset because their territories weren’t allowed to raise the taxes while Duke Cilantro got the approval." He snatched one of the demurrals from Bree and skimd through it before sneering, " Making it sound like they are really worried about the people of our Empire but we all know how much of a damn they give about the people or the ones who are living under poverty. It’s just an effort to pressurise the queen with either you give us what we want or you don’t give anyone anything, sothing along the lines."
Then he smiled at Bree as if he just didn’t sneer until the temperature dropped to freezing cold degrees and said, " You don’t have to worry about those stupid idiots, your majesty. Just prepare to head to the court and leave the rest to , all right, I swear I will see what exactly happened last night for such a ruckus to start all of a sudden."
Bree nodded as she handed the demurrals back to Dion and walked out of the room, she expected a lot of scenarios about how her day will be started but this one for sure wasn’t in it. As she was walking out of the corridor, Ahmar called from behind, " Don’t be worried your majesty, rember you are the Queen and you don’t need to answer anyone. It is the other way round, make sure you get those ministers to understand this thing clearly."
Her pace faltered before she nodded and said, " I know."
She knew that Ahmar was trying to tell her that she didn’t need to worry too much about it and that no one will bla her for what happened given that she was the Queen but Bree couldn’t help it. She was indeed the Queen and she didn’t need to ask anyone what she needed to do, as long as she wanted she could do anything... that was how things worked in this world but as she thought about what might happen if this bla was to be pinned on her neck, a shiver crawled up her spine.
No, she needed to take care of this matter.
That was what she thought but as soon as she dressed up and stepped into the court, she realised that she seed to have underestimated the ’tantrum’ of her ministers.
" I do not wish to condemn you, your majesty but this is blasphemy. How can this be allowed? Taxes at such inhumanly payable rates? I am afraid that I will have to loan out my land to pay that sum of money."
" My entire territory depends on export and imports, how will we survive through this? If we are not given the chance to import our raw material and export the final product, how will my people survive? Do I need to sell myself in order to pay those sky-high rates?"
" Your majesty, you should have at least discussed with us about this matter. At least then we would have been prepared, now my territory——"
" Your majesty!"
" Your majesty!"
" Your majesty!"
Bree nursed her temples, Ahmar was right. Though the ministers were acting like they were worried about their people it was quite clear from the undertones of their discontent voice that they weren’t upset about the sky-high rates that they needed to pay, they were more than capable of paying those prices but they were more upset about why they couldn’t have a bite of the pie that was served to Duke Cilantro but not them.
She listened to their complaints and tried to reason out with them. " Ministers, please listen to ."
" Calm down!"
" Ministers, I said——"
" Your majesty this is unacceptable!"
" We will go on a strike!"
" Yes, we do not wish to work in a place where our voices aren’t heard!"
’Voices aren’t heard?’ Exactly whose voice was it that wasn’t being heard here!
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