The Almighty Dominance novel Chapter 781

It was past midnight.

Steward Aldous Danoe had come to the east wing himself, knocked once on the door and said only, "His Majesty will see you now."

"No guards?" Alexander had asked on the way.

"His Majesty prefers not, at this hour."

Now, in the small study, Alexander stood in the middle of the rug and waited.

"Cure her."

The Emperor did not look up. The pen did not stop moving.

"Cure the Second Queen, Alexander. Tonight, tomorrow, whenever you like. But cure her."

Alex turned silence.

His father finally put the pen down. “Sit.”

Up close, without the grey powder, Maximillian Leonhart looked exactly what he was: a man who had never been sick a day in ten years.

"You're staring," the Emperor said.

"Your colour is better, Your Majesty."

"Is it?"

"Much better. For a man who was vomiting blood four hours ago."

The Emperor's mouth moved. It was not quite a smile.

"A miracle," he said. "Our ancestor is very forgiving."

"Very."

"Danoe. Tea."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Here is my problem," the Emperor said, when the cups were full.

"The Second Queen is lying in her family's house at Greyhallow with three organs failing, and every newspaper in this Empire is saying the same thing. The Tenth Prince cursed her."

He leaned back.

"Well?" the Emperor said. “Will you do it?”

"She came to my house with twenty rifles," Alexander said. "She said I'd serve my sentence in a prison cell."

"I read the report." The emperor was waiting.

"The voice has gone quiet," he said.

"Has it."

"Since the Hall of Council. Nothing. Not a word." He turned the cup slowly. "Except once."

"Go on."

"It said: she promised a billion dollars to whoever saves her. It's in every newspaper." Alexander looked up. "Let her keep her word to someone."

The room was silent for a long moment.

Then the Emperor began to laugh again, low and private.

"Danoe," he said. "Did you hear that move?"

"I heard it, Your Majesty."

"My ancestor wants the Second Queen to pay her bill."

"So it would seem, Your Majesty."

"To someone."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

The Emperor shook his head slowly and looked at his tenth son across the desk with an expression Alexander could not read at all.

"Fine," he said. "Then let her pay someone."

…

He picked the pen back up.

"Now. The other matter. You were at the meeting. You heard the rules."

"Everything in my name, handed back within a month."

"Everything." The Emperor tapped the desk. "The island. The government. The power company. That clever machine of yours that the whole Empire is paying twenty dollars a month to talk to. All of it comes back to the Crown."

"I understand."

"Do you?" The old man's eyes came up. "Because I have read the Harland figures, Alexander. Half a billion a year. Most men would fight me for that."

"Most men didn't eat out of a bin for fourteen years."

The pen stopped.

"I've lived on nothing before," Alexander said quietly. "I'm good at it."

…

Halfway down the shadowed corridor, the steward spoke without turning around, his voice barely above a breath. "A word of warning from the Emperor, my Prince—if you will permit me."

"Please."

"The Treasury is sending an auditor to Harland to take the handover. His name is Basil Merriwether." The steward's voice did not change at all. "He was supposed to be dismissed with the Second Queen's ministers. Somehow, his name was not on the list."

"Somehow."

"Somehow." Danoe stopped at the corner. "He is a careful man. He will look under every floorboard on that island for something with your name on it. And if he finds one coin you hide, Your Highness —"

"I'm out of the selection."

"On the first day."

Alexander looked down the long corridor toward the east wing, where a door with a polite guard outside it was waiting for him.

"Then I'd better make sure," he said, "that there's nothing under the floorboards."

The steward almost smiled.

"Your plane leaves at six, Your Highness. Mr. Merriwether's left two hours ago."

…

Six hours later.

"They're stealing it!"

The shout came from the back of the square, from a man in fishing boots with his hands cupped round his mouth.

"You hear me? You gave it to us and now you're stealing it back!"

…

Three thousand people had come again, to the same square, under the same salt-stained flagpole.

"Nine cars," a fisherman said near the front. "Nine. Off the morning ferry. I counted."

"And a banner." The man beside him spat. "Handover of the Territory of Harland to the Crown. In gold letters. They had it printed before they even got here."

"Who's the one in the blue suit?"

"Treasury. Stepped off the boat, looked at the harbour like it was a cheap house he was thinking of buying, and asked where the idiot was."

"He said that? Out loud?"

"Out loud. 'Comptroller Basil Merriwether, Imperial Treasury. Where's the idiot?'"

"Then I hope he falls in the harbour."

"He won't. That kind never does."

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