Page 40 of Learning to Rule

“Dalton!”

I run into his office where he’s sitting calmly looking over a set of papers. There’s a half-finished glass of brandy on his desk. I’m anything but calm. The second Mr. Hinchbottom told me what had happened, time couldn’t go quickly enough until I could get to the side of the man I love. He stands and opens his arms wide as I fling myself into his embrace.

“Are you all right?” I cry into his broad chest.

“Yes, I’m fine. I’m not hurt in anyway. A little shaken but mostly disgusted that the poor man had to go to such lengths to get his story heard.” Dalton strokes my hair to calm me. I pull back and look up at him. He has a great sadness in his eyes.

“He killed your father?”

Dalton nods.

“He did. I don’t know how I’m going to help him, but I will try. The murder of my father will prey on his conscience for eternity. I can’t let him suffer, Elodie. To send him to prison…” Dalton pulls away from me. His shoulders slump, and he lowers his head. I watch as he takes a deep breath.

He’s suffering, and I need to help him.

“Elodie, I can’t condemn him for killing my father. He deserves a goddamn medal. He’s probably done the only thing that could save Janastria from the corruption at the top by destroying it.”

“What do you mean?” I question, standing back, giving Dalton the space he needs to work through everything in his mind.

He points to the papers strewn all over his desk.

“These papers, I’ve been reading them all day, and I want to cry. The things my father and the previous prime minister did are unconscionable. They made themselves richer and the poor poorer. So many people are unemployed because of my father’s need for pageants and parades, and his lust for the good life. He bought so many properties with the taxes of the people. Clement discovered it when he took over. These properties are lying empty as a result of my father wanting to make sure he was the richest man in the country. That money could have gone into projects to help those who needed it.”

Dalton picks up one of the papers on the desk and hands it to me. I scan down the list of properties recorded on it. There are about twenty listings, valued from five million to upward of seven hundred million. The value of the Janastrian currency, I learned when I first came here, is very much the same as the dollar. There’s a couple of billion dollars sitting on this page in properties, all doing nothing, paid for by the people of Janastria through their taxes.

“Can we sell them? I know you can’t sell other stuff because of the history and ownership rights, but these, they’re nothing to you.”

“Too fucking damn right I’ll sell them. I’ll put them all up for sale tomorrow. The highest bidders get them, and all the money will be returned to the government so they can lower taxes for the people. The money will be invested in education and healthcare—the two sectors that need it the most. There’s more, though.”

I shake my head, scared to hear what Dalton is about to tell me.

“These properties are just the ones in Janastria. There are others.” He picks up another piece of paper and hands it to me. This time, there are only about five entries, but the figures are even more startling than those on the first list. One property jumps out at me, valued at over one billion. My breathing quickens, and I slide down onto the chair Dalton had previously been sitting on.

“This is an island?” I point to the one valued at over a billion.

“Yes, it seems my father was expanding the Janastrian territory. Except he wasn’t… the island isn’t in the name of the country. It’s purely in my father’s name.”

“I don’t understand how this could’ve happened. Doesn’t anyone check the money the government gives to the royal family?”

Dalton shakes his head.

“No, my father and the previous prime minster abolished any such checks. They were both corrupt from the first moment they came into power. I can’t charge my father with treason against the crown, but I will be going after the former prime minster. Clement has been sitting on this evidence for a while. He wanted to speak to me about it, but with my banishment, and then our relationship, he decided to wait and see what happened. Thankfully, the murder of my father gave Clement the opportunity to share what he knows with me.”

I look down at the papers scattered across Dalton’s desk, scanning them briefly. They all make for horrifying reading. It’s like something out of the dark ages. Men arrested for stealing to feed their families. Mothers fined for not sending their children to school, but the schools don’t have the facilities to open, because they don’t get any funding from the government. Contracts given to the elite of Janastria to make them richer, but they don’t provide any work opportunities, or they bring in cheaper labor from outside of the country, which means the Janastrian people are left unemployed.

Dalton stands behind me as I continue to look over what he’s been studying for the last few days. He places his hands on my shoulders and massages away the tension that is building with each word I read. Everything is hopeless. Children leaving school with no prospects, and prestigious universities closing because they have no students who can afford to go. People waiting years for operations that could improve their lives dramatically. Cancer treatment coming too late when survival should have been assured if therapy had been given sooner. All this, so the man at the head of the country could live in his palace, eat the finest food, have the best wine available, and provide everything for his relatives—the royal circle of distant cousins who serve no purpose but live in luxury because they have a minuscule amount of royal blood in them.

When I finish reading, I turn in the chair and look up at Dalton.

“How do you even begin to solve all this?”

“That’s what I’ve been sitting here for the last hour trying to figure out. I come back to the same answer every time. I need to resign the monarchy and turn the country over to a republic. I’ll give every ounce of money I can back to the government. We’ll live here in relative obscurity—actually, no, we can go to Florida and live there. You can teach yoga, and I can find a job doing something. I’ve got a good education. I could run a business of some sort. We could start a yoga empire.”

I shake my head as I listen to Dalton’s words.

“You would abandon your people?” I ask bluntly, disbelieving what I’m hearing.

Dalton’s mouth quivers, and then he breaks.

---