Page 7 of A Fragile Heart

"Beautiful work, Miss Gohar." They both jumped, and then immediately bowed low.

"Y-Your Highness," she said, still looking at the floor, cheeks flushed. "Work?"

"Your tattoos. Plum blossoms for the family that raised you, a sparrow for the family you'll be marrying in a couple more years, yes? Clever and elegant. Much like Princess Relanya herself, choosing marks connected to those we love."

Her pink cheeks darkened, and she looked up enough to give him a real smile. "Yes, Your Highness, that was my thinking exactly. Thank you, your praise means much to me."

He smiled briefly, then shifted his attention to Lord Hesh. "Are you always like this, Lord Hesh? Making a public spectacle of humiliating and abusing people? What are you like in private, if this is your public behavior?"

"I beg pardon, Your Highness, I lost my temper and will have more care," Lord Hesh said, staring at the floor like he thought it might save him.

"I know a bit about tempers," Bakhtiar replied, because that was true, but also he'd never grabbed someone in anger, though he had once thrown a book at Aradishir when they were kids. "I advise you to better watch yours. Goodnight."

He walked off without waiting for their replies and further bowing. "Tonight is going to be a long night, I can feel it."

"They wouldn't be so long if you slept properly," Kurosh grumbled.

"I sleep plenty."

Thankfully, they reached the banquet hall then, stalling Kurosh's reply, though his heart was racing anyway that maybe his late night jaunts to the office had been noticed after all. Not that it mattered, since they never offered to go with him, or invited him to stay and work there in his room, or anything at all. Just remained asleep, or 'asleep' apparently.

He took his usual spot at the table, smiling and bowing his head in greeting to his parents. Aradishir nodded, and Relanya smiled warmly as she always did. Jahanara, of course, barely looked at him. Even if he had lost her damned earrings, she had five hundred pairs of them, was it really worth being that angry?

He hadn't even borrowed important ones, just a pair that was yet another gift from a grateful general or merchant or visitor, even she couldn't remember who exactly. She never wore them, butheremembered them because blue topaz was so pretty, his favorite color, and not a gemstone typically giftedbecause it was considered common. He'd wanted them for a garden party he had to attend, had loved them so much. Nobody gifted him the delicate, pretty color. He got rubies, emeralds, dark sapphires. Never the softer blues and pinks and purples.

Buying them himself was obviously the easiest thing in the world, but it wasn't the same. Everyone gifted his siblings pretty things, but he only got austere things. Sometimes really obnoxious, opulent stuff that he tried to make certain got buried, if not outright lost, in the treasury.

So he settled for borrowing a pretty pair of earrings from his sister, and had the best time wearing them with a matching tunic. Now she wouldn't even talk to him, even though hehadreturned them. Where did all his stuff keep going? It was so frustrating.

Pushing the question from his mind, he focused on what he was meant to accomplish that night. Their guests included a couple of Aradishir's merchant friends, there just for fun, a couple of foreign dignitaries his sister was hosting because they'd be doing military maneuvers together next year, and a few members of the council who were throwing fits about the latest tariff squabble.

Necessary imports, anything related to clothes, food, basic household goods, and such, the tariffs were capped and always a flat amount. Luxury goods, anything beyond the basics and certain exempted nicer goods like finer soaps, were wildly more complicated, and were a mix of flat charge and percentage charge. Wine alone could start a civil war in the council room, nevermind all the other imports.

The latest bickering was over changes to tariffs on stone. Marble, granite, and more, used in everything from construction to art. Tavamara exported a significant amount of basalt and sandstone—more basalt than anyone else in the world. Unfortunately, they imported practically everything else. Theproblem was those imports were generally so cheap, people went with fancy foreign stone instead of local stuff infinitely more suited to the environment. Raised tariffs would mitigate a lot of that, and help local industries besides.

So of course the merchants had to cry about it, and thus the council members tied to those merchants had to cry as well.

"Your Highness, we missed you at the council meeting today," said Lord Messar.

That was a bald-faced lie. Messar had stakes in two casinos, including the Red Lark, so he had a deeply vested interest in everyone leaving Bakhtiar and his plans to rot. It would not surprise him in the least if he engineered, instigated, and otherwise created all the squabbling that kept the council overly occupied with tariffs and other matters, perpetually shelving Bakhtiar.

Nothing he could prove, though, not easily, and even if he could no one would believe him anyway.

"Gracious of you, my lord." He sipped the wine Kurosh offered him, a light, crisp wine to precede the actual meal, one of his favorites. "How did the meeting go? Did you accomplish what you wanted?" he looked from Messar to the other two council members in attendance, Lady Varesh and Lord Cemar.

When his family invited people simply for the pleasure of their company, it was being invited to dinner. When something more was afoot, and they were a mere step away from being in royal disfavor, it was calledbeing called to the table. It was the kind of talk the royal family wasn't supposed to hear, but Bakhtiar was good at learning such things. Servants talked, and many of them were explicitly willing to talk to him, though he didn't really know why.

Lady Varesh sniffed delicately. "There was some progress made. I think it's all nonsense by Abbas and his cronies."

"Abbas stands to neither gain nor lose by the altered stone tariffs. He might wind up paying a little bit more for the stone he wants for his new winery, but the increase won't be significant enough to even affect his budget. Three percent, give or take," Bakhtiar replied.

"What new winery?" Messar asked.

Even Shahjahan looked at him curiously. "I had not heard of a new winery, and I was just speaking with him this morning before the meeting."

Bakhtiar huffed, because honestly, it was obvious. Were they just testing him? Like the stupid taaki game they all thought he couldn't play? "He's met with ten different wine masters this year, six wood merchants, and seven stone merchants. Last month he threw a small fit when a shipment of his was severely damaged by a surprise sandstorm on route from Valta, obvious by the blue livery of the driver who reported the damage. Given the starting location and the time of year and that same livery, he'd obviously ordered seedlings and probably a large quantity of adolescent plants, all for grape and flower varieties that thrive in sea air. Four weeks ago he went on a trip out of town and didn't return for five days, about the time it would take to visit a plot of land in Kenira, inspect it, purchase it, and return.

"Abbas is superstitious and likes to keep things close, so he will probably privately announce the new winery in six days, when the land purchase finishes processing, and publicly in twenty days, give or take, when all his purchased supplies reach Kenira and ground is broken. That's his usual pattern, anyway."

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