Raesinia snorted.
Cora was waiting beside a decorative stream, near where it ran into a grated archway and under the wall. Barely and Joanna kept watch for interlopers, though the yard was empty except for the occasional hurrying servant. Cora was bouncing on her heels.
“Is he in?” she whispered.
Raesinia nodded and held up five fingers. Cora’s face lit up.
“Five hundred thousand marks.” Her eyes went glassy as she calculated. “Banks require ten percent in equity. We’ve been getting our derivatives at four or five percent, less handling fees, a little for...” She went quiet. “Call it a hundred million, give or take a million.”
“Give or take a million?”
Cora shrugged. “The exact rate is hard to predict.”
Raesinia shook her head. When they’d paid five thousand eagles for Danton Aurenne, that had seemed like a fortune to her. It probably was a fortune to almost anyone. The amounts Cora talked about now felt dreamlike and unreal.
“Are there even a hundred million marks?”
“You mean physical coins?” Cora laughed. “Almost certainly not. If you count bank deposits, outstanding credit, metal value of—”
“Never mind.” Raesinia pressed her hands to her temples. “Is it enough?”
“I think so. I’ll need a couple of days to put the appropriate transactions through.”
“Then what?” The broad outline of the plan had been Raesinia’s, an idea that would never have entered Cora’s tidy, rule-?abiding mind. Once it had come to actually implementing it, though, she’d been dependent on Cora’s acumen. As usual.
“Then we move to the next step,” Cora said. “The warning shot.”
*
Raesinia’s negotiations with Goodman had taken on a slightly dreamlike quality as well.
Officially, her engagement to the second prince, and the deal that had brokered it, was still a secret. But there seemed to be no secrets in the Keep, and it had become clear almost immediately that Goodman knew everything. Raesinia knew that he knew, and vice versa, which meant that they were both well aware that their meetings had become a farce. Goodman continued to stick to his guns on the matter of Vordanai debt, even while he knew that his monarch was preparing to overrule him.
Maybe it’s just for public consumption. There had to be some people in the Keep who didn’t know the secret, and probably a lot more outside. It would look strange if the negotiations stopped, especially after the king had ordered the navy dispatched to Vordan’s aid. Or else he’s maneuvering against Georg and the other Honest Fellows. By maintaining his resistance, Goodman might be intending to show that he wasn’t willing to be bullied, or possibly he was setting himself up to win future concessions from the throne.
It was impossible to know, and for Raesinia’s purposes it didn’t particularly matter. All it meant was that she had to sit through sessions that had long since become utterly rote. She would be on one side of a table, with Eric beside her, and Goodman would be on the other with a gaggle of aides. Raesinia would read her statement, which contained an offer to negotiate a settlement on Vordan’s prerevolution debts. It was the most generous offer Cora thought they could afford, but it was clearly unacceptable to Goodman, who in turn would read his own statement about the sanctity of contracts and his unwillingness to impose burdens on private bondholders.
Then they would bow to each other and leave through opposite doors. Inevitably, there was a small crowd waiting outside, kept at bay by Jo and Barely. Nobles and other palace hangers-on congregated in hopes of a quick word from Raesinia, who ordinarily didn’t oblige them. Today, however, she paused as a young man in a smart suit stepped in front of her and begged her pardon.
“Your Highness,” he said, when he saw she was looking at him. “I’m Count Edward Holish. I was hoping to invite you to a small gathering—”
There was a general clearing of throats, and other gentlemen stepped forward, some of them waving introductory cards.
“—?a dinner—”
“—?perhaps you’d enjoy—”
“—?a tour of the harbor—”
How popular we are. Now that the king’s offer was widely known, it was clear that her favor suddenly had considerable value. Hence the self-?serving courtiers pushing and shoving to present their invitations and the steady stream of perfumed envelopes making their way to her door.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” she said, a bit more loudly than was really polite. “I’m afraid my business here requires all my time at the present.” She allowed a little exasperation into her voice, and shook her head. “Not that we seem to be making much progress!”
“Your Highness!” Eric said, not having to work hard to feign shock.
Raesinia put on a guilty expression, like she’d been caught talking out of turn. The whispers had already started by the time Eric and her guards hustled her around the corner and out of sight.
They went straight to Cora’s suite to wait for results. It didn’t take long—?after an hour, Cora came bounding in, grinning gleefully.
“It’s working,” she said. “I think a dozen messengers must have gone straight to the market. Vor River Trading—?that’s us—?has dropped almost thirty percent in the last forty-?five minutes. And the securities market as a whole is down nearly twenty percent. It’s a bloodbath.”
“When does the next message go out?” Raesinia said.
“Soon,” Cora said breathlessly. “There’s still two hours until the market closes. I’m going to go see what happens.”
Raesinia would have liked to go herself, but that would have tipped her hand. Instead, she returned to the room she shared with Matthew and kept waiting. The second prince was at the market, reassuring his friends and distributing Raesinia’s message.
This was the part that had most worried her. She’d seen, back in the revolution, that once fear and panic were unleashed, they could prove almost impossible to stop. Her statement this afternoon, the seemingly banal admission that negotiations were going poorly, had been taken as the symbol it had been meant to be. If negotiations collapsed, Vordanai debt would be worthless, and companies that speculated in Vordanai debt—?like their own VRT—?would be in serious trouble.