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guiding the powerful

Guiding the Powerful Yet Incompetent, Tuesday, Second Period

Yennefer was positively beaming as she greeted the class today. "The castle has awakened this morning to the news that the queen has been safely delivered of a healthy baby..."

Yennefer paused and took a deep breath, and the smile fell off her face. "Girl. The new princess joins her five sisters in the nursery." She cut a glance over at the king, sulking upon his throne. "Did I happen to mention that this is the sort of kingdom where only men are dubbed fit to rule? I don't suppose it came up until now.

"Now, his majesty here has several options in this situation. He could change the law of succession. Some other kingdoms already allow rule by women, and he has several lovely, intelligent daughters." She looked at the king again and felt compelled to explain, "...they take after their mother. He could cross his fingers and hope that the next one is a boy, solving the problem, or that the queen dies in childbirth, leaving him free to remarry. Or he could decide that this is all the queen's fault, as obviously the man has nothing to do with whether a baby is a boy or a girl, and he needs to get rid of her immediately and find a new wife who will give him lots of sons!" Yennefer gave her students another smile. This one was bitter and mocking. "Guess which option he's chosen.

"Again, within the umbrella of 'get rid of the queen,' the king has multiple options. He could reason with the queen and convince her it's for the best for everyone, and quietly divorce her, setting her up with her own household and all honors. He could unilaterally divorce her, bulling it through the courts despite the objections of the faith and her noble relatives. He could accuse her of adultery, manufacture evidence, and execute her. Or he could hire an assassin to get rid of her quickly so he can just move on with things. There's a lady in waiting he's got his eye on." Yennefer gave the king a contemptuous look. "Again, you can guess which option our sovereign with impulse control problems has chosen. Your job is to talk him out of it, of course...and probably most of that last list, as well. Best of luck."

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A new baby! How wonderful!

...oh.

Convince the king not to kill his wife!

She has a private bet going with herself on whether this is the week someone tries to solve their problems through regicide.

Mwah.

Lana Beniko

Lana eyed the king.

"Is helping the queen stage a coup an option?"

She was really fed up with this guy.

Ahahaha! I hadn't even finished reading the headings when I posted Lana's question.

"Good question!" Yennefer said. "Creative problem solving. We love to see it. The queen was raised to be first and foremost a wife and mother. She's intelligent, but she has little notion of policy or what goes into ruling a kingdom rather than a household. She does, however, do a very good job of running the household. So already she's a major step up on her husband.

"You're going to have a couple of stumbling blocks to overcome with this plan. First, you'll have to convince the queen to go along with it, and she's reluctant to believe her husband would reject her and attempt to have her killed. Not because of love or anything silly like that, but because she assumes that he, like she, has a stronger sense of duty than that. You may have luck with some sort of 'assuring her daughters' birthrights' line of argument. Second, you need to gauge the amount of support there would be for such a coup. The queen's relatives will back her, but who else? How popular is the king, anyway? And, irritating though it is to think on, how much less popular would he be if you'd let him run amok instead of guiding him toward less destructive decisions for the last several weeks of this class? So, if nothing else, you need to buy time with the king to plan your coup."

Illyana Rasputin

Adora

"I'm with Lana." Shocking, Yana, really. "Though I don't see why one of us just doesn't take over as regent. We don't need the queen, if she doesn't have the fortitude for it. I don't want to force her into anything."

Yennefer opened her mouth to respond, then closed it. She pondered her reply for a moment. Finally, she said, "You know what, I hadn't considered that option. The organization I belong to would take steps to remove me if I set myself up as a regent under such circumstances--we are meant to guide, not rule. However, you are not bound by the strictures of Aretuza, so there's nothing blocking your plan. You will still need to first gain the queen's support, if you don't want her to turn around and throw her lot in with the so-called rightful heir, the king's cousin Gilbert. I haven't programmed Gilbert yet, but let's just assume he's worse."

Edited 2020-09-29 16:42 (UTC)

"That's an idea," Lana said, nodding. "I'd hate to rule, but it has to be better than this. Does the queen have any advisors who'd be better at it? Maybe if we get them involved, they could help put the king off for now and help with the coup."

Right. So, buying time. And possibly setting the king up for being less popular.

"Hm. You know, your majesty," Lana said to him in a low voice. "The queen is reasonably popular. It wouldn't do to have her be a martyr. Perhaps you should damage her reputation first. Start subtly - let it be known that she spoke against your majesty's rightful expenditures for tapestries to show your magnificence, was against throwing huge banquets to show your subjects what a wonderful king you are. Throw one anyway, to prove you aren't ruled by her. It'll take a little time to plan, but it'll be worth it. And who knows, perhaps she'll produce a son meanwhile."

Freya Crescent

Illyana picked at the sleeve of her hoodie for a bit, looking thoughtful.

"I'm technically a queen, though not of anywhere he'd know about," she said finally. "I don't really want to be in charge of anything, but better one of us as regent for the queen after his unfortunate disappearance than letting him continue at this rate. By trying to temper his impulses, we're making things worse."

"We can rope in the noble who's tapestries he wanted to steal. There's no way he was oblivious. Any noble who isn't obviously his friend who would have been taxed badly for his war, or been forcibly conscripted," Illyana mused. "And we have got to get guards for the Queen and the daughters. I don't trust him not to just try and wipe them all out."

Nell Ingram

They needed time to get their coup going? Fine. Yana could stall for time.

"You know how rumors spread, and this is below your dignity as a king," Illyana said softly, as though she was trying to keep others from overhearing. "She has been dutiful to the crown with her whole being. Besides, haven't you heard all the stories about how a seventh child is blessed? Wait for the baby to stop nursing, and then try again. You're so close to having the perfect heir."

Seventh children being magically blessed was bullshit, as far as she was aware, but Strange had made her read as many fairytales as possible to understand how mundane peoples saw magic.

"If you cannot wait, then have as many affairs as you like, and legitimize one of them later. You don't want to go through the bother of remarrying and not being compatible with her and needing to do it all over again."

Illyana came up to Yennefer almost immediately after class.

"Am I allowed to get rid of Gilbert in advance?" So no, not exactly regicide, but close.

"I have ways to make someone disappear and not be found."

"The queen does not have advisors, as it would be unseemly for a lady to have such a thing. The queen has ladies in waiting...which means the queen has a bevy of the daughters and sisters of the richest, most powerful men in the kingdom around her. The trick will be convincing these men to support our cause, and not to put themselves forward as appropriate alternate kings.

"One thing I would strongly recommend is ascertaining the position of the lady in waiting I mentioned earlier, the one the king wants to marry once he's knocked the current queen off. She could be an enemy to your cause...or she could be an ally. Does she want to marry the king and be queen? Or has she already realized that might be a bad deal, because..." Yennefer gestured to the king. "Well."

"Ruthless," Yennefer observed, raising one eyebrow at Illyana. "Gilbert has done nothing wrong up to this point besides being an overly inbred yokel.

"That said, of course, there's nothing stopping you."

"Perhaps I can have her killed at the banquet," the king mused, stroking his beard. "And then I can blame Nilfgaard, and go to war with them!"

"But it's perfect!" the king cried. "My first son with my new queen will be my seventh child!"

"But he will be her first child with you, and merely the seventh child overall rather than THE seventh child of you and this queen, so it will probably cancel it out," 'Yana pointed out. "It's not quite the same thing, and you know how magical blessings get. They're very exacting and nitpicky about details."

"Besides, if she had an 'accident' you'd have to go through all the official mourning rituals, building her monuments, wear only black and be celibate for a year as a show of grief..."

'Yana shrugged. "Having him go 'missing' mysteriously will get the king riled up regardless of if they get along or not, and he'll start suspecting his nobles and pissing them off."

"Makes it a little easier to find a replacement. Maybe find a distantly related Duke that the Queen once had fond feelings for or something."

"What?!" the king cried. "A year?" He looked over his shoulder at Yennefer, who merely made a humming sound of agreement while examining her nails. "But that's outrageous!"

"It's pleasing to Melitele, sire," Yennefer lied. "A new proclamation." She told Illyana, "Be prepared to buy off a priest to back you up."

"All right," Yennefer said. "I would recommend making it look like an accident, but a mysterious disappearance also has its positives."

"I'm afraid that's going to have to wait," Adora said, producing an official looking scroll. "Turns out we're being invaded."

That Glimmer and Catra had come up with this idea together upon hearing about this class meant it was either great or terrible.

"What?!" the king demanded.

Yennefer arched one eyebrow at Adora. "I'm interested to see where this is going."

Adora cleared her throat. "Your Highness, and that's a quote, your majesty, The treatment of your people has come to Our Attention, and on behalf of the kingdoms of the Princess Alliance. We find these actions most deplorable and as such this is Our formal declaration of war upon your person until such time as your kingdom is freed of your tryanny, agian, that's a quote. Then there's a bit about terms of surrender. Sincerely, Her Majesty, Queen Glimmer of Bright Moon."

"I mean, I can manage hunting accident, but I've got other options." Illyana pointed at a random chair, and for a split second there was a glowing circle below it before it was gone. She pointed at the other side of the room, and it reappeared.

"Not saying he'll be sane when he gets back," she admitted, "but I don't have to kill him to make him disappear."

Limbo just wasn't a very nice place.

"A new proclamation, based on historical precedent and recent omens." Illyana clearly had no problems with murder or potential blasphemy, she'd be more than happy to buy off a priest or twelve to make him shut up.

Was 'Yana going to whistle and clap for that move?

Yes. Yes she was. Nice one, Adora.

Lana wasn't the whistling and clapping type, but she was definitely smiling and nodding approvingly at Adora. She hadn't even considered invading, but she was definitely going to be taking notes here.

"Definitely," Lana said. "If there aren't any who are loyal specifically to her, I can always convince them to be."

"Well, once the queen is a widow, they're certainly all welcome to try to woo her," Lana pointed out. "Or her daughters."

She nodded thoughtfully. "We'll definitely have to speak with the lady in waiting, yes. If she's at all intelligent, it shouldn't be hard to convince her to help us. And if she's not, she won't be much of a problem." She sighed. "I hope she isn't actually in love with him."

Lana hummed thoughtfully. "That might work, although it would mean inviting Nilfgaard to the banquet. Or admitting that your security couldn't keep them out, so an invitation is probably wise. Let me look into sending a diplomatic envoy."

Maybe they could actually work with Nilfgaard to kill the king instead. There was a certain amusement in having him help plan his own assassination.

"Is Nilfgaard's ruler any better than this one?" Lana asked Yennefer.

Shuri

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