Chapter 75: Waste

Laurel marched from the minister of finance’s office up to Adolph’s office and opened the door. He glanced at her and sighed. She was supposed to be resting, not stomping up to his office. He stood and went to her.
“I want to dissolve the ministries as soon as possible,” she said before he could reach her side. He frowned and closed the door before ushering her to the couch near his desk. “But I want to audit them first to charge them appropriately.”
A wicked smirk curved his lips turning his handsome features almost devious. Laurel’s heart raced and her face warmed with embarrassment. How could he look more handsome looking so sneaky?
“You are meant to be in bed.” Adolph said, “Take a rest for a moment, then we’ll talk so long as you promise to go back to bed.”
She pouted, wanting to argue, but she gave him a stiff nod, huffed, and sat on the couch as he directed. Admittedly, she was a bit dizzy and exhausted from her march up the stairs, but this still wasn’t the time for rest. How could so much damage have been done while she was sleeping? He went to his desk and returned with a stack of parchment.
“You can start with these. Chasel is still gathering the rest.” Laurel took the pages with a bit of awe as he returned to his desk. “What brought this on?”
“Delia,” she hissed. “She’s been allowed to overspend her budget and misappropriate money from the luna accounts!”
Adolph frowned. He knew that Delia had been spending frivolously, but as far as he could tell, Basil was guilty of the same and at higher amounts. The reports he had on his desk were about the food stores that were supposed to be in the national storage and where they had gone.
“Tell me more. How did you find this out?”
“Lily told me,” Laurel huffed, pulling the pages towards her to start reviewing them. “She told me all about Delia’s activities while I’ve been out, including the orphanage and everything else. It didn’t take much to figure out that she had already burned through her budget…”
Adolph tilted his head. He wanted to ask how she knew what Delia’s budget was. Laurel hadn’t been granted access to the palace books yet and he knew she hadn’t requested anything more than what she needed to do her job.
It was another moment that Adolph felt that there was more to Laurel than a simple seventeen-year-old girl from the outskirts of the kingdom. As Laurel continued talking about her suspicions about the minister of finance, he took note.
She was convinced that he was in Gavin’s back pocket which was how Delia managed to get away with her withdrawal requests with very little review. It made sense to him. Gavin’s position was one Adolph couldn’t take from him until he was married again as it was traditionally reserved for the father of the luna. If Jack was alive, he might have already made Gavin return to the Mirabelle estate.
He checked over the incoming tax reports, narrowing his eyes at the amounts coming from the Mirabelle lands. The amount was in line with the historical amounts, but he wasn’t convinced that it was accurate.
“What are your thoughts on Minister Mirabelle?”
Laurel drew up short and looked at Adolph. He seemed pensive, considering something in his hand.
“I… think he enjoys his position,” Laurel said with a guarded tone. “Why do you ask?”
He smiled, “I think he has… aspirations.”
Laurel narrowed her eyes and sat forward, “Do you… think he’s behind the poison attempt?”
Adolph chuckled and shook his head, “No. Minister Mirabelle is a manipulator. He wouldn’t choose murder. Not now.”
“Now?”
“It’s come to my attention that Basil’s education hha been… lacking since he was a child.”
Laurel frowned, “What do you mean?”
“Every man of the Raymond line, every heir to the throne, is meant to serve in the army for at least a year,” Adolph said and leaned back in his seat. “Basil doesn’t even know how to throw a punch properly.”
Laurel gasped, “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” he said thinking back to a few afternoons prior when he’d run into Basil on the way to the training field, dressed to participate in the training exercises.
Basil had been genuinely confused about Adolph’s participation in the exercises. He’d seemed even more confused when Adolph invited him to join them on the training pitch. He learned soon after Basil excused himself that Basil had never been brought to the pitch to train.
“After a bit more investigation, I found that all the tutors that I intended for Basil, some of the same tutors I had as a young man, had been dismissed and replaced with Minister Mirabelle.”
Laurel frowned. She knew that Gavin had been over Basil’s education as Basil told her often that to question his intelligence was to insult his grandfather, but she had always assumed he’d had a full education.
“The attendants of the treasury were very forthcoming about the fact that the budget set aside for his education went straight to Minister Mirabelle….” Adolph sighed, “I’m compiling all the information on the ministers to formally dismiss the ministries and return all of their powers to stewards of the throne.”
“Why was it broken up in the first place?” Laurel asked.
His lips twitched. Once, the majority of the kingdom’s lands had been owned by noble families. Those noble families had been the first iteration of ministers, but over time through betrayal and cataclysmic shifts in power, the families were forced to pay reparations to the kingdom until all the land of the kingdom was owned by the Raymond family.
The ministries remained as support to the alpha and luna, the king and queen, of the kingdom.
He smiled, “You know… the offices of general affairs, finance, and agriculture were originally the three ministries meant to report directly to the luna?”
Her heart clenched with grief and her anger grew. She knew some of her anger wasn’t directed at the circumstances of her position, but at her second run-in with death. She hadn’t started to sort through those emotions yet, but to hear this was almost too much.
The ministers of finance, agriculture, and general affairs had been the biggest opponents to every endeavor Laura had undertaken and were quick to try and block her paths to success.
“Then, the ministers of justice, peace, and commerce were under the alpha?”
He nodded and picked up another piece of parchment, “Other than their ineptitude and distinct disregard for my authority, there’s another reason to get rid of them I think you should be aware of.”
She frowned, “What is it?”
“My family,” Adolph’s lips twitched. “Our family… Raven, Irene, and the others as well as our relationship with the moon goddess’ temple.”
Laurel blinked, struck by the sentiment of being family with Raven and the other women and the fact that she was learning so much more about the kingdom in this life than she’d ever known as Laura.
“What do the ministers have to do with… our family?”
He flashed her a brilliant smile, “Questions of succession and keeping the line of kings clear has been of great concern to the minister of peace for obvious reasons… yet they have allowed my heir to become little more than a puppet.”
Laurel nodded, “I’d say that they’re probably in Minister Mirabelle’s back pocket as well.”
“Aside from that, how would you feel about them moving back into the castle?”
Laurel gasped, “What?”
“Traditionally, even if children of the throne married out of the imperial city’s nobles, they were expected to remain in the castle for their safety. They moved out of the city as a move to renounce their ties to the throne and any claim of succession they had.”
Laurel nodded, understanding it, but she also knew that it had done nothing to keep them safe. Only Adolph’s marriage to Olivia and the birth of Basil had done anything on that front.
“I think they should come home,” Laurel said, watching Adolph’s eyes sparkle with happiness. “I think if they were here, your son and his wife would be whipped into shape a lot faster.”
Adolph laughed, throwing his head back with a joyous sound, “Between Henry, Dorian, and their sons? Basil might be the most fearsome warrior of the line within a year!”
Laurel chuckled at the thought of Basil, who could barely stand to get sweaty, becoming as fierce of a warrior as Adolph. It was entertaining but highly unlikely.
“I’m glad you’re agreeable,” Adolph said and started looking through his paperwork until he found the set of books he was looking for. “Here are the luna’s budget accounts as certified by Chasel as of last month. I expect to get the updated books sometime today. It’s a good place to start regarding Delia and Basil’s overspending.”
Laurel nodded and took the pages before standing, “When I… get through all of this? Can I come back?”
He smiled, “You can come back into my office whenever you wish, Laurel.”
Laurel’s face burned as he gave her a sly smirk, “I’d prefer if you never left too.”
She cleared her throat and stumbled back towards the door, “Until then, Your Majesty.”
Adolph chuckled as she escaped the room. As the door closed, he clenched his fist. His first instinct was to kick Delia and Basil out of the palace to live without any support for at least a year, but he was interested to find out what Laurel would devise.