The Abandoned Empress

Chapter 258: Chapter 258

I wondered why he needed two days to spend time with me, but I nodded instead of asking why. Regardless of the reason, I had to keep the promise because I made it.

“Then, you are going with me after the festival, okay?”

“Sure, no problem.”

“Good. Then as you’re busy, let me go back. Bye for now, Tia. Keep up the good work!”

Carsein smiled, stroked my hair, and turned around. I was looking at him disappearing in the distance, touching my hair that still kept his warm touch.

It was already getting dark.

A few days later I headed to the Central Palace to attend the political meeting after I was done with my morning work.

When I stepped into the conference hall, I saw the pro-emperor faction members looking at me with a bright smile. It seemed that they were getting nervous because of the absence of their faction’s political heavyweights today. Duke Verita was absent during the mourning period, and my father and Marquis Enesil couldn’t attend the meeting as they were on duty.

I chatted briefly with my acquaintances, then sorted out the documents I was supposed to report to the meeting. At that moment I felt somebody was staring at me intensely. I didn’t know when she came in, but Jiun, wearing a colorful dress, was looking at me.

After greeting her with a nod, who was smiling at me confidently, I said hi to Duke Lars who happened to be entering the conference hall. Shortly afterwards, the protocol officer announced the arrival of the emperor.

When everyone was seated after showing due manners, Duke Lars rose from his seat on behalf of Duke Verita.

“Today’s agenda is about dispatching knights to the border area and implementing the budget for the National Founding Day festival. Which one do you want to deal with, Your Majesty? ”

“Hmm, let’s deal with the easy one first. How about dealing with the festival budget first?”

When the emperor knocked on the desk, Duke Lars slightly bowed his head and immediately tabled the agenda.

As they had nothing to do with the conflicting interests of the rival factions, the budgets of the knights divisions and the government were processed quickly without any problem. And this time the budget of the palace affairs office was tabled for approval.

‘Is this the start of their bickering finally?’

I rose from my seat and looked around once before saying, “I’d like to get your advice on a few issues before I brief you about the budget. First of all, please refer to the materials I handed out to each of you. ”

Most of them nodded as if they had already read it, but several began to glance over the handout only then. I waited until everyone was familiar with the contents, then slowly opened my mouth, “We had some differences about which of the three options for the three items we had to choose. So, I would like to ask for your opinion.”

“Hmm. I don’t think it’s going to take a long time to decide. Why don’t we deal with it by raising our hands?”

Duke Lars, who glanced over the handout, said, looking around, “As for the matter of the work shifts for the servants and maids, please raise your hand if you prefer the first option.”

There was silence for a moment. I had a heated argument with Jiun over this issue the other day. I proposed the first option that supported a dual shift for reasons of the efficiency of their work, while Jiun supported the second option that preferred a four shift for reasons of guaranteeing sufficient break for them. Grace proposed the third option that supported a three shift as a compromise between the first and second options.

As they could not know which was whose idea, they could not come up with a unified action within their own factions. Starting with Duke Jena, they began to raise their hands one by one, regardless of the noble or pro-emperor faction. I could see Jiun’s face being gradually drained of color.

Looking around, Duke Lars declared, “I declare that the first option was unanimously adopted. Then let’s move on to the next agenda. ”

The next agenda was about the guesthouses for the foreign delegations. This was a very sensitive issue because the closer they were to the Central Palace, and the bigger the house was, the higher the status of the country was.

As an ally of the empire, the Lua kingdom, Frincia’s motherland, was treated as the most important, about which nobody disagreed. But the problem was which was the next important one. Namely, how to treat the Lisa kingdom emerged as a hot political potato.

I proposed the first option which supported the Lisa kingdom as the next important after the Lua kingdom for two reasons. First, although its national power was weakened recently, it was still a powerful kingdom. Second, we needed to appease the people of the Lisa kingdom because the kingdom was supposed to cede part of its territory to the empire because of its disgraced princess, Beatrice. But Jiun proposed the second option, arguing that we had to disgrace the kingdom further on this occasion.

As the members of the noble faction, they could definitely sympathize with the first option, but they could differ, based on their own judgement, of course. As expected, more than 60% of the participants supported the first option, while the rest of them supported Jiun’s idea.

I stared at Jiun silently while they were raising their hands. She seemed to be a little angry, but she was more relaxed than before.

“Well, let me declare that the first option was adopted for this agenda, too. Then I will move on to the last item. ”

In fact, the last item was the most controversial one over which she and I argued most.

Given her usual actions, I never expected she would raise such an objection, so I was very embarrassed.

With respect to the food distribution on the festival day, I proposed that we provide free meals to the poor, but Jiun, who I thought would agree without any objection, argued that we should get paid for the meals. She even argued that as we would need lots of makeshift buildings during the festival, we needed to mobilize the poor to build them in return for the food.

I felt that when generosity was needed, we should be as generous as possible. Who would like to work against their will during the festival? Besides, I thought it was a bad idea to mobilize unskilled people to build temporary buildings for reasons of safety. If something went wrong, it would bring about casualties and put in jeopardy the livelihood of those who made a living in the building industry.

Despite my persistent explanation, Jiun opposed my idea, arguing that we needed to make the poor more self-reliant. Due to sharp differences, I had to take this agenda to the political meeting, but when it was put up for voting, the participants supported the first option unanimously. Although she and I clashed over it the most, Jiun felt very bitter when her proposal was rejected quickly.

‘That’s why I told you that you had better follow my idea.’

I gave a hollow smile at her, whose face turned white. Although her opinion was generally good, there were some that were not in favor of the nobles. Of course, her options would have enjoyed their absolute support in the past, but they were hardly acceptable now. This was especially true for the first agenda. What noble would be willing to sacrifice their conveniences for the sake of the servants and maids? Even if they worked in two shifts, veteran servants and maids at the palace affairs office could do their job without any problem.

Didn’t she have anyone within the noble faction to share her ideas with? If she had talked with them, she would have easily discovered that her agenda was not acceptable to any faction.

I stared at her quietly, who was biting her lips with her face turned white. I felt she deserved it, but felt a bit sorry just like I did when I saw her crying while telling me about her family.

“Okay, let me conclude the budget issue of the palace affairs office. I’ll take up the next agenda.”

“I would like to take issue with one thing before you move on. How about the emperor’s partner during the festival? Like we did last year, do Lady Jena and Lady Monique have to take turns being his partner?” asked Earl Hamel.

As Earl Hamel asked suddenly, Earl Genoa shrugged and said, “What do you mean, Earl Hamel? Of course, Lady Monique should be his partner for the three days.”

“Why?”