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𝐍𝐎. 𝟔 ❛ 𝐡𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭 ❜ | NAKAWE PALACE, AUGUST 1991

❧ 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 / 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 / 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 / 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭.

❛ In the premier’s sitting room, Beatriz’s memories transported her back to a formative childhood moment. Her education began early, as was customary, but the distance between Canarís and Nakawe in those days meant she didn’t shadow the king himself until later. She was instead inseparable from her father, observing the birthright governorship that the men of Uspana’s assembly would deny her some years later. Still, her memory of Fernando was strong—a perfect jester of a grandfather, energetic and jovial. He was unlike her father in many ways, but they had both been paternal men. Beatriz believed to this day that her papa was the best father in the world, and she regretted that he hadn’t lived to become a jovial grandfather, too. Of course, the most notable difference was her grandfather’s effectiveness. Liberal pens rewrote history in the succeeding decades, but Beatriz remembered that fact well.

❧ ran out of time but didn't want to postpone so i kinda totally 100% phoned this one in dsfsdfjk BUT nando cameo !!!!! grandpa !!!!! uses the phrase "people of means" unironically !!!!! love him, can't wait to go back to the 1930s someday

𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐝 & 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 ↓

The room belonged to Hernan Perdignon when Beatriz entered it for the first time. Fernando had disliked him on ideological grounds, and Alfonso respected him for his principles, but it had been neither that led to his being gunned down in a public market midway through his first term. The Depression ground down everyone. Even Beatriz recalled those as lean years—if, primarily, because her father’s guilt made him insist their household behave as if though its purse shrunk along with everyone else’s. It did, but not in a way they felt. Her mother’s ongoing spending, the very spectacle of it, proved as much. Meanwhile, Alfonso insisted they buy only food without import taxes and pay for cheap fabric at the market. It didn’t matter that the bolts went from the weaver’s mangled hands into those of better paid seamstresses and tailors. Her father reduced their estate’s livestock by half, but they didn’t have to take them out back and slaughter them to do it.

Before they departed for the meeting at Nakawe Palace, her grandfather had knelt down to give her instructions with uncharacteristic seriousness. Neither her grandparents nor her parents ever lived at Nakawe Palace itself. They rode over, whether in a carriage, a chauffeured town car, or one of her mother’s sleek, dangerous roadsters. When she could drive herself, Beatriz visited in a doorless military issue four-by-four. A black sedan was to Fernando’s back on this day as he explained that he wanted her to stand perfectly quiet and still, doll-like, while he talked to the premier. It wasn’t just a matter of being well-behaved. ‘Stare him down,’ Fernando intoned. ‘Don’t look away for a minute. If he looks at you, don’t back down. Keep him in a fixed gaze, and keep your ears open.’ She’d asked, confused, ‘Open?’ and prompted a laugh from him. ‘Listen to us, Bird. Listen like you listen to your papa.’ That, she knew could do.

Perdignon laughed, deep and good-natured, when he saw her stroll into the room ahead of the king. That was the desired effect, and Fernando assured him with a wink that six year old Beatriz could conduct a meeting with a politician just as well as anyone else. Indeed, the premier noted she was a somber child. She stood like a sentry at the edge of the king’s chosen sofa, her hands clasped, the maturity of her comportment undermined only by the girlish ribbons in her hair. Most of the conversation went over her head, and that was fine. She focused as best she could on what her grandfather had requested: although at times distracted by a bird in the window, a vase on a shelf, the movement of aides just beyond the room’s open door, she stared hard at Perdignon’s expressive face while the men conversed. Like their spirited debate about economics, the reason Fernando had asked this of her was beyond her grasp at the time. She only understood later what it accomplished—in the tense quiet between barbed words, when the king’s expectant challenges went unmet, when the premier fell silent in resignation. Perdignon found the attentive audience in miniature charming. As the meeting dragged on, though, he found it unsettling.

There was an art to it, to unsettling and intimidating and domination. It demanded subtlety. Although some pretended to forget, her ancestors had known that and passed the wisdom down. It was the warm bath that became a boiling pot. It was a gentle touch. It was an unexpectedly stifling room, an uninvited guest, inexplicable body language, threats delivered with luxurious kindness. Beatriz could browbeat and curse when it suited her. In fact, that’s what she loved. Neither her stature nor her pedigree suggested as much, which became its own kind of unsettling. Still, she approached her work more often as a strategist rather than with self-indulgence. She learned early and well that her claim to dominion—her queenhood, her king’s crown—rested on precision and finesse just as much as the very real force underwriting it.

Eladio Guillen’s sitting room was worlds away from the one that had belonged to Hernan Perdignon. Much of the decorations remained unchanged in the six intervening decades, but this was a different time and place. This was, too, a different premier. Unlike Perdignon, Guillen wouldn’t be lionized for his devotion to the nation. His aspirations were not grand; by Beatriz’s measure, they were small and petty, which made him more susceptible to precision, finesse, and force alike. It was her prerogative to choose a premier from among the winning coalition’s candidates, and she had chosen him for that very reason. Her mind wandered to a memory of instruction, but it was only because Guillen failed to maintain her attention. There was no real need for strategy today. He talked about nothing, meandering and wandering. Beatriz was a shepherd. He was a chicken, headless.

Beatriz refocused herself soon enough, crossing her ankles as she interrupted Guillen to state, “Arnaut was here yesterday. Was it productive?”

Guillen readjusted as well, leaning back into the cushion with a sigh. They regarded each other as he thought through his response. “Well,” he began, meeting Beatriz’s sharp eyes. “It’s a good kind of sentimental, what you all are trying to do for my late princess. Believe me.” The queen prompted him to continue with a raise of her eyebrows. “Still, I was skeptical when she was pitching it herself, and she was a much better communicator than my prince. He’s just all over the place and nowhere at the same time, I hear. Hard to find a mess he hasn’t stepped in.”

Beatriz’s expression remained unchanged as she listened. There were no surprises in Guillen’s report; his were words she could have just as easily said herself—and, whether casually or in frustration, likely had. Yet, it roiled her to hear them from him. She could imagine the meeting, and she could envision Guillen’s smirking face as Arnaut made a show of his inexperience. There was no trace of amusement as he sat before her now, but she found his apologetic demeanor just as rankling.

Maintaining an even tone, she followed up with, “What do you want, Guillen?”

“What?” He sounded surprised—or, she thought, feigned it.

“What do you want?” she repeated, leaning forward. “Do you have strong feelings about higher education? Do you want to humiliate my son? Is it completely irrelevant to you and just … 'weighing interests'?” That was Guillen’s terminology. He ferried it from his corporate background into the premiership, and now it cropped up time and time again in meetings Beatriz had to endure. This vague, euphemistic bandage encapsulated his politics well. Likewise, it had infected underlings, admirers, and enemies indiscriminately.

“It has nothing to do with him, my queen,” Guillen protested.

Beatriz shrugged. “Perhaps that’s how I heard it.”

However feebly, the premier was determined to defend himself. It seemed apparent to him that he had hit a nerve, even as the queen performed nonchalance. He hadn’t addressed her other suppositions. In a way, that didn’t matter. They both knew he had no abiding interest in this particular arena of policy. His mind, when it went into the weeds, entertained more attractive prospects like free trade and technological innovation. Even then, the name of the game was weighing interests. The outlier was pointed, almost as sharp as if she’d jabbed him with a pin: had he humiliated her son? It wasn’t his place to clarify that someone else had done it, actually, and he had only piled on by letting it happen in his presence. Perhaps that had been ill-advised, he wondered now. Still, it wasn’t often in the course of his business that someone’s mother checked their work. He was unsure how to handle it.

“That may be,” he conceded with a short sigh “But, I didn’t mean that.”

Beatriz sniffed. “You said what you said, and that tells me something.” She paused, and Guillen straightened in anticipation. “I don’t need you to respect my son. That’s his concern. What I need is for you to work with him. These are not playdates or sentiments. For this project, he is my emissary. His work is the Crown’s work. And, for the Crown to work with your work … Well. Do you understand me?”

This, Guillen understood all too well. It was almost all he understood.

TRANSCRIPT:

[Premier talking]

BEATRIZ | Arnaut was here yesterday. Was it productive? GUILLEN | It’s a good kind of sentimental, what you all are trying to do for my late princess. Believe me.

GUILLEN | Still, I was skeptical when she was pitching it herself, and she was a much better communicator than my prince. He’s just all over the place and nowhere at the same time, I hear. Hard to find a mess he hasn’t stepped in.

BEATRIZ | What do you want, Guillen? GUILLEN | What? BEATRIZ | What do you want? Do you have strong feelings about higher education? Do you want to humiliate my son? Is it completely irrelevant to you and just … "weighing interests"?

GUILLEN | It has nothing to do with him, my queen. BEATRIZ | Perhaps that's how I heard it. GUILLEN | That may be. But, I didn't mean that.

BEATRIZ | You said what you said, and that tells me something. I don’t need you to respect my son. That’s his concern. What I need is for you to work with him. These are not playdates or sentiments. For this project, he is my emissary. His work is the Crown’s work. And, for the Crown to work with your work … Well.

BEATRIZ | Do you understand me?

GUILLEN | Of course, my queen. I'll call him soon. Why don’t we return to the matter at hand? Pending bill forty-seven and excluding the Armorica provision, as you requested—

BRISIDA | The Canarís location? You’re sure? [Door opening]

??? | He requested the number. They do have a good auction there. We have a fax of the purchasing arrangement proposal, if you need it—company policy. It’ll be signed at the sale next week, I believe. BRISIDA | What day? ??? | Tuesday morning. Ten o’clock, if they’re punctual.

BRISIDA | Great. Nothing further; just let it proceed. Thank you. ??? | Our pleasure. Please give my queen our warmest wishes. BRISIDA | Uh huh. Goodbye.

BEATRIZ | The surveillance order? BRISIDA | Just needs those details and your signature. BEATRIZ | Always on top of things. Good.

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