Gertrude gloated openly at this; clearly, she believed she'd successfully disentangled her new friend from Frederick's gauche plotting. As, perhaps, a consolation, she answered Darus' question for him.
"Well, I've no window into the affairs of the capitol, but from our little perch, everything about that man has been infuriatingly opaque. It felt like one day they were parading him around, and the Chronicle was trumpeting that Light and Justice had sworn to his Majesty, and a new age was upon us. Next thing you know, he bloody well disappears, and nobody can say anything about it? It's awfully queer... but don't let it bother you, darling. Matters of gods and princes- what have they to do with Dardouen?"
Fred looked somewhat annoyed, but shrugged at that. He could scarcely argue the point. God and princes and Dawnmartyrs and armies of darkness, those were concerns for heroes and the Emperor. People like that didn't come out to the Duchy.
~~~
As the night wore on, Aurin found things falling neatly into patterns so well-worn they were almost boring by definition. Gertie, dutiful hostess that she was, dragged him from person to person, fawning all the while. Here, she introduced him to a notable farmer; there, she brought him before a local weaver renowned for his work, or a potter. There was even a poet whose works Aurin had happened upon once or twice from his office in Kalzasi, a naturalist writer by the name of Guzma Halleron who had acquired some renown mostly for his painstaking exactness in working scientific descriptions (all the rage among some gentry, especially the old class of Zaichaer) into otherwise-mediocre prose. But mostly she paraded him in front of a seemingly endless procession of merchants.
That was the kind of affair this party was, after all. People rich enough to want to claim some level of distinction, but neither rich nor well-born enough to merit the Duke's attention. Fred was the closest thing to royalty at this party, constantly attended by hangers-on hoping for some drops of Sir Tupin's legendary fortune, or hoping secretly to wed his notoriously reclusive sister and acquire that money thereby.
The topics of discussion rose and fell like tides around Aurin, but they came again and again to two familiar shores- uncertainty about future trades to the Eastern reaches of Karnor, and angry rumblings about the taxes. By inference and implication, Aurin came to understand that the well-to-do of Dardouen felt very much abandoned by the Imperium over the course of the Eclipse, their profits and investments attacked by beasts while the Kathar and the Imperium's new troves of moonstone were kept safely within the capital. Now, even as things were slowly beginning to normalize, the legislature had chosen to raise taxes yet again-- for "the rebuilding and aid of the people" they said, as though they were not themselves the people who were most in need of it!
By the time the party began to come to a close, Aurin had heard references to the same complaints again and again, but never quite explicitly said. That, it seemed, was beyond the Gelarian character. Nor, again, did any of this criticism encompass His Majesty. No, it was always scheming ministers or pathetic nobles who had misled and hoodwinked him.
(Valentin's arrival in town came up no less than thrice, a fact which would certainly annoy him if deployed properly)
As the guests began to filter out, however, Frederick managed to catch Aurin away from his crowd of hangers-on, dismissing them with vague words about 'business of his sister's, some boring matter for the trader.' As deftly as he could, he cornered the other man, a predatory look upon his face.
"I do hope you had a good time here" Fred began, "We try our best with our parties here, though it's nothing like the grand balls they can afford to throw in the capitol on the public's crowns. Before you do go, I beg you to satisfy a little point of curiosity for me- as an outsider. What do you think of our government's work here in Gelerand, as opposed to in the many other countries you've traded in? How does it compare, would you say?"
"I really would like your earnest opinion."
