Chapter 789 Running a Kingdom
With her son Amon still unconscious and his Queen Bella still technically not queen in the eyes of their people, Queen Mother Mona took it upon herself to try and pacify their court officials who were already chomping at the bit to try and get their pound of flesh from their king's recent decisions.
Many were understandably unhappy with Amon's sudden decision to marry a foreign wife, and they wanted answers from the man himself. And while she herself fully understood their concerns since she was aware of how almost everyone prepared their daughters for the long and arduous selection process for the Queen of Helion, they quite literally cannot get their answers from the man himself just yet. In fact, it almost felt like they didn't even know that their king was currently too unconscious to answer them himself.
So here she was preparing herself to face the music of an entire room of court officials wanting to get their answers. It was only unfortunate that her son himself wasn't the one giving them the answers they wanted. If anything, she just wanted to stay behind and let Amon handle things himself. He'd make sure that none of them would ever dare speak up about their problems. But instead, she was stuck trying to keep everything calm until the king woke up.
"This is unacceptable!" one of the court officials complained. "Where in the world did this Bella come from anyway?! Why did the king go through with something so impulsive?!"
Mona raised her eyebrows as her gaze darted toward the older man. "What's so unacceptable about it? The King found the woman he wanted during the Global Summit, and married her according to the laws of her kingdom…" she coolly replied with a frown. "It's not like we have any laws that prevent our king from marrying someone who is not from our kingdom. Lady Bella came from a prominent and strong family in the Kingdom of Cordon, and she's the sister of the Alpha of the Lock Heart Pack. And her father is the Chancellor of the Kingdom. I'm sure all of you know how powerful the kingdom of Cordon is at the moment. Why don't you all simply look at the benefits of this union instead of looking at all the negatives?"
She did her best not to shake her head at all of these fools looking for anything bad to say about the current arrangements. She hated saying these kinds of things, but it was the only thing she could think of that would actually go through some of the elders before her. Simply telling them that their king had found the love of his life and the entire love story behind their union would be far from enough to shut them down. The ugly reality was that telling them how powerful and influential Bella's family was was the only possible method she could use to make them accept the current situation.
If they still had any problems after hearing all of the benefits, they would just have to answer to Amon once he was up again…
"This union is very much in our favor. With this arrangement, not only will we form a strong bond and alliance with Cordon, but we'll also get the support of other kingdoms. Particularly, of Ebodia and Valcrez," Mona astutely pointed out. "I'm sure you're all well aware of how close the family ties of the Ward family of Ebodia are to the royal family of Valcrez; all of whom also happen to be connected to some close friends of Lady Bella. Even now as we speak, Ebodia has already dispatched some of their mages to help King Amon wipe out the monsters in the southern part of Helion."
"In addition, Cordon has also recently sent help in both in the form of personnel and material goods," Mona even further added. "And that's not to mention the big dowry for the wedding that will be arriving soon."
She smirked as she noticed some of the officials starting to back down. As much as they would hate to admit it, Helion badly needed aid from foreign powers. While the kingdom itself had many resources to exploit to further develop their lands, they simply did not have the money nor the manpower to properly use them to help themselves. No, for Helion to get back up on its feet, they needed to rely on friendly kingdoms to help them get started for at least a few years before their economy could start to truly recover.
"While that might be positive for our kingdom's image, that only deals with the external and economic matters of Helion," another official rebutted, seemingly unsatisfied with her words. "That is all well and good, but the kingdom's internal matters are currently more important than trying to make allies."
"Indeed," yet another official chimed in. "The balance of power within the kingdom is still far too fragile for us to look for external aid. Even if we get help from a more powerful kingdom, there are still factions within the kingdom that might try to take advantage of our weakened state."
Mona mentally pinched her nose as she tried to come up with something to placate these stubborn old fools.
"Like I said earlier, the economic stimulus that we'll get from this union is something we simply cannot ignore. While marrying into someone from Helion itself would net us nothing but goodwill and perhaps stabilize some parts of the kingdom, doing so wouldn't address the lack of money that the kingdom is struggling with," she sagely responded, making sure to bring up as many of their dire needs as possible.
"For all intents and purposes, Helion is currently running on borrowed time. We are bleeding money, and while we're doing all we can, the kingdom is simply not making enough money to spend and give out to keep everyone satisfied."
It was just the brutal reality of their current situation. While Devon had amassed a sizeable war chest during his conquests, it was still a finite amount. It was going to run out eventually, and even Amon himself had done his best to curb spending from even within the royal family.
There was no purpose in throwing lavish parties and giving out rewards that were far from the kingdom's ability to pay. And with the populace being just as poor as the country itself due to the former king's actions, they simply couldn't raise taxes to try and increase revenue.
No, they had to try and make a kingdom-wide economy from scratch, something that would need an extraordinary amount of money to even try and get started. After all, they couldn't just pillage their way to more money like how the previous king did it.
"Going further into that logic, even if King Amon stabilized some of the more troublesome factions by marrying their chosen representative, the kingdom wouldn't be able to support the lands with its meager funds, which would eventually chip away at whatever peace and stability that such a union would produce," Mona firmly added as she continued her lecture. "By marrying outside, not only will the burden of financial aid be squarely away from Helion, but we'll be adding more money into the kingdom's coffers to further help with the rebuilding process."
"But would it be enough to justify such a cost?" the same official that raised the issue challenged. "Would losing politically internally be worth gaining goodwill from foreign powers and making ourselves look weak to our people?"
Mona let out an annoyed breath as she replied, "Again, Helion is already weak as it is. What point is there in looking strong when we're anything but?" She shook her head as she raised her arms out to prove her point, "The populace is suffering from poverty. The kingdom's economy is still trying to get itself off the ground again, and there are monsters still sieging some parts of the kingdom that need to be addressed. What part of 'Helion needs help' do you all not get?"
The crowd of officials in front of her all fell into silence as her words finally seemed to have hit their mark. Despite whatever these privileged old men had to say, the real situation was that Helion was currently too poor to help itself.
Sure, they could help themselves as the need arose for it, but doing so would be infinitely harder than just simply swallowing their pride and just accepting help from other kingdoms. Again, it would indebt them to foreign powers, but such problems were better addressed once Helion actually had enough weight to throw around on the world stage again.
"Any of you have anything else to say?" Mona challenged, to which the crowd remained silent at her provocation. "I thought as much."
She let out a huff as the conversations finally went back to actually being productive, focusing on the more domestic problems rather than looking at the woman Amon married. And all it took was pointing out the vast positives it would give their kingdom as opposed to just looking at what Bella had to offer as a woman.
Seriously, running a kingdom was far more work than she would bother with. Her son couldn't wake up sooner, if only so that she could go back to focusing on other matters.
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