Chapter 35

The coronation ball promised to be a glitzy affair.

Until Jenifer had attended the university, many people were very frightened as to what would happen when the true nature of the items was revealed. It wasn’t a very well-kept secret that the old Queen’s items were broken. However, many people now knew that she did wear a strong magical item that worked.

They were willing to let her don the broken items and pretend they also worked simply to keep the government stable and to put her in power. The fact that Jenifer’s nature had won over the younger crowd and that she had at subsequent dinners, meetings and events, impressed the older crowd, had eased quite a few concerns.

The main worries left were the influences that her sister and mother might still have over her. In particular, the older set that made up the ministers of the court had been watching how Jenifer dealt with her relatives. She had started to attend the state meetings, as the heir apparent, in the month before her coronation and after the dinner when she had announced she intended to treat all of the sentient races on the island as her people.

Louise’s high handedness had not done her any favours and she didn’t have the support of the majority of ministers. Quite a few of the ministers had deliberately started to favour whatever Jenifer said and started to ignore Louise on principle. Several of them had even had fun purposely stirring Louise just to see her famous temper flare.

As a result, some of them did fear for Jenifer when she had gotten very short with her older sister at one meeting when Louise had tried to tell her what to do. Jenifer’s reaction gained her even more respect, as she didn’t back down.

Louise had wanted to ban all imports of the strange devices that were coming from Dog Island. Jenifer, however, told her this was stupid and then stated that she wanted them to invest in some of the ideas coming out of the university so they could compete and they were not left behind in this new world.

The fact they had better access to the Quaz crystals meant that a lot of good projects that had been stagnant for years could now see the light of day. They didn’t have to be the poor island, as Jenifer believed that these projects and a lot of the ideas the new sciences were generating could be used to make them very competitive with the other islands in the open market.

Louise had told Jenifer that this was folly and she wouldn’t support the idea of such investments at all. Jenifer had told her sister quite forcefully that once she was the Queen, she would make it happen. Unfortunately, for Louise, the majority of the ministers had sided with Jenifer.

This not only indicated that she would most likely garner their support in the future if she had progressive initiatives, it also indicated that they didn’t support Louise anymore. They were all for feathering their own nests and keeping their people employed. Jenifer was offering these opportunities while Louise wasn’t.

Whether Jenifer realised it or not, the number of guards, both human and ant that protected her, doubled after this meeting. Lady Vassar had also increased the number of people watching Louise. She had never trusted Louise and she knew that they didn’t want her as their ruler under any circumstances. She was also one of the few ministers that was privy to the deal that Jenifer and Stix had agreed upon.

She was also one of the few ministers who knew why Lord Janson’s magical medallion deserted him and sent him mad. The envoys she hired through the Soldier Ant Queen, to spy on the ministers she didn’t trust, had stumbled upon the fact that he had a second, contaminated three gem magical medallion.

He planned to give Louise the item and promised to marry her when she had offered to get him one of the magical flickers. He was very rich and Louise had been after him to marry her for several years since she was for all intent penniless. To get the crown, a magical item and his money and for the price of a stupid flicker was more than agreeable to Louise.

Lady Vassar could not let this happen and after a bit of soul searching she had told Gazza of the plot rather than act herself. She wasn’t really surprised by his reaction. Knowing he held the flickers in very high regard, she knew that he had to know of the threat since it was, as far as he was concerned, to his family.

Gazza never told her what he did but it was reported back to her that the damaged medallion had disappeared and that the medallion that Lord Janson wore had turned on him and also disappeared. Lord Janson’s death just two weeks before the coronation didn’t sadden many, least of all his daughter who now inherited his wealth and position.

The fact that the new Lady Janson was a friend of Jenifer and Perry wasn’t a detail that many missed, after her father’s demise. Few knew that the magical items she inherited were not his. The new Lady Janson didn’t advertise that a new magical box had turned up in her bedroom after her father had jumped off a cliff. She was not a silly girl and knew how to keep her own counsel.

Louise, however, was beside herself with rage. Not only had Lord Janson’s money slipped out of her grasp so had her best hope of claiming the magical items before Jenifer could. The two attempts where she had tried to poison Jenifer’s food had also not worked. She was going to have to do something more drastic to get her hands on the crown.

Louise was a true bully and to act directly was not in her nature.

Quite a few citizens turned up to the People’s Party.

It was held on the palace grounds and was an open affair that the average person, flicker and ant could attend, while the rich and famous attended the actual coronation ball. Some refreshments were supplied by the crown but most people brought a plate of food to add to the groaning tables from which they could all help themselves.

Gazza and his family had also contributed to the food on the tables and paid for a dozen barrels of wine and of beer to be served to the throng. When Lady Vassar and Lady Janson had heard that the Whites intended to add to the People’s Party, they too contributed. For the locals, it was looking to be a very merry night whether they got a new Queen or not.

They got to watch the rich turn up in fancy Autos and carriages. It was all part of the entertainment as far as they were concerned. They got to discuss who came with whom, what they wore and who outshone who. A palace official would also tell them if Princess Jenifer was successful or not. Not many of them believed it would be the same fiasco as when Louise tried to claim the items five years before.