Are you ever tempted to fire your renowned critic, L’Evallier, or at least to rein him given he is your subject?
No. L’Evallier is honest, honourable, hardworking and other positive attributes beginning with the letter “H”! He’s also incredibly haughty! Having said that, he tells me what he thinks we ought to know rather than what he thinks he can get away with telling us. That is incredibly refreshing, helps me more than he could ever realise (for a start it keeps me in touch with current public opinion) and we can easily point to him as the classic example proving we do not always appoint “yes men” to our inner circle. He is also very efficient at helping us tackle our never ending correspondence. In short he is far too useful for me to get rid of!
Given you are all powerful, why did you not force Eileen to stay in the Kingdom? You could have done so. Eileen acknowledges that.
It’s precisely because I could do so, I didn’t! I don’t want a reputation for cruelty. Also given our own bleak feelings about humanity, we were rather hoping Eileen would not stay on Earth for long and would hurry back here. Alas we were wrong on that. Eileen would almost certainly put up magnificent resistance against any magic I tried to use on her. Do I really want to inflict injuries on my cousin (potentially fatal ones at that)? I feel it best to stick what we have arranged. Eileen is continuing to serve us all.
Do you regret killing the Chief Witch? Given Eileen’s comments about the Witch’s family being treated badly by your late relative, Queen Gwendolyn, do you think it possible Eileen had a point when asking for mercy for the Witch?
No. The late Witch repeatedly threatened the Kingdom, Eileen (to whom she owed a great debt!), as well as me, which we admit is not a surprise given Heads of State always receive death threats. We were not prepared to allow the Witch to live to carry on her policy of attacking our people. The monarch’s first responsibility is to defend their people. As for Eileen, she was always too soft on the Witch. It goes to show anyone can have their judgement skewered. Yes, we accept Gwendolyn did behave badly but it was not just to the Witch’s family, it was to others too (Eileen’s family funnily enough, I think Gwendolyn saw them as rivals) yet they didn’t try to destroy people.
Eileen warned you about Brankaresh’s “odd” behaviour which she thought treasonable. Do you regret not stopping him sooner? Will there be tighter controls on future Chief Wizards as they’re one of the few groups who could challenge you?
Yes. It is a source of huge regret as we gave him every encouragement to be loyal by rewarding his excellent early work with promotion and royal favour. There are tight controls over the Chief Wizard’s position in place now, the main measure being unannounced spot inspections. Abstar, my current Chief Wizard, is happy over this claiming this is because he has nothing to hide. No doubt time will prove him correct.
No. L’Evallier is honest, honourable, hardworking and other positive attributes beginning with the letter “H”! He’s also incredibly haughty! Having said that, he tells me what he thinks we ought to know rather than what he thinks he can get away with telling us. That is incredibly refreshing, helps me more than he could ever realise (for a start it keeps me in touch with current public opinion) and we can easily point to him as the classic example proving we do not always appoint “yes men” to our inner circle. He is also very efficient at helping us tackle our never ending correspondence. In short he is far too useful for me to get rid of!
Given you are all powerful, why did you not force Eileen to stay in the Kingdom? You could have done so. Eileen acknowledges that.
It’s precisely because I could do so, I didn’t! I don’t want a reputation for cruelty. Also given our own bleak feelings about humanity, we were rather hoping Eileen would not stay on Earth for long and would hurry back here. Alas we were wrong on that. Eileen would almost certainly put up magnificent resistance against any magic I tried to use on her. Do I really want to inflict injuries on my cousin (potentially fatal ones at that)? I feel it best to stick what we have arranged. Eileen is continuing to serve us all.
Do you regret killing the Chief Witch? Given Eileen’s comments about the Witch’s family being treated badly by your late relative, Queen Gwendolyn, do you think it possible Eileen had a point when asking for mercy for the Witch?
No. The late Witch repeatedly threatened the Kingdom, Eileen (to whom she owed a great debt!), as well as me, which we admit is not a surprise given Heads of State always receive death threats. We were not prepared to allow the Witch to live to carry on her policy of attacking our people. The monarch’s first responsibility is to defend their people. As for Eileen, she was always too soft on the Witch. It goes to show anyone can have their judgement skewered. Yes, we accept Gwendolyn did behave badly but it was not just to the Witch’s family, it was to others too (Eileen’s family funnily enough, I think Gwendolyn saw them as rivals) yet they didn’t try to destroy people.
Eileen warned you about Brankaresh’s “odd” behaviour which she thought treasonable. Do you regret not stopping him sooner? Will there be tighter controls on future Chief Wizards as they’re one of the few groups who could challenge you?
Yes. It is a source of huge regret as we gave him every encouragement to be loyal by rewarding his excellent early work with promotion and royal favour. There are tight controls over the Chief Wizard’s position in place now, the main measure being unannounced spot inspections. Abstar, my current Chief Wizard, is happy over this claiming this is because he has nothing to hide. No doubt time will prove him correct.
RSS Feed
