Gideon Silver-Claw

Gideon Silver-Claw was the Demon Queen's Treasurer, and one of her lovers. He is a widower, and the father of three.

BEWARE: This is so WIP it's painful.

Personality: (Bullet points for now, while I figure out his personality)

• Pragmatic. He's an intensely practical person, a trait that sets him apart from his fellow noblemen. He is acutely and painfully aware of all the practical details that his peers can afford to hand-wave away. He knows exactly how much his household (as well as the Crown) spends on a day-to-day basis. He knows how much each and every servant is paid. He knows the most recent market prices for all manner of goods. As much as he tries to hide the fact, he is, in fact, a total penny-pincher. At this point, calculating to him is almost a compulsion.
• Self-Conscious. He knows that his penny-pinching behavior gets him mocked by his peers, and he hates it. He knows that other members of the nobility look down on and make fun of him. And as much as he deeply and utterly hates the other noblemen (really, he hates almost everyone, regardless of social class), he also feels the need to keep his family's image and reputation as untarnished and irreproachable as he can. He tries to keep up appearances, to hide the traces of his "humble" past, and present himself as just like the others of his social class.
• Ambitious. One can't do what Gideon did for his family without a heaping of ambition. Driven by the desire to restore his family's honor and restore their status, he works tirelessly to climb the social and financial ladder. This doesn't come from any sense of vanity, or a desire for personal glory, but a deep sense of duty that he feels towards his family, especially to his children. More than anything else, he wants to make sure he provides them a life much better than the one he was forced into.

Background: Born to a noble family, but by that point it was only noble by name. A string of reckless, irresponsible predecessors left his family on the brink of ruin, both in terms of wealth and reputation. The eldest of six siblings, Gideon had to grow up early. With a good-for-nothing father and an emotionally checked-out mother, the care of his younger siblings largely fell to him. He became Lord of the family at nineteen, following his father's death under... suspicious circumstances. It's pretty much an open secret that Gideon murdered his father. He got away with it because there's no real evidence. Through shrewdness, diligence, a lack of moral scruples, and sheer force of will, he managed to claw his family's financial situation back into one of relative comfort. His family is still looked down upon by other nobles. They jokingly call him Copper-Claw, a reference to silver often being alloyed with copper to cut costs.

It probably didn't help that he married a "middle-class" woman, i.e. one who didn't come from a noble family. Although they weren't nobles, they were pretty wealthy, a family of merchants who'd built up a fortune from trading. It was pretty obvious to everyone that it was a marriage of convenience, Gideon was after the money, and the wife was after the privileges of being real nobility. After his father-in-law's death, and some messy disputes with his wife's brothers, he ended up obtaining control of their trading company. He had three children with this wife, but she ended up dying after giving birth to their third child.

Empress Valeria happened to be paying attention to his actions, and was impressed at just how well this man could move money around. She "convinces" him to become a member of her court, and he quickly rises to the position of Imperial Treasurer, basically in charge of the Crown's treasury and income. As it happens, he falls in love with the Empress and they begin having a secret relationship. Why not, right? He's not too old to remarry, and he and his children have everything to gain from his marrying the Empress.

Current Status: The story proper begins at the Empress' sudden and unexplained death. She leaves behind no heirs and no will. Throughout their relationship the Empress often hinted at her intention to marry Gideon and name his children as her heirs. She never did get around to doing it, but in Gideon's eyes, it must have been her will to leave the Empire to him... Except it turns out that he wasn't Valeria's only lover. In addition to an affair with her Treasurer (Gideon), the Empress was also romancing her Spymaster and her General.

Trivia & Misc:

• Gideon, like the other characters in this story, come from a dream I had. Interestingly enough, in the dream, I was one of Gideon's kids.
• He and Asteria (the Spymaster) have a sort of cat-and-dog, antagonistic relationship. He really hates her guts.
• He's probably the one most hurt by the Empress' death.
• Okay, I've thought up names for his kids. The eldest son is Giles (pronounced Zheel), the middle son is Arthur, and the youngest daughter is Victoria.