Dressed in her best finery, Nancy Salazar sent two of her girls before her to deliver exotic gifts to the Queen Dowager.

She had to bribe the dowager’s handmaiden to know the details of the type of brocades and other exotic gifts the woman would accept.

As much as the expenses drained more of her family’s already draining fortune, she knew it was a worthy investment.

“If not for my silly son who decided to slap me in the face like this, would I be doing all this?” she thought as she calmly waited in the dowager’s waiting room.

Gone were the days when the dowager stayed in the main...