Private Lady Clara Vere de Vere

[Reima Vitalis]

The spring morning had done nothing to improve the mood at Cerulean Gate Palace. Storm clouds hung low over New Sterandel, and the Palace seemed determined to treat meteorology as prophecy.

Reima Vitalis had escaped to the gardens in the reasonable belief that no one with sense would venture out while rain threatened. She hated the gardens at Cerulean Gate. They were too fussy by half: clipped hedges, obedient flowerbeds, fountains arranged with bureaucratic precision. They reminded her of Foxfield Park, where she had spent much of her childhood under the strict and watchful eyes of her uncle Thaddeus Vitalis, her aunt Petra, and the imperious Grandmother Vitalis. She had never taken to that kind of landscaping. There was something about the forced grandeur of it, the Vitalis delight in proving that climate and soil could be bullied into submission, that left her cold. Foxfield itself she preferred in every other respect; but if anyone had asked her which gardens were superior, she would have said Herevan Hold without hesitation.

Why, then, had Natasi chosen the same formal style for the seat of her Heirate? Had she chosen it at all? Perhaps some industrious courtier had made the decision for her while she was occupied with real matters. Perhaps Natasi had noticed and not cared enough to change it.

Why am I thinking about this at all? Reima demanded of herself. This is idiotic.

But it was easier than thinking about Wedge.

After the overheard conversation -- her relations indelicate, her betrothed rude, and both behaving exactly as badly as they had the capacity to do -- Reima had asked him to leave Cerulean Gate. It had been the only thing to do, she told herself. He could not remain under Natasi's roof after what he had heard and what he had said. Better that he go elsewhere, calm down, think.

Part of her knew perfectly well that was a lie.

The same part that still burned at the thought that he had entertained flying for the Galactic Empire out of spite after the Alliance humiliated him. The same part that smarted at his brushing off the interview she had rather sheepishly asked her mother to arrange, hoping he might be persuaded to turn his talent and restless energy to something useful in the Renascent Heirate. The same part that lay awake wondering where he really was, whether he was with her even when he was beside her in bed, and especially when he wasn't. Wedge had been absent in body sometimes, and in attention often. The truth was uglier and simpler: Reima Vitalis had spent the better part of six months watching the relationship wither, too proud to mend it, too angry to forgive it, and too frightened to be the one who finally called a time of death.

The difficulty was that knowing it didn't stop the want or the love. It simply transformed them, as if by magic, into frustration and grief.

Since the row, the Palace had behaved as though normality were a constitutional obligation. The servants affected the hereditary deafness of any good courtier. George occasionally looked smug -- though that, Reima conceded, might simply have been the Fortan genetics asserting themselves. He had disliked Wedge from the beginning because Wedge was not one of their sort. Reima had tried to tell herself that George meant something elevated by that: that Wedge would not understand the obligations of royal life, the scrutiny, the burden of being the focal point of national attention. She suspected the truth was baser.

Jealousy, perhaps. Reima and George had always shared the reflexive intimacy that came of being, for so long, their own only immediate family. Marriage would reorder that. Children would reorder it further. That was simply life. Siblings were meant to survive such things. At least, she had always assumed so. George, of all people, ought to have understood dynastic reality. Yet she had never felt from him the same resignation she had long since made with it herself.

Whatever the reason, the Palace's determined normality had altered over the last two days. Now, when Reima entered a room, conversation thinned or stopped altogether. It was the sort of silence that suggested either that they had been speaking of her or that they no longer knew how to do so. Sooner or later someone would ask after her next public engagement, as if that might restore the room to something useful.

She found it tiresome.

Even worse, she found it frightening.

So she had retreated to the gardens, trusting that the threat of a cold spring rain would keep sensible people indoors and, for a little while, spare her the performance of being perfectly all right.

Natasi Fortan​

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi could guess why Reima had come into the garden.

She hated to thwart her, especially now, but matters had come to a head. She could no longer afford to place her daughter's comfort over her daughter's safety. The knowledge she had received -- knowledge she had foolishly hoped she might somehow set aside -- would not permit it. But The Prime Minister had been been plain: drinking, drugs, unsavory company, and criminal activity.

Natasi Fortan was prepared to overlook the social mismatch. She liked Wedge Draav. More than that, she recognized that once upon a time he had been good for Reima. Under his command in the Galactic Alliance, Reima had learned discipline, duty, and courage in forms that had not come naturally to her. She had distinguished herself under him, saved his life at tremendous cost to herself, and then, refusing even the indulgence of medical treatment, flown on to help destroy the Eclipse-class Star Destroyer that had so shockingly appeared from under the Senate.

Natasi had been there. She remembered the terror of it as if it had happened yesterday. Dyrn had saved her life. Reima had saved thousands, maybe even more.

Before Wedge Draav, that kind of self-sacrifice had not been in Reima's nature.

And yet.

In a way Wedge had taken it out of her hands. Knowing what she knew now, from a constitutional perspective to say nothing of her obligations as a mother, Natasi could not permit it to continue. The Government's view, conveyed with perfect clarity by the Prime Minister alongside the report on Wedge's activities, was that a man with connections to the criminal underworld could not be allowed unfettered access to the royal family, royal residences, dispatch boxes, intelligence, and all the rest of it.

In short, Renata had handed Natasi her marching orders.

Still, when she found Reima near the broad fountain at the center of the formal gardens, she made an effort of lightness. "There you are, darling," Natasi said pleasantly. "You left after breakfast so quickly I didn't get a chance to talk to you."

Reima Vitalis​

 

[Reima Vitalis]

Reima was debating the merits of slipping behind a hedge for a clandestine cigarette when she heard footsteps behind her.

She knew at once it was Natasi. No one else moved through Cerulean Gate Palace and its gardens with quite that air of unquestioned possession. Perhaps it was because no one else there truly possessed them. That put paid to any thoughts about a cigarette. Reima turned from the rose bush she had been pretending to examine and dropped into a shallow curtsy as her approached.

"Mother."

They exchanged kisses on each cheek. The faint, subtle scent of namana blossom clung to Natasi, a small but persistent contradiction that reminded Reima that for all her mother's Galidraani severity, some part of her still came from a warmer, more hospitable world.

"I didn't want to be underfoot," Reima said, her voice light. "I thought you and George would be planning for the Season and two seems like quite enough in that particular conversation." She half-turned back to the rose bush and bent to smell a blush-pink bloom. "Just tell me where I'm wanted and I shall present myself there with all the necessary enthusiasm."

When she straightened again, she found Natasi watching her with a steadiness that immediately put her on her guard.

"What have I done now?" Reima asked with an attempt at an impish grin.

Natasi Fortan​

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi recognized a woman in want of a cigarette. She had been such a woman often enough herself. She'd long since given up the habit, but in times of high stress, she sometimes still craved that hit of nicotine. She did not vocalize this commiseration, nor her observation that Reima looked like a woman on the edge. Some things were better left unsaid.

"Nothing, my girl," Natasi said with a wry half-smile. "You aren't in trouble. In fact -- "

Both women were momentarily distracted by a soft rustle, and Natasi looked behind her, locking eyes with a small housecat, slender, with blotched tabby markings. His golden eyes blinked slowly at Natasi, then rubbed insistently against a shrub as if the whole garden had been arranged for his comfort. "This creature has been following me around for days," Natasi informed Reima, turning back to her daughter. "Pytar Kenat informs me that he is Lord Mouser of the Cerulean Gate. He belongs to no one so much as to the Palace, apparently."

She approached Reima. "Shall we walk?"

It was posed as a question, yet it was enacted as a mandate. Natasi proceeded forward, and Reima fell into step beside her automatically.

"I was hoping to talk about Captain Draav," Natasi said delicately. As they began their walk, she slipped an arm around Reima and gathered her gently against her side. "I know it's probably the last subject you want raised right now, but -- darling -- it is very important."

Reima Vitalis​

 

[Reima Vitalis]

Reima's back straightened almost imperceptibly as Natasi's arm settled around her. It wasn't that the gesture was unwelcome; quite the opposite. That was why it felt dangerous. Affection from her mother still had that unnerving quality of feeling at once precious and provisional, like she had borrowed it from the life they ought to have had and never did manage to find. She let herself be gathered in all the same, falling obediently into step with her mother with the wary obedience of someone who knew perfectly well that tenderness could be -- and often was -- a velvet glove on an iron fist.

For a few paces, Reima said nothing, and they listened instead to the gravel crunching softly under their shoes and, a few paces behind, the absurd cat rustling against the shrubs without a care for dignity or atmosphere.

Finally, Reima allowed herself a slow exhalation through her nose. "That's... ominous," she said with a brittle lightness, glancing sidelong at Natasi. "When you begin with darling and then it is very important one does rather feel the need to brace for impact." Her lips curved faintly, but there wasn't really any mirth in it. She knew well enough now what this must be about.

Still, some stubborn streak in her wanted to allow this thing to come into the light by increments rather than let it be laid out all at once like an indictment.

"I should warn you that I am in no mood to have Wedge discussed as though he were a problem that can be solved," Reima said waspishly. "I have heard quite enough of that already."

Reima regretted the sharpness as soon as the words left her mouth, but not enough to retract them. She kept her gaze forward, on the clipped hedges and the path curving uselessly toward another well-ordered bed of obedient -- or perhaps bullied -- flowers. She allowed a moment of silence, then --

"That wasn't fair. At least, not to you," Reima said, her fingers tightening briefly around one another at her waist. "Only if George has -- well, never mind that now. Tell me, plainly if you can. What is it?"

Natasi Fortan​

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi frowned and released Reima. "Plainly, then," she conceded. "But for the moment, can we keep your brother out of this? This isn't about George. It's about Captain Draav." Natasi took a few steps on the pretense of studying a hydrangea bush with a critical gaze.

"I had hoped," Natasi murmured as she turned a hydrangea blossom this way, then that. "That you would reach this conclusion before we had to speak about it. It's not a criticism. Believe me, I understand that there are times where reason yields to emotion. Yes, even I have felt that. I wasn't always a statue."

She had hoped that would crack Reima's cool exterior. It did not.

"But you know how things are for families like ours," Natasi went on after a moment, her voice suddenly solemn. "Marriage is for life. You are the Princess Royal, second in line to the Renascent Throne and the First Imperial Crown-in-Exile." Reima gave her a look that suggested she did not require a reminder. "My point," Natasi said reasonably, "is that such a position requires stability. It requires discretion. I have no concerns about you in either score. But Captain Draav..."

Natasi was uncharacteristically lost for words for a moment. She decided to switch gears.

"Your brother will be head of the family when I am gone," Natasi said quietly. "You will owe him your loyalty. But if you are married -- and if your marriage is to be a success -- you will owe your husband loyalty as well. That is hard enough in a regular family, a family where everyone gets along. That happy, well-adjusted family will not be our family if your husband is Captain Draav."

Natasi could hear her Prime Minister's words, could feel how easily she herself could deploy them. She had the means to end this conversation, inarguably. But she was hoping to allow Reima to maintain her dignity. If only Reima would allow it.

Reima Vitalis​

 

[Reima Vitalis]

Reima regarded her mother with a kind of cool detachment typically reserved for studying an unpleasant specimen under glass. She could feel the condescension in her mother's words, and once she might have seized on it, turned it into a weapon, and made the whole exchange a duel on principle. She was ashamed to find the old instinct still so close to hand.

But Natasi was doing something difficult, and she was doing it herself instead of sending some functionary or another. That was not nothing. It earned her mother a reprieve.

But she was also trying to make the exit of Wedge Draav orderly and inevitable. Almost dignified.

Almost.

She was treating it as a matter of dynastic strain and conflicting loyalties rather than the far uglier and more humiliating truth: that Wedge had become unacceptable and everyone but Reima had already been arranging themselves around that conclusion. Reinforcing the door, leaving Reima as the only one still braced against it.

It rankled more than she cared to admit. It touched the oldest sore place in her: the fact of George's primacy, of the institution built around it and him and his prejudices, and now the Crown itself was stepping in to rearrange her life under the pretense of protecting it. At this, Reima could feel her heels digging in. It no longer seemed to matter that her feelings about Wedge had been crystalizing in her mind. What mattered was the outrage and injustice of being managed.

"Plainly, Mother," Reima said, her voice flat, almost bored. "You promised. Are you ordering me to give him up?"

Natasi Fortan​

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi stopped walking, and for a moment she said nothing. A cold wind worried lightly at hem of her coat, and somewhere behind them the absurd little creature -- the Lord Mouser -- made a soft, unnecessary rustle in the hydrangea bush she had just turned away from.

When she turned to Reima, there was no softness in her face now, and no anger, either. It had been replaced with a tired kind of clarity. "No," she said quietly. In the distance, thunder rumbled. "It has been many years since I was able to order you around, Reima."

She let that settle for a moment. In other circumstances it might have been a joke.

"You aren't a child," Natasi went on after a moment. "And I am not going to stand here and pretend that I can forbid you to marry if you're determined to do it. I can't. Not in any way that would leave either of us with a shred of dignity. If you mean to bind yourself to Captain Draav, you will find a way, with or without anyone's blessing."

Natasi's gaze held Reima's, steady and exact. "But," she said delicately. "I can tell you what I know. I had hoped to avoid it." Natasi looked toward the distant sky; somewhere over the western edges of New Sterandel, rain had begun to fall. She wasn't looking at the rain; she was considering her options. She could tell Reima all about Wedge's extracurriculars. The security risk he posed. The potential for scandal if his criminal activities were to become public. Or, she could protect Reima from the knowledge that she had chosen a man capable of it all, and be the villain herself.

She took a deep breath and sighed quietly. "Reima," Natasi said, her voice steady as she turned her eyes back to her daughter. "What do you know about the Royal Marriages Act of 898?"

Reima Vitalis​

 

[Reima Vitalis]

Reima didn't answer right away.

For a moment she only stared at Natasi, the question hanging there between them with all the grace of an assassin's blade being drawn in slow motion. Reima was familiar with the title of the Act, of course, knew the broad strokes of it. She knew enough about it that she was stunned to hear it invoked in a garden, by her mother, over the rapidly-cooling corpse of her engagement.

Her voice was level when she spoke. Natasi would recognize the warning in that. "I know enough," she said. "Enough to understand that if it has entered this conversation, then we are well past concern and into coercion. And having just told me you can no longer order me around, you now brandish a bit of parchment explaining all the ways you, in fact, can." She huffed a severe, disdainful laugh that might well have been a snort if it were about something less disgusting.

The realization of what it meant was accompanied by a hot rush of humiliation, a stinging in her eyes that surprised her. Her mother was not just disappointed, not just disapproving. She had brought the Concordiate into it.

"This doesn't feel like you," Reima told Natasi frankly. "Is this coming from the Government? Because Wedge snubbed the Prime Minister's interview?" The cheapness of the question rebounded on Reima at once. As if she hadnot been wounded by it herself, as if she had not gone to her mother, half-embarrassed, to ask the favor in the first place, only to be left looking foolish when her intended blew it off. To disguise the flame in her porcelain cheeks, she half-turned, shaking her head, and jammed her hand into her pocket. Reima drew out her Foxfield Golds cigarette packet and lighter. She struck the flame at once.

"Don't even try it," Reima said cuttingly in response to Natasi's narrowing eyes. "No, Westaway doesn't have the nerve to order it. This is George. Maybe not the instrument, not the choice of weapon. The thrust of it, though? My brother, to the very hilt."

Natasi Fortan​

 

[Natasi Fortan]

"No," Natasi said quietly. "You mistake me."

Natasi did not so much as flinch at the lit cigarette. If anything, her face settled into a dreadful composure, as though Reima's anger had only confirmed that she had chosen the right approach.

"I am not brandishing the Act as proof that I can order you. I'm telling you that the Act exists whether either of us likes it, and that if you mean to marry without my consent, it does not merely wound feelings or embarrass the family. It will sever things." Natasi held Reima's gaze. Her daughter's eyes had gone the color of frozen Galidraani mud. She had heard her own eyes described in just that way, by Reima's father, more than once. It hadn't felt like a compliment then. Reima's wounded grief allowed her to wear it better.

She continued: "It severs your place in the line of succession. Your title and your style. Your position on the civil list. The houses, the staff, the cars, the transportation, the security, the allowances, the engagements -- all of it. You would be renouncing your status as a member of the royal family. Not because I will theatrically cast you out with a flourish of my hand, but because that is what the law does automatically."

She let that settle between them. Reima would know better than anyone that Natasi's exiles were not theatrical. When she disowned family, it was quiet, unremarked upon, dignified. Unlike the family that was disowned, naturally.

"You asked whether I was ordering you to give him up, and I am not," Natasi said coolly. "I am telling you, plainly, that if you choose him without my permission, you are choosing to renounce everything that comes with your official position -- not my love, not your brother's, not Dyrn's. That will remain, always. But it would be different."

Natasi's fingers itched for a cigarette now, too. "And since you have decided to be frank, allow me to reciprocate. I had hoped never to have to put any of this before you. I would have much preferred you come to your own conclusion and preserve your dignity. But if you insist on pressing toward the edge, Reima, I will not let it be said that you were not warned where the cliff ends and the drop begins."

The Sovereign -- for that was what she was now, all traces of being mother were extinguished -- continued: "Your brother did not invent the Act, and he did not invent Wedge's ... challenges. Your brother handled it badly -- offensively, in fact -- but at the heart of it he is not wrong. And think of Wedge. Do you imagine he could be happy in a life like this? In this panopticon of a palace, constantly observed, constantly judged? We bear it because we must. It is a dreadful thing to inflict on someone not inclined to this way of life."

Natasi took a slow breath and raised a hand to draw along one finely-shaped eyebrow. "So. Would you agree that you are now in possession of the relevant facts?" She didn't look at Reima, didn't want her to see the care with which she had chosen those words. Relevant facts. Not, of course, all of them.

Reima Vitalis​

 

[Reima Vitalis]

Reima stared at her mother for a long moment, the cigarette burning steadily between her fingers. Then she gave a short, incredulous bark of laughter. The cat started at the sudden harshness of the sound, then coiled around Natasi's ankles.

"So this is what we've come to," Reima said. "The title. The style. That very pretty mountain of royal tin you imagine I might hesitate to lose." She lifted her hand to take a drag of the cigarette, deep and satisfying, and then exhaled through her nose. "It is illuminating to hear how cheaply you imagine I can be bought. What a horrible thing to think of your own daughter."

She was cold now, with that deadly Fortan frigidity that had once been legendary in Galidraani drawing rooms and that had become a highly effective means of governing in Avalonian cabinet meetings. "I lived most of my life not being a princess. I would be perfectly content to go back to it. I do not draw comfort from my dress allowance, nor do I sit up at nights anxious about the speeder pool. If that is what you thought would frighten me into obedience, you don't know me at all."

She looked away toward the hedges. The rain was closer now. Soon it would be crossing the river, drenching the two women.

"The infuriating part is that you have contrived to make even agreement with you a self-indictment. I was not blind, you know. I know what things have been becoming between us. I am aware -- " She broke off then as a single hot tear broke surface tension and raced down her cheek. "There is a way of doing it," she hissed, then took a furious drag of her cigarette. "He saved my life. More than once. He drove me to be my very best at a time when I couldn't even be in the same system as you. That demands more than a holocomm call and best wishes. But you -- George, really, but now you too -- couldn't let me find the courage to do it in my own time and on my own terms."

This stuck in her throat as a painful lump and the fury was humiliating. She felt, at once, like a toddler again, so worked up by indignation that she could do nothing but fling herself to the carpet in the nursery and scream blue murder until Ben picked her up and rubbed her back. Reima refused to give in to it. She stopped, swallowed, took another drag, blew it out.

"So now you have taken the choice away from me. We'll never know if I would have had the strength and the presence of mind to find my way, because you let George and the Prime Minister and the machinery of state catch me in its gears." Reima stared at Natasi, clearly livid. "We'll never know. And you will think of that every time there is a question about my judgment. You will always wonder. George will always have that over me -- as if he needed anything to hold over me, the spare." She shook her head.

Reima wanted to tell Natasi that it was not the clothes or the jewels, the cars or the staff that she was afraid of losing. It was the little bridge she and Natasi had been building toward each other for years now, the bridge that had only just proved capable of bearing real weight. She longed to tell Natasi that, to weep into her shoulder, to be assured that whatever happened nothing would change between them. But when she looked across at her mother, she saw only her mother's worst opinions about herself: some shallow love for status, some tawdry covetousness for the royal swag.

So instead of doing any of that, she said: "You have given me much to think about. If you will excuse me, I will endeavor to do just that." Reima dropped into a curtsy so correct, so formal, so razor-sharp that it could only be understood by her mother as a blow. "Your Majesty."

Reima hurled her spent cigarette into the fountain and stalked away, buffeted by the cold spring wind that bore the rainstorm over the river.

Natasi Fortan​

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi watched, rooted to the spot as if watching a magtrain derailing in slow motion. Powerless to stop it, powerless to do anything but watch it happen. It was a difficult position to be in for a woman who was so accustomed to authority, accustomed to being the indispensable person in the room around which the axis of decisions turned.

She wanted to interject -- to swear that she had not meant it that way -- but Natasi found herself uncharacteristically speechless. And then Reima was bounding off, her humiliated fury and grief lingering longer than her cigarette smoke did. "Reima," Natasi called after her, finally finding her voice, but her daughter didn't stop, didn't even miss a step.

The cat writhed between her feet, purring for a moment before the sound of approaching rain startled him. He scampered off, following Reima toward the Palace, pausing to check that Natasi was following him and yowling until the Sovereign, indeed, fell into step obediently. The Lord Mouser was home and dry, but Natasi hadn't quite made it to the canopied entry when the downpour caught her.

Just what I needed, Natasi mused.

* * * * *

FAMILY BREAKFAST ROOM
THE NEXT MORNING
​

Reima hadn't come to dinner that night.

She had sent word that she was revising her remarks for an upcoming royal engagement, but it didn't fool Natasi. Reima was devastated -- by all of it. Some of her outrage was justifiable. Some of it was simply inarguable. Natasi didn't comment, hadn't invited comment from her husband or her son, and had made it clear particularly to the latter that she was not interested in comment.

Dyrn had arrived early to the breakfast room, and when his wife entered, Dyrn stood. He set about preparing a cup of coffee for her while she prepared her plate from the buffet on the sideboard. Onto it, she put a coddled egg, two slices of buttered toast, some bacon, and a few pieces of some kind of melon that was native to Eos. "Thank you," Natasi told Dyrn as he set the coffee down at the head of the table at her position, allowing a kiss to her cheek before settling into her seat, Dyrn carefully guiding the chair closer to the table.

George arrived without fanfare. Natasi looked at her wristwatch, then the mantel clock, but waited for George to take his seat to her right before she asked, mildly, as if only making conversation: "Have you seen your sister this morning?"

George Vitalis​

 

[George Vitalis]

Natasi Fortan

George entered the room a few minutes after his mother. By choice, by design or by luck? Hard to tell, but arrive he did and he observed gently the affection on display with a soft smile. No comment was made besides an inclination of his head to the man that had conquered his mother's dutiful heart.

Then he sat down himself.

His eyebrows raised at the question.

"No," George admitted quietly as he studied his mother. "She has not responded to my messages either. I assume the conversation you had with her did not go well then?"

It would have been a tough pill to swallow, but somewhere George had hoped that Reima would see reason.

It was the right thing to do, the correct thing to do.

None of them should spend their time and energy on a fantasy, when they had duty to respond to.

"She will come around." George added with a sigh. "It will be tough for a while... but she will understand this is for the best... in the end."

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi frowned at the question. It did rather come to the heart of things.

She glanced at Dyrn, who had greeted George with a genial smile before returning to his seat and picking up his newspaper. He felt Natasi's gaze, met her eyes, and gave an encouraging nod. He had heard the worst already. "It did not," she conceded. "I made the mistake of thinking that your sister, as a result of being a decorated fighter ace -- a genuine war hero, in fact -- was one of my officers rather than my daughter and I spoke to her perhaps less delicately than I ought."

Dyrn cleared his throat, rustled his papers.

"Yes, all right," Natasi murmured. "I phrased it badly. I insinuated that if she wanted to hold her position -- her rank, her title, the civil list money, allowances, speeders, all of it -- that she would need to see reason where Captain Draav is concerned. And because I was speaking to her as the sovereign and not as her mother, I must have... implied that it would be a primary motivator of her actions."

Natasi had picked up her knife and fork but kept them poised with her wrists at the edge of the table, looking into the middle distance, as if she could look back at that scene in the garden, unfolding in front of her. "Of course, she was hurt. I didn't mean... well, I suppose I must have, in some small part of me, meant to coerce her, in that way." She sighed and closed her eyes, pained regret as clear as the nose on her face. "For the record, I do not think and did not mean to suggest-- at all -- that I think she is avaricious, that she would break it off with the Captain just to keep the jewels and dresses and staff. I don't. I was merely trying to give her the whole picture."

The Sovereign set her fork and knife down, folded her hands in her lap. "Well, suffice it to say that you and I have much in common," Natasi told her son gravely. "Not least the ability to speak carelessly even when we have the best of intentions."

George Vitalis​

 

[George Vitalis]

Natasi Fortan

Eyebrows raised a bit more at the exchange between the two and the expansion of Natasi's point afterwards. Perhaps he should have more conversations with his mother with his father-in-law present, somehow it brought out more of the truth that way.

"I don't know what you mean, mother, I am diplomacy incarnated."

Dyrn snorted there as he skipped a page, causing George to roll his eyes.

"I am serious. When was the last time I ever hurt anyone's feelings with what I said?"

Ignoring the part where his clear disapproval, even if not quite voiced, had clearly wounded Reima.

"Anyway, I am sure you did what you could, mother. In these matters... There was no perfect set of sentences that would have solved the situation and kept her feelings intact. It was... Messy, but we are all used to messiness at this point, yes?"

He hoped it would end however.

George wished for some peace in their time.

 

[Natasi Fortan]

"Your tasteless remark that lit the blue touch paper with Captain Draav comes to mind," Natasi said coolly. George's response snapped her out of her reverie and she picked up her knife and fork and began to eat in delicate, controlled bites. There was a rattling at the door, and a shuffling sound. Dyrn leaned over.

"That blasted cat again," he muttered. "Shall I let him in?"

"No," Natasi said at once, around a mouthful of toast -- testament to how strongly she felt about the matter. She turned her attention back to her son, her gaze stern. "It is easy to dismiss the mess when it isn't you who has been insulted by your own family. Have a care about how easily you brush it away. And -- "

She was distracted by a knock at the door. Natasi's eyebrows furrowed immediately. Breakfast was supposed to be sacrosanct; what could this be? Someone wanting to let the Lord Mouser in? She cleared her throat and called for whoever it was to enter. She dabbed her lips as Petyr Kenat, her principal private secretary entered and bowed to her. "Your Majesty." Then to Dyrn and George in turn, slightly shallower. "Your Royal Highness. Your Royal Highness. Ma'am, forgive the intrusion."

"Good morning, Petyr. What is it?" By the time he had straightened, the cat had scampered around him and had begun to rub against her ankle and calf. Natasi sighed and nudged the cat with her leg, but it remained attached as if like a magnet.

"I've just been handed a note from Mr. Keswick -- the Princess Royal's private secretary. I thought you would want it as soon as possible." He looked like he was considering asking permission to approach Natasi when she beckoned him over. He bowed against as he placed the note in her outstretched palm. That was a bad sign. Natasi opened the note. It was on Palace stationery, and written in a hand that she didn't recognize, not Reima's.

Dear Mr. Kenat,

I am instructed by Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal to convey that Her Royal Highness has left Cerulean Gate Palace with no present intent to return to permanent residence. Her Royal Highness remains fully committed to the discharge of her public duties. Her office will continue to liaise with the Household regarding all scheduled engagements, and any necessary arrangements may be directed to be in the usual way.

Her Royal Highness further wishes me to communicate that, when she is settled, she will provide an address for the forwarding of private correspondence and necessary household papers. Until then, any urgent communication may be routed through this office.

Her Royal Highness requests that Cerulean Gate Palace draft a brief statement at the appropriate time confirming that Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal and Captain Wedge Draav have, by mutual decision, ended their engagement, and that Her Royal Highness wishes Captain Draav well, to be issued upon her approval.

I would be grateful if you would convey the substance of this note to Her Majesty the Queen at the earliest suitable opportunity.

Yours in service,
Oliver Keswick
Principal Private Secretary to Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal

Natasi read it once, twice, her heart in her throat. She held it over to Dyrn and said to Petyr: "Did anyone see her?"

"Mr. Keswick and a pair of footmen who assisted with her luggage, Ma'am."

"Luggage?" Natasi echoed. "How much luggage?"

"It's unclear, Your Majesty, but at least two trunks and, I'm told, a handful of hat boxes and a jewelry strongbox."

Natasi turned to Dyrn, her jaw dropping. Dyrn reached over and put his hand over hers, and asked: "And her close protection detail?"

"She took her plainclothes detective, Ms. Calder, who I understand is following the standard communications protocols." Dyrn and Natasi exchanged a look. The standard communications protocols were designed so that Natasi wasn't keeping tabs on everyone subject to royal protection; the job was to protect the principal, not to tattle on them. That must have been why Reima took only Jessa Calder. "Shall I have the security office communicate a code to her?" Shorthand for ordering Calder to bring her back to the Palace.

Natasi considered and then sighed quietly. "No, Petyr. If she wants space, give her space. Is there anything else I need to know?"

"I don't believe so, Ma'am," said Petyr. "Of course as I hear more, I will report."

"Thank you, Petyr," Natasi murmured. She glanced at George briefly, her dark eyes studying his reaction to what he was hearing. "Please get me the next half hour the Prime Minister has available. At the Palace, if she can swing it, but secure video call if necessary." Petyr bowed to the trio again and then retreated and left the family to their breakfast. Natasi held her hand out for the note, which Dyrn handed over, and which Natasi then held out to George in stony silence.

George Vitalis​

 

[George Vitalis]

Natasi Fortan

George frowned at her and didn't that frown immediately make him look even more like his late father?

"I said nothing that wasn't immediately confirmed by his behavior afterwards." While his words held no apology in them, his tone spoke of a different quality. Not quite regret, but understanding that his own behavior that night had been unworthy of his stature. He should not have responded by stooping down to the same level of cattle and piglets, George should have been the better man. Because he, in essence, was the better man and those of his blood always would be.

But their behavior had to fit their bloodline. It was the only way to ensure that their superiority would not degrade through time and decay.

His fingers rapped against his knee as he sipped from his thee. Letting the chaos of the moment sweep around them as he continued to listen to his mother.

"You did not mean to offend her, mother." George sighed there and rubbed his brow. All of this was so complicated. Reima had been disappointing him in the last few months, when she seemed to persist to remain with someone that was completely unworthy of her. Now, finally, it was coming to a head and instead of satisfaction... George could only feel a dread in his stomach.

"But we all must make sacrifices for the good of the nation, of our house and our name, no?" Eyebrows raised at her. This was the lesson he had been drilled in from a very, very young age.

It was one of the few things that had allowed him to push through the nightmare of the Netherworld.

"Our duty does not disappear simply because our heart wants what it wants. One day I will marry and I will not marry because of love, affection or anything as silly as that. I will marry to strengthen our family and the Heirate. If I can accept that, then so must she, it is as simple as that."

He watched the servant sweep in, delivering the message and the letter. Watched as something passed between his step-father and mother, then finally watched as Natasi offered him the letter.

It seemed like a slithering snake then. Poison in flimsi shape.

Then George accepted it and his eyes scanned the message. Brows furrowing again, turning into a deep frown and finally a scowl, until the letter crumbled in his fist.

Eyes blazed in quiet stony indignation as he looked up to Natasi.

"Uncle Thaddeus would have had my hide if I made a scene like this. Unbelievable." And Thaddeus had, on numerous occasions, disciplined him when his uncle saw his attitude needed correcting. He let the crumbled note fall to the table, like the poison it was and sighed.

It would have been easier if George didn't love Reima Vitalis with his whole heart. Then cutting her off and minimizing her would have been simple as that. Instead this felt like a betrayal. One that cut deep because for the longest time they were the closest things to one another in the Galaxy.

How could she do this to him?

He finally got up from his seat, knuckles white as he squeezed the back of the chair.

"With your leave, Your Grace. I seem to have lost my appetite." Bowing deeply to Natasi.

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi snatched the crumpled note back from her son and smoothed it out on the table. "Not quite," she told George, denying him her leave. "Come with me."

She took one final bite of her toast, took another drink of her tea, collected the note and then stood and passed behind Dyrn, squeezing his shoulder. Natasi opened the door and emerged into the hallway; the cat was on her heels.

"George," the Sovereign said quietly but sternly, so that they would not be overheard if there were any servants or staff in the corridor. "If I hear you say I told you so to your sister, or anything approaching it, I am going to be very unhappy. Do you understand? Whatever his behavior, your behavior was not that of a gentleman, and I will not see you further debase yourself by trying to justify yourself to Reima. It doesn't matter if you were right. If you claim to have the moral high ground, then I suggest you act accordingly."

She turned a corner, heading toward her study.

"I hope it is not vulgar in me to suggest that you and your sister are not similarly situated. The restrictions on you are accompanied with a secure position in the line of succession and a guaranteed role for the rest of your life. You are my heir. If all goes according to plan, your sister will never be called to sit the throne. She will always be a supporting act. You have no idea what that is like, especially for someone of her character." Natasi stopped outside her study, pushed the door open and shut it behind them.

"Your sister will feel that you have forced this issue," Natasi murmured as she crossed to the broad desk upon which sat a red dispatch box. "I'm not going to ask if that was your intent -- if you knew you would be overheard. We are beyond that." She looked unlocked the dispatch box and opened the lid. "What I will say is that I expect you to employ more discretion in future." She took out the index page and looked at it for a few moments.

"As for your uncle Thaddeus," Natasi said, not bothering to hide her distaste. "The least said about him, the better. A less suitable man from which to learn duty, discretion, or family relations has never drawn breath." She set the index page aside and, at last, smoothed her skirt and sat in the chair behind her desk. Natasi's relationship with Thaddeus had been challenging since Talbot's death, but in the absence of any other suitable family members, it had fallen to him to look after George and Reima after Natasi's death. It was the closest he had ever come to getting his covetous little hands on Foxfield.

She shook her head and closed her eyes briefly, as if banishing a headache. "For the record, so far, Reima has not caused a scene. If she had, it would be in the papers. I don't like that she has left any more than you do, but let's not make of it what it is not," Natasi said after opening her eyes. "Now. What is on your diary for today?"

George Vitalis​

 

[George Vitalis]

Natasi Fortan

His jaw set as she denied him leave and instead they fell in together. George kept an eye around them, ensuring there was no servant in proximity as they walked, while listening once again to the monarch that was his mother.

"I would never say something like that to her. I love my sister, foolish she might be, it is why I never said one bad word about him all this time." Even if George had hoped she'd come to her senses. He had not been planning to force the issue. Especially not when it came to light that their mother was going to pave the way for it all by granting him a title.

There was no avenue for him to block that disgrace.

Eyebrows raised at the implication that followed.

"If I had wished to force the issue, I would have looked him in the eye and told him he was no good for Reima. I'd hope you know that, I am not a coward." There his hackles were raised even more. What did his mother take him for? Some sniveling whelp who was afraid of confrontation? Who had to hide behind his mother and let her make the hard choices?

His arms crossed behind his back as Thaddeus was brought up again.

His eyes dark and looking down at her quietly.

"Perhaps. But he was the only one I had during that time." George was not about to defend Thaddeus past that. He knew the man was... not what a true nobleman should have been. No gentleman, certainly. But part of him felt like he owed his uncle. With no father and no mother, Thaddeus had been there in whatever capacity his personality had allowed himself to be.

His posture straightened out as he ignored the part about Reima not causing a scene. As if leaving the palace in a huff was not causing a scene that would send the tongues of every servant (followed by every bar) waggling.

"Today was supposed to be a light day. I have a lunch appointment with Miss Kintar to review some of the work she has been doing for us on Aegis. Nothing complicated, just ensuring that with the advent of the Heirate into the High Republic, we do not leave ourselves open to foreign meddling of any kind."

George shrugged.

"A ribbon cutting ceremony during the day. A new hospital I sponsored, to support the refugees from Tapani."

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi blanched at George's response.

His commentary about having no one else hit her close to home. She had always known that Reima resented her choice to sacrifice her life to destroy the Ssi-Ruuk interdiction at Dosuun. Natasi had made provision for raising her, for educating her, but made no demands on her. She had tried to give Reima freedom, the kind of freedom that Natasi herself had had to claw out for herself. Reima had taken it as exclusion and rejection. Natasi's death had only been one more abandonment in her daughter's eyes.

She didn't know that her son felt a certain way about it, too. "Yes, well," Natasi said after an audible swallow. Her eyes settled on him coolly for a moment before she took a breath and looked down at her dispatch box. "If your day is already set, by all means. Not a word about Draav or Reima. Oh, and George?"

Natasi didn't look up as she settled into her seat, beginning to pull out the contents of the red box.

"On your way out, speak to Mr. Kenat about scheduling the next overlapping free hour we have. I received your final health clearance from the royal physician's office so now that you have a clear bill of health we will need to discuss next steps." Only then did the Queen look up. She was calm, cool. No sign of the inner turmoil she felt. "And take this infernal creature with you."

She gestured at the Lord Mouser, who had pounced onto her desk and lay stretched in a sliver of morning sunlight.

George Vitalis​