They were on the pool deck after lunch. Saturday lunch was their big meal of the day. Lunch had been pan-fried pork loin, house-made applesauce, and cheese dumplings, with a Caesar salad, and French apple pie with ice cream. They would likely nosh around the fire pit this evening.
Peters had swum her laps, and she cuddled up with Dunham on the double lounger. They were both nude, but she had spread one of the huge bath towels over them to avoid another sunburn disaster. They lay there together in the warm afternoon sun. It was a very contented time.
“Bobby, how is the statue coming along?”
“Accorso tells me they are ahead of schedule.”
“So it will be done in time for the one-year anniversary?”
“Oh, yes. Almost a month early.”
“Will they keep it covered, then?”
“Yes. They will cover the statue itself before they take down the scaffolding. One of those magic covers. They push the button and it falls away.”
“Oh, that will be nice.”
“Yeah. There’s some trick to it, so it doesn’t get all hung up on the crown. Accorso assured me he had it figured out.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“I figured to do it at noon or just before, so the statue when it’s unveiled will be in the light from the mirrors for a while before the sun moves on.”
“Are the mirrors already in place?”
“Yes. They’re covered up so as not to interfere with the work, but they tested them. They lit up the scaffold just fine.”
“This is so exciting, Bobby. It’s really happening.”
“Yes.”
Dunham was quiet then, and Peters was content to lie there quietly, cuddled up with him. The warmth of the sun-baked towel was nice after the pool.
“Amanda.”
“Yes, Bobby.”
“Amanda, will you marry me?”
“Yes, Bobby.”
“Just like that.”
“Yes, if that’s what you want. And if not, that’s fine with me, too. I just want you to be happy.”
“What about you?”
“Bobby, I’m already happy.”
“Ah.”
Dunham was quiet again, and Peters wondered where his thoughts were wandering. It was several minutes before he spoke again.
“I don’t want to have children without being married. I don’t think it’s fair to them.”
“Do you want children?”
“Yes. What about you?”
“I would be happy to bear your children.”
“But what about you? Do you want children?”
“I always hoped to. But I’m not in a hurry. I have time yet.”
Dunham nodded.
“Still, I think it’s easier when you’re younger.”
“You in a hurry, Bobby?”
“No. Next couple of years. Something like that.”
“That’s fine with me.”
They lay there, and Peters’ thoughts wandered around the idea. Then a question hit her.
“Bobby?”
“Yes.”
“What would people call me?”
“Well, officially your title would be Empress Consort, I think. But the common usage would just be Empress Amanda.”
“Empress Consort?”
“To distinguish from Empress regnant.”
“Ah. Empress Consort is the gal married to the Emperor, who is the ruler. An Empress regnant would be ruler in her own right.”
“Exactly.”
“So would everybody go around calling me Your Majesty all the time, like they do you?”
“No. The proper honorific would probably be Milady Empress, or just Milady. Really, there’s no precedent so it’s whatever I say it is.”
“What about the children? Would they be princes and princesses?”
“No, because the throne is not hereditary.”
“Ah. Good.”
“Why good?”
“Because I want to raise them as children, not royalty. Build them a playhouse in the gardens. Have them run around barefoot. Or bare-ass, for that matter. Get dirty. Have fun. Not have them be little stuffed uniforms. I want real children, Bobby, not props.”
“That’s my preference as well, Amanda.”
“Good.”
Once more, they were quiet.
Well, we’re certainly getting things decided, Amanda thought. Only a couple of decisions left.
“When do we do it, Bobby?”
“When do we get married?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think that far ahead.”
“Why don’t we get married just before you unveil the statue? Standing on the porch of the Throne Room, at the top of the steps. Do it there, then unveil the statue.”
“Really? You want to combine the events?”
“Sure. The statue was my idea, don’t forget. Now it can be my wedding present to you. A present big enough for an Emperor.”
“I love you, Amanda.”
“I know, Bobby.”
He kissed her then, softly, but slowly.
“And who should we invite?” he asked.
“The Emperor’s personal staff. Close the mall and just have the personal staff there.”
“Just the personal staff? The personal staff is almost fifteen thousand people by this point.”
“Make it a big picnic on the mall. Tell everybody to come casual, and bring their families, and just make it a big picnic afterwards. That’s the wedding I want, Bobby.”
“OK. Done.”
Peters snuggled into him some more.
“All this talk of marriage and children. You know what I think we need?”
“What’s that?”
“More practice.”
“I can do that.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
As the printer neared the end of its assignment, it was printing the upper portion of the statue. Settings were printed into the epoxy-crete for the jewels of the gold plastron necklace. Workmen mounted blue glass representations of the jewels into the settings. With the seven-to-one proportions of the statue, the jewels were each a couple of inches across.
When they came to the eyes, the blue-glass irises were set. Each was three-and-a-half inches across. Accorso had fretted and experimented over the weeks until he had the perfect blue color, for either sunlight or shade.
Finally, the representation of the Star of Sintar was set in the circlet of the crown. It was almost five inches in diameter.
Behind the jewel setters came the gold-inlay artisans. They had already gilded the sword and the inscribed letters in the book of law. Now they set to work on the necklace.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Be seated, Mr. Perrin.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Mr. Perrin, I have asked Ms. Peters to marry me, and she has accepted my proposal.”
“Congratulations, Sire.”
“Thank you, Mr. Perrin. I want you to handle all the arrangements.”
“Of course, Sire.”
“Our plan is to be married on the first anniversary of the Council Revolt, at eleven-thirty, on the entrance porch of the Throne Room. We will then unveil the statue of Ilithyia II.”
“Very good, Sire.”
“All the personal staff and Imperial Guard and their families will be invited. We will close the Imperial Mall. Security will be provided by the Imperial Marines. We will tell everyone to come casual for the day, and after the unveiling we will have a giant picnic on the mall.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“So you need to cater typical picnic fare for thirty thousand or so people for lunch and supper. We will probably need ten thousand red-and-white checked gingham tablecloths to spread on the ground, a hundred and fifty thousand sandwiches, a couple thousand gallons of potato salad, all that sort of thing.”
“Of course, Sire.”
“Open bar for beer and wine and soft drinks and especially lem
onade. Lots of pink lemonade.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“I don’t want to use any personal staff for this. Let them all join the picnic. Cater it all and use the Imperial Marines for manpower to staff the serving tables and the like. All the staff should have the day off. Even the kitchen and cafeteria staff. Bring in breakfast from outside that day.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“You don’t seem at all concerned about any of this, Mr. Perrin.”
“No, Sire. One forecasts the size of the event and then hires the required assistance or, as you say, brings in the Imperial Marines. It is a known. A large known, but a known nonetheless. The unknown? Well, that’s harder, Sire.”
“I see, Mr. Perrin. Very well. Oh, and we’ll need a private VR channel on the palace system to carry the event, so people out on the mall can see.”
“Of course, Sire.”
“And there should be a private channel of the VR feed to my parents as well.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Any problems you can see, Mr. Perrin?”
“No, Sire. The picnic you are planning will probably cost a million or a million-and-a-half credits. Not a large amount. We feed most of these people every day, anyway.”
“Very well, Mr. Perrin. See to it.”
“Yes, Sire.”
Peters was meeting with Ms. Weston, the head of wardrobe in the Housekeeping department, and her dresser from the inauguration.
“What I want for the wedding is the same dress I wore to the coronation, but of a thicker material, so I can wear it outside in the sunlight without it disappearing.”
“And you want to wear it the same way, Ms. Peters? Sans foundation garments and shoes?”
“Yes, Ms. Weston. Once again, there are stairs.”
“I see, Ms. Peters. We should be able to handle that.”
“Excellent. And then I’ll have flowers woven in my hair again. Just me, barefoot, in the dress, and flowers.”
“Very well, Ms. Peters.”
The printing machine deposited its last little blip of epoxy-crete. The boom, now almost a hundred and twenty feet in the air, lifted the machine clear of the statue and rotated forty-five degrees to one side and lowered it down onto a semi-tractor trailer truck. It was lashed down and carted away, its work done.
The gold-inlay artisans now moved on to their toughest challenge, the crown of Sintar. They would spend two weeks meticulously working the crown – the circlet, the laurel leaves – every inch of the four-foot-wide, three-foot-tall structure.
Below them, the polishers were catching up.
Below the polishers came Accorso himself, inspecting every square inch of the pedestal and its statue, wanting nothing less than perfection for his masterwork. He sometimes called a polisher down to touch up some small blip. but not often. He had hired the best, true craftsmen who took pride in their work.
Finally the day came when it was finished. Even Accorso could find no blip, no mar, no blemish to be touched up. He stood on the scaffolding and looked into the face of the Empress, almost six feet tall, and it was nearly alive.
They covered over the statue, carefully setting the shroud so it would fall away as planned. Accorso insisted on testing it so no incident would mar the unveiling, and it fell away cleanly. They reset the shroud and began removing scaffolding.
They were done four weeks early.
Dunham looked out the open window wall in the living room at the completed statue and pedestal, the statue shrouded. All the scaffolding and equipment had been removed, the construction fence had been removed, the lawn had been patched. The pedestal stood alone in the middle of the Palace Mall.
“It’s going to look good, I think. I hope, anyway.”
“It will be beautiful, Bobby. You saw how pleased Accorso was with it. I think he outdid his own expectations.”
“Only two weeks to go now.”
“Are you excited?”
“To see my wedding present? Yes.”
“It will be a great day.”
“Anniversary of the Council Revolt. It’s been a year already.”
“But what a year!”
“Yeah.”
Dunham continued to look out at the pedestal and the shrouded statue.
“Anniversary of the Council Revolt. It doesn’t sound right. Like we’re commemorating the wrong thing.”
“Is that day actually a year since the night of the attack, or a year since the morning when you defeated the Council?”
“A year since the defeat of the Council.”
“Then call it Restoration Day.”
“Restoration Day?”
“Yes, the anniversary of the restoration of the Throne to its rightful authority.”
“I like it.”
Closure
The weather was with them. Restoration Day dawned clear and a bit chill. There was no precipitation forecast, and a warm sun but slightly cool weather would make it very comfortable on Palace Mall.
The Marines were there early, setting up security around Palace Mall. It would be closed to everyone except the Emperor’s personal staff. Further groups of Marines set up serving tables up and down the sides of the Mall, while vendor trucks got into position prior to the deadline of ten o’clock for vehicle movement.
The Imperial Marines started letting people in at ten o’clock, once the vehicle deadline was in place. People picked up a tablecloth on their way in and moved out onto the mall to set up camp somewhere on the lawn.
By eleven o’clock most of the crowd was there, although people continued to drift in until the official start of activities at eleven-thirty.
Accorso was there as well, with some of his assistants. He pushed a button in VR and the shrouds fell off the reflectors on the first buttress on either outside wall of the Throne Room.
He breathed a sigh of relief. That went without a hitch. One more to go.
“Ow!” Peters said.
“Sorry, ma’am. They missed one of the thorns.”
Her father had suggested mixed colors of roses be the flowers woven into her hair, but there were potential issues with that, of course.
The hairdresser continued building up her ‘do, plaiting her long hair with roses and piling it up on her head. At length, she stepped back to consider her work, then closed back into fuss this and clip that. She stepped back again.
“There we are.”
She turned the chair so Peters could see herself in the mirror.
“It’s lovely. Thank you, Ms. Auburn.”
“You’re welcome, ma’am.”
The next stop was the dressing room off the anteroom of the Throne Room. Her dresser awaited her there with the dress. She had tried it on two days ago and they had fussed over adjustments. Peters shucked out of her clothes and got up on the short dressing stool completely naked.
They got her into the dress by having her step into it and then closing it up behind her. No over-the-head moves with this dress. Ms. Auburn, standing by in case of emergency, would have a fit if they demolished the ‘do.
They finished fastening the dress in back.
“Well, that’s it. Not much to it,” the dresser said.
“Thank you, Ms. Lauden.”
“You’re welcome, Ma’am.”
Peters went out into the anteroom where her father and mother were seated waiting for the start of the ceremony.
“Oh, you look lovely, dear.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Peters sat down, stretched her legs out and tried to relax. Her mother, Margaret Peters, saw her bare feet and sighed.
“It was always hard to keep shoes on you.”
Peters looked up at her dad and he winked at her. He had always been her willing co-conspirator in losing the shoes. That broke her tension and she started to giggle.
In the other anteroom, on the other side of the throne, Dunham was also preparing. He was dressed in his Imperial Guard uniform, with the Cross of Sintar on his chest. Perrin was there,
as well as his dresser. His barber fussed at his hair, and his dresser straightened his collar. Perrin had had the crown and the jewels brought out for this event. Once the barber was done, Perrin placed the crown on Dunham’s head.
“Almost time, Sire.”
“Have the others taken their places?”
Perrin checked his VR.
“Almost, Sire. I will be going now to escort the mother of the bride. I will message you in VR when it is time.”
“Very good, Mr. Perrin.”
Dunham sent a message in VR to his parents.
“Almost time.”
“We’re watching, dear. Good luck.”
Perrin went across the throne room to the other anteroom.
“It is almost time, Ms. Peters.”
“Very well, Mr. Perrin,” Margaret Peters said.
Saaret and Suzanne walked out onto the porch of the Throne Room and took their position to one side of the doorway.
Perrin then led the mother of the bride down the long nave of the Throne Room to the porch, and left her standing on the other side of the doors.
It was eleven-thirty.
“Now, Your Majesty.”
Dunham left the anteroom and walked down the nave of the Throne Room, boot hills clicking on the flagstone floor. As he approached, he heard a recording of the Imperial fanfare start to play out across the Palace Mall. Everyone was standing as he came out through the doors onto the porch. He walked forward to the edge of the first step and everyone took a knee and bowed until the fanfare was over.
Dunham stood to one side of the doors and looked down the center of the nave.
“There’s the signal. Ready, Dad?”
“Oh, yes. Don’t forget your flowers, dear.”
Mason Peters got up and extended his arm to his daughter. She took his arm in one hand and her bouquet in the other and he led her out of the anteroom and down the center of the nave.
They walked out into the sunlight of the porch and Marion Peters handed his daughter off to Robert Dunham. He then took his place next to her mother, to one side of the Throne Room doorway.
Dunham had always liked the ancient words Dee had found for her and Sean’s wedding. Cindy had had her own ideas, and that was fine. Peters, though, had loved the ancient words when Dunham had showed them to her, and it seemed particularly appropriate today to use the same wedding vows Dee and Sean had used.
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