by David Weber
"It's so nice to know Haven is as ambitious as Roger feared." Gwinner smiled as she spoke. "I only wish I were as certain of our Manticoran allies. Howell may dislike Roger's expansionism, but his Crown Loyalist training will be clamoring to the forefront in the next several days."
Seltman shrugged. "They were the best I could find. Howell's loyalty to Manticore is unquestioned and unquestionable—his prominence in the Crown Loyalists makes it so. Happily for us, he can stretch his definition of the Crown to exclude a monarch whose extra-System politics seem to threaten the status quo in Manticore."
"I wonder," Gwinner said, "if Roger ever realized how unpopular his decision to annex Basilisk would be?"
"I'm certain he realized it would have its opponents," Seltman said, "but he trusted that the aura of royal authority would help him to make his decision work—and so it has for twenty years."
"Eighteen," Gwinner corrected, "and a good thing, too. The Crown Princess was born the same year Basilisk was annexed."
"Ah, yes, the `Duchess of Basilisk,' " Seltman sneered. "Good King Roger's way of making certain everyone knew he planned to stick to his guns."
"If Elizabeth were much older," Gwinner reminded him, "we wouldn't have the same opportunity to influence her. I only hope we haven't waited too long as it is."
"She's a college freshman." Seltman waved a dismissive hand. "Right now she's casting about for an anchor. We will provide her with one—two if we're lucky."
"Do you really think Dover will be able to discredit her fiance and win her hand?"
Seltman shrugged. "I hope so, but it hardly matters. We needed an ally within the Palace Guard. I had despaired of finding anyone corruptible until my spies brought me word of Dover's words on the announcement of Elizabeth's engagement."
"He really had fancied her for himself?" Gwinner asked, shaking her head.
"Why shouldn't he?" Seltman replied. "The Constitution's requirement that the monarch must marry a commoner raises fantasies with every new heir. Dover's ambitions weren't totally unreasonable, and he'd plotted a career path that would take him into Elizabeth's orbit. From what he says, she even took a liking to him when she was younger."
"Apparently she outgrew those fancies," Gwinner said. "It must have infuriated Dover when she accepted a man who, superficially, isn't all that different from our Padraic."
"I agree." Seltman nodded. "Like Dover, Justin Zyrr is from Gryphon and has a military background, but unlike our good Dover, he left the Army and went into research and development."
"And met the Princess when she was on a school trip," Gwinner laughed. "Love among the test-tubes."
"Pedestrian, perhaps," Seltman said, "but her relationship with Zyrr is a fact of her life and therefore must be an element in our planning. If Dover succeeds even partially, Elizabeth loses another reliable support of her young life."
"Tell me," Gwinner said, "for all the talk in today's meeting about the need to `discredit' Justin Zyrr, you don't expect Dover to do any such thing, do you?"
"No," said Marvin Seltman. "What I expect is that Dover will kill him."
The day after Roger III's death began with the formal coronation of Queen Elizabeth III. Following the ceremony, Justin Zyrr departed Mount Royal Palace for the Indigo Salt Flats where the King had met his death. He left openly, taking his own private air car, nor did he have a bodyguard. Only after he and Elizabeth were wed would he be followed everywhere he went.
When he arrived at his destination, he was startled to see his radar display becoming crowded with large quantities of private vehicle traffic. The PGS had never been happy that King Roger chose to practice a sport that so exposed him to danger, but at least the Indigo Salt Flats were isolated, many kilometers from any dwelling, a quality which had provided a readily sealed security perimeter. Moreover, Roger had purchased the lands with funds from his privy purse, assuring that the Flats would remain private and undeveloped.
Justin had visited the Flats a few times to ski with the King. During those visits, he had been captivated by the deep violet-blue sands rising and falling in glittering dunes. Walking on them with the King, Justin had made believe that they strolled on the surface of a deep, mysterious ocean.
He felt tears welling and dashed a single burning trace away with the back of his hand, angry at his lack of composure. If Elizabeth could be brave . . .
The beeping of the air car's com unit came as a relief. A dry, almost mechanical, voice stated:
"Vehicle, please be notified that you are approaching private lands."
"Acknowledged. Is this a private channel?"
"It is."
"I'm Justin Zyrr, Queen Elizabeth's fiance. She asked me to come here."
There was no change of inflection in the official voice: "Climb into a holding pattern while we confirm your identity."
A stream of coordinates followed and Justin obeyed. Several minutes later, the com unit came alive again.
"You are cleared to proceed. Stop at the check station for further confirmation."
"Acknowledged."
Justin homed his vehicle in on the beacon that now signaled him from deeper within the Flats. He noted the line of grav tanks marking a perimeter. Most of those trying to cross that armed line were newsies. The rest of the visitors seemed content to stop to one side of the line. A regular stream of people were going back and forth between . . .
He amplified the range on his air car's cameras.
People, young and old, men, women, and children, were filing between their parked vehicles and a makeshift shrine at the edge of the Indigo Salt Flats. The shrine itself was nothing more than a flat outcropping of rock, but it was heaped with small offerings: flowers, pictures, folded notes, personal mementos. He recognized a reproduction of the group portrait taken on his and Elizabeth's engagement, a withered tenth anniversary coronation wreath, a ceramic replica of King Roger's treecat, Monroe.
Respecting the Royal Family's grief, the people of Manticore were making an impromptu pilgrimage to the last place on the planet where their king had walked alive. No doubt when Roger was buried his tomb would become the focus for the outpouring of their sorrow, but for now his subjects journeyed to the place of his death.
Tears flooded back, hot and unrelenting, and this time, Justin let them fall, trusting the autopilot to bring him in. He wished Elizabeth were there—and even more that Roger were. Somehow, it seemed too much that the King would miss this last spontaneous tribute to his twenty-five years of rulership, to his life of service.
Justin banished his tears when his air car came in on the tidy landing strip that had been constructed for King Roger's convenience. A small cluster of buildings sprouted off to one side: guardhouse, private chalet, hangars. Each was built to withstand an attack on the sovereign or his guests; each, in the end had been helpless to prevent the death that had come to the King in their shadow.
As Justin stepped down from his air car, the door to the guardhouse opened and a man walked out to meet him. Like all members of the Royal Family's regular security detachment, he was an Army officer in the scarlet facings of the King's—no, the Queen's–Own Regiment. A tall man, with the well-muscled look of a heavy-worlder and the shoulder flash of the Copperwalls Battalion, he walked with a slight limp.
"Justin Zyrr?"
"Yes."
"I'm Captain Adderson." The captain spoke with the clipped accent of the Ice Gia Settlement on Sphinx. "If you'll come inside, I'll complete your ID check."
"Of course."
Justin hastened to follow Adderson into the cool shadows of the guardhouse. The captain smiled and indicated a seat near his desk. Glancing around, Justin noted that scanners that would have done a battleship proud were activated, their data translated into a holotank that, even as Adderson turned to his new task, he monitored with part of his attention.
"I saw you this morning at the coronation, Mr. Zyrr."
"Were you there?"
"No, I've been assigned to the
Salt Flats Detail since my leg was broken—I don't regenerate, and the docs couldn't fix it perfectly. Most of the time the post is little more than an honorable semi-retirement, but I've been needed here today. The pilgrims have been showing up since an hour after the King's death was made public."
Adderson pressed Justin's hand to a print scanner, pricked a blood sample, and then directed him to look into an optical scanner. His tone as he continued was a trace defensive.
"Some of the Detail thought of the visitors as ghouls and I suppose some were just that—especially the newsies. Most respect the perimeter, though. They just come to weep and pray. That's why I think of them as pilgrims."
Justin nodded. "That was exactly my thought when I saw them. What did the newsies think they'd find here?"
Adderson shrugged. "I don't rightly know. The King's body has been taken away, the wreckage cleared. All that was completed within an hour of his death."
His voice softened as he spoke, so that the last words were all but inaudible.
"Were you on duty yesterday?" Justin asked.
Pretending to be busy transferring the scanner results to the personnel files gave Adderson a moment to collect himself. When he spoke again, his tones were almost normal.
"I was," he said. "And I saw what happened right in there."
Adderson gestured toward the holotank with his head. Behind him the computer pinged its acknowledgment that Justin's record agreed with the data he had just supplied.
Justin took a deep breath. He could move on now, but if Elizabeth's guess was correct and not simply the out-welling of grief, Adderson could be a valuable resource—or a potential enemy.
"Could you tell me what you recall of the King's last day—the little, personal details?"
Adderson looked suspicious. "You're not looking to sell this to the newsies, are you?"
"No, I'm not." Justin kept his instinctive resentment from his voice. "I'm asking so that I can tell Queen Elizabeth. She's just lost her father, her mother is brokenhearted, and her little brother . . ."
"Poor Prince Michael," Adderson said. "So young to have so much sorrow."
"Exactly," Justin said. "I wanted to be able to give Beth a verbal portrait of her father's last day. Something for her to hold onto during these next few days when it will be too easy to only remember him laid out for his funeral. Was he cheerful?"
Adderson nodded. "Laughing and teasing the Queen, making plans for their competition. They'd been practicing fancy maneuvers. She was nearly as good as him—better at some things."
Justin nodded, remembering the holo of the King and Queen gracefully gliding, looping through the air side by side. For a moment he entertained the terrible suspicion that Queen Angelique might have plotted to kill her husband, but he dismissed it as soon as it had formed.
"So they agreed to ski separately," Justin prompted.
"That's right," Adderson continued. "The Detail techs checked their equipment, and the King had a bit of a row with them when they refused to pass the ski he'd brought with him."
"Oh?" Justin felt his pulse quicken.
"Yes, it was a new model," Adderson said, "and they didn't like the power reading on the molycirc connecting the ski and the belt unit. The King didn't want to hear what they told him, said he couldn't believe it was malfunctioning. I think it was a new set."
Justin refrained from mentioning that the grav ski had been a gift from the new Queen. If that ever became common knowledge, Elizabeth's own honor might be in question.
"But he listened to the techs' advice?" Justin asked.
"That's right, in the end he did. He had other equipment stored here, from other jaunts, and he ended up using an older set." Adderson frowned. "For all the good it did him."
Determined to distract the captain before he could think too far into the implications of the King's accident, Justin rose.
"Has the computer cleared my identity?"
"It has indeed," Adderson said. "Unless you've altered your hand prints, eye prints, blood, and genotype, you are indeed Justin Zyrr. Do you want to tour the grounds?"
"If I might," Justin said.
"Of course you might," Adderson said. "You're as close to the Queen's husband as you might be, and this is her family's land. The records show that you've been here before."
"Yes."
"Then you know the basic rules." Adderson chuckled and quoted: " `Wear a hat and dark glasses to protect you from the sun's glare, don't eat the salt, and carry water along if you expect to be out more than a short time.' "
"I have everything I need in my air car."
"Then take your walk. I'll keep a weather eye on you from here." Adderson paused as if considering, then he continued, "And you may meet another man walking about out there. He's a scrawny fellow with a fringe of white hair—pre-prolong. I didn't ask and he didn't say, but I believe he may be with the Security Ministry. The computer accepted his clearance faster even than it did your own."
"Thank you for warning me," Justin said. "I'd have been startled to meet someone out there unaware. I'll check in with you before I leave."
"Thank you, Mr. Zyrr."
Justin gathered hat, glasses, and a belt flask of water. Then he crunched down the sandy blue slope to the flats over which the King and Queen had skied just the day before.
He didn't really have much idea what Beth expected him to find. Popular wisdom still held that a criminal would be drawn to the scene of the crime, but, even if that were true, the assassin would be mingling now with the throng of pilgrims, perhaps gloating, feeding on their grief, or perhaps feeling remorse, an urge to confess . . .
No, that would be too easy. Adderson's recollection that the King's ski had indeed been changed for another set—a set that could have been sabotaged in advance—did lend some credence to Beth's theories, but then it had been the difference between the skis that had led her to become suspicious in the first place. To pursue that too closely would be merely to confirm circular logic. He needed something more.
Trudging across the blue salt sand, he wasn't at all certain he would find anything, but for Beth he would continue to look.
Using what landmarks he remembered from the holo, Justin located the general area where King Roger must have crashed. Here the glittering blue crystal sand was gouged and torn, not only from the King's fall, but from the emergency vehicles and personnel who had rushed out to him.
Hunkering down, Justin shifted some of the salt through his gloved fingers, knowing even as he did so that the effort was futile. Perhaps he should go to the morgue where the King's body was being prepared for the viewing, but what could he learn there? He was no pathologist, no forensics specialist. He was just a research engineer!
Footsteps crunching across the sand brought him from his revery. Rising and turning in one graceful motion, he faced the newcomer.
"Justin Zyrr?"
The man who extended his hand in a friendly manner was small and wiry, his features shadowed beneath the brim of a wide straw hat. Justin's general impression was of twinkling grey eyes set amid deep lines and a great floppy mustache. He took the proffered hand and shook it firmly.
"I am Justin Zyrr."
"Captain Adderson told me I might find you out here." The man's voice seemed too deep to come from such a slim chest. "I decided to make `might' a certainty."
He paused to wipe sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.
"I'm Daniel Chou."
"With the Security Ministry, Captain Adderson implied."
Chou grinned. "Captain Adderson must have liked you. I don't suppose I'm violating any rules by confirming your guess. After all, you will be the Prince Consort—and, more importantly, Queen Elizabeth trusts you."
Oddly, Justin felt himself coloring. There was something about the little man's brash manner that made him feel like a boy at his grandfather's knee. Given the changes of the last twenty-four hours, the feeling was not at all unpleasant.
"Shall we hoof
it back to the landing strip?" Chou said. "Or do you need to do more looking about?"
Justin glared at the blue salt as if it was deliberately trying to hide the truth from him.
"I'm not certain there's anything to look for," he said.
Chou nodded. "Not here, although we had to look. We may have more luck inspecting the remains of the grav ski."
"Why should we do that?" Justin asked, reluctant to take anyone into his confidence without Elizabeth's express permission.
"For evidence," Chou answered. His grey eyes had stopped twinkling. "Evidence to prove King Roger was murdered. Certainly you don't believe his death was an accident, do you?"
Everyone rose and bowed as Queen Elizabeth III entered the council chamber. Tellingly, to a long-time political observer like Duke Cromarty, she accepted the monarch's homage as her due. The fact that she'd been Crown Princess all of her life might explain part of that calm demeanor, but the Prime Minister thought there was something more here.
She might be a girl of eighteen, but she was savvy enough to know that those who had raised her might find it difficult to recall that she was their ruler now. By accepting the homage as offered, she was reminding them all who made the final decisions.
After the Queen had greeted them, Dame Eliska brought the informal regent's council around to business.
"This morning's coronation went well. My polls, formal and informal, show that support for the Queen is high in both houses of Parliament. The sooner the matters of Regent and Regency Council are resolved, the more likely they are to be resolved easily and in the Queen's best interest."
Elizabeth nodded. "I have reviewed your recommendations for Regent and I think they are all sound." Even her voice was different, Cromarty thought. She spoke with a deliberate precision, an air of maturity which was new to her yet far too natural, too . . . inevitable, to be feigned. "Duke Cromarty, do you have anything to add?" she asked, and he cleared his throat.
"Yes, actually, I do. Apparently, there's some resistance to the idea of having either your mother or your aunt serve as Regent."
The Queen Mother started. "I protest! There is a long tradition of—"