The high security dispatches from Nouveau Paris were hand-transferred to Haven One, where they then sat for just over three hours while President Pritchart completed her current meeting with Empress Elizabeth, Protector Benjamin, and Planetary Director Benton-Ramirez y Chou in Mount Royal Palace. Partly, that was because the meeting was too important to interrupt, but there was more to it, as well. Eloise Pritchart was not a cowardly woman, yet in her circumstances, only a superwoman wouldn’t have felt at least a tingle or two of trepidation at the thought of mail from home.

Nonetheless, when she arrived back aboard her ship, she went immediately to her private quarters, accessed the security locks on the files, braced herself, and began to read.

* * *

“No, actually I think I agree with Aretha on this one, Roger,” Empress Elizabeth said. “I realize it’s your wedding—well, yours and Riva’s!” she went on, smiling warmly at Rivka Rebecca Rosenfeld. “And if you insist, we can do it your way. But under the circumstances, I think involving the Navy is probably a good idea.”

“I’m not disagreeing with that part of it, Mother, but it’s a wedding not a political statement.” Crown Prince Roger Gregory Alexander Timothy Winton tried (mostly successfully) to keep exasperation out of his voice. “And unlike Uncle Mike or Michelle, I never actually served in the Navy. I’d feel…uncomfortable calling them in for my wedding, especially after what’s just happened. It’s not my place to use my status as Heir to order a bunch of uniforms to turn up for the wedding when they’ve got a lot better things to be doing. And I especially don’t want to look like I’m trying to steal any of the…well, the glory, darn it, the Fleet’s earned to make me and Rivka look more important!”

It was obvious only filial respect had kept him from using a somewhat more vigorous expletive, and Elizabeth was forced to smother a smile stillborn.

“That’s not what Aretha has in mind,” she began once she was sure she had the smile under control. “She’s—”

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” Rivka said, “but whether it’s what Dame Aretha actually intends or not, I think what she’s proposing could look that way.”

The young woman who was about to become Crown Princess of the Star Empire of Manticore was attractive, in a dark, understated sort of way. She was also quiet, almost bookish, but there was a brain behind those big brown eyes. And some intestinal fortitude, too, Elizabeth reflected. It couldn’t be easy for a young woman who wouldn’t be twenty-two T-years old for another eleven days to argue with not just her future mother-in-law but her monarch. That was one of the many reasons Elizabeth approved so heartily of Roger’s choice.