Homage and Honour (25 page)

“Me, not
Anne?”

“Have you not
been listening? Anne is a female and she will not be permitted to
take an active part in government. It is the way it is.”

“A King can
command, a Queen cannot, is that what you are telling me?”

Charles nodded,
“we have never had a Queen Regnant before Susan and there are no
laws set down about it but, mark my words, any major decisions will
still require a majority in Conclave, just as if it is a regency.
Anne will not be permitted to vote.”

* * * * *

Crisis (9)

Duke William
Duchesne knew that Sam Baker was planning to put his grandson
Richard on the throne. He had a very efficient intelligence
network, one that rivalled the official network of the King’s, now
Queen’s government. He needed to take steps to stop him.

He spoke to
Henri Cocteau about how he had decided to engineer the
solution.

The two sent
for Charles.

“Take
Moonlight,” said Henri Cocteau, “he’s the fastest horse in the
stables,” grabbing a relm of parchment and dipping his pen in the
ink in a dual movement. “I knew the then Princess Anne, Queen
Susan’s great-aunt when she was young and vows or not, she will not
like what Sam Baker is planning.”

“What do I ask
her?”

“I very much
doubt that the Reverend Mother will let you speak to her
personally. It’s a secluded order Charles; they take perpetual vows
of silence. No, you must speak to the Reverend Mother and ask her,
nay beg her, to allow Anne to read this. She was a pretty little
thing, always pious, always wanting to do the right thing. She was
only about five years old when Elliot the Third murdered all but
his closest legitimate line. I always thought that it was that, as
much as anything, which led her to her vocation as a nun. Honour
and duty mean a lot to her. She will not like an impostor laying
claim to her brother’s throne.”

“When did she
join the Thibaltine Order?”

“Let me see, it
must have been in AL120 or was it AL121? No wait, it was in AL122,
the year before your brother was born. Your grandfather always
believed atonement was part of it all. Princess Anne adored her
cousin Marta. So did I for that matter. I was in the Palace at the
time of the murders; did you know that? I was also engaged to
Marta. She was twelve. I watched her being dragged away. Her
screams haunted my dreams for years.”

He was writing
furiously as he spoke, “If you can persuade her to read this, Anne
will take steps. She never liked Sam Baker. He was a nasty
vindictive little boy and is not much better now. Funny, but none
of the Bakers has ever been liked or trusted.”

* * * * *

The Thibaltine
Convent was a dreary looking building situated at the edge of the
desert in the Duchy of Smith. Its stark walls were backed up with
sand and rose up beyond head height.

Charles
dismounted at the gate and rang the bell.

Stiff from
little use, it rang reluctantly; visitors were not encouraged here.
He eyed the door; it did not look as if it had been opened for
tendays, months even. He wondered how they got supplies in. Charles
was not to know that there was a tradesman’s entrance to the
rear.

It seemed an
eternity before he heard movement from within. There was a grating
noise as the grille was opened. He discerned a woman’s face coiffed
in charcoal grey with a white band covering her forehead.

“Yes?” she
asked in a rusty voice.

“I have an
urgent message for the Reverend Mother,” he said into the
grille.

The head
shook.

“Reverend
Mother does not receive messages unless they come from Father
Abbot. This is from him?”

“No Sister,”
Charles answered, “it is a message from the Duke of Cocteau. I am
his son.” His voice took on the persuasive tones that had never
failed him before. “It is most urgent, otherwise my Father would
not have sent me. Please give this to her.”

He raised the
missive up to the grille so that she could see it.

She looked at
him, a level gaze that held neither hostility nor acceptance.

“All messages
must come from Father Abbot,“ she uttered with a note of finality,
“this is an Enclosed Order. Go to him.”

“And where is
he, this Father Abbot?”

“Relton.”

“That’s fifty
leagues away,” protested Charles, “there is no time for me to get
there and back. This is an urgent matter. I must speak to the
Reverend Mother.”

“Wait here,”
ordered the nun.

The grille
slammed shut.

At the same
time that Charles Cocteau was standing outside the doors of the
Thibaltine Convent, his father Henri had invited Duke Jeremy Graham
to his rooms.

The Duke of
Graham had arrived at Fort a scant few candlemarks earlier. Henri
wanted to speak to him before Sam Baker got the chance.

“After Queen
Susan, her Great-aunt Anne is the next heir and after her, Susan’s
fifth cousin Alexa. Unfortunately both are Thibaltine nuns and past
childbearing age, Anne is fifty-three and Alexa older, sixty-four
this year.”

“What saved
her?” asked Jeremy Graham with interest.

“From Elliot
Three’s murderous campaign?

“Of
course.”

“Alexa was born
in ninety-two, she began her novitiate at the beginning of AL108,
not long before the deaths. He must have felt she was no threat,
after all, when a woman enters the Thibaltine doors she renounces
her previous life completely.”

“So why is Lord
Sam Baker looking so unbearably smug? I saw him as we arrived,
though we only exchanged a few pleasantries. The King is dead, our
present Queen a sickly infant of two. When I expressed my concerns
about her health, he shrugged it off, Brentwood too.”

“Give Brentwood
his due, he doesn’t wish the child any harm. She is his niece,”
said Henri Cocteau, pouring his guest some mulled wine, “but he is
tasting power, he does not wish to give it up.”

“He is planning
something?”

“It is not
him,” answered Henri Cocteau, “it is Sam Baker who is the greatest
danger.”

“Indeed? Danger
to what?”

“You, me, the
kingdom. He has a candidate for the throne, one that would place
him in pole position. I need your support when Susan dies, for she
will, the doctors are in no doubt about it now.”

“I cannot be
disloyal to Queen Susan, but if she does die and Sam Baker attempts
to put an impostor in her place, that is a different matter
entirely. What are you planning?”

“Jeremy, I have
an heir of the bloodline.”

“You’re not
serious?”

“We must
persuade the Lord Marshall that we have a legal alternative to Sam
Baker’s candidate. We have already received the reluctant approval
of the Largan. It was not hard to accomplish; we have definite
proof. Even the Larg found nothing with which they could dispute
the claim. They will hold to the Treaty.”

* * * * *

Anne and
Annette were sitting in the solar while Susan, Duchess of Cocteau
tried to explain how they must behave at Court. Annette was finding
the lesson boring and wriggled in her chair, lending only half an
ear to what she was saying.

Anne was
listening hard, making careful note of the ‘does’ and the ‘do
nots’, having realised that this was an important aspect of her new
life here in Murdoch and that she might, in the not too distant
future, be judged on how well she behaved in this protocol obsessed
society.

“Introductions
are very important,” continued Susan Cocteau, “Annette, pay
attention! What have I just said?”

With a blank
expression on her face, Annette looked up. “I-I don’t know
Duchess,” she confessed, “was it about not sitting down on a chair
before the warmth of a gentleman’s posterior has left it?” She
giggled and her mother hid her own laugh behind the pretence of a
cough.

“I was
discussing seating protocols over a half-candlemark-ago,” chided
the Duchess in exasperation, “what I am about to tell you now
concerns something else entirely – introductions. This is important
child. Do you want to be labelled as a country bumpkin?”

“I am as you
call it, a country bumpkin,” protested Annette with a rare show of
petulance.

“No longer,”
her instructress insisted, “you are a Princess of the Royal
Bloodline. Now pay attention.”

A mutinous
Annette subsided and tried to summon up at least a modicum of
interest in what Susan Cocteau was about to say, not for the first
time wishing she was as young as little Ruth who was, as she knew,
playing in the nursery with her toys.

“Now,” began
the Duchess, “the First Rule concerning introductions is that the
gentleman is always introduced to the lady. There must never be an
exception to this rule, no matter how much higher in rank the
gentleman is unless of course the gentleman should be a Royal
Prince.”

Does she
always have to say the royal ranks with a capital letter?
thought the bored Annette,
I hate this
.

“That means
that, if you are introducing either your father or your brother to
a lady, that – you tell me Annette.”

“That the lady
should be introduced to them and not the other way around.”

“Good, see how
easy it is when you try.”

That’s what
she thinks.
“I suppose so,” she answered.

“There is more.
The second is that an unmarried lady is always introduced to a
married lady and an unmarried gentleman is always introduced to a
married gentleman. When both are married or both are unmarried, the
younger is always introduced to the elder.”

“How do I know
who is older?” asked Anne. “I can’t go around asking people their
ages all the time.”

“Study and
learn the genealogical charts as we all have to. Even now, if I
know I will be attending Court I return to them to refresh my
memory. It comes with practice. Now, concerning rule two, rank can
make a difference. If one of the two is of much higher rank, say a
Duke or a Duchess, or a princess, then the other should be
introduced to him or her. Age can also modify the second rule
because if the unmarried person is much older than the other then
it is permissible and often more gracious to introduce the
younger.”

“This is
getting complicated,” complained Annette.
A lot of toofling
nonsense.

Susan Cocteau
smiled sympathetically “nevertheless, it must be so. Good manners
and behaviour in society is what every young noblewoman should
strive for, so the lessons must be learned. We will practice and it
will soon be second nature to you. I know it is hard, most royal
children learn it in the nursery, as Ruth will.”

Annette
giggled. She didn’t think her headstrong and tomboyish sister would
be able to sit still long enough to learn any such thing but at a
frown from her mother she assumed an attentive mien.

“We’ll go over
it again on the morrow,” promised the Duchess of Cocteau, “I think
that’s enough for this day. Is there anything you would like to do
now? There’s still a candlemark before luncheon.”

Annette asked
if she could go for a walk in the gardens. Susan Cocteau agreed and
summoned an attendant to accompany her.

“She’ll come to
terms with it all eventually,” said Anne once the two ladies were
alone. “She’s been used to far more freedom at home, not that she
was ever as adventurous as Xavier or Ruth. I think it is that she
can’t, even if she wants to, that is getting to her. I must confess
that it gets to me too. In my old life there never seemed to be
enough bells in the day to do everything that needed to be done.
Now time lies heavily on my hands.” She sighed and gazed down at
the said hands. The calluses and rough skin of a busy farm-wife
were disappearing. Susan Cocteau felt sorry for her.

“Perhaps you
might like to help me in the still-room?” she suggested, this being
the first idea that came into her head. “I am mistress of this
house and it is my prerogative, no my duty, to keep the herbs,
spices and remedies fresh and on the shelves. I also find the time
I spend there very pleasing and comforting in its own way.”

“I would like
to help you very much,” said Anne, leaping at the chance to do
something, anything. “Is it allowed?”

“I am Mistress
here,” declared Susan Cocteau with an arch look, “even my husband
would not dare interfere. Come on, we’ve just got time if we
hurry.”

* * * * *

As Henri
Cocteau tried to persuade Jeremy Graham to support him and his
co-conspirators Raoul van Buren and William Duchesne, Sam Baker was
doing the same with the Lord Marshall of the Kingdom, the only
non-ducal representative in Conclave with full voting rights.

“After Susan,
the only other legal heirs are a pair of nuns and they are both too
old to bear children. You know the terms of the treaty as well as
I. An heir of the blood it must be. The Larg will insist.”

“And their
numbers are growing,” was Philip Ross’s ominous comment. “So what
do you suggest?”

“Elliot Three
had a profusion of mistresses. We know that his only legitimate
heirs are Susan and the two nuns but what of the illegitimate?”
smiled Sam Baker.

“He spared
none,” protested Philip Ross, “but you think a child escaped?”

“None born
before the murders survived but what of the mistress who was
pregnant?” thus Sam Baker spoke up in a voice filled with triumph,
“the then Thane Louis Senot’s daughter Louise?”

“I remember her
vaguely. Didn’t she marry?”

“She married
Ian Karovitz shortly after the murders and their first child was
born some months later.”

“You are
saying?”