At the Royal Palace on Cornwall, Victorian Space
They walked slowly through the formal Palace garden, an incongruous pair. She was slender, almost elfin, with flowing raven hair and piercing green eyes. He was bald as a stone and looked to have been hewn from a block of wood. He trudged stolidly alongside her, hands behind his back, acutely conscious of the three guardsmen who trailed quietly in their wake.
“I fear I make your guards nervous, Your Grace,” he said dryly.
“It is their job to be nervous, Ambassador. They were born to it.”
He sighed. “I am not an ambassador, Your Grace.”
“True,” she conceded, “but it is more pleasing to call you ‘Ambassador’ than to call you a spy.”
“Perhaps it would please Her Grace to talk to our Ambassador rather than someone without any official standing.”
She ignored this. They continued walking.
“I am aware of your…arrangement with the Queen, Ambassador Jong.”
Jong shook his head. “I am a great admirer of the Queen, Your Grace, but I have no spec-”
She laughed without humor. “Ambassador Jong, please do not diminish the high regard I have for you by insulting my intelligence. One of the reasons why my mother has been able to deal so adroitly with our own bumbling, incompetent Foreign Office is because you have been feeding her critical information about the other Sectors, the Sultenic Empire, Arcadia, but in particular the Dominion of Unified Citizenry.”
Jong tried bluster. “Really, Your Grace, how could I possibly meet with the Queen of Victoria? Your security apparatus would not countenance-”
“Poor Sir Henry,” Princess Anne replied. “He will not be very happy if he learns what mother has been doing, will he?” Her voice hardened. “My mother is a monarch, Jong. She understands the use of power…and how to keep it. She knows that if she is to retain power, no one is ever to know everything she knows and does. Even Sir Henry is not exempt from that mandate.”
Jong said nothing. He marveled at her, so much like her mother. What she lacked in her mother’s experience, she made up for with sheer force of will.
She stopped and turned to him. “The Queen is ill, Ambassador Jong. Very ill. She is no longer ruling, no longer watching over the Foreign Office.” She combed her fingers through her hair, a gesture that endeared him and disturbed him at the same time. “I need to do that, but I can’t rely on reports from the Foreign Office alone. I think you understand that. I need you to help me as you’ve helped my mother.”
“And Sir Henry?” Jong asked, all pretense gone. “Sir Henry is not enamored with The Light. He will be reluctant to let you see me.”
“You managed to secretly see my mother all this time,” said the Princess. “You will do no less for me.”