rix_scaedu

I wrote this to aldersprig's first prompt, "More Rensa, esp. Involving clothing."

“My clothes are starting not to fit,” Rensa announced to Mirren.  “Do I have a budget for maternity clothes?”

“Of course you do.”  Mirren’s pregnancy wasn’t that much more advanced than Rensa’s but she looked further along.  “Mind you, once I started shopping for my own maternity clothes I had them double it.”

“They’re more expensive than ordinary clothes?”  Rensa thought for a moment.  “Well, they do need more fabric.”

“I think it’s more that they see you coming when they either think you’re desperate or floating in a la-la land of happy hormones,” was Mirren’s tart response.  “I think we should start with the people you brought from last time and then expand from there.”

Everyday clothes and underwear for pregnant women were relatively easy to get although pricier than clothes for the not-pregnant.

The store that had reminded Rensa of her sex education lessons provided two made-to-measure coatdresses with frankly military styling.  The tailoring, as always, suited Rensa and the pleats below the high bust line allowed for her expanding belly.  The other stores she’d purchased from before didn’t have maternity clothes but they were prepared to suggest things and modify designs.

Rensa almost had everything she needed when they decided to try one of the stores that hadn’t let them in the door when they’d first been buying her clothes.  At this time of year it apparently didn’t need a security guard or a doorman.  Inside there were a few artistically arranged racks of clothing, two shop assistants and a woman with garishly dyed, multi-coloured hair who could only be described as difficult.

“Why are you offering me that size?  I’m obviously a 14, not an 18!”  Her hands telegraphed her indignation as loudly as her voice.

“Madam, you tried on the 16 in the green and it was that fraction too small,” the darker haired girl reminded her.

“That was a very tight cut,” the woman harrumphed, “and sewn even tighter.  It should have been relabelled as a 12 or something.  Get me a 14!”

“As you wish.”  The dark haired girl put the garment she was holding back on the rack and pulled out an identical but smaller one.  She turned to the lighter haired girl and asked, “Hellen, could you please see to the ladies who’ve just come in?”

Hellen turned but the customer grabbed her arm.  “No you don’t, I need both of you.  I’ll have a word with them while you get me that pink thing and in a 14 mind you!”

The woman walked over to Rensa and Mirren, oblivious to the fact that the shop assistants were following her with worried expressions.  Both young women looked bemused when they flicked their eyes over the two security men who had taken up stations inside the shop’s doors.  “I’m sorry,” the customer told Rensa and Mirren, “but the staff will be busy with me for some time.  You and your husbands should go get coffee or something, then come back.  If you think this store would have anything for someone in your condition.”

“I have found people to be very accommodating about our current condition.”  Rensa looked the woman up and down.  She could see how the other customer’s hair style had been inspired by her own but those colours had no place in nature.  “They’re not our husbands and who are you to chase other paying customers out of this shop?”

The other woman returned the up and down treatment.  “You look vaguely familiar, perhaps you were some minor hanger-on at one of my parties?  Don’t you know who I am?”  The blue, pink and green hair on her head practically bristled.

“No.  Why should I?”  Rensa was calm.

“Majesty,” Hirroc, one of her security detail, was deploying his ‘early warning system’, “is this woman annoying you?  Do you wish her removed?”

Rensa and Mirren thought the other customer might be about to faint.

I wrote this to aldersprig's first prompt.

Along with a short list of don’ts pregnant ladies, Rensa discovered, were encouraged to both exercise in moderation and nap.  Her weight was still less than her doctor thought it should be and the first sign of her pregnancy had been a small dip in that weight.  As a result she was now on a ‘sustaining’ diet backed by a vitamin supplement.  Mirren, a month more pregnant than Rensa, was still the chief aider-and-abettor of the campaign to raise Rensa’s weight and she made sure small, regular, healthy snacking opportunities were being presented to both of them on a regular basis.

One more month, then they’d be through the first trimester and there could be a public announcement.  That might stop some of the letters.

People wrote to the Empress.  Rensa wasn’t quite sure why, but they did.  They’d had to give her a pool of secretarial staff just to open and deal with the mail.  Only a few of the opened letters came to Rensa herself.

A fair number were asking her to attend functions or support causes.  Those went to the people who organised the Imperial couple’s diary.

Another substantial subset was from school children who were writing to the palace as part of some set project.  There was a fairly standard reply for those with space for appropriate tailoring and Rensa signed those responses herself.

Most of the rest were begging letters.  Most of those got a politely worded redirection of their request for help, with copies of the applicable forms if necessary.  Others were handed straight to the criminal investigation liaison who now occupied a desk in the secretariat room, some for fraud investigation but others because what they revealed was some form of illegal coercion on the writer.

The threats, and there were some, also went to the criminal investigation liaison.  Some people just didn’t understand that it was illegal to threaten anyone through the mail.

A few correspondents’ letters got sent through to Rensa.  Mail from Yannic’s family that had gone to the public address and not the private one or letters from the woman who’d discovered a sketchbook and pencils hidden down the back of a dresser that she’d acquired which had come from one of the palace’s private apartments.  She’d returned the sketchbook with a note remarking that she was sure the Empress would want the pictures of her family back and Rensa’s return note of heartfelt thanks had led to a mail friendship.  The sketches themselves, beautifully done, weren’t of Rensa’s immediate family but they were of people she knew and were the only thing she could point to and show others what her world had been like…before.

The letters she hoped the announcement of her pregnancy would stop were the advice ones.  The embarrassingly detailed ones on how to get pregnant.

Of course, they were probably going to be replaced by equally detailed letters on what she should do in pregnancy and childbirth…

I wrote this in response to aldersprig's first prompt.

“So, you don’t want to marry me?”  Bannoc was holding Mirren to him in the dark.  They were in his room, in his bed, a space that had held so many dark thoughts alone in the time he’d occupied it that it had needed exorcising with evidence of life and a way forward.

“I’ve just never thought of marriage as one of my options,” she said slowly from where she was snuggled in next to his bare chest.

“Yannic’s married, twice now,” Bannoc pointed out, “and so are some of your other cousins, married I mean.  Why not you?”

“You’ll notice that those married cousins of mine are all male,” Mirren responded tartly.  “Us girls, well, we’ve lived in Perrenky Lane for at least three generations.  A lot of us still work there.”

“Oh.”  Bannoc thought for a moment.  “But your house isn’t on Perrenky Lane.”

“You’ve only ever come in the back, along the old service path,” she told him.  “The front entrance is two levels above that and on the other side of the building.  Mother and some of the others use the top two floors for business.”

“But not you.”  Bannoc stated that as a matter of fact.

“Yep, not me,” she agreed calmly.  “Designated baby sitter, homework mistress and dealer with domestic trifles, that’s me.  Ultimate support person.  I can’t bring myself to sleep with someone for money and nothing else.  It’s probably a character flaw and one I can only afford to indulge because my mother doesn’t have it.”

“Someone should have snapped your mother up years ago,” Bannoc said quietly.  “She’s warm, happy, hardworking and determined that you’d all get chances she thought she didn’t have.  She’d have made someone a fantastic wife – he’d have gone places, as they say.”

“Wives isn’t what men are looking for when they come to Perrenky Lane,” pointed out Mirren.

“True,” Bannoc agreed, gazing into the darkness in the direction of the ceiling, “but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t marry me.  We could have the betrothal now, most of your family’s still in town for Yannic’s wedding.  I think some of them are still drunk from the reception.”

“All right,” Mirren bargained, “if you can get my family co-ordinated and a booking with a Registrar before my rapscallion relatives disperse to their far-off niches, we can have the betrothal now.”

“You don’t think I can pull that off, do you?”  Bannoc was grinning in the dark.  “You forget young lady, I have friends!”  And then he kissed her again.

I wrote this to kelkyag's third prompt and didn't worry about it going overlength because I needed to write another episode to get more of this story by aldersprig.  :)

Mirren came into Rensa’s sitting room, dragging Bannoc after her, a determined but heart sick look on her face.  “We need you.  He needs you.”  She dragged Bannoc down on his knees beside her in front of Rensa’s chair as the Princess devaunt laid her book aside.

Rensa looked from her lady-in-waiting, guard dog and friend to the man who hated her for what she was and back again.  She sat up straight, hands folded in her lap, copying the her grandfather’s posture when he’d sat in audience not really all that long ago.  “What do you need of me?”

“Highness,” it was Mirren who spoke, “this man has committed a great and vast wrong that his spirit cannot bear.  He is so lost that he does not even know which way he has to face in order to go forward.  Your family bore the brunt of his wrong and you are the last of them.”  Mirren was adapting an old legal formula to the occasion.

Bannoc interrupted her with the rest of it.  “What penance and restitution do you require of me?”

“What wrong did you do my family, Bannoc?”  He had to say it.  That was part of the formula, an admission to everyone including himself of what he had done.

“My squad and I killed all the children of your family, their teachers and their caregivers.”  His admission sat there in the open, no longer the ignored monster in the room.

“I know,” her admission was not in the formula.  “That day, when Trode was gloating over me, I saw the six of you coming back from the nurseries and classrooms.  There was blood spray on your clothes.  Where are the rest of your squad?”

“Boric put a bullet through the roof of his mouth.  Gessic, we called him Marrow, went into a burning house to try to save a family trapped inside.  Warruc walked into a swamp lake with weights in his pockets.  Ludoc’s disappeared and Dennec seems to drink instead of sleep.  What do you want of me?”  He looked at the floor in front of him like a condemned man.

“No-one can bring the dead back to life,” Rensa felt like she was talking around the edges of a stone in the centre of her chest, “so I want you to spend the rest of your life making this a world where that can never happen to any family ever again.  Speak to Tuluc,” she clarified, “and talk about ethics training for the expanded military.  Participate.  If necessary, terrify them that you will come after them if they do wrong.”

He looked up.

“Oh, I haven’t finished yet.”  Rensa leaned forward in her seat.  “No more breaking gym equipment.  You’re an adult, start acting like one again.  If Mirren will have you, then Mirren gets as many babies as Mirren wants.  Do you understand me?”

Bannoc nodded while Mirren blushed.

“She might, of course, consult you in coming to that decision,” Rensa allowed, “But that’s her decision too.  Now, leave me.  I’m sure the two of you need to have at least one conversation alone.”

Bannoc and Mirren retreated from the room, both slightly stunned.

Rensa waited until they were gone then retreated into the bathroom and cried into a towel until the feeling that she might retch and throw up was gone.

I wrote this to aldersprig's first prompt.

“I think we need to talk,” Mirren announced from the doorway.

At the sound of her voice Bannoc closed up whatever it was he was doing on the computer.  “What about?”  He was as brusque as he had been for months.

“Us.  You.  Me.”  Mirren leaned against the door frame.  “Are we still an item or not?”

“I told you,” he glanced at her and then turned his attention to the keyboard, “You don’t want to be with me.”

“That’s your stated opinion, yes.”  Mirren’s eyes were fixed firmly on his face.  “So, I’m allowed to be with someone else?”

“Of course.”  His head snapped up in surprise.

“Then why is it that every time I go out with someone else you break gym equipment in front of them?”  She tapped her foot, “I’ve had complaints – every time I get dumped.  In fact, I get accused of playing games and I don’t play that sort of game!”  She glared at him.

“I don’t mean-“

“Then why do you do it?”  She wasn’t leaning against the door frame any more.  “You won’t go out with me, you won’t sleep with me and you won’t let anyone else do those things with me either.  Where does that leave me?”

Bannoc looked as if he was trying to come up with an answer and failing.

“It’s not as if I expect you, or anyone else for that matter, to marry me,” she snapped at him, “but I thought we were good.  I thought we could be happy together for years...”

“Wait-,” he was confused again.  “Why wouldn’t I marry you?  I mean, me, if you knew-.  But me not marry you?”

“No-one marries the women in my family,” Mirren was stone-faced, forced to talk about something she always tried to ignore, “we’re not good enough, trash.  Always have been.”

“Who’s been telling you that?”  Bannoc was on his feet.  “I’ll kill him.  Do you want to see the body?”

“The world.  All my life.  I don’t want there to be a body.”  She smiled tiredly.  “So what’s with you?  Tell me.”

Bannoc sat down and his face crumpled.  “I killed them.  I believed Trode and I killed them.  All the babies in Rensa’s family.”

“My mother and aunt,” said Mirren, “are organising the pre-wedding family get-together.”

“Pre-wedding family get-together?”  Rensa looked at her with concern.

“You know,” Mirren explained, “that thing where the two families get together for a party about a week before the wedding, get introduced to each other and identify any problems before the ceremony.  It gets the introductions out of the way before the wedding, reveals all the relatives no-one was quite game to bring up and if there are any old grudge matches, it cuts down on the fights and body count at the actual wedding.”

Rensa stifled a giggle at that description.  “We all knew each other so we didn’t have to be introduced and we were so closely related that the odd relatives were everyone’s odd relatives.  But fighting at a wedding?”

“Oh yes,” Mirren assured her, “it’s what happens when you put people who don’t necessarily get on with each other in a defined space, ply them with alcohol and put social pressure on them not to leave.”

“Mirren,” Rensa had a startled but thoughtful look on her face, “how much alcohol?”

“All up?”  Mirren looked thoughtful.  “The women in our family don’t get married so I’ve never organised the catering but four bottles of wine to a table of ten per course sounds about right.  Two to three times that if you’re only serving beer.”

“They tell me we’re having three courses,” Rensa looked at her, “I’m used to about two glasses of wine per person for the whole meal, including toasts.”

“What do you drink instead?”  Mirren looked at her bemused.

“Water.  Chilled water.  In really nice glasses.”  Rensa looked back at her, “After all, the children can’t have wine or beer.”

“My family’s going to come as a shock to you then,” said Mirren drily, “And so’s this party.  Mum and Aunty Tyrren are allowing two bottles, give or take, per person for the night.  I’ll have to make sure they lay on the water for you.”

“I don’t think my discretionary rations will cover that much alcohol.”

Mirren sighed.  It had been days since Rensa had spoken about food in terms of her ration allowance.  “You’re the only person who’s thinking about this in terms of rationing, especially as they’re lifting the rationing regulations in time for the wedding.”

“I know,” Rensa smiled, “but it is the habit of a life time.  I’m actually interested to see how it will work – ‘you can buy as much as you like and afford of anything that’s available’, but the selection and stocking proportion of what’s available isn’t going to change.”

“You’d rather talk about economic regulation than your own wedding preparations?”  Mirren was astonished, “Most brides-.”

Rensa cut her off.  “Most brides have a say.”

******

“Item Four on the agenda is the finalised menu for the wedding feast,” the chairman of the organising committee said.  The rest of the committee turned the page in their folders and made appreciative noises, even those who’d read ahead.

“Excuse me,” Yannic spoke up, “there seems to be an omission.”

“I don’t think so,” Kemmic, the sallow faced man who was in charge of the food and drink arrangements contradicted him.  “Three courses, four dishes per course and accompanying beverages.  They’re all there.”

“Princess Rensa specifically asked for a smoked fish pie topped with potato and cheese,” the Emperor corrected, “and it’s nowhere on this menu.”

“Your Imperial Majesty,” Kemmic was trying to be rude, he was one of those who didn’t understand why Yannic’s elevation had been necessary, “we are using this event to demonstrate the legitimacy of our government.  There’s no place on this menu for a dish made of leftovers.”

“You’re telling me that there’s no place in our wedding feast for the one dish my bride requested,” Yannic replied templing his fingers in front of him.  Kemmic’s assistant, seated behind him, moved uncomfortably in place.

“We’re trying to project authority and dignity,” retorted Kemmic, “She can have her leftovers the day after.”

“Where I grew up, smoked fish pie wasn’t leftovers,” commented Lurien, a middle aged woman at the far end of the table who’d been a cell leader in the western regions, “and it’s something anyone can make.  Solidarity with the people and all that.  I say let the girl have her comfort food – it’s not like she wants something rare or expensive.”

“Smoked fish pie would cut costs a touch,” agreed the financial representative, “and a nice smoked fish pie can be just the thing.  Perhaps we can replace something in the first two courses where the ingredients are difficult to obtain and haven’t been secured yet?”  The entire table looked at Kemmic who sighed, picked up his pen and began to flip through his notes.

******

“Don’t worry,” Yannic was holding Rensa’s hand, his fingers linked through hers, “my family don’t bite.  Well,” he rapidly revised, “Some of them might, if you paid them to.  Gentlemen,” he nodded to the two very large doormen flanking the entrance to room where Tyrren was hosting the family pre-wedding party.  One of them opened the door and a surge of sound, made up loud music and chatter, poured out at them.  “In we go then!”  Yannic grinned at her and pulled her after him towards the cheerfully coloured throng.

Behind them the doormen stood in front of the door, Yannic and Rensa not having cleared its swing yet, and one said loudly to the entourage who’d insisted on following Yannic, “I’m sorry, gentlemen, this is a private party, family only.”

Then the door closed behind them.  “Mum hired some bouncers she knows,” Yannic’s grin widened, “to keep out all the hangers on.  Now, come and meet every one!”

“Why did you recommend me to Minister Sallic for the inspector’s job?”  Haslic had bowed with ill grace and probably only because Mirren was in the room with them.  Rensa did not ask him to sit, she suspected that it was petty of her but she did not want this man comfortable in her quarters.
“My father used to say that sometimes in his work it was useful for people to be afraid of you.  He scared them because he was an Imperial Prince.  You terrify me,” Rensa looked him straight in the eye, “I don’t see why you shouldn’t terrify the bad guys too.  Besides, I think it would be good for you to be put to work rescuing people.”

“Highness?”  He lifted an eyebrow.

“We both know what Trode ordered you to do.”  Rensa had dropped her volume so Mirren over by the window couldn’t quite hear her words.

“Yannic’s orders prevented me doing everything Trode wanted,” Haslic dropped his volume to match hers, “I have to wonder if he knew even back then what he was going to do with you now.”

“I don’t know,” Rensa admitted, “But I believe Trode intended to use you to dispose of me and keep his hands clean.”

“How so?”  Hislac was surprised, “Break you, yes, he wanted that.  No false modesty or hauteur but dead?”

“Short rations, excessive exercise, beatings-”

“You have such lovely skin,” murmured Haslic with that grin she had grown to hate on her forced pilgrimage.

“Add in pregnancy from unprotected, probably non-consensual, sex,” Rensa continued, “And you have a recipe for miscarriage.  A few of those in short succession, particularly with the weight loss I had, would probably have been enough to do the job.”

“I might,” Haslic’s face had hardened, “Have taken action to prevent the deaths of my children.”

Rensa nodded in acknowledgement of his point.  Mirren was beginning to look frustrated that she couldn’t hear what was going on.  “Then go,” Rensa’s tone was as kind and firm as she could manage for this man, “And make the world better for those who need the help Minister Sallic is employing you to give.”

“As you wish, Highness,” he bowed with polish this time, “I will go and spread fear and terror among the unlawful.”

After Mirren saw him out she came and sat with Rensa.  “So, what did you talk about?”  Mirren desire to satisfy her curiosity was written as clearly on her face as it had appeared in her words.

“What might have been,” Rensa’s tone suggested absolutely no regrets.  “Mirren, I think I need to talk to Tuluc.  Can you arrange it please?”

“Of course,” Mirren paused, “Rensa, is something wrong?”

“I’m...not sure.”  Rensa waved a hand in the air as if dismissing her own uncertainties.  “I find Haslic disturbing and talking to him has set off a chain of thought...”

“And you want to talk to Tuluc, not Yannic?”

“I don’t think it’s a Yannic sort of problem,” Rensa paused, “I actually think its a Bannoc sort of problem but he doesn’t like me and I don’t think he’d listen.”

Mirren raised an eyebrow but simply said, “I’ll organise some time with Tuluc.”

Later, seated over tea and little biscuits with Mirren and Tuluc, Rensa asked her guest, “Tuluc, if Trode had gotten what he wanted, how long do you think Yannic would have lived?”

Tuluc paused with his cup in midair, then sipped from it.  Once the cup was back on its saucer he said, “Realistically?  No more than three months.  Yannic is so obviously of the bloodline there would have inevitably been a party develop wanting ‘a real’ or ‘the true’ Emperor on the throne.”  He considered a moment more.  “His death would have been an accident, unless such a group had attempted a coup in his name.  I’m sure Trode would have spoken very movingly at his funeral.”

“But-,” Mirren looked in confusion from Tuluc to Rensa and back again.

“Trode’s intentions were unknown to the rest of us,” Tuluc told her calmly, “Until we’d seized the Palace and penetrated what he called ‘the Inner Sanctums of Power.’  Then, as I suspect Yannic or Bannoc has told you, he tried to become Emperor.”

“I always thought he was too slick for words,” admitted Mirren, “Although Kiriel thought he was wonderful.  I wasn’t as involved as the rest of you were but it seemed to me that he never got his hands dirty.  He would say that something should happen and it did, but he never did it.”

“Which brings me to my next question,” chimed in Rensa, “How long before he permanently cleaned up his image and back story by getting rid of the people who could testify he gave the orders for Mountjoy and everything that happened here at the Palace?”

“Are you sure you’re not trying to pass too much off onto Trode?”  Tuluc sipped his tea after asking his question.

“Tuluc, you’re the people who killed my entire family.”  For a moment Rensa might have been on the edge of tears, then she was in control again.  “I live at your pleasure and mercy.  I cannot go anywhere else.  Yes, it makes living among all of you easier if I believe that the worst of what happened was one dead man’s fault.”  Mirren was on the verge of crying.  “As it happens,” Rensa sipped her own tea, “I’ve seen the recordings of his speeches and I believe that he was perfectly capable of turning a crowd into a mob or persuading intelligent men that the sun wouldn’t rise tomorrow if they didn’t kill their neighbours’ first born.”

“I concede your points,” Tuluc made a gesture of acquiescence.  “Depending on how much of an issue it was and the circumstances, anything from the time of the subjugation of the Empire to the thirty year mark.  Possibly in stages or as consciences became unbearable.”

“And you?” Rensa pressed.

“Possibly before Yannic, maybe not until the very end.”  Tuluc sipped his tea again.  “It’s amazing how much perspective you can gain on events after even only a few months.”

“So, how would he have done it?”  Rensa left the question there to sit.

“What do you mean?”  Mirren was puzzled.

“If there were going to be accidents, well I haven’t seen Yannic in action but Bannoc and Tuluc here,” Rensa pointed at him with her teacup, “Are no slouches when it comes to the physical stuff.  How easy would it be to make them have an ‘accident’?  And who would you get to do it?”

“Ah.”  Tuluc picket up a small biscuit, one of the little iced ones that Mirren could only get Rensa to eat because she’d gotten her that convalescent diet prescription.  “Another excellent point because, of course, Trode didn’t expect to die.  I shall have to look into that, yes...”  He stared off into the distance as he chewed his biscuit and sipped on his tea.

“It was a good thing we spoke to you,” said Tuluc precisely addressing Rensa. There were six of them in the compartment of the train travelling back from Montjoy and fortunately none of them were Kolloc. Rensa, at least, could happily have murdered him after a day of sotto voce comments lamenting his original plans for the memorial.

“Yes,” agreed Yannic with his eyes on the man beside him and opposite Mirren. “That original speech would have provoked a riot.”

“Montjoy’s recidivism will require correction,” Sallic had been one of Trode’s closest associates. He was now the Employment Minister, still an ideologue but one who mostly put his energies into useful tasks instead of rants.

“We killed too many locals as well as losing our own people in that attack,” said Bannoc quietly from his seat between Yannic and the window. “We forgot that in places like Montjoy it was local people who manned the counters, entered the paper works, administered the programs. Came for help.” This was the most he’d said in the last two and a half days. “We were told that gas was a painless killer, to be sure to take precautions ourselves, but that our targets would just go to sleep.”

“What dregwit told you that?” Tuluc asked with some heat. “I was very clear when I laid it out as an option what it would do. Constrictor spasms, convulsions, everything.”

“Trode,” said Bannoc simply, “And I kept believing him.” Mirren looked, in quick succession: enlightened, appalled; and then thoughtful.

“I had not realised until yesterday,” said Sallic, stepping into the breach, “That I have become a fan of your late father’s work, Your Highness.”

“Oh?” Rensa was happy to pick up a less awkward conversational ball.

“He signed himself ‘Special Prosecutor,’ not ‘Prince’ so it’s relatively easy to gloss over that his name indicates that he must have been a member of your family. And I hadn’t realised that he was your father.” Sallic beamed benevolently at her. “He did the sort of work I always thought was necessary to protect the vulnerable of our society.”

“He investigated and prosecuted all sorts of matters,” Rensa smiled in return, “But he always said that those who enslaved others by withholding their ration books were deserving of a special circle of hell.”

“He and I may not have agreed on much else, but we would have agreed on that,” Sallic nodded. “Your father’s notes on such matters where he hadn’t had a chance to fully investigate are proving very useful. Unfortunately my current investigators are more limited in their powers than he was – the scope available to a Prince was enormous. Mind you, that was one of the issues we had with the regime when we were the revolution.”

“Well,” suggested Rensa thoughtfully, “Couldn’t you work out which of my father’s powers were most useful to him in his works and have your investigators issued with Warrants or something to say they can do those things in their work?” Looking at their faces she clarified, “I’m not suggesting making them de facto Princes or anything, just some sort of card that says they have authority delegated by the Throne to use,” she grabbed a favourite catch phrase of Trode’s, “For the benefit of the people.”

“I could do that,” mused Yannic.

“Ideologically, I like it,” agreed Sallic, “and it would solve my problems.”

“Yours isn’t the only Ministry that would benefit from an arrangement like that,” Tuluc pointed out, “Different Ministries might require different powers, of course.”

Yannic smiled warmly across the compartment at Rensa. “I’m beginning to think that you might wind up making me look like a brilliant administrator.”

She blushed.