WARPING EFFECTS / CH. 15:LEGALITIES
HIGH COURT, RESTORATION, WEDNESDAY, 29TH JAN 2296
“The accused will state his name, age, and city of residence, for the court record.”
“Everett Manning, fifty six, from Restoration.”
“The accusation is of six counts. Firstly: that yesterday you published a defamatory statement via an electronic discussion board, that is to say the crime of libel. Secondly that you had no evidence to believe the statement was true, that is to say the crime of publication a fabrication as fact. Thirdly, that you made the statement only in order to shock and offend, that is to say, the crime of offending public decency. Fourthly that you refused to withdraw the statement when offered every chance to, making the crimes willful. Fifthly, that by making the statement you knowingly harmed the good reputation of an honourable person, that is to say the crime of defamation. Sixthly, that as the honourable person is publicly known as being in regular contact with a royal personage, by making the precise statement you made and by refusing to retract it, you knowingly harmed the good reputation of a royal personage, that is to say the crime of defamation of a royal personage. How do you plead?”
After a short whispered conversation, the defence lawyer stood “My client does not dispute the fact that he posted the statement and did not withdraw it, but wishes to plead not guilty to the intent, due to temporary mental incapacity, your honour.”
“The cause of the mental incapacity? The prisoner will answer in his own words.”
“I was angry and drunk,” the accused replied.
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ARTICLE IN THE NEW REPUBLICAN POST, WEDNESDAY, 29TH JAN.
Drunk, angry, or mentally deranged? by Caroline Wyatt
Yesterday, I was in court for a terrifying day. That sounds wrong, doesn't it? I was witness and injured party in the case of the crown vs Everett Manning, fifty six, of Restoration. Do I know Mr Everett Manning? No. Does he know me? No. My parents? Nope. But Mr Manning has heard of me: first he heard of my little article about EasyTrip Transports making the odd stupid decision or two (the jury's still out on the civil case), where he used to be a director, and then he read Prince Luke's article where he quoted some stuff about me not thinking much of the lack of contact between the government and the governed. No, I got carried away, and I was sort of relying on His Royal Highness to edit it down. Bad mistake there, Caroline! It seems His Royal Highhorsedness wanted something to leap on from his high horse to smash into pieces and I guess I should be very glad it wasn't me, just my made-up on-the-spot idea of having new presidents train for six months. So, I got quoted spouting stuff I probably shouldn't have (but his Majesty apparently gave consent for it to be published, so I'm not in much trouble), but Mr Manning decided to have a go at me. And he was drunk, and furious with the world in general and at me in particular.
Mentally deranged, and temporarily incapacitated are the ways his lawyer phrased it. So he said some things he shouldn't have, and his wrist-unit posted them. And he hadn't counted on His Royal Highhorsedness getting on his high horses about insults to innocent little me. And Mr Manning was too mentally deranged or drunk to work out how to retract his post and too mentally deranged or drunk to realise he could have just said he didn't know how, could someone do it for him, and too mentally deranged or ... sensible? ... to believe that genuine Royalty reads the comments thread on a Republican Newspaper.
And so since his Royal Highhorsedness from his Royal high horse had promised legal action, it was Mr temporarily mentally deranged Manning that was in the way of getting smashed. Six counts against him, including that he knowingly harmed the reputation an honourable person (i.e. me) and also of a royal personage, i.e. Prince Luke, because he is my friend and Mr Manning called me some nasty things (OK yes, they were very.nasty, and if they'd been believed and Prince Luke were to carry on meeting me after that then it would have been... come on this is too hypothetcal).
But is that fair? I, in a broad sweep of exaggeration, accuse our nation's hard-working and honourable politicians of being not much more than out-of-touch time-servers, and go on to accuse the entire Royal Family, who I know read this newspaper of hardly ever hearing an opposing voice. Milord, (not to mention your Royal Highnesses and your Majesties) I plead guilty of speaking in... in what? It wasn't anger, I wasn't drunk, I don't have either of those excuses. I was in the state of mentally derangement known as arguing, exaggerating. I plead guilty of grossly exaggerating to Prince Luke in an interview and getting quoted verbatim.
Please don't jail me. I think that if I had been the person to publish what I shouted at prince Luke then one thing about Mr Manning's statement about me would have been true: I ought to be in jail. So I'm publicly retracting it. It's only right. And so it was, with thoughts such as this, going round like this, that I stepped out of the courtroom and asked my friend, Prince Luke, what he thought of the idea of me accepting an apology from Mr Manning and Luke issuing a royal pardon. It didn't work like that, he said, it was too late. It would have to be his grandfather. So I said roughly what I've said here to his majesty, and I promised his Majesty that I'd try to be much more careful in what I say when I was being interviewed or writing.
And I was forgiven and Mr Manning was also granted a royal pardon, and I've asked my friend Prince Luke to try not to smash people quite so hard from his high horse when they get upset with me and say regrettable things, and he's said he'll try to do that too. He almost promised, but I rudely interrupted him and begged him not to promise, because quite frankly the laws around royal promises are scary.
And in case you're wondering, yes, this text has been approved by the royal press office, even the bits about His Royal Highhorsedness.
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THE PALACE, WEDNESDAY, 29TH JAN.
“Have you read young Caroline's article, father?” Prince Albert asked the king.
“Yes, she's maturing a lot, isn't she?”
“'His Royal Highhorsedness'?”
“It does rather fit her self-appointed knight in shining armour, doesn't it? Along with him liking to smash a bit too much.”
“It does. Did you hear Eliza's idea?” Albert asked.
“Set her to work on the collaboration legislation?”
“Yes.”
“As education about what would face her idea of president, or as an introduction to what faces her if Luke gets his dream come true?” his father asked. “I don't think we could really leave it all up to her — she'd be totally lost. So just let her be a fly-on-the-wall?”
“Why not let Luke take up the challenge, with her as observer-helper? He's about the age you were when you did your first piece. Then she gets to see him needing help too.”
“If you think he's ready, father.”
“I think it's sensible that he gets some practice. With Matthew going to be away so much, I expect Luke will be need to be taking quite a bit of the strain from you, won't he?”
“Probably, father, yes.”
“You'll arrange it with her employer, then, OK?”
“Of course, father.”
“Actually... brief Luke, and ask him to arrange it. He needs to learn that side of things too.”
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NEW REPUBLICAN POST, FRIDAY, 30TH JAN, 2296
“Mr Wyatt, thank you for agreeing to see me.”
“I'll... admit to being more than little surprised at your visit, your highness.”
“I was a little surprised to have it suggested to me. Urm, it actually concerns your daughter.”
“I'm going to be even more surprised if you tell me it's the normal reason a young man asks for a secret meeting with a girl's father,” Dan said.
“I think she'd probably strangle me if I asked for her hand quite yet. But on the other hand... I'm asking if you would approve of me asking her for a helping hand.”
“A helping hand?”
“Blame recent articles... Not to mention her promising to assist the crown if she can. My father and grandfather have decided that rather than me just seeing how things are done, and helping out with specific tasks, it would be good for me to have experience guiding one piece of legislation through.
To be precise the necessary legal basis for the foreign nationals - probably either Mer or Martian citizens — to help at our end of the 'are Heather's bubbles of space-time really real' research. They also suggested that it would not hurt in the least for me to have Caroline watching me fumble my way thorough it, chipping in with helpful insults along the way, and so on. She would have the right to publish her reflections, as long as National Security wasn't at all compromised.
To be honest, with me working on it, either I don't talk to her until it is done or she'd probably need to take essentially the same oaths and things anyway.”
“I don't really understand the link between Heather's research and National Security.”
“Their majesties have suggested to Heather and our allies that we could contribute some quantum computing modelling of the ultra-secret Mer antigravity drive equations. Going from that suggestion to the reality could be rather complex.
We'd have to make legal provision for information sharing and information segregation and staff segregation, define sets of oaths that don't conflict with anyone else's, as well as more practical details like accommodation and agreements over who pays for what and so on. Really I guess it's groundwork for a treaty, not just the legislation.”
“Wow. And so Caroline would be a witness to top-secret discussions with the shadowy people we must presume exist at shadowy locations doing shadowy top-secret things?”
“Along with all the other boring and prosaic things that go into formulating a well-thought through law. Yes.”
“And you trust her that much?”
“Personally, yes, though I admit a slight bias in that area. My parents suggested the idea.”
“And this is because of your feelings for my daughter?”
“In part, but also since she is raising constitutional ideas, to help her, realise what the monarch — or in her ideal world, president - ought to assure happens to about ten to twenty laws or suggested laws in a given week.”
“Oh, so it's only going to be a week?”
“No. My parents at least estimate eight to ten working days, but it's going to be unpredictable half to six days per week probably over three to five weeks, depending on other people's schedules. It's fairly important, but relatively low priority which is why I'm being given it. It's quite a big request, I know.”
“You don't think a regular three days per week would work?”
“Not as well, no. There might be days she's around when nothing happens, and she might miss out on something which totally changes assumptions, and so on.
In the event of late night meetings, and so on, one of the palace guest rooms would be made available to her. Otherwise... normally I'd expect at least twelve hours notice of a meeting, more like twenty-four.”
“And abnormally?”
“During a crisis, things get rearranged instantly. A short meeting might be brought forwards a week if someone needs to go somewhere, or cancelled.”
“And Caroline's legal status, if that's the phrase, during this time?”
“If she agrees she'd apply for one-gamma level security clearance and I would be introducing her as a security-cleared reporter-cum-assistant assigned directly to me. It is one of those areas where youth and shyness counts in her favour: she's very unlikely to have met anyone as an adult that would put her on anyone's danger list.”
“Are you sure? She been with Catherine on her trips, and spent quite a lot of time with the Russian Ambassador's family when we were last in Atlantis.”
“Caroline doesn't happen to speak Russian does she?”
“A little.”
“Oh, well. It would have been great if she could be my interpreter there, but a little is good.”
“You'll be going to Russia?”
“There's a possibility, yes. Possibly Atlantis. Definitely not Mars, that'll be Matthew's end of things.”
“Well, I imagine it'll give her some food for thought, I really don't see how she'll be able to write much, though.”
“I think Caroline could write an interesting article about pretty much anything... But I admit to being biased.”
“Don't hold your breath, your Highness, that's my advice. Catherine kept putting me of for over a year, and she was never as adamantly against the idea as Caroline.”
“Having overheard some of her thoughts... I don't think she's quite as certain as she presents herself.”
“I heard about you flicking thoughts at her. Can you explain what you were doing there?”
“Oh, it's something I did with,” he caught himself, “someone else, when I was young. You know thought-hearers hear decisions that involve them? You just decide 'I'll just remind Caroline she said....', or 'Caroline is trying to forget she said....' ”
“Oh, OK. So it's actually something a parent could use to remind her of things?”
“You probably already do, just you're not aware you're doing it.”
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ARTICLE IN NEW REPUBLICAN POST, AND THE ROYALIST, MON 3RD FEB
EXCLUSIVE to Royalist and New Republican Post
Probably the last in our series of interviews between reporter Caroline
Wyatt and H.R.H. Prince Luke. Polite comments and non-libelous snide remarks can be made on N.R.P. site, as normal.
No no no, that's not going to happen by Caroline Wyatt.
C: You cannot be serious.
L: It has the approval of your editor and of his Majesty my grandfather.
C: Me a 'fly on the wall' during top secret meetings?
L: A few top secret meetings and a lot of not secret ones.
C: Why?
L: You have, as you know, come to the attention of my family as someone who makes pronouncements on constitutional matters which are published, read, circulated.
C: And I'm ignorant about what really happens inside the walls of the palace?
L: Exactly, well said!
C: Ouch. You could just laugh at my mistakes, and demolish them like last week.
L: Polishing that article took me quite a lot of time last week, I'm glad you appreciated it.
C: — Speechless incoherent spluttering while thinking of the trouble it caused.
L: But really, it would save a lot of your time and my time in the long run if you didn't have to keep writing from an ignorant point of view and if I didn't have to keep correcting you from my metaphorical high horse of knowing stuff.
C: Hmm.
L: And I'm sure we can find lots of less politically dangerous things to argue about, if you like. There's always predestination and free will for instance. Or whether William Stickers is innocent or not.
C: Pardon?
L: Have you never seen the sign that says “Bill Stickers will be prosecuted?” What for, what's he done? It never says.
C: — refusing to get into a slanging match — Today, I'm supposed to be interviewing you.
L: Yes. Oh look, there's a baby penguin! I should perhaps at this moment point out that some time ago, HRH Prince Luke brought up the idea of having one of these interviews in Antarctica, because I was interviewed in a student newspaper once and asked where I'd love to visit but probably never would. And, quoth he, I'd like to visit sometime too, and I could always borrow Dad's peace submarine, so why not argue there? Except the submarine is in Atlantis this weekend and then sometime soon it's going to Mars. Anyway, Antarctica is a long way away and Prince Luke and I are definitely not dating (a prince and a republican? don't be mad) so why would he want to take me there anyway? I turned him down flat.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
So, this week, we're back in the palace, and to rub salt into the wound, or something, he's put a nature film on the wall display, or maybe it's a live video link, for all I know. That sounds like I'm upset that we're not dating, doesn't it? No, that's not what I mean /at all/. I'm upset that he should think I'd like to go all the way to Antarctica with just him for absolutely no good reason other than that that way our shouting matches don't upset the smooth operation of the palace.
Ideally, if I'm going to go that far for an afternoon jaunt in his parent's space submarine I'd like to share the fun with my friends and family. Shouting matches can happen anywhere and shouldn't be carried out in delicate ecosystems. I think he's just trying to wind me up.
L: "Just this little form to fill out, and you too could have a taste of what day-to-day life is like for a working president. Well, not just president. Some of what we'll be doing is normally minister's jobs, and parliamentary committees, but they're busy and don't really work fast enough, plus with this there's the high security issues and the treaty-related issues and so on... Either it's direct royal-led, or it'd be something like three years progressing back and forward between lots of different committees.
"They'd certainly do an excellent job but by then it'd be three years too late. The ultimate responsibilty falls on my grandfather anyway, and since we've been talking about constitutional things, and I made some foolish remark about knowing how things happen, he decided to delegate it to me. You did talk about politicians too, and this way you have a chance to experience a bit of what fills their time too.
"You never know, it might be fun."
I look at the form, it's something like three hundred questions long. Some of them have sub-points. Lots of them, and then the sub points have sub-sub-points. The form does not look like fun. Nor does the work he's just outlined. But he might have hooked me with that one word: president.
C: You said 'president'. Does that mean you're not going to preach at me about how servant monarchy is better?
L: Well, you won't find 'president' in the Bible, but no. I'm not going to be taking time during these meetings to try to change your deeply held irrational beliefs. I'm going to be too busy, and you probably are too, I'm warning you. Not just fly-on-the-wall, but helper too. Putting your mind to work, correcting my mistakes before my parents need to, that sort of thing.
I will be actually doing this for the first time, you know? It'll be a learning opportunity for both of us.
C: What would you do if it turned out I was better at it than you?
L: I guess it depends on what you mean by 'it'. It's not as though I'm actually going to be drafting any legal documents, you know?
C: Then what exactly?
L: Exactly? I'd love to be able to put it exactly into words.
Ensuring that everything has been thought of, everyone has given input, for a case-by-case dependent subset of everything and everyone.
C: Surely someone has come up with some kind of checklist?
L: Oh absolutely. The third, no, fourth king I think it was was very process-minded. I'll show you the room one day.
C: The room?
L: There's a book, that's the index to the indexes. Then there's the indexes, left, right, sideways, inverse, and so on. They take up three walls. Then there's the actual check lists he developed for every decision he made. He was sure that eventually he'd come up with some commonality for all of them. He didn't trust computers so it's all on a mid-twentieth century photochemical technology called microfiche which had to be re-invented when his paper lists got too big. One sheet of film equivalent to about a hundred totally cannot be hacked into pages.
C: Every decision ended up being different?
L: Not quite, no. But let's say it's in the field of education. Are you then talking about syllabus change, or overall policy or whether there ought to be a thing called school uniforms? Let's say it's that and if there are standards for them what are they, and are they fashion-flexible or not and how often should the decision be reviewed if they are and so on.
And each time you go back to a decision of a previous ruler you're presumably correcting something that went before, because there was a mistake made and so at the very least you do consult the room, but then you also look at what factors got forgotten, or ruled out when they shouldn't have been, or what was obvious then which isn't now, and so on.
C: There are actually laws about school uniforms?
L: Yes. Some of them are health-and-safety related: things like fire-risk, freedom of movement, not having long dangly bits to get caught in mechanical mechanisms. Then there are dress-code standards, and value-for-money standards and devolved powers to the schools, and cultural sensitivity rules. And so on. When you get ten-year old mer girls saying they need to take their knives to school, is that allowable? Or no knives but a pipe is OK?
C: OK, yes. There are laws about school uniforms. I get it. It can't just be left up to the school?
L: Some of it is. But there are basic standards. A school shouldn't be able to require everything to be bought from one shop. Some things should be acceptable at every school, like school-shoes, for instance.
Would you believe one school once wanted a different uniform for the different school years?
Different colour scheme, style, the lot. It would have made it really easy to see what year the kids were in, and parents were even vaguely in favour until they realised what the cost of their kid growing out of something six weeks before the end of the school year was going to be. So, you come up with the list of points that you have decided you need to change, and you make sure you've got them all covered but you're not changing anything else you want to leave the same, and then of course, you get to that point and you reevaluate. What was the goal? Is that still the goal? Does this reach the new goal? And the really big one, what else might reach the goal?
C: Anyone tried to reevaluate that form I've got to fill in?
L: Urm, yes.
C: Yes?
L: Assuming that the goal is 'the civil service and secret service trust you to the extent that they don't object to you being anywhere I am', there is another way to reach it. But you're probably going to react violently if I suggest it, so let's pretend it doesn't exist.
Looking at prince Luke with intense suspicion, I ask. “What is the normal goal of that questionnaire?”
L: To establish if there are any areas in which the applicant might be susceptible to blackmail, extortion, or have other loyalties that might compromise their ability to keep secrets or honestly and wholeheartedly carry out the assigned task, or if there are other areas of the applicant's life which might conflict with the proper functioning of his/her majesty's government and the safety of the monarch and his or her descendants and relatives, and further, to establish the truthfulness of the applicant.
C: I was getting really impressed that you knew that so well before I saw you were reading it. So... the key values in that are truthfulness, proper functioning of his/her majesty's government and safety of the royal family.
L: Yes.
C: And you're saying that somehow there's a short-cut to those rather important things?
L: There is a short-cut, if you really want to call it that, available to certain specific people.
C: How many?
L: Pardon?
C: How many people can take this short-cut? How nervous do I need to be that some maniac is going to skip the form-filling and take up the opportunity of tricking someone to offer them this short-cut and make a short cut in your grandfather's throat?
L: [growing increasingly nervous. I think it's nervous, anyway.] This time .last year there were two such potential... opportunities..., and lots of people who wanted to be offered one of them. The first one was offered to someone who took it quite recently. Another person might decide to take the other one this year or at some other point in the future.
C: And that other person's me? Why? What makes me that special?
Prince Luke then straightened his shoulders and looked me straight in the eyes. And with a gentle voice he said “Alternatively the lady concerned might declare on oath that her mother was dead wrong and, that she never wants me to take her to Antarctica, and she's perfectly happy to leave the so-called short-cut available to someone else, and me feeling quite sad indeed.”
C: Oh.
And I finally got it. I thought: so my immediate future contains hundreds and hundreds of nasty horrible detailed questions about which monarchs and security chiefs and so on I've talked to on my mother's world tours, or accepting that there might just possibly be a little bit of truth in what my mother said about me preparing for our last meeting, and to be honest this one, and our mid-week meeting at the high court.
To do that, it would mean renouncing the life-goal I never had of reaching my next birthday without ever going on a date, accepting there is the possibility that one can like a prince while, as Luke puts it, being irrationally convinced that a republic is better than a servant monarchy, and not only those things, but totally failing to hurt a man I rather like.
That last one was strangely significant. I do still feel a bit guilty for getting a pea in his eye; I realise that even if we do argue about silly things for fun, I don't actually want to hurt him again, and continuing to refuse to accept the truth would just hurt him and possibly even my relationship with God.
So I said, “One condition: As much as it depends on us, we do not disturb the peace and tranquility of any delicate ecosystems by shouting at one another, and some time you take my friends and family down to
Antarctica too. Oh, and another thing.”
“Yes?”
(I get the feeling that at this point I could have got him to agree to anything, absolutely anything.) “Oh forget it. I was going to say something like 'promise me we'll wait at least two years before we do anything really stupid like getting engaged.' but I might regret making you promise that.”
Exclusive. You read it here first. Comment section as mentioned, etc. etc. Laugh in a gentle way at anyone who didn't read to the end of the article, but don't give the last paragraphs away please.
(This article has been read and approved for publication by their Royal Highnesses prince Luke, prince Albert and princess Eliza, their majesties, and also by my mum and dad. Strangely, all of the above gave me a hug. No one else needs to.)
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NEW REPUBLICAN POST COMMENT SECTION, MON 3RD FEB
Ben10: Caroline likes tricking us.
RPCaroline: Caroline likes arguing, even with herself.
Ben10: But no report next week? Not even if we beg?
RPCaroline: Fly on wall report next week.... may include evidence of arguments.
HRHL: The good thing with arguing with yourself is you don't get proud about winning all the time.
Royalist1: We read all about it! Excellent!
LoyalSubject2: Thankyou, for everything. Brought tears to my eyes!
Sam24: No, no absolutely no way! Glad to hear you're definitely not dating.
Classic lines! Now HRHL's reaction last week makes a lot more sense.
LoyalSubject: Can we have joint publication next week too?
StableRule: Wow! Loved the bit on school uniforms, so apparently trivial but not. There's so much we just take for granted. Praise God our government is in safe pairs of hands. And God bless you, Caroline.
Royalist3: Skimmed the last bit, school uniforms onward, trying to find out what the projectarticle is actually about/. Do you actually say? So you don't like his Royal Highness, you don't need to grind everyone's face in it.
Scooby: Snigger. R3, you really need to read the bit you skimmed.
Royalist3: Now everyone in the office is laughing at me.
StableRule: Everyone everywhere is laughing at you. Joint publication again, please?
RPEditor: Joint publication of fly-on-wall series might be possible.
Depends what Royalist management/accountants say. Much bigger investment of journalist-time per article.
Royalist2: Royal correspondents here want to know how long we need to keep quiet?
Royalist3: Humbly wipes egg off face. I deserved laughter. Wonderful piece! Problem with joint publication under control of another paper, the editor's the last to know things! R1, R2, stop reading comments and start writing before others get wind of this.
RPEd: I'll start fighting accountants.
RPCatherine: Alternative suggestion: discount trial subscription to Royalist readers?
Scooby: Join in the fun, support our favourite authors. Reasonable rates!
RPEditor: StableRule? LoyalSubjects? 24 hour tempter available, here.
Ben10: LS2, just realised you didn't see Caroline's article on case, or did you?
LoyalSubject2: Was forwarded complimentary copy, thank you. RPEd, and thank you for honesty, and arranging royal pardon, Caroline.
StableRule: Just signed up for one day tempter, will let you know.
LoyalSubject: Hey, Royalist, why nothing on pardon and circumstances? Wondered how LS2 had posting rights restored.
StableRule: Hey, I get complete historic copies? Wow! There goes the housework.
Ben10: Paid subscription gets to read / search the comments too. Carpets!
HRHE: Carpets to you too, Ben. How's your back?
Ben10: Much recovered, thank you.
StableRule: Eh?
Scooby: In-group reference. Catherine does good side-line in advising on constitutional issues and carpet choice. Pea-flicking/hair-pulling happened on one such occasion.
Ben allergic to carpets and hurt his back moving floor-tiles. Some of us put too much of our lives into these comments. Me included. But this article should be tagged 'best frock', surely?
RPEditor: Certainly not, best frock is ancient history. New tag: AntarcticTrip
RPCaroline: Love you too, Dad. Thanks for support friends.
Scooby: (really pushing luck) If we're friends, does that mean we get to come on friends and family trip??
RPCaroline: Probbably no space. Certainly no promises.
HRHL: Mum/Dad ideas?
HRHE: Will discuss borrowing something much bigger with Atlantis, else really uncomfortable with more than 10. Security check up etc. will be needed of course. Mer will insist: no sharks/oathbreakers.
Ben10: Very grateful you're even considering it, Maam. Definitely something to tell grandkids (if/when).
NWNTony: Congratulations! Missed article when it first came out. Expect some free advertising from us.
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ARTICLE IN NATION WIDE NEWS, MON 3RD FEB
Surprise Royal announcement by our Royal Correspondent team.
Hot on the heels of the announcement of Prince Matthew and Heather Findhorn-Bunting that they didn't mind being seen together holding hands, the New Republican Post and Royalist today contain a third jointly published article (link) that brings together the future happiness of another young couple: Prince Luke and (convinced republican!) Caroline Wyatt.
In today's article, as two weeks ago, Caroline Wyatt (journalist at the Post) interviews Prince Luke; last week it was the other way round.
Today's interview consists of him convincing her to help him guide an unnamed piece of legislation through the checks and balances that make a law workable, and eventually her being confronted with the necessary high-level clearance form. The legislation is almost certainly related to treaty negotiations to do with Heather Findhorn-Bunting's research into the folding of space, in which some of the country's top quantum computing experts from our top-secret interception centre will be asked to analyse the top-secret physics of the Mer antigravity drive.
Mostly the published article seems to be a direct transcript of their conversation which ranges from school uniforms to an ancient filing system kept at the palace. To some of his answers, interjections and questions she gives some background in which she starts off insisting that she and Prince Luke are definitely not dating, and indeed that it would be mad for a prince and a republican to get together. Later on, we learn that the topic of their feelings for one another has been a matter of family discussions in recent weeks, despite her protestations that she's not interested.
We eventually learn she has three remaining 'objections' to entering the relationship: it would mean renouncing a non-existant life-goal, it would mean accepting that a convinced republican can fall for a prince, and it would mean totally failing to hurt a man she rather likes.
Clearly it is this middle one that is the only hard one for her and it is not logic that overcomes it but a combination of her desire not to hurt him again, and her realisation that by denying the truth about her feelings she's also damaging her relationship with God.
The reported interview ends with her implicitly agreeing that she will be his girlfriend (or betrothed?), and in the final explanation it is clear that she is not just thinking of their relationship as short-term. Based on a postscript, it appears that they kept this agreement a secret from family members until the article was written (or probably, transcribed direct from a recording and annotated), and the clear implication is that parents and grandparents are pleased for the happy couple.
Obviously, this implies either that Miss Wyatt's republican tendencies are accepted by the royal family as in no way threatenning the status quo, or they anticipate that as she learns more of the realities of leadership she will realise the truth of the adage that rule is something it is best to be born to.
It is worth noting that in last week's installment of this short series she stated “Royalty is enormously hard work, I realised last week, and I am not looking for some handsome prince to come and sweep me off my feet into what looks very like bonded servitude to my eyes.”
Obviously, despite her early exposure to a number of different courts through her mother's travels, Caroline has not been very aware of what happens in the day-to-day running of our country, and her thoughts are still in flux. Today she did not raise a single objection on these grounds.
Perhaps her objections have been overruled? Or is it merely that she has indeed, been swept off her feet by her handsome prince, and no longer minds the thought of hard work?
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CELESTIA II, MARS TRANSIT ORBIT, TUES 4TH FEB
[Hi Maggie! Have I picked a good time?]
[Hi Mum, for once, yes, you have!]
[Excellent. Any news up there?]
[Urm, run of the mill boring spaceflight, really. Lessons, chat, lessons, exercise, chat, more lessons. Except my seedlings are doing really well.]
[Congratulations. Are you the only one doing that?]
[Growing in transit? No, about a third of us.]
[I don't suppose anyone there gets the New Republican Post or the Royalist sent on to them do they?]
[Not so I know.]
[I hope you weren't ever interested in prince Luke.]
[Luke? Far too argumentative and point scoring for me. Someone's taking him on?]
[Caroline staunch republican Wyatt.]
[Wow. I think I met her once or twice, she's more Matthew's age, isn't she?]
[Yes.]
[And they're sort of taming each other?]
[Seems like it. She's been writing for the Post — and not just because she's family, either, by the looks of it. But yes... she's mellowed in the last few weeks and she's also managing to get Luke — she called him His Royal Highhorsedness last week — to come down off his high horse and be a bit more forgiving. I still expect some fireworks, of course.]
[I like the designation. I remember why I know her name — she wrote an article for the school newspaper about why Mars probably wouldn't become a servant-monarchy or a presidential republic in our lifetimes, but why a presidential republic would be better than a servant-monarchy.]
[Oh? That must have been a while ago.]
[I guess four years ago. Say 'hi' from me if you get in contact. I expect she remembers my reply.]
[What did you reply to it, Maggie?]
[I seem to remember I said that the good thing about servant monarchy was that while it took into account human sinfulness it was at least modeled on Christ, but the Christian version of republicanism was based much more on the idea that a mob dominated by unrepentant sinners was more ameanable to God's control than hidden processes in the womb. And I wasn't really convinced.]
[I don't know if comparing miracles is the best idea, love.]
[Me neither, but I didn't think it was a bad argument either. Someone is going to choose the leader of the state. I'd rather leave it in the handsnof God.]
[Doesn't that suggest we should draw lots?]
[Hmm. I wonder what Luke would think of that idea: him or Matthew...]
[And if Yvette's going to be equally my daughter as you, love, should you draw lots over who gets GemSmith?]
[I'd rather you prayed about it mum.]
[I have, I am doing, and I will. She's saying it's not right for you to give up so much.]
[So much hassle, so many sleepless nights....]
[I get more sleepless nights from the clan and you know it. And as a psyche-councellor, Yvette's going to have a much more significant income stream than you are.]
[You don't think marriage and children will distract her?]
[She had quite the argument with Kevin the other day. He triggered it by saying something idiotic like it being a waste to get a dress that fitted her waist so well when there were babies just round the corner. Fortunately she was able to just fume at him until they got back here, or the whole shopping centre would have heard. Fortunately, also, she did most of the most explicit screaming in Romani.]
[What did the neighbours think?]
[It gave me a great opportunity to talk about my new daughter, and her plans for university, and of course you going to study forcefields on Mars, like the proud mother I am.]
[Love you too, mum. Am I allowed to know what the neighbours heard, or is that gossip?]
[No babies until she's got her doctorate. And if he agrees to that then she'll relentlessly badger us to let them get married and even agree to doing all the cooking and cleaning, but if he wants babies sooner he needs to look for another woman.]
[That's an unexpected line from her.]
[It was, rather. We all knew she didn't mean it, and I advised them both that they shouldn't take the bit about cooking and cleaning as written in stone either, especially once there are babies in the house. Which got me a tongue-lashing for insulting her pride and honor and Kevin saying something about him having forgotten how much fun Yvette was to be around. He then quite deliberately tried to provoke another storm by asking her for a kiss.]
[Cue another long diatribe?]
[Actually, no. She turned to me, calm as calm could be and said, 'almost adopted mother, I've just been screaming some very stupid things at my future husband. I'm not going to demean myself and suggest he gets what he wants, but after what I said I don't want him to think I actually meant most of what I said and so I don't want John to chase him out of the house for suggesting such a thing. How should I totally convince him that I don't want him to go chasing after another woman?]
[What did you do?]
[I told them to sit down facing each other in the front room, and write a letter to each other about what they thought the other person expected their marriage to look like. And then swap sheets of paper.]
[Isn't that something people do in marriage preparation?]
[Yes, dear. Yvette is entirely in love with him, going through a lot of stress with, well, her last few months, and that turns into a short fuse. And culturally she doesn't have many options about how to express her love for him which is yet another stress.]
[Do I remember something about dresses?]
[Yes, there's a cultural thing about her making some.]
[Why don't you suggest that she makes another one or two? Or even make him something, if that's not crossing taboos. Or even better, since she's going to be your daughter, some jewelery?]
[For her wedding day?]
[Or just for the fun of driving him nuts. I caught him thinking about her earrings.]
[He likes them?]
[She was off limits, and I wasn't her and he wasn't going to think about how lovely I'd look if I had ear-rings like she did.]
[That sounds like a very good plan, dear, thank you.] Sarah said.
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