The Prime Minister found himself more than a little surprised when the Queen appeared at the Royal hospital; she approached him while he was standing near one of the patients, the undersecretary for the minister of Education. “My Queen, I didn’t expect you today, I thought you were visiting the commons.”

“They were injured today, of course I’m going to see them today. The hospital here is better, so I thought I should see those who are worse off, first.” I answered him and held out my hand. I expected him to shake it, but instead he took a knee and kissed my royal ring.

Did I mention how I despise the way humans are so easily manipulated by cost free virtues? This goes double for the people who are so hypocritical about it. They talk about virtues and the common man, even in the Empire, that was unquestionably the case. And if you openly put the poor first in things that cost nothing, they’ll praise you as a saint while not doing the same thing themselves.

Of course with these men, there might be a few cunning minds who would understand that I was now being forced to play a political game. My age though, not to mention my sex, would work in my favor. This is still the early twentieth century. Women couldn’t even vote yet in this country in my world until nineteen twenty-eight. They still couldn’t do so here, and work options were few, options of all kinds were few.

That meant I’d be underestimated a lot, long after people should know not to do so. I saw no reason to disabuse anyone of any notion that would definitely work out in my favor. I am the personification of horror and despair, but if people want to think of me as a delicate rose, they’ll never see the thorns I hit them with until it’s far too late.

“How are you all holding up? I’m so sorry this happened to you on what should have been a great day… barely a week in the Commonwealth, and already someone tries to take my life again, and they got you instead.” I shook my head, “What monsters would do this?”

The minister of education, he looked like his profession, thin, wiry, a bushy mustache and a gaunt face with deepset brown eyes and graying hair, I could easily see him in the Empire smacking a chalkboard with a pointing stick.

“My Queen… we’re holding up, the food isn’t so bad, and we’re expected to recover, all of us… I’m eager to get back to work…” He coughed, and the Prime Minister reached for a glass and a pitcher, poured him some water, and held it out to the bedridden man.

“I’ve taken the opportunity to… discuss, certain things with them.” David said to me as he rose to his feet. “They are ‘amenable’ to the idea of forming a new party. Starting with an antiwar stance, and building on the social welfare platform, something like our Liberal party but more robust, less concerned with the Irish question and more with stabilizing the Empire for the long term. We need a shift in focus, something your… unique position and ability to reach out to another power will be of great help with.” The Prime Minister was not the sort of man to waste time. He had a captive audience, and he used it.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“It’s better for you to focus on your recovery first.” I said to the surrounding beds, “But what he said is true. This is my home now, and I don’t want it to burn. And if we do keep fighting, then it’s true, I have friends across the channel, I don’t want the places I grew up in to burn either. If I can make a favorable peace, I’ll do it, and then after that, we should have some room in the budget to increase our strength at home.”

I have to say, sometimes I even impress myself. My hobbies always seem to come in handy, I knew enough about this era to know that the casualties from war would be so vast, so high, that it would decimate an entire generation. Not only in the Empire, but also here in ‘not England’. These vast deaths would create openings that would eventually be exploited by a young Adolf Hitler, who was no doubt still just a common soldier in the Empire right now. Populists would gain support of the people and move into positions that the slaughtered class used to go for.

Ultimately it would lead to the second world war, and even if I survived this one, could I survive ‘that’ nightmare? Knowing Being X, he would already plan for me to test atomic weapons or something.

I wasn’t going to let that happen, and the intended societal collapse in the Empire had to be prevented at all costs, and it had to be prevented here too. If I want to live a leisurely life, I can’t have the world on fire around me. That would be the exact opposite of fine. And because I had the advantage of knowing some of the mistakes that my world made, I could navigate around most of them here.

“But when you do, I’ll have some people to send to work for you, they may need some training… but I believe most of them are going to lose their old jobs when they can’t work properly. All training for these men will come out of my own funds, reading, writing, whatever they need. I’ll put my money where my mouth is.” I promised, “They’ll be the commons who were injured in the coronation. Who sheds his blood with me this day, is my brother.” I quoted the line as best I could recall it, “Isn’t that what the Shakespeare fellow said in his play, Henry V?”

A little inspiration is like salt on a dish, it makes it all the better, sentiment had less appeal to cynical politicians and ministers, but if that didn’t work, I’m one hundred percent sure that the prospect of loyal subordinates who were devoted to the goal of their leadership certainly counted for a lot.

“When will it be formalized, the party, I mean?” The Minister of Education asked. I’ll give this to the old man, he might have looked old and frail, but even without morphine in his veins, he was a tough old bird and got right to the point.

I looked up at the Prime Minister. “In the next few days, after the investigation is complete. Since we have the bodies, mostly intact, it shouldn’t be too hard to find out where they came from or who sent them.”

“That will be fine, then. But swords are forged by hitting when the iron is hottest. I arranged for invitations to be sent out to bring people to the palace so I could get to know them in person. They’ll probably be in your mail in the next day or two anyway, but consider this my personal invitation instead. I’ve never been a Queen before, but I intend, whatever happens, to do my best… and hopefully I don’t get anyone, or myself, killed in the process.” I gave them an encouraging, childish smile, something they could chalk up as brave and courageous, people liked seeing that in children, for some reason.

And it would make it that much easier to keep all of them loyal and right where they belonged.

Under my thumb.