I wasn’t really sure how well that went over. Silence can mean a lot of things, but when the ships of the Empire began to turn around and make for our side of the channel, I think I saw relief come over the mob. There were hundreds of people out there, all clustered together. It reminded me of the shoddy militia of Arene City. I’m fairly sure that would come back to haunt me at some point. Still, I was legally defensible, arguably impregnable, so that wasn’t an issue under current law.

I’d get sidetracked if I kept thinking about that, so I left my position on the bow and went down the gangplank with Visha at my back at a ‘respectful’ two pace distance.

I held my hand out to the Prime Minister and looked up at him, he wasn’t quite the same as he was in pictures. “Tanya Degurechaff, Prime Minister George.”

He did a double take at me, and then went down on one knee and accepted my hand in the formal way of greeting a monarch, kissing my ring finger. I’d need a ring there eventually, I supposed.

“Long Live the Queen.” He said with reverence.

I wondered if the English were like this in every Universe.

“At ease, Prime Minister. Please, speak normally with me, for now, at least. There’s a lot to do, I’m sure, and mastering the formalities will have to wait until the urgent things are out of the way. That’s just common sense, isn’t it? And that’s a very Albionian virtue, as I recall.”

He rose to his feet and chortled, “Yes, Your Majesty, of course. I have a motorcar waiting to take you to the palace, if you have anything with you-”

“I don’t. I have only what you see on me, and of course. I never had much in the way of ‘things’ before, nothing I couldn’t leave behind.” I answered, and he seemed almost ‘shocked’ for some reason.

“I-I see. Then we should make haste.” He answered me and I walked beside him.

When we reached the rope, he lifted it with both hands and the guards began to line up on either side of us, they were good looking soldiers. Fit and tall, they also stood with perfectly replicated positions, each one with their feet shoulder width apart. Each one with their weapons held in the same exact positions.

“I knew the soldiers of the Commonwealth were good ones, but up close, even I’m impressed with their discipline.” I said while the crowd parted like the red sea, I knew I could be heard, but pretended only to be speaking casually to the Prime Minister as if nobody else were present.

Compliments are a good way to ingratiate yourself with people, at least when they’re doled out carefully. They work even better when people think you don’t know they’re listening to them.

Obviously there was no way I didn’t know they were there, but the fact that I was praising them to somebody else would still make it more impactful.

The car was black and had the flags of the commonwealth on all four corners, it was obviously expensive, polished to a shine that I could see my face in. “The royal guards are some of the best in the world.” He said as he opened the door for me.

I got in, followed by Visha and then himself, there was ample space for us all and we began to roll away. Pedestrians stopped to stare in my direction, cars were less widely used here than in the Republic, I assumed they rationed things better, putting everything into winning the war as fast as possible.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Not that it did them any good. Of course I also had to worry that the incident at sea would come back to haunt me… I was responsible, sort of, for the death of a few of their sailors. I wasn’t guilty of that either, I’d followed the law. But then again, so much was classified about that incident that I had to wonder if anyone in the Commonwealth even knew it was me. I wasn’t a named mage then. But even if they didn’t know it was me, it would be an obvious trap to get me to condemn the Empire retroactively to show my loyalty to the Commonwealth.

I had to start thinking about how to cope with that, and soon.

“Your Majesty,” the Prime Minister said as the car picked up speed, “may I ask, do you plan on changing your name to the proper name of the royal family?”

“I hadn’t.” I said, “My father gave my mother that name when they met, or so I’m told. And she gave me that name so he could find me one day. I can’t just ‘get rid of’ the names they chose. Besides, in the worst case scenario a few history students will be confused until they read the story later. Who knows, it might even make a good stage play one day. I know how those stories play in the Commonwealth.” I tried to be cheerful about it, it wasn’t that I deeply loved the name ‘Degurechaff’ after all it wasn’t even my real name as far as I was concerned.

But even so, it was now part of my identity, and you should never give up too much of yourself to a job. Besides, if I showed that little spine about something most people would balk at, I would lose all credibility at the outset and people would try to walk all over me.

“I see.” The Prime Minister answered, “Then will you compromise, add a middle name from their line into your own?”

In my world, Victoria died decades ago, in this one, her rule went on vastly longer, but even if she hadn’t died in the Hindenburg, she could have died at any moment. “My father’s last name was ‘Albert’ wasn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes.” He answered.

“Then I will take his last name, I will be ‘Tanya Albert Degurechaff’. That will do, won’t it?” I asked. I could have dug in my heels, but there was no doubt in my mind that if I developed a reputation for bull headed stubbornness early on, it would make everything harder and even legitimate objections would be given less weight.

“That will do. Yes.” He answered me and seemed quite pleased, if the little wiggle of his mustache was any clue. “Your father was widely loved, I think taking his last name as the middle will endear you to many people.”

“So what happens now?” I asked.

“You tour the palace, I introduce you to the staff, and arrange a coronation as fast as possible. The armistice is not going to last forever and if no treaty is signed, the hawks like Churbull will try to force us to return to the fight.” He answered, and of course that said a great deal to me. Most people in the Empire thought that the Prime Minister was fully behind the war.

Maybe at one point he had been, but the fact that he didn’t say ‘like me’ but rather identified this world’s version of Winston Churchill, suggested he’d changed his mind.

“And where do you stand on the war?” I asked.

“I favor peace. War is a stupid, destructive thing that shouldn’t be waged unless absolutely necessary. This was not.” He answered with finality.

If he was lying to me, I sure couldn’t tell, clearly Visha was as surprised as I, based on her briefly dropped jaw.

“Prime Minister, I believe we’re going to get along famously. Every coin spent on bombs to kill strangers is one less coin spent making good roads, building new industries or expanding existing ones. Every coin spent on bullets is one not spent on feeding those who are going hungry. War is a senseless source of destruction that creates nothing. If it has to be waged, it has to be ended quickly, and if it can’t be ended quickly, it shouldn’t be waged at all. I believe we are confederates.” I needed allies here, and on finding someone who agreed with me about the senseless stupidity of war, I wasn’t going to let someone so useful slip away from me.

So I held out my hand to him again.

This time he shook it. But what he said next, caught me by surprise. “My Queen, I believe you’ve just named a new political party.”