"—and I'm very much looking forward to the Imperial Festival, my love."
Her voice changed abruptly, crisp decisiveness melting into cloying sweetness, and she gazed at Roger with soulful eyes.
"As am I," Roger said. His expression had frozen into an iron mask as the Empress' had changed to one of adoration. "It is about that time, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes, my dear," the Empress crooned. "What will you be wearing? I want to make sure we're simply the loveliest couple—"
"I'm not sure, yet," Roger interrupted calmly, gently. "But I think, Alexandra, that this meeting's gone on long enough, don't you?" He waved to one of the guards by the door. "Let me call your ladies in waiting. That way you can make yourself fresh and beautiful again," he added, glancing sideways at Catrone, who gave a brief nod of approval.
When the docile Empress had been led from the room, Roger stood and swept the people still seated around the conference table with eyes of emerald ice.
"Not a word," he said. "Not one pocking damned word. Meeting adjourned."
"Well?" Roger said, looking up from yet another of the endless reports floating in the holographic display above his desk. Decisions had to be made, and by default, he was making them, despite the fact that his mother had yet to define precisely what authority, if any, was his. Nobody was raising the issue, however.
Not more than once.
"It's a bad one," Catrone said.
His face was drawn, his eyes worried, as he sat down in one of the office's float chairs at Roger's wave.
"Really bad," he continued. "She's... changing. She's not asking for Adoula as much, not since we got the worst of the drugs scrubbed out of her system and told her he's gone off to his sector for a while. She still asking for New Madrid, but..." Catrone swallowed, and his face worked. "But not as often."
"What's wrong?" Roger asked.
"Christ, Your Highness," Catrone said in an anguished voice, dropping his face into his hands. "Now she's coming on to me! That bastard. That stinking bastard!"
"Pock!" Roger leaned back and grabbed his ponytail.
He stared at the older man for several seconds, then inhaled deeply.
"Tomcat, I know how hard this is for you. But you have to stay with her. You have to stay with us!"
"I will," Catrone said. He raised his head, tears running down his face. "If I leave, who knows what she'll latch onto? But, God! Roger, it's hard!"
"Be her paladin, Tomcat," Roger said then, his face set. "If needs be, damn it, be more than her paladin."
"Roger!"
"You just said it yourself. If you're not there for her, someone else will be. Someone who's not as good a man as you are. Someone I can't trust like you. Someone she can't trust like you. You're on this post until relieved, Sergeant Major. Is that understood? And you'll do whatever it takes to stand your post, Marine. Clear?"
"Clear," Catrone grated. "Order received and understood, and I will comply. You bastard."
"That I am." Roger grinned tightly. "Literally and figuratively. The last bastard standing. The flag of the Basik's Own wears a bar sinister proudly. We carried it across two continents, and to Old Earth, and into this very damned Palace, and we did anything necessary to complete the mission. Welcome to the Regiment. Now you know what it means to be one of us."
"And I think we should inform Mistress Tompkins that I'll need a new dress, don't you?" Alexandra said softly.
"Yes, Your Majesty," Lady Russell agreed.
They sat in a gazebo, watching cold rain fall beyond the force screen. Lady Russell was expertly sewing a tapestry, while the Empress mangled a needlepoint of a puppy in a basket.
"I'll never know how you do that so well," the Empress said, smiling politely.
"Years of practice, Your Majesty," Lady Russell replied.
"I'll have many years to practice—
"—two carrier squadrons to the Marduk System," Alexandra said, her face hard. "Given what Roger's said about—"
She stopped, and looked around, frowning.
"Where am I?" she asked in a voice which was suddenly cold and dead.
"The gazebo, Your Majesty," Lady Russell said softly, and looked at her half-fearfully. "Are you well?"
"I was in the conference room," Alexandra said tightly. "I was in a meeting!It was sunny!Where's the meeting?Where are the people?Why is it raining?"
"That—" Lady Russell swallowed. "Your Majesty, that was two days ago."
"Oh, my God," Alexandra whispered, and looked at the material in her lap. "What is this?"
"Needlepoint?" Lady Russell asked, reaching unobtrusively for her communicator.
"It's bloody awful, is what it is!" Alexandra spun the hoop across the gazebo. "Get me Sergeant Major Catrone!"
"Sit, Sergeant Major," Alexandra said, and pointed to the seat Lady Russell had vacated.
"Your Majesty," Tomcat said.
At Roger's order, Catrone had once more donned the blue and red of the Empress' Own, at his old rank of sergeant major. He wore dress uniform, and the golden aiguillette hanging from his shoulder indicated Gold Battalion, the personal command—and bodyguard—of the reigning monarch. Empress Alexandra VII, in this case.
"What happened in the meeting, Sergeant Major?" Alexandra rubbed her face furiously. "I was in the meeting, and then I was here, in the gazebo. What happened to me? Who's doing this to me?"
"First of all," Catrone said carefully, "no one is doing anything to you, Your Majesty. It's already been done."
She stopped rubbing and sat still, her hands still over her eyes, and he continued.
"Your Majesty, you have two mental states, as we've tried to explain to you before." He waved a hand at her. "This state. Alexandra the Seventh, Empress of the Empire of Man. Fully functional. As good a sovereign as I've ever served. Twice the sovereign her father ever was."
"Thank you for the soft soap, Tomcat," Alexandra said mockingly, eyes still covered. "And my other... state?"
"The other," he said even more carefully, then paused. "Well, Your Majesty, in the other you're... pliable. You still occasionally ask for your 'good friend,' the Earl of New Madrid, and refer to Prince Jackson as 'Our loyal Prince Jackson.'"
"Oh, God," she said.
"Do you really want it all?" Catrone asked. "Face facts, Your Majesty. You're still in a pretty delicate condition."
"I want it all." She sighed, lowering her hands at last. Then her face firmed, and she met his eye levelly. "All. What happened?"
"In your other state—"
"What do you call that?" she interrupted. "If you call... this one Alexandra. Do you call it Alexandra, Tomcat?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," he said firmly. "This is the Empress Alexandra. The woman I gave my service to long ago."
"And the other?"
"Well," Catrone winced. "We just call it la-la-land. The doctors have a long technical name—"
"I can imagine," she said dryly. "Do I know I'm Empress?"
"Yes, Your Majesty." Catrone's swallowed. "But, frankly, we just ignore anything you tell us to do. You generally don't give any orders, though."