Admiral (2 page)

I nodded. "Yes, Your Majesty. And for what it's worth, I agree." 

"This conflict has gone on for much too long—exploration and colonization have slowed to a relative trickle. We can't go on fighting each other, David. Not if we're to fulfill whatever our first, best destiny might be as a species. Or a group of cooperative species, rather." He grinned.

"Yes, Your Majesty," I agreed, grinning back. In two weeks James was going to publicly announce the end of all slavery in the kingdom, with me standing right alongside him. The Proclamation wouldn't take full effect for three years, though the slaves would instantly be granted certain limited rights. In fact, the reason I was so busy lately was because there were about eleventy-million and fourteen legal, social and financial details that had to be worked out, and I'd sort of de facto become a leading expert in what Rabbits and the rest could and could not be expected to handle for themselves right away. Though I had to spread my attention very thinly between them, I was currently serving on twenty-three different commissions dealing with the so-called "manumission problem". If there wasn't still an Empire to defeat, I was beginning to realize, helping James deal with the problems inherent in ending slavery would be enough to fill my plate to the brim for the rest of my life.

"I've been very impressed with your non-military work to date, David." He smiled. "Which surprises me not in the least." He tilted his head to one side, looking at me curiously. "Do you think it's something you'd like to stick with after the war's over? Incorporating Rabbits and the rest into society, I mean."

I nodded. "So far, it's very rewarding. And I have to admit that I'm sort of… Uniquely qualified."

James grinned. "Good. Because that's exactly what I want from you, in the long run at least. But for the moment… You may recall that I was just complaining about a Lord begging to be raised to a Dukedom. I said that I felt honors should go to those who earn them."

"James—" I tried to interrupt, suspecting I knew where my sovereign was going and not liking it at all.

But he spoke right over me, and his words took me by surprise. "Take your friend Captain Parker, for example." He smiled. "His cruise in
Javelin
was pretty successful, wouldn't you say?"

I nodded—he'd taken or destroyed over sixty merchantmen and wiped out four entire convoy escorts, one of them a force considerably greater than that of his own command.

"You'd already petitioned me to knight him even before this cruise, in my role as the House Lord of Marcus." James put his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers. "What would you say he's earned
now
?"

I blinked. "A Peerage, perhaps?"

James nodded. "I agree. Lord Josiah it shall be. Another commoner makes good." He smiled. "And, how about Nestor? Who's proven every bit as brave as you have, physically at least. What about him?"

If Rabbits were to become equal citizens, I supposed, well… There was no better way to make the point than to ennoble one. And Nestor deserved the honor. "A knighthood?"

"I thought so too at first," James replied. "Then I learned that he's covering half your commission meetings for you, and proving a very able replacement indeed." He sighed and shook his head. "I hate to split up such a perfect team, David. And I won't, until this business with the Imperials is finished. But I don't have half enough bunnies with real brains and qualifications to go around, and when the war's finally over he's going to have to begin taking responsibility and leading in his own right. I intend to make him a Peer of the Realm as well, to give him the social status he'll need in his new role." He looked away. "We ourselves had to go our own ways when the time came, David. I'm sorry that Nestor now must do so as well. But duty is a more terrible slavemaster than any other—surely you realize this."

"Lord Nestor," I replied slowly. It had a certain ring to it, I had to admit. And far be it from me to hold my friend back—I'd told him many times over that he was too capable to be a mere steward. Then I grinned. "Would you please tell him when I'm around to see his face?"

"Of course," James replied, looking about twelve years old behind his own grin. Then his features sobered. "And you, David? If these others have earned peerages, what do
you
deserve? Keeping in mind, of course, that neither of the others would've gotten anywhere without you?"

Suddenly my own smile was gone. "I… Uh…"

"I've spent hours thinking about it, David. Hours on end, day after day and week after week. So have the rest of my personal staff—it's not an insignificant matter, given your stature. Especially among the Rabbits." He sighed and shook his head. "In the end, we found no fully satisfactory answer."

A breath I hadn't realized I was holding escaped from my lungs. "Sire, I'd prefer that nothing at—"

"No, David!" he cut me off, grinning again. "It's not going to be that easy. Just because we were unable to find a satisfactory answer doesn't mean that we didn't find any answer at all." He rose to his feet and looked me directly in the eye. "You're my brother, David, in every way that really matters. In the beginning, some of we Marcus's found that a bit embarrassing. But I never, ever did. Nor did Uncle Robert, once he got to know you. We always planned to move you up as high in the family structure as we possibly could, given the handicaps we knew you were working under."

I nodded. "For a while, you were considering making me an estate manager."

"Yes," he replied, still meeting my eyes. "But that was long ago, before any of us even dreamed that you…" He looked away, but only for an instant. "Anyway… You've risen high and fast, David. There's only one proper place for you, and that's at my side. I won't Command you to do this—it wouldn't be right. And I won't accept an answer for at least forty-eight hours. But… Commodore David Birkenhead, Friend of the House of Marcus and my brother, will you permit me to create a new office for you? I wish to name you the first-ever Prince of the Realm, with the special responsibility of acting as Lord Protector for all of my non-human subjects. And before you tell me you won't, I'd like you to ask yourself something. If
you
don't represent and protect the interests of the ex-slaves, then who shall?"  

2

Forty-eight hours might sound like a long time to make a simple decision, and apparently to those who wouldn't actually be stuck wearing the crown the answer was obvious. "It'd be for the good of us all," Uncle Robert declared when I asked his advice. This wasn't too surprising, since he was one of the Royal advisors who'd made the recommendation to begin with.

"It's the only way to match your actual, real-world power and influence to your social rank," Professor Lambert replied. "I don't think there's any other workable solution, save for you to retire from public life entirely. But you're too young for that, David. And we still need you far too badly." 

Nestor, of course, simply started calling me "Your Highness" and bowed and scraped every chance he got while we were alone together. Though he did also suggest a book on the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who'd divided the leadership of Rome four ways and thereby, along with the help of other reforms, brought about an amazing rebirth of what'd been a decaying corpse. In fact, had there been any justice in the universe and if Machiavelli hadn't been so fundamentally correct about humans and the pursuit of power his actions might well have preserved the Empire for another thousand years. "Diocletian faced a lot of the same problems we do, sir," Nestor explained as he handed me his battered old reader. "His Empire was large and ungainly and internally divided as well. Perhaps it's for the best on more levels than are obvious."

It was the book that decided me in the end. That and the fact that soon I'd be negotiating for all practical purposes face-to-face with the Emperor himself. If I was going to be empowered as James's alter ego in such an important matter, then perhaps I needed to be titled accordingly. It was how these things were done in our culture, was all. Ending the war and all the mindless—and now largely purposeless—slaughter that accompanied it had to be the prime goal of any decent and intelligent being. If a crown would help me end it sooner—and in my heart I knew it would—then a crown it'd be, as much as I hated the life it'd force me to live. Besides, who
would
serve as Protector of the freed slaves if not me?

Maybe I could sort of abdicate somewhere down the road?

"Excellent!" James was grinning his best grin when he replied to my acceptance letter over our private link. "Gwendolyn and I had planned a private dinner for tonight, but... This is too big not to celebrate, David. En famile, at least. Would you and Nestor care to join us?"

I gulped, then decided that turning James down the first time he ever asked anything of me was a lousy way to get started as Prince of the Realm. "Sure," I answered. "We'll be there."

Nestor and I spend almost an hour sprucing up for the evening meal—we had to cancel a meeting with the Royal Council on Slave Species Empowerment, but my meals with James were important. Even if some were less pleasant than others.

"Don't you like Lady Gwendolyn, sir?" Nestor asked as he helped me into my uniform jacket. My host's fiancé had specifically asked me come in full naval regalia; she'd never seen me out of civvies before. "She seems like a pleasant enough sort."

Normally I made it a point to smile when Nestor made a correct guess as to my innermost workings. This time I did no such thing, however—not only because I wasn't even faintly in the mood but because he'd missed his mark by a mile. "She's charming," I answered honestly. "Intelligent, capable, not prejudiced at all that I can see... She'll make a great queen."

Nestor nodded and looked away—he'd told me once that he often guessed wrong on important matters, and that when he made a mistake he made it a point to figure out where he'd gone wrong. Since that was the
last
thing I wanted, I decided to offer a half-truth instead. "She's a very pleasant woman, Nestor, and I believe she'll make a fine match for James. Plus, she's a high-ranking Wilkes on her mother's side. It might be a good thing politically just now if the House of Wilkes felt that they had a stake in the success of James's reign. Her appearance is also said to be quite pleasing, though I'll leave that for the humans to judge. But..." I scowled theatrically. "Being around her puts me in a bad mood for other reasons entirely."

My aide's ears pricked up. "Really?"

I nodded back and sighed as he buckled on my Sword. "It's Frieda again," I explained, though I could've said much more. "James is younger than I am, you see—almost two full years. In the old days it didn't matter—he was in many ways the elder due to the differences in our circumstances and how much catching up I had to do in so many ways. And now here he's to be married soon, while I..." I looked away and sighed.

"I see," Nestor replied, his face suddenly grave. Then he looked away. "And I sympathize, for what it's worth."

"Of course," I replied with a smile. Of all the things Nestor and I had in common, this was perhaps the deepest and darkest. For his personal life—perhaps his very sexuality, for all I knew—had been ruined by the Masters just as thoroughly as had my own. Even more so, perhaps; while I at least had been granted a fleeting, immature glimpse of what love might be like, so far as I could tell his own romantic inclinations had been systematically degraded and ground away to nothing. Everyone in the universe seemed to follow our successes and triumphs, but I preferred to keep my failings to myself. Yet every time I attended a social function accompanied by Nestor instead of a wife I felt the unasked—perhaps even unthought, as I might well have been projecting—questions hanging thickly in the air. Even alone with James I felt awkward and somehow incomplete, and His Majesty was of course fully aware of the ultimate truth of the matter. In this one way—and this one way only—I resented my close relationship with Nestor. He was the mockery of a family, and despite all his noble efforts and the genuine sense of comradeship we shared he could never be anything more. Everything about my most personal life was toxic, and no one was more aware of it than I was.  First I envied James his chance for happiness, then I'd turn around and feel well-deserved guilt about resenting the fact that Nestor wasn't Frieda. Field theory was simple, I decided for about the ten millionth time. Feelings were
hard!

Or feelings were hard for
me
at least; apparently they were a little more transparent to others. For after what'd seemed to me like a perfectly nice little dinner with His Majesty and Gwen, complete with laughter and pleasant inanities and at Gwedolyn's polite request a full Sword-salute, James asked me to stay over and talk some more. "All right," he said, looking me in the eyes. "Something's bothering you about my fiancé. Spill."

I looked away. Nestor had never been out of my presence for a moment since I'd confided in him, so apparently my feelings were more obvious than I realized. "I like the woman well enough," I explained, my words unusually hesitant. "It's not her at all. James... I truly believe you've chosen well."

My blood-brother blinked—clearly he'd been expecting a different answer.

"I mean it!" I continued. "She even tries the Rabbit-dishes, and pretends to like some of them to make Nestor and I feel more at home. Almost no one else ever does that. She's sweet, intelligent, and clearly wild about you." I smiled faintly. "What more could I ask in a sister-in-law?"