“I don’t believe it,” she said. “The king would have to be absolutely insane to take such a chance.”
Kat held up a hand before he could say a word. “It was the king and his father who founded and nurtured the Commonwealth. It was the king who pressed for greater military preparation before the war, even though Parliament was reluctant to spend money on our defenses; it was the king who insisted that the colonies be defended too, even if it probably prolonged the war. It was the king who stated that we should help the occupied worlds rebuild, after the war; it was the king who fought to keep warships in the liberated sector, despite Parliament’s constant attempts to withdraw the fleet. It was the king . . .”
She felt an odd pang of . . . something. “It was the king who also saved my career, after Justin Deveron tried to ruin it. And he put me on the Privy Council, after my father died . . .”
“A move that might have separated you from your family,” William pointed out.
“My father was on the Privy Council until his death,” Kat reminded him. “And he was never separated from the family.” She took a breath. “And I know Hadrian. I’ve known him since we were both children. And I believe he means well.”
“A person can do a great deal of harm in the belief they’re doing the right thing,” William said quietly. “Kat . . . the king may mean well. But he’s created a disaster.”
“If you’re right,” Kat said. “William, what if you’re wrong?”
William leaned back in his chair. “We’ll see what happens when we reach Tyre,” he said. “But am I the only one to wonder why he ordered you to bring the fleet home?”
“He doesn’t know who to trust,” Kat said. “And he’s not wrong. You can’t trust anyone in High Society.”
William lifted his eyebrows, again. “Even you? Or the king?”
Kat snorted. “We were both odd ducks,” she said. “He was going to be the king and everyone knew he was going to be the king, while I was the tenth child and everyone knew I would never be anything important. That’s why I ran away to the navy.”
William frowned. “How close were you?”
“Not that close,” Kat assured him. “We weren’t best friends, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“You make High Society sound wonderful,” William said, dryly.
“My father once said that if you wanted a friend in High Society, get a dog. Or a pony.” Kat laughed, although she knew it wasn’t really funny. There was too much truth in it for anyone’s peace of mind. “There are few true friends in High Society. Everyone knows that everyone else will betray them if they see advantage in doing so. A person who is shunned for a social crime like addressing a haughty dowager by the wrong title wouldn’t commit a harmless little prank like murder, you know. If you grow up there, you develop a warped view of the world.”
“You seem normal,” William teased.
Kat snorted, loudly. “Do you realize how many mistakes I made in my first year at Piker’s Peak? Not the classic mistakes, but social mistakes? A lot of things I’d taken for granted simply weren’t so. My supervisor gave me a very hard time. And I never quite realized . . .”
She shook her head. “The point is, I like the king,” she said. “And I find it hard to believe that he would commit treason on such a vast scale.”
“Yeah,” William said. He didn’t sound convinced. “But how many people will agree with you?”
CHAPTER FORTY
TYRE
William didn’t see Kat for several days after their dinner. He might have wondered, if she had been someone else, if she was avoiding him, but he knew that was unlikely. And yet . . . He knew their discussion had been difficult. He replayed the conversation time and time again in his head, wondering what, if anything, he should have said differently. But he knew obsessing was futile.
He understood her belief that the king was innocent, better perhaps than she realized. But he also had far more experience in dealing with younger officers than she did. He’d seen more than one junior officer struggle desperately to avoid admitting that they’d made a mistake, or they’d come up with a perfectly reasonable explanation that no longer sounded quite so reasonable. The king had always struck him as a junior officer who was in way over his head and, to some extent, on the verge of drowning. And junior officers were the ones who would come up with the most unbelievable plans that would fall apart immediately when they encountered the real world.
In truth, the whole concept of monarchy frightened him. The aristocracy was bad enough, although the aristocrats had to battle for supremacy; the monarchy allowed its heir to inherit without proving his worth, let alone his competence. That much power in the hands of an untested man? It was like giving a battlecruiser to a midshipman fresh out of the academy, the sort of thing that might be amusing if you weren’t charged with cleaning up the mess afterwards. He’d worried about Kat’s competence, and she’d been in the navy more than long enough to pick up the basics.
He was still mulling over the problem when Violence and her consorts returned to realspace, near Tyre. The thought of returning to the Commonwealth’s homeworld didn’t excite him—he had a feeling he’d be answering questions for months to come, even though he hadn’t been directly involved with collecting evidence—but Tanya was delighted.
