ONE

"Do you think we'll see any treecats?"

Adrienne Michelle Aoriana Elizabeth Winton, Crown Princess of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, sounded considerably younger than her twenty-one T-years as she looked out the window and asked the question over her shoulder.

Lieutenant Colonel Alvin Tudev smiled at her wistfulness and wondered if she even knew she'd revealed it. He suspected she did, and a part of him felt sadly flattered by the probability. It was not something she would have let anyone else hear, but the King's Own Regiment, supported by the Palace Guard Service, provided the royal family's bodyguards, and the lieutenant colonel had commanded the Heir's security force since she turned eleven. He knew she regarded him as a sort of favored uncle. It was a relationship he treasured, and not simply—or even primarily—because he was ambitious to rise to the very top of his chosen profession. Princess Adrienne was an easy person to love, he thought, and then felt his smile fade, for there was more than one reason she had allowed herself to feel so close to him. Her estrangement from her father had been carefully concealed by both the Palace staff and the Star Kingdom's news services, but nothing about any member of the House of Winton was a secret from Alvin Tudev.

Including the Heir's bitter loneliness.

"I don't know, Your Highness," he said after a moment. "They say 'cats are pretty elusive. And the Forestry Service is enormously protective where they're concerned."

"I know." Adrienne sighed. "Daddy . . . discussed that with me last night. He doesn't much like the Forestry Service."

"I know." Tudev agreed. "But should you be confiding that to me, Your Highness?" he added in a gentler tone.

"What? The fact that fighting with each other is all Daddy and I still have in common? Or the fact that we'd fight all the time instead of just each time we happen to meet if he gave a big enough damn about me to bother?" Adrienne turned, and the wistfulness had vanished. The young woman who faced Tudev now looked much older than her years, not younger, and her brown eyes were filled with mingled sadness and bitter maturity. "It's not as if you don't know all about all of us already, Alvin. So if I can't discuss it with you, who can I discuss it with?"

"I don't know that you ought to be discussing it at all, Your Highness. I'm honored that you trust my discretion, but you shouldn't say things like that to anyone. Like it or not, you're the second most important political figure in the Star Kingdom . . . and you can't afford to be wrong about who you trust to respect your confidence."

"Because, of course, the public's perception of the tender relationship between the King and his beloved daughter must be maintained at all costs, mustn't it?" Adrienne said with such cold, quiet savagery that Tudev winced.

"Adrienne," he said after a moment, dropping the "Highnesses" he was usually careful to maintain, "I can't answer that." He smiled sadly. "I don't know the right answer . . . and even if I thought I did, it wouldn't be proper—or wise—for me to give it to you. I'm an Army officer, not a political advisor. My loyalty is to the Constitution, the Crown, and the Heir, in that order, and it's not my place to agree or disagree with all the decisions my duties make me privy to. And, unfortunately, my loyalty as the commander of your protection detail is to Crown Princess Adrienne, not just Adrienne the person. Which means it's definitely not my place to have an opinion on how the PR types should portray the relationship between you and His Majesty."

"I know." Adrienne turned back to the window, looking out across the palace grounds at the bulk of King Michael's Tower, and sighed heavily. "I'm sorry, Alvin. I shouldn't put you on the spot by asking you things like that. It's just—" She cut herself off, still gazing out the window, then drew a deep breath. "At any rate, I take it you're satisfied with the arrangements for the trip?"

"Yes, Your Highness." Tudev was relieved to return to a less excruciatingly private subject, though he was careful to keep his gratitude out of his voice. He watched the ramrod-straight back of his future Queen for a moment, then nodded to himself. Perhaps there was one thing he could do for this lonely young woman without intruding (officially, at least) into affairs which were no business of a serving officer.

"Ah, there is one point," he said, and Adrienne turned from the window once more at the odd note in his voice. "We still haven't resolved that small scheduling conflict," he told her.

"Scheduling conflict?"

"Don't you remember, Your Highness? The Yawata Crossing Chamber of Commerce wants you for a ribbon cutting for a new residential tower, but Twin Forks has put in a request for you to visit there and dedicate the new SFS admin wing on the same afternoon." Adrienne cocked a questioning eyebrow, and he frowned. "I'm sorry, Your Highness. Didn't Lady Haroun bring this up with you?"

"Refresh my memory, please, Colonel Tudev," she suggested, and he shrugged.

"I got copies of the original memos of request kicked down to me as your detail commander through Army channels, Your Highness. According to the header, Lady Haroun and Palace PR received copies at the same time. I assumed they would have informed you," he added blandly, "and as the CO of your protection detail, I thought I might save a little time by seeking clarification on the final decision directly from you. It's important that we know your schedule as far in advance as possible so that we can be certain all the necessary security measures are in place, you know."

"I see." Adrienne regarded him gravely, but her eyes began to twinkle. Nassouah Haroun, her appointments secretary, had most emphatically not mentioned the Twin Forks request when planning began for the state visit to Sphinx . . . and neither had anyone else. Which wasn't at all surprising, she thought, given her father's attitude towards the Sphinx Forestry Service and treecats in general. Like Nassouah, most of the Palace staff knew only too well how His Majesty would have reacted to the idea of his daughter going anywhere near the Forestry Service's planetary HQ, that hotbed of pro-'cat sympathy. In fact, Tudev was taking a considerable risk even mentioning the request. In fairness to her father (which was something Adrienne was aware that it had become increasingly hard for her to be), he hated the use of political power to reward sycophants or punish people who demonstrated independence. That made it unlikely he would demand Tudev's resignation . . . but it wasn't at all unlikely that he would have the lieutenant colonel removed from his present post if he discovered who'd mentioned Twin Forks to Adrienne. No doubt the request for Tudev's replacement would be carefully worded so as not to sound like an order to summarily squelch any further promotions, but it would certainly be seen as such by Tudev's superiors, however it was phrased. It was possible the Army would ignore the implications anyway; it was far more likely that he would be "encouraged" to take early retirement and end his career as a lieutenant colonel.

Then again, there's no particular reason anyone ever has to discover where the information came from—or how, at least, she told herself. One of her few prerogatives as Heir was the right to choose between conflicting events when scheduling official visits. It wasn't used very often simply because it was virtually unheard of for an Heir to know when conflicts arose. No one person could have kept up with all the requests that came in—that was why Adrienne had an appointments secretary and why Nassouah had the fifth largest staff in Mount Royal Palace—and the Princess seldom cared enough about her schedule to get actively involved in working it out. It was far easier to let Lady Haroun worry about the details and simply tell her where they were going when the time came.

But Elizabeth I had specifically granted her son Michael control over his own itineraries as her heir, and it had become an established tradition of the royal family. Not even her father could have denied that . . . not that she intended to mention this particular decision to him until it was too late for him to try to deny it. And Tudev had phrased his revelation carefully. She could testify under oath that he'd "let it slip" as a routine request. She knew him too well to think he would lie about it to his superiors if anyone asked him specifically how it had come out, but she also knew no one would ask him a thing if she'd already given her version of events. The word of the Crown Princess of Manticore was not questioned. If she said it had been a slip, then it had been a slip, and that was all there was to it unless her father himself demanded answers.

And he won't do that, she thought with a familiar ache of hurt and loss. He would never, ever do anything that could raise questions about my actions. After all, I'm going to be Queen someday. It would never do to give anyone any cause to question the sacred honor of the House of Winton! 

She suppressed the pain and smiled at Tudev.

"Oh, yes. That conflict," she told him. "I was thinking we'd go to Twin Forks, Colonel. It's smaller and more intimate than Yawata Crossing. Besides, I was in Yawata just five months ago . . . and I believe Father will be there in about three months, as well."

"Very good, Your Highness. I'll add it to the Alpha List."

The Alpha List, as Adrienne knew, was the real itinerary for her visit to Sphinx. As a routine precaution, only Tudev and his immediate superior, Brigadier Hallowell, CO of the King's Own Regiment of the Royal Army, would have access to the Alpha List until just before she departed for Sphinx. Not even Lady Haroun would know exactly what was on it, and there were several lists of other potential sites for her visit. Full-dress security arrangements would be made at every one of them, but most would be decoys. The practice had been adopted ten T-years ago, immediately after Adrienne's mother's death, as an additional security measure.

That thought brought its own fierce, eye-burning stab of anguish, but she let no sign of it show. She'd become quite skilled at hiding the hurt.

"Thank you, Colonel Tudev," she said, and smiled at him.