1st September
12:23 GMT -2
King Orin blinks at me in confusion as I rise to my feet. And I
nearly miss his eyes flicking to his bodyguards. "Grayven. I'm afraid that if there's something you want to talk about it will have to wait. I'm due to meet the Venturian Ambassador and I really don't have the.. time…" He trails off as I produce my accreditation scroll. "Queen Clea sent
you?"
"Your Imperial Majesty, High King Orin of Poseidonis." I
anchor my feet to the palace floor and bow, left hand at my waist and right hand holding out the scroll. "I have the honour of having been instructed by Her Majesty Queen Clea of Venturia to serve as her representative, with the aim of normalising relations between your respective thrones."
His mouth opens slightly as he tries to work out a sensible response. A courtier whom I don't recognise swims forward and takes the scroll from me, then swims back to his monarch's side before opening it. I come erect as he checks it both visually and with a minor spell. "It's authentic, your majesty."
King Orin bows his head slightly. "Of course it is." He focuses his attention on me. "I doubt that Grayven would do something like this as a
prank. Ambassador Grayven, I recognise you as Queen Clea's representative to the Atlantean government. And I hope-." I shake my head. "Is there a problem?"
"King Orin, you know full well that I cannot accept that recognition. It has long been the position of Venturia that there is no such thing as the Atlantean government, merely an advisory body to the High King. I can hardly be a representative to a body that does not exist."
"This is why diplomacy with Venturia never gets anywhere." He swims past me to take his place at the head of the table. "Would you accept being recognised as Venturia's representative to my court?"
I bow my head. "But of course."
He reaches his chair and motions for me to be seated. "You understand that in the Atlantean order of precedence, it's an inferior position?"
"Inferior to one that doesn't exist? I think that unlikely."
He sits, and I do the same at a seat a little way to his left. Another
Atlantean -given the manner of her dress I'm going to assume that she's either some sort of minister or a high level aide- sits down opposite me.
King Orin leans forward slightly. "I remembering hearing from Superman that there was an Atlantean working at your daughter's school. You organised that?"
"Yes. They appeared to be confused by the differences between telepaths and parapsychics. I thought that having someone who knew a little more about magic than
well-meaning but ignorant American college teachers… Would be helpful. And I needed a source of literature for Miss Shimmer."
"And you couldn't come to Poseidonis?"
"I had just left the Team under something of a cloud. It seemed to me that going somewhere where the ruler wouldn't care about that made more sense. Queen Clea asked to speak with me…" I shrug.
"That was... April?" I nod. "I had wondered why the Venturian Senators started voting with me on foreign policy issues. I had hoped that it was an indication that Queen Clea might be willing to become less isolationist."
"It was really more… She switched from opposing you and yours in every way she could, to being willing to consider proposals on the basis of traditional authority. If you want to pursue a particular foreign policy objective, then that is your right as High King."
"And what does
she get out of it?"
"She hopes that you will agree not to interfere in the Venturian succession. She expects to die in the not-too-distant future and it's been weighing on her mind."
Orin frowns. "Proconsul Ptra of Aurania will succeed her. I certainly don't have any problem with that. If anything, I'd encourage her to reach out to her daughter sooner."
"Ah. No, your majesty. She won't."
His frown deepens. "What do you mean? Ptra is Clea's only child." He blinks, his brow smoothing. "Unless Clea's done what my mother did. Is there another heir somewhere that she's planning on introducing?"
"No-. At least, not to my knowledge. Under Venturian law, much like in the Roman Empire, the monarch appoints their successor. Usually it's the oldest child, but in theory she could name anyone. My knowledge of Venturian court politics is
imperfect, but my understanding is that the foremost candidate is her great nephew, Lord Cyprian."
Orin looks at the woman seated on his right. "Majistra, can she do that?"
Majistra looks more than a little concerned. "Legally, yes, but the understanding we had was that she would not."
"That was a very
one-sided understanding, then. I got the very clear impression that she'd been planning it for a while but was afraid of being invaded if she made a formal announcement."
"By Aurania?"
"No. By you." He looks surprised. "I'm afraid that after her altercation with your grandmother, Queen Clea became somewhat…" How can I put this politely..?
"Paranoid?"
I nod. "If you like. Where Poseidonis is concerned."
"Where my grandmother refused to let her execute all of her political opponents?"
I raise my left eyebrow. "That's not how the Venturians remember it. And -with all due respect, your majesty- you
need to understand this if you're going to get anywhere with them."
"Alright. Then how
do they remember it?"
"The dispute
starts with the marriage of Queen Clea to Proconsul Philo. The marriage contract states… Well, what it states is.. one of the things disputed."
"I can imagine. Did you read it yourself?"
"Yes. The wording.. seemed unclear, but I'm not an Atlantean lawyer. Queen Clea believes that it sets out that Venturian laws of inheritance would take precedence in the case of shared offices and titles. And the courtiers who survive from the time were certain that it was discussed in those terms
at the time. In Venturia, a couple rules together with neither one having authority over the other. If she died, he'd still be king. So, to keep things fair, they arranged things so that if
he died, she'd become Proconsul. Aurania's law of course works differently, and that's why they made sure to spell it out in the marriage contract."
"And the Auranian Senate accepted that?"
I shrug. "Passed with a majority. Which
should have meant that it became Auranian law. Except… Two years into the marriage, Proconsul Philo died. And that
didn't happen. The Auranian Council tried to impose Auranian succession tradition, which passes authority down to surviving children and not the surviving spouse. Ptra was a year old at the time. And given the
surprise of his death-."
"She decided to invade."
"She decided to declare martial law on a city
she already ruled, after the murder of her husband,
its Proconsul. It seemed clear to her that the people who benefited most from his death were the people who were trying to sideline her." I lean back slightly. "
Technically she shouldn't have done that, but I don't think it was
particularly unreasonable. Particularly when they responded by having her daughter kidnapped."
"They thought that her mother had murdered her father."
"Did they? I've seen the court records. Queen Clea had to testify under truth compulsion that she hadn't arranged his death.
They never did. And since all of those involved in that part are now dead we'll never know what their motivations really were."
"Alright. I can see why she did what she did, but Queen Cora ruled in their favour. Why won't she accept the ruling?"
"Because it was clearly incorrect in law." I lean back. "Did you know that there isn't a national minimum drinking age in the United States? Individual states are free to set their own to whatever they like or not have one at all, but if it isn't twenty one or higher the federal government cuts their highways funding. I'm not really sure what building roads has to do with alcohol consumption…" I shrug. "It's just a control mechanism. Queen Cora had the authority to adjudicate in disputes between city-states, which
technically included the marriage contract. What she didn't have authority to do was ignore the kidnapping."
"If they were concerned about Ptra's safety…"
"Then
maybe they could have been exonerated in a trial. 'Reasonable actions taken under extreme circumstances'. There was no trial. The actual kidnappers and the people who sponsored them weren't even pardoned, just completely let off the hook. Clea
might have tolerated not becoming Proconsul if she'd been made her daughter's regent. But she wanted them punished and she wanted her daughter back. And she got neither after Queen Cora recognised the Auranian council as having regency authority and made Ptra a ward of the throne of Poseidonis. And Queen Clea was rather upset about it."
"It seems that I'm going to have to read up on my history. But before I do
that, is recognising Lord Cyprian as her heir the only thing she wants from me?"
"She'd quite like the city-states to get more autonomy… Or as she put it 'to have their traditional autonomy recognised', but that's a secondary thing. The second principal thing she wants is to build an airport in the Greater Azores so she can trade with the surface and needs you to reduce import tariffs."
King Orin's eyes boggle.
"She wants to
what?"
