Sir Roderick sat down, and Lord Douglass rose. “Your majesty, I would say that if adventures are contemplated overseas, and if this should coincide with a rise in the price of bread, the introduction of new taxes and duties, and an outburst of Leveler ranting, I should not like to face the consequences without the continental reserves at Fort Victoria ready to entrain for either coast, not to mention securing the loyalty of the local regiments in each parliamentary district.”

“Well, then.” The king frowned, his forehead wrinkling as if to withstand another fit of sneezing: “We shall have to see to such measures, shall we not?” He leaned forward in his chair. “But I want to hear more on this matter of where the homegrown thorns in our crown are obtaining their finances. It seems to me that if we can snip this odious weed in the bud, as it were, and demonstrate to the satisfaction of our peers the meddling of the dauphin at work in our garden, then it will certainly serve our purposes. Lord Douglass?”

“By all means, your majesty.” The prime minister glanced at his minister for special affairs. “Sir Roderick, if you please, can you see to it?”

“Of course, my lord.” The minister inclined his head toward his monarch. “As soon as we have something more than rumor and suspicion I will place it before your majesty.”

“Now if we may return to the agenda?” The prime minister suggested.

“Certainly.” The king nodded his assent, and Lord Douglass cleared his throat, to continue with the next point on an afternoon-long agenda. The meeting continued and in every way beside the sneezing fit it seemed a perfectly normal session of the Imperial Intelligence Oversight Committee, held before his imperial Majesty John the Fourth, king of New Britain and dominions, in the Brunswick Palace on Long Island in the early years of the twenty-first century. Time would show otherwise…