Harriet and Harry, Harry the thirteenth, have both crossed the third lion on the leftward side of the grand stairway, the one on the balcony above the grand ball floor, just above their father's thone, an abnormal number of times today. Richard new this, because he'd been watching them since the first time Arnold had fallen. The Scions of Bretonia were up to something, and he was sure it wouldn't be good for Arnold. Nothing they did was ever good for Arnold.
There were people on the floor, of course. Courtiers for Harry Twelve, and petitioners for those courtiers. Guardsmen, and the Princess's Ladies, wives, independant noblemen, attached noblemen. It wasn't as dense as it could have been, but with a mile of open floor, it was almost never as it could be. Still, from his position at around mid floor, he could see Harriet and Harry Thirteen wandering back and forth from their rooms, passing that damn statue.
When he could move without abandoing his post, Richard inteded to do something. Move Arnold to Cambridge, at the very least.
"Richard Agravaine, Knight of the Realm, dead in the line of duty"
The rock was granite and simple, eblazoned only with the star of Richard's rank. Harriet hugged Arnold, rubbed her hair into his face, crying honest tears.
Arnold hadn't reacted yet, hadn't realized his man was dead because he was an able defender. He'd not caught on to the fact that Harry wanted the throne, or the thought that his father had murdered for it...So when Harriet cried, it wasn't because a knight of the realm had been cut down in cold blood, a targeted driveby shooting with a repeating carbine which sprayed bits of him across a thousand meter range, cut down from the head of Arnold's procession. Or, it was, but only because she'd set her course, and Arnold still came to her, his eyes full, his mouth hanging upen, grasping his hands in confusion, incable of understanding why He'd not been able to bury more than shreds of meat.
Because it was quite possibly the saddest thing she'd ever done, and her brother still came to her, looking for solace.
It wasn't a cloudy day, nor was it particularly dark. Sunlight burned on the golden enamle of the names, and Harriet clung to Arnold, digging her head into his shoulder, tears running down her face. He stood, slack, and watched the grave.
I do hope the pair of you are doing quite well. Momma adores you both. I'm rather glad to hear that you are doing so well in lessons, Kaila, but wont you help your sister along? I will have Ninette reassessed, and if what you have said about her is true, well then, I would be remiss to not see her disciplined. Do be sure, though...
Harriet glanced up from the letter she'd been typing, trapped under a low emissions blackout. Text, she could send, but not voice or video, until the violence was done. Her father had murdered his father for the crown, and her grandfather had murdered his brother, her great uncle, and his father, her great grandfather, who had done the same to his brother, who had killed their father. You could say violence ran in the family, and not just the immediate chain. Cousins were rampant enough that she herself had engaged in the countryside execution of her own niece, her retainers, staff, and guards, by orbital shelling. Poor dear had extended her holdings by assaulting a Cambridge Duke's household, and the thirteen heirs between them. Such messy assaults could not be tolerated, much the way rebellions in the common classes were not tolerated.
Arnold was yet alive, and primarily because of her intervention. She'd worked with Harry for months, curbing his appetites and setting him on courses which were less than destabilizing. She held hostages for Harry's men, pulled just the right strings. Here, she sat aboard her father's most advanced frigate, awaiting a courier from Cambridge: she'd have to intercept it, and give her brother and her father two separate messages...meanwhile, her daughters were home, under the doubtful guard of a bunker and a marine company.