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The Fourth Son

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The royal archivist.

And the youngest sister to the king, in fact, she was only two years younger than him and also sent away at the request of her mother because she had been given the same treatment as the new king.

In fact, he, too, had been horrid to her, and it was not a reunion he was looking forward to.

Rather, oddly, the king had a separate morning room for breakfast and an atrium for lunch, a place where all the Royals could meet and talk over lunch, or just brood.

He’s spent many breakfasts with his brothers and sisters, but not so much at lunch, especially when they were at school.

Now Ruth and her sister could come down, and he could see them between royal duties and meet the other siblings, one of whom was Christine.

It’s awkward, but not as much as it could have been.  He was no longer the awkward, pugnacious little boy he once was, but their king.

It was also useful to discover that she was in the process of gathering up all the papers in the old King’s office and taking them down to her archive to be classified and archived, the relevant daily work papers to be refined by the secretaries to be processed.

He also had his PA team of three working closely with her to find out what projects and situations were in play and needed his attention.

Another problem sorted.  Perhaps.

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The Fourth Son

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So there’s nothing like an angry sister who never got to be queen, who sits gleefully in her office, plotting to put the new king in his place.

Yes, royal shenanigans indeed

Queen Isobel of the next-door principality is coming for a state visit, ostensibly to welcome the new king into his new role.

Why then does she burst into his office and gleefully announce the forthcoming arrival of the wicked with odd the west

Because in the old days when he was just a boy, Isobel and her used to torture him mercilessly, yo the point where it, and the treatment from his brothers at the behest of the old king forced him to run away to America.

Yes, survival of the fittest, the bullying was supposed to make a man of him/and his brothers, as it turned out, treatment that after he left was transferred to Edward and then down the line.

But..

As always, there’s more to the story, and it appeared from the briefing document that the annual negotiations between the two principalities had not been completed and signed, and there was a formal request that some items needed further discussion.

When he saw the draft contract, he could see why, but the negotiators had made the concessions so he could if he wanted to.

A lot would depend on that first face-to-face meeting and what her attitude towards him would be.  He had not seen her in the last 15 years, and he had expected he never would again, if he could help it, but things never quite go the way people want them to.

Something you steel himself for over the next few days before she arrived.

In the meantime, his sister could go and meet the Queen at the airport as his official representative, and he would make the formal welcome at the castle.

She will not be impressed.

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The Fourth Son

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There are still the endless questions on what actually happened from the moment the call came that there was a skier on the top of the mountain in distress.

And why the helicopter was called in, and everything that happened around that one decision.  It was, of course, the prerogative of the officer in charge of the ski patrol, at the time Edward.

The question was, was he supposed to be in charge when the two other brothers were out in the field?  That raised another question: Why were the two assigned together when the standing orders were only one could be in the field and the other on standby?

How did the Air Force send a newish pilot on a mission that hw had not flown before?  It was not good policy to not have an experienced pilot on hand

He was going to go up to the top of the mountain and see for himself, but on memory of the his years in the patrol, it was not that difficult to get to the spot where from the top ski lift, and if that was the case, then the avalanche was preventable.

It was going to be another interesting report when the final assessment was completed.  He would have to try and get the parliament to call for a royal commission.  Of course, raking over the coals might be the last thing needed, especially since the resort was closed while the slopes were regroomed.

The country needed a quick, blameless answer and reopened the resort for obvious financial reasons, aside from the employment and services it generated.

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The Fourth Son

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Breakfast is supposed to be that first meal of the day, the one that sets you up for at least the morning.

If you can, get to sit down and relax.

If you don’t have a thousand thoughts running through your head, and none of them are good.

He is surprised to find that no one thought it a good idea to have the two brothers and the king autopsied.

He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but if there’s something, anything, the least of it would be for it to blow up in his face.

There were rumours, rumours he’d rather not hear, that his father had been acting strangely and making life difficult for everyone, which to a certain degree was how he generally was.

But….

Is it possible he may have recovered from dual heart attacks, or had he been sedated with an overdose of morphine?  Was it mercy that he died?  It was not what he wanted to think. In fact, it was the last thing he needed.

Those reports he received when he was back in America over that last year as his health declined and the old king was getting more and more despaired at the idea of Edward succeeding him, causing him to hang on longer than he should, were hard to read but not hard to understand.

It was the reason the new king believed, why the old king insisted on his return.

It would be good to discover what the old King’s motivation was, but now he was dead, perhaps they would never find out.

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The Fourth Son

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People to see things to do.

First on the list was his sister, the one hoping that when all else failed, she would become Queen.

Of course, being a surviving male, he had usurped her hopes, and it wasn’t going to be an easy reunion once they were alone.

And seeing Isobel, her counterpart in the next principality and fierce rival, and sometimes enemy at the gate over the last 800 years, nothing is going to be simple.

At least she hasn’t tried to assassinate him yet.

Then, there is the fiancé of Edward, the man who would have been king, and whose body had still not been recovered and probably might not.

She’s genuinely upset and appears to know nothing about any plot to disappear and meet up later in Paris, or that she was on her way to Paris for any other reason than just leaving like it was normal.

The new king insists she stay for the King’s funeral.

Then there’s the fiancé of Gregory, the princess that had Bern selected for our new king, as much a match could be made when they were younger.

They had never hit it off, but she stayed and found her way with the King’s immediate older brother.

She, too, seems upset, but not as much as she could be.  She wants to stay and honour his memory in some way, and that is fine with the king.

She had met his choice of bride and, being a non-royal, offers to guide her through the process, though admitting Rush is not going to be a shrinking violet.

Three down and lots to go.

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The Fourth Son

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Then there’s the so-called widow of the eldest son, the man who would have been king,

If they knew where he was.

And there’s a story to go with that; now he’s starting to shake the trees, just to see what falls out.

Our protagonist visits Edward’s fiancé, Arabella.

She was detained, in not so many words, when she was trying to leave the castle.

A preliminary investigation reveals that Edward had changed his will to leave Arabella the Paris apartment he owned and a sizable annuity several days before he disappeared.

There’s some dispute about his friendship with the skier he was supposed to be helping.

Does she know why he did that?

Are the tears and sadness real?

Was she trying to escape so that if they were meeting, they would have somewhere to live and money to live on?

She is expected to stay for the King’s funeral, and the others too.

An autopsy is carried out on the victims.

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The Fourth Son

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His eldest sister, older than his eldest brother, is aggrieved.

Why not, in the other principality, their near neighbour and rival for more centuries than anyone could remember had recently amended to rights of succession to allow for the eldest child of either sex to ascend the throne.;

Her best friend and accomplice in crime Isobel had done just that, and if her father wasn’t the bloody-minded bastard he was, she would have been queen and not her pesky little brother.

Perhaps slightly less on the Richter scale of explosiveness, his eldest sister was a leaf out of her mother’s book and inherited the same bloody-mindedness and ruthlessness as her father.

Somehow, those traits passed our new king, and although yet to be proved, it might be a blessing in disguise that he was the monarch and not her.

She was not backwards in telling him what she thinks

He resists the urge to simply poke his tongue out at her.  Childish pranks of siblings are not the considered and measured response of a proper monarch.

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The Fourth Son

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The woman he dreaded.  The woman who was never really a mother for him.  That had fallen to the wife of the king’s brother, the Ambassador way back in New York.

The woman who once threated his mother to a pistol duel at dawn and had got as far as the back lawn and started walking the ten paces before the king came and stopped it.

It might not have been a good idea to stand between the two very angry women.

Ah, the memories.

But his mother was not herself, not the firebrand he was expecting, just there to apologise for not being there to welcome him home before she collapsed on the floor, the sedatives finally taking hold.

The doctor is apologetic.

In between this, there are a few questions for the butler, who used to be his father’s, the morgue superintendent and the doctor, again, when he goes to see the bodies of his brothers and father, sans the eldest, who is missing.

There’s a problem: why is he missing? He should be somewhere in the debris caused by the avalanche, like his two other brothers.

That was something he was going to get to the bottom of.

Autopsies are asked for when he learns they were not going to.

Odd…

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The Fourth Son

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Banquets are not cosy dinners, or parties with friends, or dining in the best restaurant in the city with a dozen others. Ruth had done all that, and it had been amazing. 

A banquet, an orchestra – I mean a full complete orchestra playing music – and a menu that was designed and delivered by a three-Michelin-star chef.

Now you know why there is one, not only on the plane.

It was Cinderella at the ball, with the exquisite ball gown, the music, the dancing, and the prince. Oh no, there wasn’t a glass slipper or a fairy godmother.

AND THIS WAS JUST THE FIRST NIGHT!!!

Was reality going to set in in the cold, hard light of dawn?

I don’t think so.

Not for Ruth anyway.

For our new King, it might be said it was a little different.

Breakfast in the room where he had all his breakfasts when he was a child, and the reminiscing coming back in a flood of thoughts, his father, his mother, his brothers, his sisters.

Now, he got to sit at the head of the table.

Except for one small problem.  His mother was there waiting for him.

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The Fourth Son

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Is it possible to be so apprehensive and get to heave a sigh of relief?

His mother is nowhere to be seen, sedated after the death of her husband, and they are only confronted by his sisters and stepsisters.

As well as all the other dignitaries like the Chancellor and parliamentarians, justices, councillors, and selected citizens.

It’s brief because there are more documents to sign. And there’s going to be a welcome home banquet and no rest for the wicked.

Susie, yes we haven’t forgotten her, hasn’t stopped saying Oh my God, since she got on the plane, and that only increased in intensity from the plane to the castle.  She honestly believes she is in Disneyland.

I’ll try not to make it sound like she is.

Ruth is trying not to be overwhelmed, but she is beginning to understand a little of his world and how different it is, and realizing just how much it will impinge on their lives.

Hasn’t changed her mind, though.   Perhaps the thought of being a real-life princess is starting to crystallise in the back of her mind.