Believe me, Major, I know the ways of Courts a little better than you."
I took a turn up and down the room. "I don't know that Lotzen isn't
justified in using every means to defeat me. I am a robber--a
highwayman, if you please. I am, this instant, holding him up and
trying to deprive him of his dearest inheritance. And I'm doing it
with calm deliberation, while, ostensibly, I'm his friend. If I
attempt to steal his watch he would be justified in shooting me on the
spot--why shouldn't he do the same when I try to filch from him the
Valerian Crown?"
"No reason in the world, my dear Major, except that to steal a watch is
a vulgar crime--but to plot for a throne is the privilege of Princes.
And Princes do not shoot their rivals."
"With their own hands," I added.
Courtney bowed low. "Your Highness has it exactly," he said.
I shrugged my shoulders. "You flatter me."
"I speak only in general terms; they do not apply to you, my dear
Major. You are not plotting to dethrone a King; you are simply trying,
frankly and openly, to recover what is yours by birthright. Lotzen's
real claim to the Crown is, in justice, subordinate to yours--and he
knows it--and so does the King, or he would not have put you on
probation, so to speak, with the implied promise to give you back your
own again, if you prove worthy.
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