Lovingly borrowed from Master Weeks, who as an ex-teacher fully understands the importance of kinetic learning but is welcome to sue me nonetheless for the $40 remaining in my little bank account (it'll be down to $5 next week after a doctor's appointment I'm trying to wriggle my way out of.)

"Can you rule justly after you take the throne unjustly?"

"Good question to ask the woman who stole yours."

"How, Kayla?"

"Schedule a meeting with her and drink a lot beforehand."

"Dammit, girl, how are you going to kill her?"

"A botched abortion. I'd poison whatever abortifacient she uses. Many of those potions are dangerous. If it appeared she'd taken double what her apothecary recommended, it would look like a tragic and shameful accident for a single, wanton young queen. If the nobles tried to cover up the details, the rumors would swirl around what a whore Maggie was, rather than speculations that she was assassinated. And it would make the virtuous new king look even better."

"Gods," Loren breathed, "How long did it take you to come up with that?"

Kayla shrugged "Couple minutes."

There was pain in Loren's eyes, as if s/he had to struggle to speak. "It's brilliant, Kayla. It's brilliant - and I forbid it."

"How do you propose to forbid me anything?" the wetboy asked.

The almost-king looked astonished.

"Despite all my efforts," said the wetboy, "you're not my king. You can't forbid me a d*amn thing."

The almost-king's face darkened and all hir usual conviviality drained away. It made the wetboy conscious of just how tall the almost-king was. Hir lean seven-foot height made hir a looming, merciless skeleton. "Know this," the almost-king said. "If I'm crowned because of the Queen's murder, I'll have you executed."

"You'd execute me for Margaret fucking Thatcher?"

"I'd execute you for treason. An attack on our country's sovereign is an attack on us."

"She shouldn't be queen."

"But she is"

"You had no right to swear fealty."

"I did what I did to save the people, lovie. Now I must abide by my word. Politics is ethics writ large."

"Politics is the art of the possible, and you know it," answered the wetboy. "On the eve of battle, the tides changed so you couldn't be king. You changed course then. The tides are changing again. The tides are always changing."

The almost-king folded hir arms. Hir voice was granite. "My word stands."

"Can you love an idea more than you love a man and not become a monster? How many friends will you sacrifice on the altar of Justice, Loren?"

"If you force my hand, Katya, at least one."

They were standing on a precipice. Socially, Loren had always been Katya's superior. Morally, Katya had always felt inferior, too. But they'd never been placed in a direct hierarchical relation. Now Loren was giving an order. S/he would not be moved. Katya could only accept hir order and accept all hir orders henceforth, or reject it and them forever. There was a part of hir that yearned to obey. S/he was convinced that killing Maggie was the right thing, but Loren's moral compass was a more accurate instrument than Katya's. What was it about submission that was so hard? Katya wasn't being asked for blind servility. S/he was being asked to obey a man s/he knew and loved and respected, who in turn respected hir. S/he thought of the old verse Master had quoted - "the wolfhound is pampered by the fire. The wolf is hunted in the cold. You must be both, little one, or you'll die little."

"Do you know how much I love you, Loren?" Katya asked.

Loren opened hir mouth, but before s/he could say a word, Katya said, "This much."

And left.