Apparently, the townsfolk of Herzen had a long and glorious tradition of bringing their disputes to be settled by their monarch instead of going to the local magistrates. Megan found herself being asked to act like Solomon in cases she barely knew anything about. She did her best to listen carefully, to resolve things fairly-and to make things hot for anyone who looked to be abusing their royal privileges.
I hope I'm getting the hang of this, Megan thought.
Then the two large families came before the throne, each clan looking daggers at the other. The people bringing the suit were Herzen townspeople. As far as Megan could make out from their complaints in German, the problem seemed to revolve around a missing bridegroom and a failure to pay thirteen goats. The other family group was more rural-peasants painfully dressed in their Sunday best.
When it was the turn of these folks to put their case, they broke into torrents of what could only be native Latvinian. Megan couldn't say if this was some sort of Serbo-Croatian dialect or plain gibberish. It was odd that she was having trouble with translation-normally the Net provided instantaneous translation of every language and dialect imaginable.
A smug voice came from the crowd of courtiers. "Surely the princess will understand the old speech of the country folk?"
Yeah, the princess would understand it-but not her American stand-in, Megan thought sourly, at least not without some help I'm not getting right now. Looks like word of my Great Imposture is going to leak out.
Megan held up her hand. The spokesman for the peasants, an older man with an enormous mustache, immediately stopped talking. "I beg the great one's pardon," he said more slowly. "Our feelings run before the horses."
Megan managed not to gawk when she realized that the man was still talking in Latvinian-and now she was understanding him perfectly! She wondered what had gone wrong to block the translation, and what was now going suddenly right?
Another of those pseudo-memories implanted by the simulation program whispered through her brain- something about being taught the language as a child by a distant relative of her mother's.
That didn't matter-so long as she could answer the peasant spokesman in his own dialect. "You are pardoned, as long as your words do not fly like the birds," she said. "Continue, Oldfather-only slowly."
The old peasant had quite a story to tell. It seemed the city slickers were making a good thing out of the betrothal visits. They'd enter into contracts with peasants in the surrounding districts, specifying a wedding within a certain amount of time or a bride-price in livestock. Then, one of the bride-to-be's uncles-a recruiting sergeant for the army-made sure the prospective bridegrooms were conscripted and taken off before the weddings could take place.
As the old man continued, a rather military-looking member of the city family tried to vanish among the ranks of his relatives.
Grim-faced, Megan had him hauled forth and put him to some searching questions-both in German and Latvinian.
The poor sergeant was in a sweat. "Majesty, we would never have troubled you, except-"
One of the quicker-minded female members of the family kicked him in the ankle.
"We would never have brought this case, except those dirt-eaters insulted Your Majesty," the leader of the city clan quickly said.
Megan continued her interrogation, finally digging out the information that the family ran a thriving butcher shop in the town, and was amassing money to expand the business. By the time she was finished, they'd still be in business, but in a much less prosperous fashion.
Just like those real-life courtroom entertainment ho- los, she thought, giving her judgment. Megan glanced again at the quivering sergeant, wondering who had put the city slickers up to bringing this case before her. Was it a trick by Gray Piotr?
She turned to where Alan Slaney stood, off to the side of the throne. His expression was a mixture of amusement and annoyance as he watched the case progress to judgement. Aware of her eyes on him, he looked up. "Did they think I couldn't plan ahead a little better than that?"
Megan hid a smile. So, the courtroom drama was an attempt to embarrass her by jealous AHSO members.
Her smile slipped a little. Unless Alan/Gray Piotr was pretending he'd thought ahead, which would mean..
She thrust away all thoughts of court intrigue before they made her head burst. Better to concentrate on the grand ball to come.
Matt Hunter came out of the Metro station at Dupont Circle to find Leif already waiting for him.
"Hey!" Matt said, giving his pal a friendly punch in the shoulder, "been a while since I saw you. Thought you were going to spend all your time in New York City this summer."
Leif shrugged. "Mom headed back to Europe with some friends. Dad's down here in D. C. right now working on some sort of intense negotiations. It's all a very hush-hush deal. He won't talk about it, not even to me. I figured I'd come down, keep him company, and catch up with some of my friends."
Then it was Matt's turn to shrug. "You want to catch up with me, I can do it fast-not much is going on. It's been a pretty quiet summer down here. Hot, mainly. Except for sweating a lot, I don't have anything to report. How about you?"
"Let's see." Leif screwed his face into a look of deep concentration. "Since finishing that summer course that Andy sabotaged for me, I nearly got whacked by a robber, survived a duel, helped wreck a couple of nasty political intrigues, and unmasked a traitor in the palace guard."
Matt stared for a moment, his eyes going wide. Then he began to laugh. "That crazy sim! Lithuania, or whatever they call it."
"Latvinia," Leif corrected him.
Matt shook his head. "Yeah. I've heard a lot about it. In our crew-the Net Force Explorers especially-people are either crazy for it… or they're being driven crazy by it."
"Megan, P. J., and David are really talking it up that much?" Leif said.
"Not so much David-that's not his style," Matt replied. "But P. J. obviously thinks it's the coolest thing since indoor plumbing. And from the way she's been talking about it, I think Megan is beginning to believe she really is a princess."
Leif winced. "Ooh, I could see that happening. How about the rest of you guys-the unbelievers?"
"I can take it or leave it," Matt admitted. "The Squirt won't even talk about it. He tried to get in, but got bounced because of his age."
That got a laugh out of Leif. "The Squirt" was Mark Gridley, son of the Net Force director. Mark was a computer wizard and a Net Force Explorer, but very young, only thirteen years old.
"I figured he'd be telling everybody he could design a better sim," Leif said.
"Nope, he just iced it out," Matt said. "Maj Greene has started ducking whenever she sees Megan. She says this sim is like a long, boring flatfilm-only it's worse because people you know are in it."
"I would think Andy would be having a field day with this turn-of-the-century stuff," Leif said. "Asking Megan if she wears a bustle on her butt, that kind of stuff."
"Not anymore," Matt said, shaking his head. "The last time he goofed on Lith-Latvinia, Megan acted as if she were going to challenge him to a duel."
Leif jammed his hands in his pockets and laughed. "She might do just do that, too. Fencing and Latvinia seem to be the two things she's doing this summer." He rolled his eyes. "Some people take things too seriously. They start to think virtual reality is reality."
"And you don't?" Matt asked.
"I can take Latvinia or leave it," Leif told him.
"I thought that would be your thing," Matt said. "Hauling out your trusty sword and charging around with it."
"The place can pop some nasty surprises on you." Leif's hands clenched into fists for a second as he remembered some of them. "In my case, they seem to crawl out of the woodwork the moment I happen to touch the hilt of my sword."