04/10/2020 Snippet, KINGS AND MASKS.

The Kingdom is remarkably behaving itself, here. Nobody’s tried to borrow the man’s vehicle for a high-speed coach chase even once.

But it was a lovely night, if warm for this time of year. Georgetown was a smaller town than Whitman supposed Washington had been in the time of the Old Americans; but it did not have the aura of antiquity and fallen grandeur that he might have expected. The Virginians had kept the streets and even their names, but seven centuries had erased most of the old buildings and replaced them with a collection of two and three story structures. People seemed to live over their places of work here, and they apparently rarely ate supper at home.

Many of them stopped to wave at his coach; a few even offered a cheer or two. Whitman waved back – he was a politician, after all – but it was still odd. “I wasn’t aware that the Second Republic was so popular here,” he said to the Baroness.

That commonplace seemed to strike the Baroness as odd. “I suppose that it is,” she said after a moment. “We have certainly always enjoyed cordial relations with your realm, at least. But, my dear President Whitman, they are cheering you.”

Whitman was taken aback. “Really? What have I done to deserve such an honor?”

“Why, you have visited.” The baroness smiled; she even dimpled. “And as a friend does; with an open heart, and without an army at your back. Your realm ruled here, once. I regret to say that some of your Presidents could not neither forget that this place was the seat of their power, nor forgive us for going our own way.”