March to the Sea by David Weber & John Ringo

Author:David Weber & John Ringo [Weber, David ]
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Science fiction, Adventure, General, Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction - Science Fiction, Space Opera, Science Fiction - Adventure, Life on other planets, High Tech, Science Fiction - Military, Life on other planets - Fiction., Princes, Princes - Fiction.
ISBN: 9780671318260
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2001-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Rastar shook his head over the invitations laid out on the floor.

"Some of these I can only guess at, but you're right. Whether or not we get any support is going to depend more on these invitations than any Council meeting."

"Am I reading these right?" Roger asked. "Do they really say something like 'and bring a date'?"

"Yes." Rastar chuckled. "The local custom, decadent in the eyes of my people, is to have men and women at the same dinner. The women are supposedly there to lend an air of grace to the proceedings. I think the idea is for them to keep us from spitting on the floor."

"Bloody hell," Roger said. "Do they realize that one of my main advisers is a woman? And one of my senior officers, as well, for that matter?"

"I'm not sure," Rastar said. "But it's going to be very important for you to attend at least three of these if you hope to achieve anything here in the city. How you divide them up is going to be . . . interesting."

"Eleanora . . . ?" the prince said plaintively.

"I'll do my best," the chief of staff sighed. "I wish I understood the position of women in this society better, though. I'm getting this queasy feeling that we've arrived in the middle of the suffrage movement, which means that any time a female opens her mouth in a definitive manner, as I tend to, it's going to be taken as a political statement."

"Well, let's go on as we intend to end," Roger told her. "We're a mixed unit from a mixed society, and I don't intend to convey anything else, whatever the societal norms. Also, there's this story of a woman who organized the evacuation of D'Sley."

"There are three invitations from D'Sley nobles," Rastar noted. "But none from a woman."

"Julian," Pahner said. "Track down that story and get us some clear intel on it."

"You think it's important?" Roger asked.

"If we have to stay and fight, it will be," the captain said. "If she can organize a sealift one way, she can organize one the other way."

"Ah." The prince smiled. "Rastar, I get the feeling that D'Sley wasn't a democracy?"

"No," the Northerner said. "It was controlled by a council of nobles and a weak king. From what I've heard, the king is dead, and many of the nobles as well, but many of the commoners escaped, especially the women."

"And they're clogging the city," Julian added. "That's one of the sore points at the moment—all the D'Sley refugees."

"Just once," Roger said, shaking his head. "Just damned once, I would like something to go smoothly somewhere on this planet."

"There is a sense of déjà vu here, isn't there?" O'Casey laughed. "I'll set about divvying up these invitations with Rastar. You go discuss clothes with Matsugae. I'm going to need a clean and presentable dress or suit, as are several of the Marines. We can . . . elevate their social importance for the evening."

"Oh, Lord," Roger said, grabbing his head.

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