Royal Diplomacy (Diplomat’s Apprentice Book 6) by L J Dix

Author:L J Dix [Dix, L J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2024-08-25T00:00:00+00:00

Veraz made himself comfortable in the lounge’s storage area, then gave the clerk the stun antagonist. He wasn’t feeling friendly enough to offer the standard remedy for the post-stun headache the man would wake up with. He sat cross-legged on the floor a short distance from where the clerk lay. He held his stunner in one hand, resting it on his lap and watching as the man slowly regained consciousness.

“Who and what are you?” he asked as he saw comprehension in the man’s eyes. And fear.

“What I said. I’m a clerk at the palace.”

“A clerk who contacts palace security and gets people arrested?” His voice was harsh. He was a small man, but as a mercenary leader, he had learned how to project menace. He did that now. The clerk was groggy as he recovered from the stun and coped with what should be a painful post-stun headache. He was properly intimidated.

“I didn’t. I recognized you, of course. Everyone in the city has seen those pictures by now. You’re the people the League sent to take the diplomats away.” The man slowly sat up, holding his head in his hands as his eyes leaked tears.

“Juan Campos expected us, then?”

“I don’t know who put those holos up, but they’re on all the news reports. There’s a reward for your arrest.”

”But you say you didn’t give us away?” Veraz prodded.

“No. I was hoping you could help me. Why else would I have stayed around after the palace security squad left?”

“To see if you could also get a reward for turning me in?” Veraz allowed his tone to become slightly less threatening. He wondered if he had misjudged the man.

“I told you I didn’t report you. I’d guess it would be the man who sat with us at the food cart.”

“Or the bar owner?”

“No. If anything, I think he would have tried to warn you if he could. He’s angry about what’s happening at the palace,” the man countered.

“What about you?” Veraz was beginning to hope he might make this man an ally.

“I’m worried about the queen. The news is saying the League wants to attack us. That those diplomats were here to talk the queen into abdicating for a foreign ruler.”

Veraz thought the man didn’t seem comfortable with that information. “Your queen welcomed those same diplomats. Then Juan Campos and his cabal staged a coup. Now they’re trying to get the queen to abdicate. All we’re here for is to rescue the hostages so the League doesn’t need to do anything further.”

“Campos says the League wants to change our way of government,” the man hesitantly countered.

“You work in the palace. Can you honestly say you’re happy that the queen has been deposed? Campos and the rest of the members of the coup will control her fifteen-year-old son. You don’t think they’ll allow Esteban to actually rule, do you?”

The man hunched forward with his aching head in his hands. “I like the queen. I’m loyal to her. But even Campos is better than foreign rule.

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