NEWS FROM NEW PROVIDENCEHis royal robes were heavy, heavy. And so hot! Why was it so hot in the Cathedral? It was only June. Why could the Archbishop not complete the crowning and the anointing, the blessing of the monarch, the placement of scepter and orb? Then he would present his Queen Consort to the Nation and the Empire and be damned to the PM and the rotten dog-collared clergy, that bloodless superannuated fool Cosmo Lang, and—
—and suddenly he was looking up at the high ceiling above his bed, where the broad blades of a slowly-turning fan could do little more than stir the hot, moist air of this damned backwater island. The dream was gone, the dream that had come and gone so many times, and he was King no longer. He was Governor-General of a string of rocky protuberances that poked
