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She hardly knew the proper manner of address to a daughter of a marquis - and whenever Peggy thought that she ought to make inquiries, she forced herself to remember that as a good Republican, she should get it wrong, and ostentatiously so. After all, both Jefferson and Franklin invariably referred to the King as "Mr. Stuart," and even addressed him as such on official correspondence between heads of state - though the story was that clerks in the ministry of state "translated" all such letters so that proper forms of address appeared on them, thus avoiding an international incident.

And if there was any hope of averting the war that loomed among the American nations, it might well rest on her interview with Lady Ashworth. For along with her lofty social position - some said the Queen herself consulted Lady Ashworth for advice on how to dress - Lady Ashworth was also leader of the most prominent anti-slavery organization in the Crown Colonies: Ladies Against Property Rights in Persons. (According to the fashion in the Crown Colonies, the organization was commonly called Lap-Rip, from the initials of its name - a most unfortunate acronym, Peggy thought, especially for a ladies' club.)

So much might be riding on this morning's meeting. Everything else had been a dead end. After all her months in Appalachee, Peggy had finally realized that all the pressure for maintaining slavery in the New Counties was coming from the Crown Colonies. The King's government was rattling sabers, both figuratively and literally, to make sure the Appalachian Congress understood exactly what abolition of slavery would cost them in blood. In the meantime, union between Appalachee and the United States of America was impossible as long as slavery was legal anywhere within Appalachee. And the simplest compromise, to allow the pro-slavery New Counties of Tennizy, Cherriky, and Kenituck to secede from Appalachee, was politically impossible in Appalachee itself.

The outcome Peggy most feared was that the United States would give in and admit the New Counties as slaveholding States. Such a pollution of American freedom would destroy the United States, Peggy was sure of it. And secession of the New Counties was only slightly more acceptable to her, since it would leave most of the Blacks of Appalachee under the overseer's lash. No, the only way to avoid war while retaining a spark of decency among the American people was to persuade the Crown Colonies to allow the whole of Appalachee, New Counties and all, to form a union with the United States of America - with slavery illegal throughout the nation that would result.

Her abolitionist friends laughed when Peggy broached this possibility. Even her husband, Alvin, sounded doubtful in his letters, though of course he encouraged her to do as she thought right. After hundreds of interviews with men and women throughout Appalachee and for the last few weeks in Camelot, Peggy had plenty of doubts of her own. And yet as long as there was a thread of hope, she would try to tat it into some sort of bearable future. For the future she saw in the heartfires of the people around her could not be borne, unless she knew she had done her utmost to prevent the war that threatened to soak the soil of America in blood, and whose outcome was by no means certain.

So, dread it as she might, Peggy had no choice but to visit with Lady Ashworth. For even if she could not enlist Lady Ashworth and her LapRip club in the cause of emancipation, she might at least win an introduction to the King, so she could plead her cause with the monarch directly.

The idea of meeting with the King frightened her less than the prospect of meeting Lady Ashworth. To an educated man Peggy could speak directly, in the language they understood. But Southern ladies, Peggy already knew, were much more complicated. Everything you said meant something else to them, and everything they said meant anything but the plain meaning of the words. It was a good thing they didn't let Southern ladies go to college. They were far too busy learning arcane languages much more subtle and difficult to master than mere Greek and Latin.

Peggy slept little the night before, ate little that morning, and kept down even less. The most acute nausea from her pregnancy had passed, but when she was nervous, as she was this morning, it returned with a vengeance. The