A messenger wearing the royal livery came to Bella: "Her Majesty, Elizabeth de Loraine summons you into Her Presence immediately".

Immediately! When Bella was all tussled and sweaty from her training with her new shield.

Well, there was no help for it, Bella brushed her hand through her hair, squared her shoulders and went to seek out the Queen.

Feeling slightly dazed at the speed with which things were happening Bella heard: "We hereby appoint Thee Minister of the Interior of England."

Bella sank to her knee and solemnly vowed, by Almighty God, to always be a true and faithful Servant unto the Queen's Majesty, as one of Her Majesty's Ministers; to not know or understand of any manner of thing to be attempted, done, or spoken against Her Majesty's Person, Honour, Crown, or Dignity Royal, but that she would let and withstand the same to the uttermost of her Power, and either cause it to be revealed to Her Majesty Herself, or to such of Her Privy Council as would advertise Her Majesty of the same. That, in all things to be moved, treated, and debated in Council, she would faithfully and truly declare her Mind and Opinion, according to her Heart and Conscience; and would keep secret all Matters committed and revealed unto her, or that should be treated of secretly in Council. That she would do her uttermost to bear Faith and Allegiance unto the Queen's Majesty; and would assist and defend all Jurisdictions, Pre-eminences, and Authorities, granted to Her Majesty, and the Crown, against all Foreign Princes, Persons, Prelates, States, or Potentates. And that generally in all things she would do as a faithful and true Servant ought to do to Her Majesty. So help her God.

Bella left the audience feeling rather stunned. What an honour. But also - what a responsibility. Bella would in future have to represent the dignity of Her Majesty's government, always be diplomatic in public and fulfill a host of other duties she had not yet quite grasped. Dignity and diplomacy - a difficult task, that was not Bella's natural approach to life.

Bella sighed. She would have to persevere. And take care not to intrude upon the privacy of Chancellor James, who was now her colleague, though certainly her senior in experience, whenever that Worthy might be feeling hungover.

Some time ago an Aragorn army had visited England as uninvited guests, coming in the absence of England's armies and leaving much destruction in their wake.

When my fellow English knights and I came to Guyenne, to discuss the matter in person, we were however met by militia, who were at first unwilling to allow us to land. Finally resorting to arms and letting our weapons speak for us, I and my brothers and sisters in arms made landing and after some struggle we raised the English flag in Guyenne, succeeding both in teaching those militia manners and in restoring peace and order.

One of the soldier's we fought most inconsiderately put a large dent in my shield and my spear has a fresh nick, I'll need to see, whether I can make repairs myself or will need to find some smithy.

I am pleased to see that England's mission to collect on the debt accrued by Aragon in 1027-1028 by destruction of a majority of England's shires, is coming along nicely.

Though it is sad to see how far payment morals have fallen these days, it shows most boorish manners, to force us to run from one Aragorn village to another, to collect this debt in person. Aragorn should long since have made a lump payment of the reparation money owed England.

England's knights and Bella amongst them, continuing on their debt collection mission to the shire of Aragón, found there arrayed against them the forces of Aragorn, Castile and Croatia.

"What a good thing, that England had not specifically announced the date of our visit to Aragorn - though the Aragornese must surely have been expecting our return visit after their destruction of the England's shires in 1027 / 1028", Bella thought. "Their behaviour has proved the Aragonese to be just the kind of people, who would hide all their silver and other assets, when the debt collectors came calling."

That Castile had involved itself in the war was not unexpected, since they had always had close ties to Aragorn and had in fact aided and abetted the destruction of England in 1027 / 1028.

However the involvement of Croatia seemed a sad pity to Bella, King Borna had seemed like such a nice man in previous diplomatic communications. Unfortunately he seemed to suffer from a delicate disposition and had felt himself disturbed in his wedding celebrations by a quarrel, taking place one country and several shires away from the festivities. Well, on the other hand there were those, who considered noticing the least little bump the true proof of royalty, as the fairy tale of "the Princess and the Pea" so eloquently showed.

The flower of England's knighthood was arrayed against superior numbers of Aragornese, Castilian and Croatian knights. After several volleys of arrows were exchanged, the Queen herself led the charge of the English knights.

Unfortunately Bella found that being unarmored in a hotly fought battle, was a severe disadvantage - she had not yet been able to afford a set of armor. So she found herself knocked out cold relatively soon in the battle.

When she came to, she was told that England had won a glorious victory, the enemy had been completely routed. Now the victory celebrations could start!

Many Aragornese knights had been captured by England in the battle of Aragorn. They were being kept in one of the new castles England had taken.

Queen Elizabeth de Loraine had graciously offered them terms of peace, there were even rumours, that some top-level negotiations might be taking place. But obviously no agreement had been reached yet, for the Aragornians remained imprisoned.

Bella gnawed on her finger. Naturally it was the habit of rulers the world over to keep their own council, until it was time to make some public announcement on new policies. Besides, even towards enemies, the Queen probably felt some obligation to keep to that code of honour, that demanded that any communications that had been sent to her in private and in strictest confidence, be kept private. But this created a vacuum of information, that was sorely vexing for anyone, who had such an inquisitive nature as Bella did. She felt almost ready to burst with unsatisfied curiosity.

She did not even know, if the Aragornese knights had given their parole and word of honour not to escape and could thus be allowed the freedom of the castle where they were being held, or had refused to even promise that much, forcing England to keep them in some dungeon instead.

Bella stomped off to the practice field, to relieve some of her frustration with physical activity and arms practice.

Still very busy and not use to it being in command of an army, James find some time to bring news to his friend in London:

QUOTE:
Dear Eric,

We are well and I hope my letter will find you and the rest of our friends in good health as well.

While don't make me any pleasure, burning down the lands of those who refuse to admit their sins and the way they wronged England continue. We took the heavily fortified Seville, but the fortifications was no match for the brave English knights.
The battle did not last long and the white flag appear on the walls:Seville was liberated.
The people cherish English knights in shining armors entering the town and throw with flowers. Some of them still remember how well they was treated under English administration in the past and not everybody was happy when the province change hands.
We celebrate with the happy people of Seville the liberation until late hours.

I have no news from the Queen, but I'm sure she is doing alright with the help of our friends. Possibly the messenger was intercepted by the hostile forces in the area.

I hope the Spanish matter will be solved in a short time and we will deal with the foreign powers interference in England's rightful actions of bringing justice. Those nosy troublemakers should answer for their actions.

Friendly,
James

The situation with Aragorn had been successfully resolved, a peace treaty signed and the imprisoned Aragonese knights released upon their words of honor to fulfill all the conditions of the peace treaty.

However in the meantime the situation with Castile had escalated.

This time the Queen had taken pity upon Bella's curiosity and had allowed Bella access to some of England's diplomatic correspondence.

A peace treaty had been offered to Castile, but Castile's ruler had been unwilling to accept the proposal in the form offered. Indeed, Castile's king seemed loath to acknowledge responsibility of the debt his predecessor had incurred toward England - by the past attack of Castile and Aragorn on England - at all.

Had his advisors not informed Castile's king about the laws of inheritance, before his accession to the throne of Castile? An inheritance was either accepted or rejected in whole. If an inheritance consisted of naught but debts, this might indeed be cause for the heir to reject his inheritance as a whole. But the heir who accepted his inheritance, accepted the good with the bad, the debts along with the benefits. Did Castile's king not know this - or choose to conveniently ignore this, Bella wondered?

The Aragonese knights had most promtly and honorably fulfilled their agreed upon obligations some time ago, Bella had been pleased to note.

The conflict with Burgundy regarding the papal question, that had for a while looked to turn into a full fledged war, seemed quelled.

Now England had time to turn it's attention to internal matters, that had been neglected for some time: Several members of Her Majesty's court had retired from active life at the court, one or two nobles had gone missing in action in the last war and at least one elderly gentleman had possibly died, though Bella was not sure about that.

Meanwhile various new knights had joined Her Majesty's armies and court and the Queen had appointed several new earls. Since Bella knew two of the new earls merely in passing and the other one not at all, she resolved to remedy this state of affairs as soon as possible. It would not do, if she got these important nobles mixed up and confused. And she would have to remember to correctly address them by their new titles in future and not as mere Sirs.

James wake up after a long resting sleep. As usual he reverse a bucket of water over his head. The sun is shinning, the birds are singing, England is stronger than ever and all their enemies are defeated, well, except those Castilian thugs, but not for long.
What possibly could go wrong in such a beautiful day?

The Duke of Kent turn to the guards in his service:
Prepare my armor! Hurry up, I have the feeling it will be a very busy day.

We could not do that, M'lord. reply one of the guards, not so quick as James expected.

Astonished, the Chancellor could not find the proper words for a few seconds.

And why you could not do such an easy thing? was everything James could ask.

Because it was stolen. says one of the soldiers after looking a few moments elsewhere.

"Was stolen? What the guards did if somebody could stole Chancellor's armor? Never mind, I'll put the captain to investigate those careless guards"

Well, bring me my horse!

A bit of a silence and another soldier decide to answer:
We could not do that, M'lord.

Let me guess.. It was stolen!

... Right!

The guard turn the back on James. That was too much.
"I am dreaming?" James tweak himself to check it. It's not a dream.

You are aware that you speak with the Duke of Kent, Hand of the King?

You're no Duke or Hand, M'lord. The last reports shows you as a deserter and we'll arrest you if you trouble us more. Now begone before you get a correction!

It's not a dream, but a nightmare. The birds still singing in a strange way in James head.

It was a long trip to Ireland and Siofra wasn't hasn't arrived her destination. At this point she made it to the coast of England. She remembered England as a land full of abbeys and old ruins from their pagan history like stonehenge. Siofra decided to make a stop for a short visite. But before she arrived at the dock she noticed that England was burning. As she was setting sail to London, Siofra was wondering; What was going on in England?