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. Within a month of her time to deliver the longawaited and much anticipated heir to the throne, she looked radiant and, most important, happy--both in her pregnancy and in her marriage.
The time had been, not long ago, when that could not have been said. But that is another story and it was now in the past. She and her husband were friends, if not precisely lovers. Each held a genuine regard and respect for the other. Nourished and tended with the same care they gave their plants, love might yet take root and grow.
"How are you feeling, Your Majesty?" Dixter asked, bending down to kiss the queen's hand.
Astarte caught his hand in hers, pulled him close, tilted her face to be kissed. "Come, Sir John." She laughed. "No such constraints between us. You are the baby's godfather and that makes you my father, in a way."
Dixter kissed the petal-soft cheek. His face was flushed, uncomfortably warm. "I am truly honored and flattered, Your Majesty, but I really think you should reconsider that decision. I'm too old--"
"Our minds are made up," Dion interrupted. "It has all been discussed, written down, documented, officially stamped, sealed, and stowed away. Even the prime minister agrees. If something were to happen to me, sir"--the king fell back into the old way of talking, as if he were once more the kid Tusk had rescued from Warlord Sagan, Dixter once more the outlawed mercenary general--"my last moments will be easier knowing you are there
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