Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 05_ Agents of Chaos 02_ Jedi Eclipse - James Luceno [37]
“I thank you all for attending to one forced to resort to words to express what her heart contains.”
The hall couldn’t have been more silent if it had been catapulted into deep space.
“Delegate Miilarta,” Ta’a Chume said, “Ambassador Organa Solo. Ambassador Solo, Lol Miilarta of Terephon.”
Leia extended her right hand with practiced graciousness, and Miilarta shook it. “Charmed, Ambassador,” she said, then lowered her voice to add, “I can assure you that Terephon will vote to render aid.”
Leia smiled with her eyes. “The New Republic thanks you.”
Miilarta bowed smartly and moved down the reception line. In the formal way that typified such functions, Leia introduced her to the New Republic’s ambassador to the Consortium, then turned back to Ta’a Chume, who introduced the equally beautiful female delegate from Ut, the world that had sent a song on the occasion of the Consortium’s visit to Coruscant.
Standing behind Leia, C-3PO whispered into her right ear, “Delegate Miilarta brings the count to thirty-one worlds, Mistress. You are effectively halfway to completion.”
Leia glanced down the reception line, which—with husbands, wives, mistresses, and children—wound nearly to the grand entrance of the Fountain Palace, home to the Hapes royal family.
“Tiring of the formalities, Ambassador?” Ta’a Chume asked from behind her veil.
Leia turned slightly to regard her. “Not at all.”
“You mean to say that you don’t find the process somewhat—how shall I put it?—antiquated?”
“Actually, it makes me think of Alderaan.”
“Alderaan? You surprise me, Leia. Equating a former cynosure of democracy to a matriarchy founded by pirates. What can you be thinking?”
Leia smiled to herself. “In the interest of getting things done, the New Republic had dispensed with ceremony. But I sometimes miss the pomp and circumstance of the Old Republic, and Hapes feels like a fond memory frozen in time.”
The scarlet half-veil kept secret Ta’a Chume’s expression, but her tone of voice belied a bemused grin. “Why, how sweet of you to reduce our way of life to mere nostalgia.”
“You mistake my meaning, Ta’a Chume—with purpose, I think.” Leia swept her eyes over the reception room. “This might have been my life, if not for the Empire. The grandeur, the propriety … the intrigues.”
Ta’a Chume’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, but it could easily have been yours, my dear. It was you who chose Han Solo over my son.”
Leia looked at Chume’da Isolder, who stood tall, impeccably dressed, and incurably handsome at the head of the reception line. Yes, she told herself, I chose a two-fisted rogue without a credit to his name over a scion of pirates with pockets deep enough to finance his own war. And thank the stars for that. Childhood memories were one thing, but examined in the light of middle age they surrendered some of their charm. Leia could no more imagine herself a proper princess than she could an actress or an entrepreneur. She glanced over at Teneniel Djo—hands folded in front of her and chin lifted in regal deportment—and shuddered at the thought of standing in Teneniel’s thousand-credit slippers.
And yet even while she was thinking it, apprehension nibbled at her contentment. With Han off on his own, distant in more ways than one, the future they forged had grown formless and clouded. She hated having to worry about him, but in fact, she missed him terribly, and the trappings of royalty, the glance down a path not taken, left her feeling cold and alienated.
“Archon Thane,” Ta’a Chume was saying, “Ambassador Organa Solo. Ambassador Solo, Archon Beed Thane of Vergill.”
Robust, fully bearded, head and shoulders taller than Leia, Thane was one of the Consortium’s few male delegates. He glowered as he stepped in front of her. “Ambassador Solo,” he said, slurring his words. “The infamous