The address ended quickly, and the camera cut back to the studio.
Silence settled over the sitting room.
After a long moment, Philip spoke.
"He resigned." His voice was entirely level. Anyone listening could hear the weight underneath it.
It had hung over them for decades, the possibility of it, the thing that might come, or might not, and that shaped every calculation regardless.
And now it was simply done. The conflicting feelings that produced were not difficult to understand.
Charles nodded slowly. "Father, it's... over."
Henry said nothing.
He had a strong sense that he had heard a version of this exchange somewhere before.
Another silence.
Elizabeth lifted her teacup and took a quiet sip.
"In 1932," she said, "when my father gave his first Christmas address on the radio, they had been established for ten years. No one would have imagined then that sixty years later..."
She did not finish the sentence. No one needed her to.
Sixty years is the better part of a human life. For a nation, it is almost nothing.
Philip picked up his glass and finished the sherry in one movement.
"That fellow Yeltsin," he said, "will be feeling rather pleased with himself."
Charles shook his head. "He's inherited a considerable mess. The economy, the political structure, the ethnic tensions, none of it is straightforward."
"That's his problem," Philip said. "Our problem is what the world looks like from here."
He glanced at the television screen, which had already moved on to studio discussion and early reports on international reactions.
"The Cold War is over," Philip said. "We won."
He said it as a plain fact, without pride and without ceremony.
Diana asked softly, "Won?"
Everyone looked at her.
She was still looking at the screen, leaning back against the cushions.
"I mean," she said, "what happens after we win?"
No one answered. Because no one had an answer.
A little later, William and Harry were brought down by the nanny to say goodnight.
They had no idea that a major historical event had just concluded in the sitting room they were walking into.
They knew only that it was Christmas Day and that tomorrow there would be more things to unwrap.
They went around and kissed each adult in turn, then were guided toward the stairs.
At the top, William paused and looked back at Henry.
"Henry. That man on television. Why did he look so unhappy?"
Henry considered this for a moment.
"Because," he said, "he lost his home."
William blinked, nodded with the solemn seriousness of a seven-year-old processing something important, yawned enormously, and was led upstairs.
Elizabeth looked at Henry.
"Henry. Do you think they're right?"
"About which part?"
"The BBC, the American networks. They're all saying we won."
She glanced at the screen, where the red flag was making its slow, final descent over the Kremlin while "The Unbreakable Union" played for the last time.
She looked away from the jubilant Western correspondents on the screen and back at Henry.
"And you? What do you think?"
Henry was quiet for a moment. He thought of the particular shape of the decades ahead—the fractures that would not close, the resentments that would accumulate, the alliances that would strain.
"No, Grandmother," he said quietly. "In a war without gunpowder, I don't think anyone wins. There are only those who survive it."
Boxing Day, the twenty-sixth of December.
There was no hurry to return to London. By tradition, the family stayed at Sandringham through to the New Year.
When Henry came downstairs, Charles was already at the dining table with a spread of newspapers in front of himThe Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, and a copy of the International Herald Tribune that had apparently been delivered overnight. He was reading with a slight frown.
Diana sat beside him in a cream cashmere sweater, looking, as she often did in informal settings, several years younger than her public photographs suggested.
"Good morning, Mother. Good morning, Father."
"Good morning, Henry. Did you sleep well?" Diana turned and smiled.
"Very well, thank you."
He sat down beside her and glanced at the newspapers. The front pages were, unsurprisingly, entirely dominated by the dissolution of the Soviet Union, each publication having arrived at its own particular tone and headline.
Charles noticed his gaze and slid The Times toward him.
Henry picked it up, scanned the lead article, set it down.
William and Harry arrived at speed shortly after breakfast, very nearly sending a waiter and his tray in different directions on the stairs. They reached Henry and attached themselves to his sleeves.
"Henry! What are we playing today?"
An unexpected delivery had arrived for Henry that morning, forwarded from Kensington Palace with some urgency by the twins.
His other Christmas gifts from classmates were still waiting to be opened there, but this particular package had apparently been sent ahead. Inside were several small bottles labelled Portable Swamp.
Henry looked out the window. The snow had stopped in the night, the sun was out, and while the air was cold it was perfectly clear.
He had no other obligations, and the Portable Swamp seemed as good an answer as any.
"Dress warmly," he said. "We're going to the garden."
Ten minutes later, three bundled figures were on the snow-covered lawn.
William and Harry had each taken a bottle of Portable Swamp and were already deploying it with the systematic enthusiasm of people who have been given a new tool and wish to test its full range of applications.
William created one in the middle of the lawn, stepped into it immediately, and pulled his leg out with his trouser covered to the knee in the clear, gelatinous substance.
Harry's laughter at this was so complete that it removed his ability to stand, and he then stepped into his own swamp.
Henry stood at a slight distance, watching his brothers.
After a while the Portable Swamp gave way to a snowball fight, which escalated quickly. Snowballs flew in every direction.
Several found Henry, who did not dodge but simply brushed them from his coat with mild patience.
Then one landed cleanly on the back of his head.
Henry turned around.
Prince Andrew was standing a short distance away, still holding a second snowball.
"Henry," he said, with a broad grin. "You should have called me when you came out."
Henry looked at his second uncle and felt the particular discomfort of knowing rather more about a person than they would wish.
He had never especially liked Andrew, not for any single reason, but because he had a reasonably thorough understanding of the man's character.
He had always assumed, when he was younger, that this was a private reaction unique to himself. He had later discovered that his grandfather, his father, and his mother all shared the same general opinion.
His mother's approach, when Henry was small, had been to appear at his elbow at the first sign of Andrew's approach and remove him in a manner that was efficient rather than ceremonious.
Later, when he was old enough that this was no longer practical, she had taken to drawing him quietly aside and saying, in a low voice, that it was best to keep a certain distance.
The words she had used to describe Andrew were not kind ones.
(Note: None of this was fabricated. Princess Diana had indeed held precisely these views.)
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Check out this story and read the first 30 chapters before you drop it, it will be worth it: DC: As Bruce Wayne's adopted brother Dio