War Of Honor

"Now, if he were to accept the banking job, he'd be required to resign his seat in Parliament. High Threadmore wouldn't like that, because a majority of the borough's voters are also members of the old Liberal Party, and they're no happier with their present party leadership than he is. But under the Constitution, his resignation would automatically trigger a special election to refill his seat within a maximum of two months. That's an absolute requirement, one not even High Ridge could prevent or defer, time of war or no time of war. And if you were to register as a candidate for his seat, and if he were to give you his enthusiastic endorsement and actively campaign for you, and if your campaign strategy emphasized the fact that you've renounced one of the most prestigious peerages in the entire Star Kingdom in order to seek election as a mere commoner as a matter of principle . . ."

He shrugged, and her eyes slowly widened as she stared at him.

Chapter Nine

"No."

Queen Elizabeth III looked into Honor's eyes and shook her head fiercely.

"Please, Elizabeth," Honor began. "Right now my presence is doing more harm than good. If I go home to—"

"You are home," Elizabeth interrupted sharply, her warm mahogany face hard, and the treecat on her shoulder flattened his ears in reaction to his person's anger. That anger wasn't directed at Honor, but that made it no weaker. Worse, Honor could taste it almost as clearly as Ariel could, and for just an instant she wished she had matching ears that she could flatten in response. The whimsical thought flickered briefly through her brain, then vanished, and she drew a lung-stretching breath before she spoke again, as calmly as she could.

"That wasn't what I meant," she said, then closed her mouth once more as Elizabeth waved one hand in a chopping-off gesture.

"I know it wasn't." The Queen grimaced and shook her head. "I didn't mean for it to sound that way, either," she went on a bit contritely. "But I don't apologize for the thought behind it. You're a Manticoran, Honor, and a peer of the realm, and you deserve one hell of a lot better than this!"

She gestured at the wall-mounted HD, and against her will, Honor followed the gesture to where Patrick DuCain and Minerva Prince, hosts of the weekly syndicated political talk show "Into the Fire" were grilling a panel of journalists in front of huge holograms of Honor's face . . . and White Haven's.

The sound was switched off, a small mercy for which Honor was profoundly grateful, but she didn't really have to hear it. She tried to remember who it was back on Old Terra who was supposed to have said that something was "dejа vu all over again." She couldn't, but that didn't matter either. She didn't have to recall names to know precisely how whoever had rendered that masterpiece of redundancy must have felt, because watching DuCain and Prince brought back agonizing memories of the vicious partisan confrontations which had followed the First Battle of Hancock. She'd been one of the focuses for those bruising exchanges, too, so she supposed she should be used to it by now. But she wasn't. No one could grow accustomed to it, she thought bitterly.

"What I may or may not deserve has very little bearing on what's actually happening, Elizabeth," she said, her voice still calm and level even as she felt the stiff tension in Nimitz's long, wiry body on her own shoulder. "Nor does it have any bearing on the damage being done while this goes on."

"Perhaps not," Elizabeth conceded. "But if you retire to Grayson now, they win. Worse, everyone will know they won. And besides," her voice dropped and her ramrod-straight spine seemed to sag ever so slightly, "it probably wouldn't make any difference, anyway."

Honor opened her mouth again, then closed it. Not because she was prepared to give up the argument, but because she was afraid Elizabeth was right.

Every insider in Parliament, Lords and Commons alike, recognized exactly what had been done to her, and it didn't matter at all. Hayes' initial column had been followed quickly by the first op-ed piece, and that first "respectable" commentary had been the polished, meticulously crafted opening salvo in a carefully pla

That first column had appeared in the Landing Guardian, the flagship newsfax of the Manticoran Liberal Party, under the byline of Regina Clausel. Clausel had been a newsy for almost fifty T-years . . . and an operative of the Liberal Party for over thirty-five. She maintained her credentials as a reporter and ostensibly independent-minded political commentator, but she was recognized in professional media circles as one of the Liberals' primary front people. She was also widely respected in those same circles for her ability, despite the way she'd subordinated it to the requirements of her ideology. Effectiveness was far more important than intellectual integrity, after all, Honor thought bitterly.

What mattered in this case, however, was her sheer visibility. She was a regular on four different issue-oriented HD programs, her column appeared in eighteen major and scores of lesser 'faxes, and her informal, comfortable prose and calm affability before the cameras had captured a broad readership and viewership. Many of her readers weren't Liberals—indeed, a fair percentage were actually Centrists, who read her columns or watched her on HD because she seemed reassuring evidence that even someone one disagreed with politically could have a brain. Her well-crafted and presented arguments made even readers who disagreed with her think, and if one was inclined to agree with her already, they often seemed to sparkle with their own brand of brilliance.

She was also one of the very few political columnists outside the Centrist party who had not savaged Honor over her duels with Denver Summervale and Pavel Young. Honor wasn't certain why, since the Liberal Party was officially dedicated to stamping out the custom of dueling. That was one of the few planks of their formal platform with which she found herself in agreement, whatever her bloodthirsty reputation might be. The suppression of the genetic slave trade was another, but she felt even more strongly—on a personal level—about the Code Duello. If duels had never been legal, Paul would never have been killed . . . and Honor wouldn't have been forced to use the same custom as the only way she could punish the men who'd pla

According to William Alexander's sources, the most probable reason for Clausel's silence on that occasion was actually quite simple: she'd hated the Young clan for decades. Much of that hatred apparently sprang from ideological antipathy, but there also seemed to be an intensely personal element to it. That must make her present alliance with the Conservative Association even more awkward for her than for most Liberals, but no one could have guessed it from how skillfully she'd played her assigned role.