Ashes Of Victory

two-thirds Honor's height, and Honor was fairly sure they must look thoroughly ridiculous, but that was fine with her, and she looked across her mother's head at Clinkscales.

'Howard,' she said softly. He bowed deeply, but she saw his tears and tasted his joy, and she held out her hand quickly. He blinked as he took it, his grip still strong and firm despite his age, and then he drew a huge, gusty breath and shook himself.

'Welcome home, My Lady,' he said simply. 'Your steading and your people have missed you.'

'I got back as soon as I could,' she replied, making her tone as light as she could. 'Unfortunately, our travel plans hit a couple of glitches. Nothing Chief Harkness and Carson couldn't straighten out for us, though.'

Ensign Clinkscales stepped up beside her as she spoke his name, and the Regent smiled as he enfolded his towering nephew in a huge hug. Howard Clinkscales had been a powerfully built man in his prime, for a Grayson, but he'd never matched Carson's centimeters, and he was eighty-seven pre-prolong T-years old. The two of them looked as mismatched in height as Honor knew she and Allison had, and she chuckled as she put her arm affectionately back about her mother.

Then she paused. She hadn't noticed in the intensity of their initial embrace, but each of her parents wore a carrier much like the one in which she herself carried Nimitz, and her eyebrow quirked. Now why—?

Then her father half-turned to make room for MacGuiness and Miranda, and Honor's eye went even wider than it had gone when the door opened. The carrier on his back wasn't like hers after all, for it wasn't for a 'cat. It was—

'Don't stare, dear,' her mother said firmly, and reached up to grasp her chin, turning her head to wipe the left side of her face. Honor obeyed the grip meekly, so surprised she was unable to do anything else, and her mother shook her head. 'Really, Honor,' she went on, 'you'd think you'd never seen a baby before, and I happen to know you have!'

'But... but...' Honor turned her head once more, staring into the dark eyes that gazed drowsily back at her, and then gulped and turned back to her mother, using her height to lean forward over her and look into the carrier on Allison's back. She was sure the eyes in that small face were equally dark, but they weren't drowsy. They were closed, and the tiny face wore the disapproving, sleepy frown only babies can produce.

'Really, Honor!' her mother said again. 'Your father and I are prolong recipients, you know.'

'Of course I do, but—'

'You seem to have grown entirely too fond of that word, dear,' Allison scolded, giving Honor's face one last pat before she stepped back to examine her handiwork. Then she nodded in satisfaction and tucked the damp square of fabric back into whatever hiding place it had emerged from in the first place.

'It's all your fault, actually,' she told Honor then. 'You hadn't gotten around to producing an heir, so when they tried to make poor Lord Clinkscales Steadholder Harrington, he had to think of something in self-defense.' She shook her head, and Clinkscales looked at her for a moment, then gave Honor a half-sheepish grin.

'You mean—?' Honor shook herself and drew a deep, deep breath. She also made a mental resolution to personally hunt Hamish Alexander down and murder him with her bare hands. Or hand, singular, she thought as she recalled his devilish amusement and vague talk about 'other arrangements' on Grayson. Given the nature of the offense, waiting until she could be fitted with a replacement for her missing arm was out of the question. If she left this afternoon aboard a courier boat and went by way of the Junction, she could stop by the Harrington to wring Judah Yanakov's neck and still be back at Trevor's Star in just four days, and then...

She exhaled very slowly, then looked back down at her mother.

'So I'm not an only child anymore?'

'Goodness, you figured it out after all,' Allison murmured with a devilish smile. Then she reached up and slipped the carrier straps from her shoulders. She cradled the sleeping infant, carrier and all, in her arms, and when she looked back up at Honor the deviltry had disappeared into a warm tenderness.

'This is Faith Katherine Honor Stephanie Miranda Harrington,' she said gently, and giggled at Honor's expression. 'I know the name is longer than she is just now, poor darling, but that's your fault, too, you know. At the moment — which is to say until you get busy in the grandchild department — this long-named little bundle is your heir, Lady Harrington. As a matter of fact, right this second she's actually the legal `Steadholder Harrington,' at least until the Keys get around to discovering that you're back. Which means we were lucky to hold her to just five given names, all things considered. I expect the assumption, up until a few hours ago, was that she would become Honor the Second when she chose her reign name. Fortunately—' Her lips quivered for an instant, and she paused to clear her throat. 'Fortunately,' she repeated more firmly, 'she won't have to make that decision quite as soon as we'd feared she might after all.'

'And this,' Alfred said, having slipped out of his own carrier's straps, 'is her slightly younger twin brother, James Andrew Benjamin Harrington. He got off with two less names, you'll note, thus duly exercising his prerogative as a natural-born male citizen of the last true patriarchy in this neck of the galaxy. Although we did, I hope you will also note, manage to butter up the local potentate by hanging his name on the poor kid.'

'So I see.' Honor laughed, reaching out to stroke the baby boy's satiny cheek. She shot a sideways glance at Benjamin Mayhew and noted his happy, almost possessive smile. Obviously her parents and the Mayhews had grown even closer to one another than she'd dared hope they might, and she returned her attention to her mother.

'They're beautiful, Mother,' she said softly. 'You and Daddy do do good work, even if I say so myself.'

'You think so?' Her mother cocked her head judiciously. 'For myself, I could wish we'd figured out a way to skip straight from the delivery to the first day of school.' She shook her head with a pensive air that fooled no one in the lounge. 'I'd forgotten how much sheer work a baby is,' she sighed.

'Oh, of course, My Lady!' Miranda LaFollet laughed. Honor turned to her maid and found Miranda in the circle of her brother's arm... which would have represented a shocking dereliction of duty on the major's part under normal circumstances. Which these weren't. Miranda saw Honor's questioning expression and laughed again. 'It's so much `work' she insisted on carrying them to term the natural way, despite the fact that her prolong added two and a half months to the process, My Lady,' she informed Honor. 'And so much work that she flatly refuses to let us provide full-time nannies for them! In fact, it's all we can do to pry her loose from them — to pry either of your parents loose, actually — long enough for them to go to the clinic! I don't think even people from our steading were quite ready for the sight of two of the best doctors on the planet making their rounds with babies on their backs, but—'

She shrugged, and Honor chuckled.

'Well, Mother is from Beowulf, Miranda. They're all a little crazy there, or so I've heard. And they go absolutely gooey over babies. Not,' she added reflectively, gazing at the tiny shapes of her brother and sister, 'that I can fault them, now that I think of it. These two have to be the most beautiful pair of babies in the explored universe, after all.'

'Do you really think so?' her mother asked.

'I really think so,' Honor assured her softly. 'Of course, I may be just a tiny bit prejudiced, but I really think so.'

'Good,' Allison Harrington said, 'because unless my nose is mistaken, Faith Katherine Honor Stephanie Miranda here has just demonstrated the efficiency with which her well-designed internal systems operate. And just to show you how delighted I am by your opinion of her beauty, I'm going to let you change her, dear!'

'I'd love to, Mother. Unfortunately, at the moment I only have one hand, and since that's obviously a job which requires two...' She shrugged, and her mother shook her head.

'Some people will do anything to avoid a little work,' she said, much more lightly than she felt as her eyes flicked to the stump of Honor's left arm, and Honor smiled.

'Oh, I didn't have to do this just to get out of work,' she assured Allison, smile broadening as James