Ashes Of Victory

still did... but MacGuiness was no more her 'servant' than Nimitz was. She didn't know precisely how to characterize their actual relationship, but that didn't matter at all. What mattered was that commodore, admiral, steadholder, or duchess, she was still James MacGuiness' captain, and he was still her keeper and friend.

Even if he was a multimillionaire civilian these days.

She chuckled again, then banished her fond smile as MacGuiness returned with a dark, hawk-faced woman in an RMN commander's uniform. It wasn't hard to assume a more solemn expression, for the dark cloud of the other woman's emotions — a wary bitterness and dread, only slightly lightened by a small sense of curiosity — reached out to her like a harsh hand, and it was all she could do not to wince in sympathy.

I think my suspicion must have been right about on the money. And I wish it hadn't been. But maybe we can do a little something about this after all.

'Commander Jaruwalski, Your Grace,' MacGuiness announced with the flawless formality he saved for times when company was present.

'Thank you, Mac.' Honor said, then rose and held out her hand to Jaruwalski. 'Good afternoon, Commander. Thank you for arriving so promptly on such short notice.'

'It wasn't all that short, Your Grace.' Jaruwalski's soprano sounded very much like Honor's own, but with a washed-out, beaten down undertone. 'And to be honest, it wasn't as if I had a lot of other things to be doing anyway,' Jaruwalski added with what was probably meant to be a smile.

'I see.' Honor squeezed her hand firmly, for just a moment longer than was strictly necessary, then broke the handclasp to gesture at the chair which faced her desk. 'Please, be seated. Make yourself comfortable.' She waited until Jaruwalski had settled herself, then crooked an eyebrow. 'Are you a beer drinker, by any chance, Commander?'

'Why, yes. I am, Your Grace.' The commander was clearly surprised by the question, and that surprise seemed to cut through a bit of her enshrouding gloom.

'Good!' Honor said, and looked at MacGuiness. 'In that case, Mac, would you bring us a couple of steins of Old Tilman, please?'

'Of course, Your Grace.' The steward glanced courteously at Jaruwalski. 'Would the Commander like anything to go with her beer?'

'No, thank you. The beer will be just fine... Mr. MacGuiness.' The brief pause and her hesitant use of the civilian address echoed Honor's earlier thoughts, but her confusion over MacGuiness' status was definitely a secondary concern for her at the moment. It was obvious from the taste of her emotions that no flag officers had been in the habit of inviting her to drop by for a beer over the course of the last T-year.

'Very good, Ma'am,' MacGuiness murmured, and withdrew with a silence any treecat might have envied.

Jaruwalski gazed after him for a moment, then turned resolutely back to face Honor. There was something very like quiet defiance in her body language, and Honor hid another wince as she tasted the bitterness behind the other woman's dark eyes.

'No doubt you're wondering why I asked you to come see me,' she said after the briefest of pauses.

'Yes, Your Grace, I am,' Jaruwalski replied in a flattened voice. 'You're the first flag officer who's wanted to see me since the Seaford Board finished its deliberations.' She smiled and gave a slight, bitter toss of her head. 'In fact, you're the first senior officer who hasn't seemed to be going out of her way to avoid seeing me, if you'll forgive my bluntness.'

'I'm not surprised to hear that,' Honor said calmly. 'Under the circumstances, I suppose I'd be astonished if it had been any other way.' Jaruwalski's nostrils flared, and Honor tasted her instant, inner bristling. But she gave no sign of it as she continued in that same deliberate tone. 'There's always a temptation to shoot the messenger if the news is bad, even among people who ought to know better than to blame her for it. Who do know better, when all's said.'

Jaruwalski didn't — quite — blink, but Honor tasted a sudden watchful stillness at the commander's core. She'd answered Honor's summons unwillingly and come to this office wary and defensive, trying with forlorn pride to hide her inner wounds. It was clear she'd expected those wounds to be ripped open once again, but Honor's response had robbed her of that expectation. Now she didn't know just what Honor did want, and that made her feel uncertain and exposed. However much the contempt with which she'd been treated had hurt, at least it had been something she'd understood. And she dared not let herself hope this meeting might produce anything except more of the same.

Not yet, at any rate, Honor thought, and looked away as MacGuiness reappeared with two frosty steins of dark amber beer. He'd taken time to put together a small tray of cheese and raw vegetables, as well, and she shook her head with a smile as he set his burden on the corner of her desk and whisked out a snowy napkin for each of them.

'You are entirely too prone to spoil people, Mac,' she told him severely.

'I wouldn't say that, Your Grace,' he replied calmly.

'Not in front of a guest, anyway,' she teased. It was his turn to shake his head at her, and then he withdrew once more and she looked back at Jaruwalski.

The commander had smiled, almost despite herself, at the exchange. Now she pushed the smile off her lips, but without quite the same wariness, and Honor waved at the stein closer to her.

'Help yourself, Commander,' she invited, and took a deep swallow of her own beer. It was all she could do not to sigh as the rich, crisp brew slid down her throat. Of all the things she'd missed on Hell, she often thought she'd missed Old Tilman most. The StateSec garrison had imported Peep beer (most of which could have been poured back into the horse and left the universe a better place, in Honor's opinion) and some of the SS personnel and prisoners had tried their hands at brewing. But none of them had managed to get it right. For that matter, Honor had come to suspect that some subtle mutation in the hops or barley grown on Sphinx was responsible for the unique and outstanding products of the Tilman Brewery.

Jaruwalski seemed to hear the sigh Honor didn't permit herself, and her mouth twitched. Then she settled back in her chair and took a slow, appreciative swallow of her own.

Honor was careful not to show the deep satisfaction she felt as the commander relaxed. It was unusual for a flag officer to offer a subordinate beer, or anything else even mildly alcoholic, during 'business hours.' On the other hand, the circumstances of this meeting were hardly usual, and Jaruwalski had obviously faced more than her fair share of excruciatingly formal meetings since the Second Battle of Seaford.

Honor gave the other woman a few more moments, then leaned forward and set down her beer.

'As I said, I'm sure you wondered what it was I wanted to see you about,' she said quietly. Jaruwalski stiffened back up just a little, but said nothing. She only gazed back at Honor, waiting. 'You probably had a few suspicions — none of them pleasant, I imagine — about why someone from the Admiralty might want to see you, but you couldn't imagine why I should ask you to come by my office. Unless, of course, I intended to use you as some sort of `horrible example' for Crusher candidates, since it must have become obvious to you that you had no hope of further promotion after Seaford.'

Her voice was conversational, almost mild, and it hurt Jaruwalski even more because it lacked the vitriol she must have heard from so many others.

'I did wonder, Your Grace,' she said after a moment, trying very hard to keep the hurt and bitterness from showing. 'I rather doubted that you intended to offer me a shot at the Crusher,' she added in a gallant attempt at humor.

'No, I don't,' Honor told her. 'But I may able to offer you something you'll find equally interesting.'

'You may?' Surprise startled Jaruwalski into the cardinal sin of interrupting an admiral, and her dark face grew still darker as she realized it had.

'I may,' Honor repeated, and tipped her chair back. 'Before we go any further, Commander, I should perhaps tell you that I once served under Elvis Santino,' she said, and paused. This time she obviously expected a response, and Jaruwalski cocked her head to one side and narrowed her eyes.

'You did, Your Grace? I didn't know that.'