Echoes Of Honor

formal phrases he had hoped never to have to speak.

'Your Grace,' he said in a quiet voice, 'my Steadholder has fallen, leaving no heir of her body. As her Steading was given into her hands from yours, so the responsibility to govern it in her absence was given into my hands from hers. But—' he paused, the formal legal phrases faltering, and closed his eyes for a moment before he could go on. 'But she will never reclaim her Key from me again,' he went on huskily, 'and there is none other for whom I may guard it or to whom I may pass it. Therefore I return it to you, from whom it came by God's Grace, to hold in keeping for the Conclave of Steadholders.'

He reached out, offering the staff, but Benjamin didn't take it. Instead, he shook his head, and Clinkscales' eyes widened. It was rare on Grayson for a steadholder to perish without leaving any heir, however indirect the line of succession. Indeed, it had only happened three times in the planet's thousand-year history—aside from the massacre of the Fifty-Three which had begun the Civil War... and the attainting of the Faithful which had concluded it. But the precedent was there, and Benjamin's refusal of the staff had thrown Harrington Steading's Regent completely off balance.

'Your Grace, I—' he began, then stopped stop himself and looked questioningly at Prestwick. The Chancellor only looked back, and Clinkscales returned his attention to the Protector.

'Sit back down, Howard,' Benjamin said firmly, and waited until the old man had settled back into his chair, then smiled without humor. 'I see you don't know exactly why I asked you to come by.'

'I thought I did,' Clinkscales said cautiously. 'I didn't want to admit it, but I thought I knew. But if it wasn't to surrender my staff, then I have to admit I don't have the least damned idea what you're up to, Benjamin!'

Benjamin smiled again, this time with a touch of true amusement. The acerbic edge creeping into Clinkscales voice, like the use of his own given name, sounded much more like the irascible old unofficial uncle he'd known for his entire life.

'Obviously,' he said dryly, and glanced at Prestwick. 'Henry?' he invited.

'Of course, Your Grace.' Prestwick looked at Clinkscales with something suspiciously like a grin and shook his head. 'As you can see, Howard, His Grace intends to leave the scut work and the explanations up to me again.'

'Explanations?'

'Um. Recapitulation, perhaps.' Clinkscales' eyebrows rose, and Prestwick pursed his lips. 'Our situation here may be a bit closer to unique than you actually realize, Howard,' he said after a moment.

'Unusual, certainly,' Clinkscales replied, 'but surely not 'unique'! I discussed it at some length with Justice Kleinmeuller.' His eyes darkened once more as memories of that discussion with Harrington Steading's senior jurist brought the fresh, bleeding pain back, and he swallowed, then shook his head like an angry old bear. 'He explained the Strathson Steading precedent to me quite clearly, Henry. Lady Harrington—' he got the name out in an almost level voice '—left no heirs... and that means the Steading escheats to the Sword, just as Strathson did seven hundred years ago.'

'Yes, and no,' Prestwick said. 'You see, she did leave heirs—quite a few of them, actually—if we want to look at it that way.'

'Heirs? What heirs?' Clinkscales demanded. 'She was an only child!'

'True. But the extended Harrington family is quite extensive... on Sphinx. She had dozens of cousins, Howard.'

'But they're not Graysons, ' Clinkscales protested, 'and only a Grayson can inherit a steadholder's key!'

'No, they're not Graysons. And that's what makes the situation complicated. Just as you discussed it with Justice Kleinmeuller, His Grace and I have discussed it with the High Court. And according to the Court, you're right: the Constitution clearly requires that the heir to any steading must be a citizen of Grayson. That, however, is largely because the Constitution never contemplated a situation in which a foreign citizen could stand in the line of succession for a steading. Or in which an off-worlder could have been made a steadholder in the first place, for that matter!'

'Lady Harrington was not an 'off-worlder'' Clinkscales said stiffly, eyes flashing with anger. 'Whatever she may have been born, she—'

'Calm down, Howard,' Benjamin said gently before the old man could work himself up into full-blown wrath. Clinkscales subsided, and Benjamin waved a hand in a brushing gesture. 'I understand what you're saying, but she most certainly was an off-worlder when we offered her her steadholdership. Yes, yes. I know the situation was unprecedented—and, if I recall correctly, you were less than enthralled with it at the time, you stiff-necked, reactionary old dinosaur!'

Clinkscales blushed fiery red, and then, to his own immense surprise, he laughed. It wasn't much of a laugh, and it came out rusty and unpracticed sounding, but it was also his first real one in the two and a half months since he'd viewed Honor Harrington's execution, and he shook his head.

'That's true enough, Your Grace,' he admitted. 'But she became a Grayson citizen when she swore her Steadholder's Oath to you.'

'Of course she did. And if I choose to use that as a precedent, then what I ought to do is send for her closest heir—her cousin Devon, isn't it, Henry?—and swear him in as her successor. After all, if we could make her a Grayson, we can make him one, as well.'

'No!' Clinkscales jerked upright in his chair as the instant, instinctive protest burst from him, and Benjamin cocked his head at him, expression quizzical. The Regent flushed again, but he met his Protector's gaze steadily. He said nothing else for several seconds while he organized his thoughts, getting past instinct to reason. Then he spoke very carefully.

'Lady Harrington was one of ours, Your Grace, even before she swore her oath to you. She made herself ours when she foiled the Maccabean plot and then stopped that butcher Simmonds from bombarding Grayson. But this cousin—' He shook his head. 'He may be a good and worthy man. Indeed, as Lady Harrington's cousin, that's precisely what I would expect him to be. But he's also a foreigner, and whatever his worth in other ways, he hasn't earned her Steading.'

''Earned,' Howard?' Benjamin flicked a hand. 'Isn't that a rather high bar for him to have to clear? After all, how many steadholders' heirs 'earn' their Keys instead of simply inheriting them?'

'I didn't mean it that way,' Clinkscales replied. He frowned in thought for another moment, then sighed. 'What I meant, Your Grace, was that our people—our world—still have a great many stiff-necked, reactionary old dinosaurs. A lot of them sit in the Conclave of Steadholders, which would be bad enough if you laid this before them, but a lot more are common citizens. Many of them were uncomfortable with Lady Harrington as a steadholder, you know that at least as well as I do. But even the uncomfortable ones were forced to admit she'd earned her position... and their trust. My God, Benjamin—you gave her the swords to the Star of Grayson yourself!'

'I know that, Howard,' Benjamin said patiently.

'Well how in the Tester's name is this—Devon, did you say?' Benjamin nodded, and the old man shrugged irritably. 'All right, how is this Devon going to earn that same degree of trust? He'll certainly be seen as an off- worlder, and the people who felt 'uncomfortable' with Lady Harrington will feel one hell of a lot worse than that with him! And as for the real reactionaries, the ones who still hated and resented her for being an off-worlder—!'

Clinkscales threw up his hands, and Benjamin nodded gravely. He let no sign of it show, but he was privately delighted by the strength of the Regent's reaction. It was the strongest sign of life he'd shown in weeks, and it was obvious his brain was still working. He was following straight down the same chain of logic Benjamin and Prestwick had pursued, and the Protector gestured for him to continue.

'It would have been different if she'd had a son of her own,' Clinkscales went on. 'Even if he'd been born off world, he still would have been her son. It would have been better if he'd been born here on Grayson, of course, but the bloodline and order of succession would have been clear and unambiguous. But this—! I can't even begin to guess where this can of worms would take us if you laid it before the other Keys. And 'Mayhew Restoration' or not, you do realize you'd have no option but to lay it before the other steadholders, don't you?'