CHAPTER THREE
Honor watched the landing pad grow beneath her cutter and reminded herself this wasn't the first time she'd been to Mount Royal Palace. She reminded herself of that quite sternly, and that her status had changed since her first visit, as well. Then she'd been a commoner; now she was not only a decorated captain of the list but a knight and a peer of the realm—none of which lightened her nervousness at all.
She smiled wryly at her own tension and glanced at her executive officer. Commander The Honorable Michelle Henke looked perfectly at ease... as well she might; unlike her captain, Mike was simply dropping by to visit the head of the senior branch of her own family. Nimitz looked up from Honor's lap, twitching his fluffy tail as if to chide her inner turmoil, and she reached down to stroke his ears. The movement caught Henke's eyes, and the commander looked up with an impish grin.
'Nerves, eh?' Her husky, almost furry contralto was rich with fond amusement, and Honor shrugged.
'Unlike some people, I'm not accustomed to rubbing elbows with royalty.'
'Odd. I would've thought you'd be getting used to it by now,' Henke replied deadpan.
Honor snorted, but she had to admit (and not as modestly as she would have liked) that Mike had a point. Most officers spent their entire careers without ever receiving their monarch's personal thanks, yet this would be the fourth time for Honor—and the third in barely five T-years. It was almost as frightening as it was flattering, but it was more than that, as well. She'd met her ruler as a person, as the individual behind the symbol of her crown, and she'd found that person worthy of her loyalty.
Elizabeth III had been Queen for almost eleven Manticoran years—over eighteen T-years—since her father's tragic death in a grav-skiing accident. She was the sixteenth monarch in direct descent from Roger I, founder of the House of Winton, and she had all of her dynasty's dignity and poise. She also had an intense and personal charisma all her own, despite a sometimes prickly personality. Honor had heard about her temper and the personal determination, one might even say obstinacy which would have done any of her Sphinxian subjects proud. It was rumored she held grudges till they died of old age, then had them stuffed and mounted, but Honor could live with that. The Queen was equally loyal to those who served her kingdom well. Some political analysts argued that her fiercely direct personality hampered delicate political and diplomatic maneuvers, but she compensated with inexhaustible energy and absolute integrity, and she'd made resistance to Havenite encroachment her life's work.
All of that was true and important, yet it was almost inconsequential to Honor. Elizabeth III was the woman to whom she'd sworn her loyalty as an officer and her fealty as a countess. She
The cutter slid into a smooth hover, then descended in a soft whine of counter-grav. The hatch opened, and Honor rose and set Nimitz on her shoulder. By tradition so old it actually predated the Navy's acceptance of treecats on active duty, 'cats accompanied their adopted humans when they answered a royal summons. Seven of Manticore's last nine monarchs, including Elizabeth herself, had been adopted on visits to Sphinx, almost as if the 'cats had known they were coming and lain in wait for them. Indeed, there was a standing joke—on Sphinx, at least—that the Crown ruled only in consultation with the 'cats. Honor smiled politely whenever someone told the hoary old chestnut, but she sometimes suspected there was an element of truth in it. Certainly Nimitz was never shy about registering approval or disapproval other actions!
She smothered a smile at the familiar thought, then led Henke through the hatch. Normally, Henke would have exited first, since her birth would have taken precedence over her junior rank under these special circumstances, but Honor was a countess as well as a captain. It was odd, yet this was the first time she'd truly realized that she'd overtaken her oldest friend's social rank as well as her military one. She wasn't certain she liked it, but there was no time to reflect upon it as the honor guard snapped to attention. The mustachioed major at its head wore the scarlet facings of the Queen's Own Regiment and the shoulder flash of the Copper Walls Battalion, the component drawn from Honors homeworld, and obvious delight at the honor paid a fellow Sphinxian warred with expressionless discipline as he flashed a salute.
Honor and Henke returned it, and he returned his hand to his side with parade ground precision.
'Lady Harrington. Commander Henke. I am Major Dupre, your escort.' His clipped Sphinx accent was like a breath of home, and he stepped crisply to the side to gesture toward the pad exit.
'Thank you, Major,' Honor replied, and headed in the indicated direction with Henke in tow and butterflies dancing in her middle.
The walk took longer than Honor had expected, and she suddenly realized they weren't following the route she'd taken on her previous visits. In fact, they weren't headed for the hideously incongruous block of the Crown Chancery at all. Honor was just as happy—the architect who'd designed the Chancery a T-century before had suffered from a terminal case of the 'functional' school that clashed horribly with the older, more graceful sections of the palace—but the unexpected diversion gave her butterflies bigger wings. The Queen had received her in the Blue Hall on each of her previous visits. The official throne room was roughly the size of a soccer field, with a soaring ceiling guaranteed to intimidate anyone, but the thought of meeting her sovereign in closer, less formal proximity was oddly terrifying.
She scolded herself. She had no right to think anything of the sort was in the offing. It was presumptuous, if nothing else, and—
Major Dupre made a sudden turn towards the very oldest part of the palace, and Honor cleared her throat.
'Excuse me, Major, but where, exactly, are we going?'
'King Michael's Tower, Milady.' Dupre seemed surprised, as if anyone should have known where she was, but Honor heard Henke inhale behind her. She looked over her shoulder, but Mike had recovered from her surprise— if that was what it had been—and returned her gaze with a brown-eyed innocence her cousin Paul couldn't have bettered.
Honor spared her bland-faced exec a fulminating look, then turned back to the square finger of native stone looming before them. It wasn't much of a 'tower' by the standards of a counter-grav civilization, but it thrust up with a certain imposing grace, and something prodded at the back of her mind. It was elusive, whatever it was, and she scrolled through her mental files, trying to ferret it out. Was it something she'd read somewhere?
The Manticoran media had reached a sort of gentleman's agreement with the Crown almost at the Kingdom's founding. In return for an official policy of public availability to the press and restraint in invoking the Official Secrets and Defense of the Realm Acts, the royal family's personal life was effectively off-limits, but there'd been something in the Landing Times about—
And then she remembered. King Michael's Tower was Queen Elizabeth's private retreat, open only to her closest political allies and intimates.
Her head started to whip back around to Henke, but it was too late; they were already at the tower entrance. The uniformed sentries snapped to attention as the door swung open, and Honor made herself swallow her questions and follow Dupre without comment.
The major led them down an airy, sunlit hall to an old-fashioned, straight-line elevator that had to be part of the tower's original equipment and punched a destination. The elevator didn't even use internal grav lifters, but the car rose surprisingly smoothly for such an obsolete device, and the doors opened onto another spacious hall in the tower's upper stories. There were no sentries in evidence, but Honor knew sophisticated security systems were observing their every move and schooled her face into a calm she was far from feeling as she accompanied the major to a closed door of age-darkened wood. He rapped once, sharply, on the carved panel, then opened it.
'Your Majesty,' he announced in a carrying voice, 'Lady Harrington and Commander Henke.'
'Thank you, Andre,' someone said, and the major stood aside for Honor and Henke to pass him, then closed the door silently behind them.
