Honor Among Enemies

years old, and he belongs to the Society for Creative Anachronism. They're a weird group that enjoys recreating the past the way it ought to have been. Uncle Jacques' own favorite period was the second- century Ante Diaspora, uh, that would be the twentieth-century,' she added, since Grayson still used the ancient Gregorian calendar, '...and he was Planetary Reserve Grand Pistol Champion that year. He's just as handsome as mother is beautiful, too, and I adored him.' She rolled her eyes with a grin. 'I followed him around like a love-struck puppy, which must have been maddening, but he never snowed it. Instead, he taught me to shoot what he called real guns, and...' she chuckled '...Nimitz didn't like the muzzle blast then, either.'

'That's because Nimitz is a cultured and discerning individual, My Lady.'

'Ha! Anyway, I kept it up pretty regularly till I went off to the Academy, and I considered going out for the pistol team then. But I was already pretty good with small arms and I'd only started studying the coup about four years before I passed the entrance exams, so I decided to stick with the martial arts and wound up on the unarmed combat team, instead.'

'I see.' LaFollet took two or three more strides, then grinned wryly. 'In case I've never mentioned it before, My Lady, you're not very much like a typical Grayson lady. Guns, unarmed combat... Maybe I should hide behind you the next time it hits the fan.'

'Why, Andrew! What a shocking thing to say to your Steadholder!'

LaFollet chuckled in reply, yet he couldn't help thinking she was quite right. Normally, no properly brought up Grayson male would even have considered discussing such violent subjects with a properly brought up female. But Lady Harrington hadn't been brought up as a Grayson, and the local rules defining proper behavior were changing, anyway. The changes must seem slow to an outsider, but to a Grayson, whose life was built on tradition, they'd come with bewildering speed over the past six T-years, and the woman Andrew LaFollet guarded with his life was the reason they had.

It was odd, but she was probably less aware of those changes than anyone else on the planet, for she came from a society which would have greeted the very notion that men and women might be considered unequal with incomprehension. But Graysons deeply traditional, patriarchal society and religion had evolved in a thousand years of isolation on a world whose lethal concentrations of heavy metals made it its own people’s worst enemy. The bedrock strength of those traditions meant any change was bound to be incremental, not something that happened overnight, but LaFollet was constantly aware of the small, subtle adjustments taking place around him. For the most part, he thought they were good changes, not always comfortable ones, as the group of religious zealots who'd tried to destroy his Steadholder little more than a year ago had demonstrated, but good ones. Yet he was virtually certain Lady Harrington still didn't realize the extent to which younger Grayson women were beginning to reshape their own lives around the pattern she and the other Manticoran women serving in Graysons naval forces provided. Not that Grayson showed any particular signs of turning into a mirror image of the Star Kingdom. Instead, its people were evolving a new pattern all their own, and he often wondered where it would end.

They reached the end of the short passage and took the lift to Harrington Houses second floor, where Honor’s private quarters were located. An older man with thinning sandy hair and gray eyes was waiting when the lift doors opened, and she cocked her head.

'Hello, Mac. What can I do for you?' she asked.

'We've just received a message from the space facility, Ma'am.' Like Honor, James MacGuiness wore civilian clothes, as befitted his role as Harrington House's major-domo, but he was the only member of her personal staff who ever addressed her as anything other than 'My Lady.' There was a very simple reason for that; Master Chief Steward MacGuiness had been her personal steward and, as she was fond of saying, chief keeper for over eight years, and that made him the only member of her household who'd known her even before she'd been knighted, far less become a countess and stead-holder. He normally addressed her as 'Milady' in front of visitors, but in private he had a tendency to revert to the older military courtesy.

'What sort of message?' she asked, and he smiled broadly.

'It's from Captain Henke, Ma'am. Agni made her alpha translation three hours ago.'

'Mike's here?' Honor said delightedly. 'That's wonderful! When do we expect her?'

'She'll be landing in about another hour, Ma'am.' Something about MacGuiness' tone was a bit odd, and Honor looked a question at him. 'She's not alone, Ma'am,' the steward said. 'Admiral White Haven is with her, and he's asked if it would be convenient for him to accompany her to Harrington House.'

'Earl White Haven? Here?' Honor blinked, and MacGuiness nodded. 'Did he say anything about the reason for his visit?'

'No, Ma'am. He just asked if you could see him.'

'Of course I can!' She stood in thought for another moment, then shook herself and handed the gun case to MacGuiness. 'I suppose I should get tidied up, under the circumstances. Would you see about cleaning this for me, Mac?'

'Of course, Ma'am.'

'Thank you. And I suppose you'd better tell Miranda I need her, too.'

'I already have, Ma'am. She said she'd meet you in your dressing room.'

'Then I shouldn't keep her waiting.' Honor nodded and swept off down the corridor to her waiting maid, and her mind whirred as she tried to guess why White Haven wanted to see her.

A knock on the frame of the open door alerted Honor, and she looked up with a smile as MacGuiness ushered her visitors into her spacious, sunny office. Aside from Nimitz and LaFollet, whose constant presence was required under Grayson law, she was alone, for Howard Clinkscales, her regent and administrative executive, was in Austin City for the day, conferring with Chancellor Prestwick, and she rose and walked around her desk, holding out her hand to the slim woman whose skin was barely a shade lighter than her space-black RMN uniform.

'Mike! Why didn't you warn me you were coming?' she demanded as the other woman clasped her hand firmly.

'Because I didn't know I was.' Captain (JG) the Honorable Michelle Henke’s husky, soft-textured contralto was wry, and she grinned at her host. Mike Henke was a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth, with the unmistakable features of the House of Winton, but she'd also been Honor’s roommate and social mentor at the Academy's Saganami Island campus. Despite the vast social gulf between them, she'd become Honor’s closest friend, and her eyes were warm. 'Agni's just been reassigned to Sixth Fleet, and Admiral White Haven nabbed us for a taxi.'

'I see.' Honor gave Henke's hand another squeeze, then turned to the tall, broad-shouldered admiral who'd accompanied her. 'My Lord,' she said more formally, extending her hand once more. 'I'm delighted to see you again.'

'And I to see you, Milady,' he replied, equally formally, and her cheekbones heated as he bent to kiss her hand instead of shaking it. It was the proper way to greet a woman on Grayson, and she'd become accustomed to it under most circumstances. But she felt uncomfortable when White Haven did it. She knew, intellectually, that her steadholder's rank actually took precedence over his, but her title was barely six years old while the Earldom of White Haven dated from the very founding of the Star Kingdom, and he was also one of the two or three most respected flag officers of the navy in which she'd served for over thirty years.

He straightened, and his blue eyes twinkled, as if he understood exactly what she felt and was chiding her for it. She hadn't seen him in almost three T-years, since, in fact, the day she'd gone into exile on half-pay, and she was privately shocked by the fresh deep lines around those twinkling eyes, but she only smiled.

'Please, sit down,' she invited, gesturing to the chairs clustered around a coffee table. Nimitz hopped down from his wall-mounted perch as they obeyed her invitation, and Henke laughed as he padded across the table to hold out one strong, wiry true-hand to her.

'Its good to see you, too, Stinker,' the captain said, shaking the proffered hand. 'Raided any good celery patches lately?'

Nimitz sniffed his opinion of her idea of humor, but Honor felt his own pleasure over their empathic link. Even people from Manticore and Gryphon, the other two inhabited planets of the Star Kingdom's home system, were distinctly prone to underestimate the intelligence of Sphinx's treecats, but Mike and Nimitz were old friends. She knew as well as Honor that he was brighter than most two-footed people and, despite his inability to form the