War Of Honor

grinding someone's face in the fact that you loathe and despise him, even if you only do it in private, can only make things worse.'

'It's hardly fair to say she 'grinds' it into his face, Honor,' White Haven protested mildly.

'Yes, it is,' she contradicted firmly. 'Face it, Hamish. Elizabeth doesn't handle people she despises well. I know, because in my own way, I have the same weakness.' She did not, LaFollet noticed, say anything about the famous White Haven temper. 'But I've had to learn there are some situations I just can't solve by simply reaching for a bigger hammer when someone irritates me. Elizabeth recognizes that intellectually, but once her emotions become involved, it's almost impossible for her to mask her feelings except in the most official settings.'

She held the Earl's gaze until, finally, he nodded almost unwillingly; then she shrugged.

'Elizabeth has enormous strengths,' she said then, 'but there are times I wish she had a little more of Benjamin's . . . interpersonal skills. She can lead in a way very few people could possibly match, but she's the wrong woman in the wrong place when it comes to manipulating people who don't already want to be led into following her. And that's doubly true when the people she ought to be convincing to do what she wants want to do exactly the opposite for reasons of their own.'

'I know,' White Haven sighed. 'I know. But,' he added in a stronger, more cheerful voice, 'that's what she has people like you and Willie for—to advise her when she's headed into trouble.'

'Willie, maybe,' Lady Harrington said with another shrug.

'And you,' the Earl insisted. 'She's come to rely on you for a lot more than your insight into Grayson politics, and you know it.'

'Maybe,' she repeated, obviously more than a little uncomfortable with the thought, and he changed the subject.

'At any rate, I decided that since I was in the area, and since Willie had bent my ear about what High Ridge—and Janacek—had to say at the briefing, I'd stop by and see about bringing you up to speed, as well.'

Of course you did, LaFollet thought dryly. After all, it was obviously your bounden duty to get this critical information to her as rapidly as possible . . . in person.

Nimitz glanced at the armsman over White Haven's shoulder, and his ears flicked in obvious amusement as he tasted the colonel's emotions. LaFollet stuck out a mental tongue at the 'cat, and Nimitz's grass-green eyes danced devilishly, but he declined to do anything more overt.

'Thank you,' Lady Harrington told the Earl, and her tone was just as casually serious as his was, as if she were totally oblivious to the shared amusement of her 'cat and her henchman. Which she most certainly wasn't, LaFollet reminded himself, and forced his unruly thoughts back under control. Fortunately, the only thing she could sense through her link to Nimitz was emotions, not the thoughts which had produced them. Under most circumstances, she was capable of deducing approximately what those thoughts must have been with almost frightening accuracy, but in this instance, that ability seemed to have deserted her. Which, the colonel reflected with much less amusement, probably reflected the intensity with which she refused to face what was actually happening between her and White Haven.

'It may take a while,' the Earl warned her. 'What does your schedule look like for the rest of the afternoon?'

'I have an evening guest lecture over at the Crusher, but that's not until after dinner, and I've already finish-polished my notes for it. Until then, I'm free. I have a small clutch of papers I really ought to be reading and grading, but they're all extra-credit electives, and I can probably afford to let them slide for a single afternoon.'

'Good.' White Haven glanced at his chrono. 'I hadn't thought about it until you mentioned dinner, but it's just about lunchtime. Could I buy you lunch somewhere?'

'No, but I'll buy you lunch,' she countered, and LaFollet felt a fresh sinking sensation as he saw the way her eyes suddenly danced even more devilishly than Nimitz's had. White Haven arched a questioning eyebrow, and she chuckled. 'You're here on the Island, Hamish, and whether Janacek likes it or not, you are a flag officer. Why not let me com ahead to Casey and reserve one of the flag dining rooms for lunch?'

'Oh, Honor, that's evil,' White Haven said with a sudden huge grin, and LaFollet closed his eyes in profound agreement. Casey Hall was the enormous cafeteria right off the Quadrangle. Its main dining hall was capable of seating almost a third of Saganami Island's entire student body simultaneously, but it also boasted smaller, much more palatial dining rooms for more senior officers. Including fifteen or twenty small, private rooms reserved for admirals and very senior captains of the list and their guests on a first-come, first-served basis.

'Janacek will fall down in a frothing fit when he hears you and I had lunch together in the very heart of what he'd like to consider his own private domain,' the Earl continued. 'Especially when he figures out I came straight from Willie's after discussing what he and High Ridge had to say at the briefing this morning.'

'I doubt we'll be quite that lucky,' Lady Harrington disagreed, 'but we can at least hope his blood pressure will kick up a few points.'

'I like it,' White Haven announced cheerfully, and waved for her to precede him towards the door.

For the tiniest sliver of a moment, Andrew LaFollet hovered on the brink of the unthinkable. But the instant passed, and as he stepped around the Steadholder to open the door for her, he pressed his lips firmly together against the words he had no business saying.

They really don't have a clue, he thought. That's why they don't realize I'm not the only person— the only two-footed person, anyway—who's begun to notice the way the two of them look at each other. The last thing they need is to go traipsing off to a private lunch in such a public place, but they don't even realize it.

He opened the door, glanced through it in a quick, automatic search, then stood aside to allow the Steadholder and her guest through it. He watched them heading for Johannsen's desk to sign off the range sheet, and shook his head mentally.

Father Church says You look after children and fools, he told the Comforter. I hope You're looking after both of them now.

Chapter Four

Captain Thomas Bachfisch, owner and master of the armed merchant ship Pirates' Bane, was a lean, spare man with a thin, lined face. He was more than a little stoop-shouldered, and despite his immaculately tailored blue civilian uniform, he did not cut an impressive figure. Nor, for that matter, did Pirates' Bane. At around five million tons, the freighter was of little more than average size for most regions of space, although she did tend towards the upper end of the tonnage range here in Silesia. But although she was obviously well maintained, she was not—despite her defiantly aggressive name—much to look at. To an experienced eye, it was apparent that she was at least half a T-century old, and probably a product of the now-defunct Gopfert Yard in the New Berlin System. Gopfert had once been one of the busiest shipyards in the entire Andermani Empire, supplying not only the Empire's great merchant houses but also building warships and auxiliaries for the Imperial Navy. But that had been a long time ago, and nowadays Pirates' Bane's lines were clearly dated, a bit antique. Indeed, her brand spanking new paint made her look like an over-aged dowager after an unsuccessful make-over, and anything less like her warlike name would have been difficult to imagine. Which was just fine with Captain Bachfisch. There were times, especially for a merchant spacer here in the Silesian Confederacy, when being underestimated was the very best thing that could happen.

As his present occupation demonstrated.

He stood in his freighter's boat bay, hands clasped loosely behind him, and watched with grim satisfaction as the latest group of Silesians to underestimate his vessel shuffled toward the waiting shuttle from the Andermani cruiser Todfeind. They were more than merely subdued as they filed between the row of waiting Andermani Marines and the armed crewmen Bachfisch had detailed to deliver them to their new jailers.

'We'll send your handcuffs back across as soon as we get these . . . people properly brigged, Captain,' the