War Of Honor

'So you don't exactly see New Kiev as the ideal leader for the Liberal Party?' he inquired ironically, and she snorted bitterly in reply.

'If I'd ever had any doubts about it, they disappeared the instant she agreed to climb into bed with High Ridge,' the countess declared roundly. 'Whatever the short-term tactical advantages might be, the long-term consequences are going to be disastrous. For her and for the party both.'

'You agree with me that sooner or later the wheels are bound to come off the High Ridge Government, then?'

'Of course they are!' She glowered at him. 'What is this? Twenty Questions? I know you're a lot more interested in interstellar power politics than I am—at least where the slavery issue isn't a factor—but even I can see that those idiots are heading us right back into some stupid fucking confrontation with the Havenites. And that they're in the process of wrecking the Alliance before they do it. And that they're too goddamned blind even to see it coming! Or to realize the electorate isn't nearly as stupid as they think it is. When the shit does hit the fan, and the public finds out just how right White Haven and Harrington have been about our naval preparedness all along, there's going to be Hell to pay. And even the rank and file Liberals are going to realize that New Kiev's been High Ridge's willing political whore. They're going to look at all of the 'Building the Peace' social spending she's so busy congratulating herself over right now, and they're going to recognize it for exactly what it was. And they're going to understand how funneling all that money into her pet projects took it away from the Navy. And while we're on the subject of stupid, shitty political maneuvers, let's not overlook what she—and the rest of the Liberal leadership right along with her—are perfectly prepared to help High Ridge do to Harrington and White Haven. You think there's not going to be a backlash against that when everyone finally figures out what a put up job it was? Please!'

She rolled her eyes in exasperation and folded her arms.

'There! Did I pass your little quiz?' she demanded.

Zilwicki chuckled as she bestowed one of her patented glares upon him. Then he nodded.

'With flying colors,' he agreed. 'But I wasn't really trying to find out whether or not you already knew water was wet. What I was doing was laying the groundwork for another question.'

'Which is?' she asked.

'Which is,' he said, and every bit of humor had vanished from his crumbling granite voice, 'why the fuck you're letting her take your party down with her?'

'I'm letting her?! My God, Anton! I've been hammering away with everything I've got ever since I got back from Sol. Not that it's done any damned good. Maybe I could've accomplished more if High Ridge hadn't replaced Cromarty and I'd gotten my seat in the Lords back, but I've certainly done everything I can from outside Parliament! And,' she added moodily, 'made myself almost as unpopular again as I was the day they first excluded me, to boot.'

'Excuses,' Zilwicki said flatly, and she stared at him in disbelief. 'Excuses,' he repeated. 'Damn it, Cathy, haven't you learned anything from all you managed to accomplish working with Jeremy and the rest of the Anti-Slavery League?'

'What the hell you talking about?' she demanded.

'I'm talking about your inability to separate yourself from the Countess of the Tor now that you're back home.' She gazed at him in obvious incomprehension, and he sighed. 'You're trying to play the game by their rules,' he explained in a more patient voice. 'You're letting who you are dictate the avenues available to you. Maybe that's inevitable given your title and family connections.'

She started to interrupt, but he shook his head quickly.

'No, that wasn't a highlander's slam at all things aristocratic. And I certainly wasn't accusing you of being the sort of overbred cretin High Ridge or even New Kiev are. I'm only saying that you have an inherited position of power. The fact that you do is obviously going to shape the way you approach problems and issues, in that you're going to attack them from the powerbase you already have. Fair?'

'So far,' she said slowly, studying his expression with intense speculation of her own. 'And this is going someplace?'

'Of course it is. Just not to someplace an aristocrat might naturally think of,' he amended with a slight smile.

'Like where?'

'Let me put it this way. We're both in agreement that the current Government is in a position to continue to exclude you from the House of Lords, effectively indefinitely, which means that your position as a peer actually doesn't give you any advantage at all. Put another way, the powerbase you have is all but useless under the current political circumstances. Yes?'

'That might be putting it a bit dramatically, but it's essentially accurate,' she conceded, gazing at him in fascinated speculation.

One of the things she most loved about him was the depth of insight and analytical contemplation his controlled exterior hid from so many casual observers. He lacked her own darting quickness, her ability to isolate the critical elements of most problems almost by instinct. But by the same token, there were times that ability deserted or failed her, and when it did, she tended to try to substitute energy and enthusiasm for analysis. To batter her way through a problem, instead of taking it apart and reasoning out the best approach to it. That was one mistake Anton never made, and he often prevented her from making it, either.

'In that case, what you need is a new powerbase,' he said. 'One that your current base helps you acquire, perhaps, but one completely separate from it.'

'Such as?' she asked.

'Such as a seat in the Commons,' he told her simply.

'What?!' She blinked. 'I can't hold a seat in the Commons—I'm a peer! And even if I weren't, the one thing High Ridge isn't going to allow is a general election, so I couldn't run for a seat even if I were eligible for one!'

'The Countess of the Tor can't hold a seat in the House of Commons,' Zilwicki agreed. 'But Catherine Montaigne could . . . if she weren't the Countess of the Tor anymore.'

'I—' She started a quick response, then froze, staring at him in shock.

'That's what I meant about letting your inherited position of power stand in your way,' he said gently. 'I know you don't have any greater instinctive veneration for aristocratic privilege than I do—probably less, in your own way, because that's the background you come from and you know how often anything like veneration is completely undeserved. But sometimes I think you're still blinkered by the social stratum you grew up in. Hasn't it ever occurred to you that since they managed to emasculate your position as a peer by excluding you from the Lords, your title's actually been a hindrance rather than a help?'

'I—' She shook herself. 'Actually, it never has,' she said slowly. 'I mean, in a way, it's just . . .'

'It's just who you are,' he finished for her. 'But it isn't, really, you know. Maybe it was before you left for Old Terra, but you've grown a lot since then. How important is it to you to be a peer of the realm?'

'More important than I'd like to admit,' she confessed frankly after a long moment of thought, and shook her head. 'Damn. Until you actually asked that question, I'd've said it didn't matter a good goddamn to me. But it does.'

'I'm not surprised,' he told her gently. 'But let me ask you this. Is being Countess of the Tor as important to you as your principles?'

'No way in Hell,' she said instantly, with a fierce certainty which startled even her just a bit.

'Then consider this scenario,' he suggested, crossing his legs and settling even more comfortably into his chair. 'A fiery noblewoman, consumed with the passion of her convictions, renounces her claim to one of the most respected and venerated titles of nobility in the entire Star Kingdom. Determined to fight for her principles, she sacrifices the privileged status of her birth in order to seek election—election, mind you— to the House of Commons because she's been excluded from the House of Lords because of those same convictions. And once elected, of course, she has a moral imprimatur she would never have enjoyed as the holder of an inherited title. She's paid an obvious price for her principles, given up of her own volition something no one could have taken from her, because it's the only way she can fight effectively for what she believes in. And unlike her aristocratic opponents, who are obviously fighting at least in part to maintain their own privileged positions under the status quo, she's started out by giving up her special privileges. Not to mention the fact that her successful election campaign demonstrates that she commands the