War Of Honor

'Perhaps there is a lesson here. None of us is perfect, all of us have made mistakes, and even our heroes are but human. It is neither fair nor just to insist that anyone excel in all areas of human endeavor. That anyone be as capable in matters of state as he or she is in the harsh furnace of war. In the end, perhaps we have elevated our heroes too high, raised them to a pinnacle no mere mortal should be expected to scale. And if, in the end, they have fallen from the heights like the Icarus of ancient legend, is the fault theirs, or is it ours?'

Clausel's column had been devastating less for what it said than for the ground it had prepared, and the columns which followed—written by Conservatives, by Progressives, by other Liberals, and by Independents personally committed to the Government for whatever reason—drove their roots deep into that well-tilled soil with a damning nonpartisan aura that was as convincing as it was false.

Honor had released her own statement, of course, and she knew William Alexander had used his own press contacts to do as much preemptive spadework as he could before the story broke, as well. She'd done some of her own, for that matter, and even appeared, not without a certain carefully concealed trepidation, on 'Into the Fire' herself. The experience had not been one of the most enjoyable of her life.

Neither Prince, a lifelong Liberal, nor DuCain, a card-carrying Crown Loyalist, had ever attempted to conceal their own political affiliations. That was one of the things which made their program so widely watched. But for all their political differences, they respected one another, and they made a conscientious effort to extend that same respect to their guests and reserve their own polemics for their closing segment. But that didn't mean they refrained from hardhitting questions.

'I read your statement of the fifteenth with considerable interest, Your Grace,' Prince had observed on camera. 'I noted that you acknowledge a 'close personal and professional relationship' with Earl White Haven.'

'Actually,' Honor had corrected calmly, fingers stroking Nimitz' ears as he lay in her lap and looked far calmer than he was, 'I didn't 'acknowledge' anything, Minerva. I explained that I have a close personal and professional relationship with both Earl White Haven and his brother, Lord Alexander.'

'Yes, you did.' Prince had accepted the correction gracefully. 'Would you care to take this opportunity to explain that a bit more fully for our viewers?'

'Of course, Minerva.' Honor had looked directly at the live camera and smiled with the ease she had learned to project. 'Both the Earl and I support the Centrist Party, and Lord Alexander, since Duke Cromarty's death, has been the leader of that party. Given the Centrists' majority in the Commons and the dominance of the current Government's parties in the Lords, it was inevitable that the three of us should become close political allies. In fact, that relationship has been the subject of speeches and debates in the Lords for almost three T-years now ... as has the strength of our opposition to the High Ridge Government's policies.'

'But the thrust of the present controversy, Your Grace,' DuCain had observed, 'is that your relationship with Earl White Haven goes beyond a purely political alliance.'

'And it does,' Honor had admitted calmly. 'Earl White Haven and I have known one another for over fifteen T-years now, ever since the Battle of Yeltsin. I've always had the deepest professional respect for him. As, I believe, just about anyone not blinded by petty jealousy and personal animosity must.'

DuCain's eyes had flickered with amusement at her none-too-veiled reference to Sir Edward Janacek, and she'd continued in the same calm tone.

'I'm pleased to say that after our initial meeting at Yeltsin's Star, and particularly in the three or four years preceding my capture by the People's Navy, professional respect had the opportunity to turn into personal friendship, as well. A friendship which has only been deepened by how closely we've worked on a political basis in the Lords since my return from Hades. I regard him not simply as a colleague but as a close personal friend, and neither of us has ever attempted to suggest otherwise. Nor will we.'

'I see.' DuCain had glanced at Prince, handing the focus smoothly back to her, and she'd nodded understanding of her own.

'Your statement also denied that you were anything more than friends and colleagues, Your Grace. Would you care to expand on that?'

'There isn't a great deal to expand upon, Minerva.' Honor had shrugged. 'The entire present furor amounts to no more than the repetition and endless analysis of unsubstantiated allegations from a completely unreliable source. A man, not to put too fine a point upon it, who makes his living from sensationalism and is none too shy about creating it out of whole cloth when reality doesn't offer him a sufficient supply. And who refuses—out of 'journalistic ethics'—to 'compromise his integrity' by naming his sources, since, of course, they spoke to him only on conditions of confidentiality.'

Her soprano voice had been completely level. The fingers caressing Nimitz's ears had never strayed from their gentle rhythm. But her eyes had been very, very cold, and Prince had seemed to recoil ever so slightly.

'That may be the case, Your Grace,' she'd said after a moment, 'but the strength of the controversy seems to be growing, not ebbing. Why do you think that is?'

'I suspect that it's partly human nature,' Honor had replied. What she'd wanted to say was: Because the High Ridge Government—with your precious New Kiev's connivance—is deliberately orchestrating it as a smear campaign, you idiot! But, of course, she couldn't. Charges of deliberately falsified smear campaigns had been the first refuge of the guilty for so long that resorting to them now would only have convinced a huge chunk of the public that the accusations must, in fact, be true. After all, if they weren't, the accused would simply have produced the proof instead of resorting to that tired old tactic, wouldn't they?

'There's an inevitable, and probably healthy, tendency to continuously test the character of those in positions of political power or influence,' Honor had said instead. 'A tendency to assume the worst because it's so important that we not allow ourselves to be taken in by manipulators and cretins who deceive us into believing they're better than they are.

'That, unfortunately, can have its downside when reckless, unsubstantiated charges are flung about, because no one can prove a negative. I've made my own position as clear as I possibly can. I have no intention of belaboring the point, nor do I feel that endless protestations of innocence on my part—or Earl White Haven's, for that matter—would be appropriate or serve any useful purpose. We can both insist endlessly that there's no shred of truth to the allegations that we've ever been physically intimate, but we can't prove it. At the same time, however, I would point out that my statement also invited anyone who has evidence to prove anything to the contrary to bring that evidence forward. No one has.'

'But according to Mr. Hayes,' DuCain had pointed out in return, 'that's because Earl White Haven's security and—especially—your own is too efficient at . . . suppressing unpleasant evidence.'

'My armsmen are extremely efficient at protecting me from physical threats, as they demonstrated right here in Landing, at Regiano's, several years ago,' Honor had replied. 'And they do serve my security functions as Steadholder Harrington, both on Grayson and here on Manticore, as well. I suppose that if I really wanted them to, they could be quite effective in suppressing or concealing evidence. But Mr. Hayes claims to have spoken to people who say they have firsthand knowledge of the alleged improprieties. Unless he's prepared to accuse me of resorting to threats of physical violence to silence those witnesses, I fail to see how my armsmen could prevent him from bringing them forward. And if I were prepared to resort to threats or violence, why in the world wouldn't I have started with him instead of these supposed witnesses of his?'

Her smile had been thin, but no one had been likely to miss its implications . . . or forget the ghosts of Denver Summervale and Pavel Young.

'The fact is, of course, that there have been no threats,' she had continued with another shrug. 'Nor will there be, although Mr. Hayes will undoubtedly continue to use the 'threat' of my armsmen to explain his failure to produce witnesses. In the meantime, however, I believe we've dealt with the matter as thoroughly as it deserves, and, as I say, I have no intention of belaboring my denial of the allegations.'

'Of course, Your Grace,' Prince had murmured. 'In that case, I wonder if you'd care to comment on the proposed naval budgets? For example ...'

The rest of the interview had dealt exclusively with legitimate questions of politics and policy, and Honor felt confident she'd handled that portion of it well. She was less confident that anyone had bothered to notice. All of the post-interview analysis—including, unfortunately, the 'Point-Counterpoint' commentary with which DuCain and Prince always closed their program—had completely ignored it to concentrate once again on the far more