War Of Honor

on either wing. She and Henke were invited to supper at Protector's Palace, and Honor leaned further back and crossed her legs as the air limo started out on the lengthy flight to Mayhew Steading through a brilliantly blue, cloud-stippled sky, carefully watched over by its escorts.

'Basically,' she said, 'a majority of the House of Lords are willing to close their eyes to things they don't want to know about, even where something like slavery is concerned, because, however honest they may be themselves, they'd rather have a government like High Ridge's than take a chance on what might replace it. Despite all the corruption and pork barrel vote-buying that involves, they regard High Ridge as a lesser risk than giving Elizabeth and her supporters back control of both houses.'

'Mom said something about that—and about how San Martin fitted into the political equation. But she was in a hurry to finish her letter, and I never asked her for a complete explanation,' Henke confessed.

'To paraphrase something Admiral Courvoisier once said to me, no captain—or commodore—in the Queen's Navy can afford to be a virgin where politics are concerned, Mike. And especially not when she also stands as close to the Throne as you do.'

There was absolutely no condemnation in Honor's tone, but there was a certain sternness in her eyes as her gaze locked ever so briefly with Henke's. The countess looked back almost defiantly for a few heartbeats, but then her eyes fell, and she nodded in unhappy agreement.

'I know,' she admitted in a lower voice. 'It's just—Well, I suppose when it comes right down to it, I never really liked politics much more than you did. And since Dad and Cal were killed and that slimy bastard managed to steal the premiership from Willie Alexander, the very thought of sitting down in the same chamber as him is enough to turn my stomach.'

'And you the one who was just criticizing the Queen for her temper!' Honor scolded gently.

'Guilty as charged,' Henke acknowledged. 'But you were saying?'

'I was saying that a majority of the House of Lords is backing High Ridge for reasons of its own. Which is probably what your mother meant when she mentioned San Martin. That same majority is afraid of what will happen when the San Martino peers are finally seated.'

'Why?' Henke asked with such genuine incomprehension that Honor, despite herself, sighed.

'Mike,' she said patiently, 'this is basic Political History 101. What's the one thing the Crown has been trying to take away from the Lords ever since there's been a Star Kingdom?'

'The power of the purse,' Henke replied.

'Very good,' Honor said. 'But the Founders, who were otherwise a fairly decent lot, were virtually unanimous in their determination to see to it that they and their descendants hung onto the real political power in the Star Kingdom. That's why the Constitution specifically requires that the Prime Minister come from the House of Lords and specifies that any finance bill must be introduced in the Lords. I happen to think there's something to be said for placing substantial political power in the hands of a legislative chamber which can be . . . insulated from the political and ideological hysteria du jour, but the Founders set up too much of a good thing. The fact that they never have to stand for election means that too many of the peers—present company excluded, of course—have . . . questionable contact with reality, let's say. Worse, it's even easier for someone who inherits her title to become an empire builder within the Parliament. Trust me,' she added dryly. 'I've seen how that works on two different planets now, and with a considerably better vantage point than I ever wanted.'

She gazed useeingly out the window at the port escort for several seconds, her long fingers gently caressing both 'cats' soft, silky fur. Nimitz looked up at her speculatively as he tasted her emotions through their empathic link. For a moment, Henke half-expected him to sink his claws, however gently, into Honor's kneecap. He was quite capable of making his displeasure evident when it was time to scold his person for brooding over past events no one could change, anyway. But this time he decided against it, and left Honor alone until she shook herself and turned back to their guest.

'Anyway, I think that over all the Crown would be just as happy to leave the premiership where it is. Much as I like and respect your cousin, honesty compels me to point out that she does have a vested interest in maintaining an hereditary aristocratic system. And I suppose that while I'm in honest mode, I should probably point out that you and I do, too. Now, at least.

'But for generations, the Crown has wanted to see a better balance between the powers of the Commons and the Lords, and the best way to accomplish that would be to give the Commons control of the purse as a counterweight to leaving the premiership permanently lodged in the Lords. Except that the Crown has never been able to assemble the required majority in the Lords to amend the Constitution to transfer that power to the lower house.'

'Of course not,' Henke snorted with the rich contempt for aristocratic defense of privilege possible only for one born to that same aristocracy. 'What? You really think that anyone who has as good a thing going for them as the peers do is going to vote to give half of her power to someone else?'

'Actually,' Honor said seriously, 'that's exactly what High Ridge is afraid of, and a lot of the Independents agree with him.'

'That's what Mom said,' Henke said in an exasperated voice, 'but I just can't see it happening, somehow.'

'High Ridge can. And so can Elizabeth and Willie Alexander. It's all a matter of numbers, Mike, and the San Martino peers could very well shift the balance in the Lords to a point that makes it possible for the Queen to pull it off at last. But the joker in the deck is the combination of the Constitution's limit on the creation of new peerages and the terms of the Act of Annexation which admitted Trevor's Star to the Star Kingdom. The Constitution limits increases in the total membership of the House of Lords to no more than ten percent between any two general elections, and the Act of Annexation specifies that none of the new peers from San Martin will be confirmed or seated until after the next general election.

'So what the Government and its supporters in the Lords are trying to do is to postpone that election as long as possible. At the moment, there's not much question that the San Martinos are very solidly behind the Queen and the Centrists. After all, it was our Navy, under Elizabeth and the Cromarty Government, which kicked the Peeps out of the Trevor's Star System and liberated them, and it was Cromarty and your father, as Foreign Secretary, who negotiated the actual terms of their admission to the Star Kingdom. Not only that, but San Martin had no hereditary aristocracy before its annexation, so it's not likely that the San Martinos are going to have the same . . . devoted attachment to the status quo in Parliament. Gratitude to the people they see as responsible for their liberation, coupled with that lack of aristocratic tradition, means the new peers would be likely—almost certain, in fact—to support a motion by Lord Alexander, as the leader of the Centrist Party, to transfer that power of the purse to the House of Commons.

'But until they're actually seated, they can't support anything. And what High Ridge and his cronies are up to right now is building a sufficiently strong majority among the members of the existing peerage to resist any such action. According to the latest figures I've seen, the number of current peers opposed to the required constitutional amendment gives them at least a fifteen-percent edge, but that number could erode. And even if it doesn't, two general elections will put enough San Martinos into the Lords to overcome it, assuming their support for the amendment is solid.

'So in addition to trying to increase their own margin of support among the peers, High Ridge and his allies are trying to cut into the Centrist majority in the Commons, as well. Since it's the Commons who vote to confirm the creation of any new peerages, High Ridge hopes that if he can increase his clout in the lower house, he may be able to influence the approval process in a way that confirms peers he figures can be co-opted to support of the continued dominance of the Lords.

'The fact that San Martino MPs are going to be card-carrying Centrists or Crown Loyalists lends that particular concern added point. Technically, San Martin still doesn't have any MPs, either, but their 'special representatives' in the Commons are serving a lot of the same functions, even if they can't actually vote yet. And there's no question where their loyalties lie. Nor have any of the peers failed to take note of that little fact.

'And that, Mike, is why otherwise reasonably decent members of the House of Lords are actively supporting a piece of work like High Ridge and let him get away with his damage control on the Manpower Scandal. None of them really like him, very few of them have any illusions about the 'thoroughness' of his investigation of Countess Tor's charges, and most of them wouldn't trust him or any of his allies to look after their dogs, much less their children. But their general position is that even if the present Constitution is imperfect, the system it's created has served the Star Kingdom well, and at the moment, he's the one defending the status