by David Weber
"I know." She nodded and gave him one of the crooked smiles enforced by the artificial nerves in her left cheek. "I understand you and Admiral Caparelli had quite a soccer rivalry during your time on the Island."
"What you understand is that Tom Caparelli kicked my aristocratic backside up one side of the field and down the other," the Earl corrected, and she chuckled.
"That might be true, but I've become far too diplomatic to put it quite so frankly," she told him.
"I see." He lowered the target, and the humor in his expression faded just a bit. "Speaking about being diplomatic, I'm afraid I didn't hunt you up here in your hidey hole just to enjoy your company. Not," he added, "that your company isn't always a pleasure."
"You're not too shabby as a diplomat yourself," she observed, and anyone but Andrew LaFollet might not even have noticed the very slight edge which had crept into her voice.
"Decades spent as the brother of an ambitious politician do that to you," White Haven assured her easily. "In fact, the reason I came looking for you was that the aforesaid ambitious politician and I spent most of the morning together."
"Ah?" Lady Harrington cocked an eyebrow at him.
"I had to fly into Landing on business anyway," the Earl explained, "so I dropped by to see Willie . . . who happened to have just returned from Mount Royal Palace."
"I see." The Steadholder's tone had suddenly become far more neutral, and she ejected the magazine from her pistol, released the slide, and tucked the weapon into the fitted recess in its case.
"Should I assume he asked you to drop by to see me?" she went on.
"Not specifically. But Elizabeth had invited him to the Palace as the Leader of the Opposition to hear the official briefing on the latest inspirations to strike High Ridge and his flunkies." Lady Harrington looked up from the gun case to dart a sharp glance at the Earl, but he either failed to notice or pretended that he had. "The official message inviting the Opposition Leader to the briefing had somehow gone astray. Again."
"I see," she repeated, and closed the gun case with a snap. She reached for her accessory bag, but White Haven's hand got to it before hers, and smiling, he slung it over his own shoulder.
She smiled back, but her eyes were troubled. LaFollet wasn't surprised. The Steadholder had come an enormous distance from the politically unsophisticated naval officer she'd been when LaFollet first became her armsman. Which meant she was unaware neither of the fresh contempt in White Haven's voice when he spoke of the Prime Minister, nor of the pettiness of High Ridge's obviously intentional failure to advise Lord Alexander of the briefing.
Like the Steadholder, although to a lesser degree, the colonel had become better informed on Manticoran political processes than he'd ever really wanted to be. Because of that, he knew there was no specific constitutional requirement for the Prime Minister to invite the leader of his opposition in Parliament to the Queen's official weekly briefings. By long tradition, however, he was supposed to invite the Opposition Leader to the regular briefings, both as a matter of common courtesy and to ensure that if there were a sudden change of government, the individual who would almost certainly replace him as Prime Minister was as fully up to speed as possible.
No one expected any politician, even the Prime Minister of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, to invite his main political rival to Cabinet meetings, or to special Crown briefings. That would have been both unreasonable and foolish. But the twice-a-week general briefings were another matter entirely, and LaFollet knew Duke Cromarty had been scrupulous even at the height of the war against the Peeps about inviting High Ridge, who'd led the Opposition at the time, to attend them. It was typical of High Ridge to "forget" to extend the same courtesy to the man who'd been Cromarty's political second-in-command.
"Was it your impression there was a specific reason this particular invitation might have 'gone astray'?" the Steadholder went on after a moment.
"Not really," White Haven admitted, "although I doubt very much that he was overjoyed to see Willie, given the nature and content of the briefing. On the other hand, he might have been better off because Willie was there anyway." Lady Harrington tilted her head inquiringly, and the Earl chuckled. "My impression is that Her Majesty actually behaves herself a bit better when Willie's present to act as a buffer between her and her Prime Minister," he said dryly.
"I'm afraid that's probably true," Lady Harrington observed, both her voice and her expression rather more serious than the Earl's. "I wish it weren't," she went on, turning away to reach for Nimitz. The 'cat leapt into her arms and swarmed up into his proper position on her right shoulder. He perched there, with the tips of his true-feet's claws digging into the special fabric of her uniform tunic just below her shoulder blade while one true-hand removed his ear protectors, and she turned back to White Haven. "Lord knows I sympathize with her, but showing her contempt for him so obviously, even in private, doesn't help the situation at all."
"No, it doesn't," the Earl agreed, his own tone less amused then it had been a moment before. "On the other hand, Elizabeth and High Ridge are like oil and water. And say what you will about her tactfulness, or lack thereof, no one could ever accuse her of deceitfulness."
"There's deceitfulness, and there's guile," the Steadholder replied. "And then there's the recognition that 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. Fortuna
tely, 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 Andy oberleutnant der Sterne in charge of the Marine detail promised him.
"I appreciate that, Oberleutnant." Bachfisch's tenor voice was just a bit on the nasal side, and its clipped Manticoran enunciation contrasted sharply with the Andermani officer's harsher accent.
"Believe me, Sir, the pleasure is all ours." The oberleutnant finished his count as the last prisoner marched droopingly past him. "I make that thirty-seven, Kapitan," he announced, and Bachfisch nodded.
The oberleutnant punched an entry into his memo board, then shook his head and gave the blue-coated man beside him a much more admiring look than naval officers were wont to waste on mere merchant captains.
"I hope you'll pardon me for asking, Kapitan," he said with a marked air of diffidence, "but just how did you manage to capture them?" Bachfisch cocked his head at him, and the oberleutnant shook his own head quickly. "That may not have sounded exactly the way I meant it, Sir. It's just that, usually, pirates are more likely to capture merchant crews than the other way around. It's always a pleasant surprise when someone manages to turn the tables on them, instead. And I have to admit that when the Kapitan told me to come across and take them off your hands I did a little research. This isn't the first time you've handed us a batch of pirates."
Bachfisch regarded the youthful officer, the equivalent of an RMN lieutenant (junior grade), thoughtfully for a moment. He'd already transmitted his complete report to Todfeind's captain, and the cruiser's legal officer had taken sworn statements from all of his officers and most of his senior ratings. That was SOP here in the Confederacy, where witnesses to acts of piracy were frequently unable to attend the eventual trials of the pirates in question. But it was obvious from the oberleutnant's earnest expression that his seniors hadn't chosen to share that information with him . . . and that curiosity was eating him alive.
"I prefer handing any batch of pirates over to you rather than to the Sillies," Bachfisch said after a moment. "At least when I hand them over to the Empire, I can be reasonably certain I won't be seeing them again. They know it, too. They were an unhappy lot when I told them who'd be taking them into custody from us.
"As to how we came to turn the tables on them . . ." He shrugged. "The Bane may not look it, Oberleutnant, but she's as heavily armed as a lot of heavy cruisers. Most merchies can't afford the tonnage penalty and structural modifications to mount a worthwhile armament, but the Bane isn't like most merchies." He chuckled dryly. "As a matter of fact, she started life as a Vogel —class armed collier for your own Navy something like seventy T-years ago. I picked her up cheap when she was finally listed for disposal about ten T-years ago because her inertial compensator was pretty much shot. Aside from t
hat, she was in fairly good shape, though, so it wasn't too hard to get her back on-line. I replaced and updated her original armament at the same time, and I put a good bit of thought into how to camouflage the weapon ports while I was at it." Another shrug. "So most pirates don't have a clue that the 'helpless merchant ship' they're about to close with and board is actually several times as heavily armed as they are.
"Not until we open the ports and blow them to Hell, anyway," he said, and his tenor voice was suddenly harsh and very, very cold. Then he shook himself. "As for the clowns we just handed over to you," he went on in a more conversational tone which never warmed his eyes at all, "they were already in their boarding shuttles on the way across to us when their ship and the rest of their crewmates turned into plasma behind them. So they really didn't have much choice but to leave their weapons behind, come through the personnel lock one at a time, and surrender, exactly the way we told them to. They certainly didn't want to piss off our gunners by trying to do anything else."
The oberleutnant looked at the lined face and those icy eyes and decided not to ask any more of the multitude of questions still hovering in his mind. He felt reasonably confident Bachfisch would have answered them courteously enough, but there was something about the merchant skipper which discouraged too much familiarity.
The young Andermani officer looked around the boat bay gallery. Like everything else about Pirates' Bane, the bay was perfectly maintained. It was also spotless, with freshly painted bulkheads and a deck which looked literally clean enough to eat off of. One look at the freighter's captain would have been sufficient to warn anyone that he ran an extraordinarily taut ship, especially for a trader here in Silesia, but this went beyond mere tautness. Pirates' Bane looked far more like a warship, or the naval auxiliary as which she had begun life, than she looked like any "normal" merchantman the lieutenant had ever boarded.
He returned his eyes to Pirates' Bane's captain and came briefly to attention. He wasn't in the habit of expending military courtesy on mere merchant spacers, but this one was different. And despite the oberleutnant's own awareness of the steadily escalating tension between his own navy and that of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, he recognized that difference.
