At All Costs

by David Weber

  "We do-even Hamish," Emily said, smiling demurely at her husband.

  "Under some circumstances," Elizabeth continued just a bit more seriously, "this could have been a significant political liability. Not only is Hamish First Lord, but Willie is Prime Minister. Which, by the way, is the first time in the Star Kingdom's history two sibs have simultaneously held such important positions in a government. The idea that all of us were lying, whether we were or not, is going to present itself, and the Opposition would just love to pounce on it. At the moment, however, there is no effective Opposition. The only person who could put one together, really, is Cathy Montaigne, and given her own... irregular personal life-not to mention her basic personality-she'll be standing on top of the Parliament building toasting the brides and groom and leading choruses of obscene drinking songs in their honor.

  "What I'm trying to say is that, politically speaking, there's no time like the present. I think you should go ahead and make your marriage public. Besides, I've consulted the Queen's Bench. They agree with Hamish's interpretation. And they also agree I have the authority as Queen to set aside Article One-Nineteen. For that matter, they tell me Admiral Caparelli could make the same decision 'for the good of the service' on the basis that the Crown can't afford to lose either of you at this particular time. So it's time to come out of the closet, you three."

  "That's... a scary thought," Honor admitted softly, her smile just a bit tremulous. "One I'm really looking forward to, you understand, but still scary after so long. And I have to go back to Trevor's Star the day after tomorrow. I'll feel awfully guilty if we're all wrong and this blows up in everyone else's face while I'm off with the fleet and out of range!"

  "If we wait until you can hang around to absorb your share of any slings and arrows, we'll never get it announced," Emily pointed out. "Eighth Fleet is eating up every minute of your time." She pouted. "It was bad enough when the Navy was only seducing one of my spouses away from me!"

  "Hey, if you can't take a joke, you shouldn't follow the Fleet, girlie," Hamish said with a wicked grin, and Emily gurgled a laugh.

  "I bet you say that to all your dirt-side dollies, spacer!" she growled.

  "If we can return this conversation to a somewhat less salacious basis," Elizabeth said severely, eyes twinkling, "I have a suggestion."

  "Which is?" Honor asked, ignoring Hamish and Emily as Emily reached out and smacked him on the head with her working arm.

  "Which is that we can probably defuse at least some of any adverse public reaction if we make the announcement the right way."

  "Which is?" Honor repeated.

  "You three were already invited to tonight's state dinner," Elizabeth said. "It was going to be one of those boring but necessary evenings, full of ambassadors and toasts and looking confident for the newsies and HD cameras. And I'll be honest with you, looking confident is more necessary than usual at the moment."

  Her expression darkened once more, and Ariel's ears flattened in reaction to her mood shift.

  "What happened to you at Solon, Honor, and what the Peeps did to us at Zanzibar, have had a measurable impact on public morale. Events in Talbott aren't helping, either. At the moment, Admiral Sarnow seems to be getting on top of the situation in Silesia, but that butcher Nordbrandt is killing hundreds of people in Split. And what happened when the Peeps tried to assassinate you also has to be factored into the mix."

  "My read is that the assassination attempt mainly pissed people off," Hamish said.

  "It certainly did," Emily agreed. "And if you think people were 'pissed off' here in the Star Kingdom, you don't even want to know how Grayson reacted! It was bad enough when they thought the Peeps had executed you, Honor-this is even worse, in a way. At the same time, though, all kinds of rumors are flying. In fairness to Lieutenant Mears and his family, I authorized the release of the information that he was acting under some form of compulsion. But the fact that we can't suggest how the compulsion was exerted is contributing to a climate of suspicion. Or fear, perhaps. After all, if the Peeps got to him, who else can they get to?

  "At any rate, anything that pushes morale upward is very much worthwhile, and I think having your marriage announced here at Mount Royal, by me, with all the appropriate hoopla, ought to have a sort of festive effect. You three are probably among the dozen or so most popular public figures in the Star Kingdom right now, and that's going to more than compensate for anyone who might suspect Hamish and Honor were... dallying with one another before you actually were."

  "Politics," Honor sighed, then laughed a trifle sadly.

  "What?" Hamish asked.

  "I was just recalling a discussion with Admiral Courvoisier before we deployed to Grayson for the first time," Honor said, shaking her head.

  "Politics are always important at our level of responsibility, Honor," Elizabeth told her. "That doesn't necessarily make this a sordid decision."

  "I wasn't trying to suggest it does. It's just that it gets so fatiguing sometimes."

  "That it does. On the other hand, sometimes I get to combine things I genuinely want to do with political considerations. Of course, it works the other way around, too, sometimes. More often, I usually think. In this case, though, I have a belated wedding gift for the three of you."

  Honor regarded the Queen warily. At the moment Elizabeth's idea of what she was "due"-especially after Solon-would leave an unpleasant taste in her mouth.

  Elizabeth looked back at her as if the Queen were the empath, then reached under her chair and pulled out a small, flat case.

  "Nothing excessive," she reassured her vassal with a slight smile. "I just asked Broughton & Stemwinder to make these up for me."

  She handed the case to Emily, and Honor walked over so that Emily's life-support chair was between her and Hamish. Emily looked up at both of them, then looked back down and ran her finger across the raised, intertwined "B" and "S" crest of the firm which had been jewelers to the House of Winton for over three T-centuries.

  She opened it, and Honor drew a deep breath as she saw the three rings nestled into the velvet interior. They were Grayson-style wedding bands, larger and heavier than the Manticoran norm, and exquisitely wrought, if not quite in the pure Grayson style. On Grayson, men's wedding rings were traditionally of yellow gold and women's of silver, but all three of these bands were made up of three interwoven strands, one each of yellow gold, white gold, and silver. They carried the Harrington Steading key on one side and the rampant White Haven stag on the other, and the flat-topped bezels bore the traditional circle of diamonds, each centered by a different semiprecious stone.

  "I checked," Elizabeth said. "Honor, you were born in October, old-style. Hamish, you were born in March, and Emily was born in August. That makes your birthstones opal, jade, and sardonyx. So I had these made for you. They aren't quite Grayson, and they aren't quite Manticoran, just as the three of you no longer belong to just one of us."

  "They're beautiful, Elizabeth." Emily looked up with bright eyes. "Thank you."

  "As gifts go, they're small enough for people who mean as much to me as you do," Elizabeth said simply. "And these are from us-from Elizabeth and Justin, not the Crown."

  Honor reached into the case and removed the opal-crested ring. She held it, glittering in the sun, gazing down at it for a few seconds. Then she tried it on the third finger of her left hand.

  It was a bit large, and she felt a flicker of surprise. Elizabeth had obviously taken pains to get this gift right, and it shouldt have been easy for her to get Honor's ring size, given that Honor's father had the exact dimensions of her prosthetic hand. But then she felt Elizabeth's eyes on her and sensed the Queen's waiting watchfulness. She thought about it for a moment, then removed the ring from her left hand and tried it on her right.

  It fit perfectly, and she held it up, looking past it at Elizabeth.

  "If you want it resized, it won't be a problem, Honor," Elizabeth told her. "But I think I know you pretty well by now, and it occ
urred to me that you might want to wear it on your flesh-and-blood hand."

  "I think you're right," Honor said slowly, lowering her hand and looking down at it. She'd never been one to wear much jewelry, but that ring looked perfect, and she smiled. Then she took it back off and handed it to Emily.

  "Please, Emily," she said, holding out her hand as well. "On Grayson, the senior wife gives the wedding band to her junior. I know that, as Elizabeth says, we're not really Manticoran or Grayson anymore, but it would mean a lot to me."

  "Of course," Emily said gently, then looked up at her husband. "Hamish, would you help me?"

  Hamish smiled at both of them, then reached down, gently holding Honor's wrist as Emily slid the ring back onto her finger. Emily gazed at it, then looked back up.

  "It looks good there, doesn't it?" She moved her gaze to Elizabeth. "And I think I'll have mine resized for my right hand, too."

  "No need," Elizabeth told her. "It already is."

  "Such a clever person you are," Emily told her distant cousin, and Elizabeth chuckled.

  "I have it on the best of authority that all queens named 'Elizabeth' are clever."

  "Ha! Probably that sycophantic Crown Prince you're married to currying favor with you!" Emily retorted.

  "Thereby proving," the maligned Crown Prince in question said equably, "how clever he is."

  Chapter Forty-Two

  "Congratulations, Your Grace," Mercedes Brigham said with a huge smile, waiting just inside the hatch as Honor and Nimitz swam the transfer tube between the shuttle from Manticore and her pinnace. Andrew LaFollet and Spencer Hawke followed the two of them, and Brigham chuckled as Honor raised an eyebrow at her greeting.

  "The news is all over the Fleet by now." The chief of staff gestured at the ring glittering on Honor's right hand. "I was actually a bit surprised by how many people were surprised, if you know what I mean."

  "And the reaction?" Honor asked.

  "Ranges from mere approval to ecstatic, I'd say," Brigham told her.

  "No concerns over One-Nineteen?"

  "Of course not." Brigham chuckled again. "You know as well as I do that One-Nineteen is probably the most winked at of the Articles. Even if it weren't, nobody's going to suggest it applies to you and Earl White Haven. Or," Brigham cocked her head, "is he Steadholder Consort Harrington now?"

  "Please!" Honor gave a deliberate shudder. "I can hardly wait for the Conclave of Steadholders to start in on this one! I seem to spend most of my time trying to find ways to give the real conservatives apoplexy."

  "One can only hope it carries some of them off," Brigham said tartly, with all the fervor of the years she'd spent in the Grayson Space Navy.

  "A most improper thought-with which I agree completely, however unofficially."

  Honor looked demurely over her shoulder at LaFollet, who returned her gaze with a deadpan expression. Then she held out her arms, and Nimitz swarmed down into them from her shoulder as she moved towards her seat. Brigham followed her, and seated herself across the aisle as the flight engineer sealed the hatch and the transfer tube detached. She and Honor and Honor's armsmen were the pinnace's only two-legged passengers, and LaFollet and Hawke chose seats two rows in front of Honor, between her and the flight deck.

  It wasn't their usual position, and Honor's cheerfulness dimmed slightly as she tasted their emotions. Simon Mattingly's death, and Honor's narrow escape, had left their mark. Her armsmen's professional paranoia had risen to new heights, and she didn't much like the hairtrigger on which they were poised. She made another mental note to discuss the situation with LaFollet, then returned her attention to Brigham.

  "What's the word on our repairs?"

  "Imperator's going to be in yard hands for at least another month, Your Grace." Brigham's expression sobered. "Probably more, actually. None of the damage may've gotten through to the core hull, but her after graser mounts took a lot heavier beating than we thought before the yard survey. Agamemnon's going to be out of service even longer than that. Truscott Adams and Tisiphone should be returning sometime in the next three to six weeks."

  "I was afraid of that when I saw the preliminary yard surveys," Honor sighed. "Oh, well. What can't be cured must be endured, as we say on Grayson. And it's not as if repairs are the only thing that's going to be slowing us up."

  "Your Grace?"

  "I spent three days at Admiralty House, Mercedes. The situation after Zanzibar is even worse than we'd thought. The Caliph is apparently considering withdrawing from the Alliance."

  "What?" Brigham sat upright abruptly, and Honor shrugged.

  "It's hard to blame him, really. Look at it. His star system's been hammered flat twice, and he joined the Alliance in the first place for protection. It's kind of hard to argue we've protected his people successfully."

  "And it's his own admiral's damned fault!" Brigham said hotly. "If al-Bakr hadn't overruled Padgorny and given the Peeps a roadmap of the system defenses, it never would have happened!"

  "I know that's the general view in the Fleet, but I'm not sure it's fair."

  Brigham looked at her semi-incredulously, and Honor shrugged.

  "I'm not saying al-Bakr made the right decision, or that the decision he did make didn't help the Havenites considerably. But if they'd sent in the same attack force against our original defensive deployment, it would have steamrollered anything in its path anyway. Sure, the missile pods would've hurt them more than they did, but not enough to stop an attack that powerful under Lester Tourville's command. The fact that they knew what we'd originally deployed may have inspired them to send a heavier force in the first place, but once they'd made that level of commitment, our original setup wouldn't have stopped them even if it had taken them completely by surprise."

  "Maybe you're right." Brigham's concession was manifestly unwilling. "But even if you are, our losses would have been a lot lighter if we hadn't had to throw good money after bad by reinforcing."

  "Mercedes," Honor said just a bit sternly, "we have an alliance. That implies mutual responsibilities and obligations-and I might remind you that High Ridge's idiotic failure to remember that has already cost us Erewhon. If we find our obligations under the treaty too onerous, then we should be happy to see Zanzibar withdraw from it. If we don't, then the Star Kingdom-and the Queen-have a direct, personal responsibility to discharge them. And that means reinforcing a threatened ally to the very best of our ability."

  Brigham looked at her rebelliously for just a moment, then sighed.

  "Point taken, Your Grace. It's just-" She broke off, shaking her head.

  "I understand," Honor said. "But the Fleet's angry enough as it is. You and I have a special responsibility to avoid pumping any more hydrogen into that particular fire."

  "Understood, Ma'am."

  "Good. Having said that, however," Honor continued, "there are some members of the Government-and a few people at Admiralty House, for that matter-who think we should actually be encouraging Zanzibar, and possibly Alizon, as well, to declare nonbelligerent status."

  "They what?" Brigham blinked. "After all the trouble we went to to build the Alliance in the first place?"

  "The situation was a bit different then," Honor pointed out. "We were on our own against the Peeps, and we were looking for strategic depth. Zanzibar and Alizon have both been net contributors to the Alliance-or would have been, if the need to rebuild both of them after McQueen's Operation Icarus hadn't cost so much-but what we really wanted them for was forward bases when everyone was still thinking in terms of system-by-system advances."

  She shrugged.

  "Strategic thinking's changed, as our own ops-and Tourville's attack on Zanzibar-demonstrate. Both sides are thinking in terms of deep strikes now, operating deep into 'enemy territory,' and simple strategic depth, unless you've got one heck of a lot of it, is looking less and less important. Not only that, but with Zanzibar effectively knocked out of the war for at least eight T-months to a T-year, the system's become a defensi
ve obligation which offers no return. And Alizon, which also got hammered by Icarus, really only offers us the capacity to build a few dozen battlecruisers or lighter units at a time.

  "So the new school of thought argues that freeing ourselves of the defensive commitments to protect relatively minor star systems would actually allow us to concentrate more strength in Home Fleet and here in Eighth Fleet. At the same time, assuming the Republic's willing to accept their neutrality and leave them alone, it gets them out of the line of fire. And the important allies at this moment are Grayson and the Andermani. We can protect Grayson more strongly if we can recall the forces currently tied down by commitments like Alizon, and the Andermani are effectively secure against direct attack simply because of how far away they are."

  Brigham sat without speaking for almost two minutes, obviously considering what Honor had just said, then looked at her admiral.