by David Weber
"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 interesting scandal. According to William Alexander's pollsters and analysts, she'd scored a few points with the interview—even won a slight opinion swing in her favor. But it hadn't been enough to stem the tide in the long run, and the other side had attacked with redoubled fury.
They didn't have it all their own way, of course. Indeed, Honor was surprised to find half a dozen prominent Liberals and even one or two Conservative commentators who genuinely sought to disassociate themselves from the witch hunt. A part of her was ashamed when she recognized her surprise for what it was. Realized she'd become so cynical about the supporters of the High Ridge Government that the very thought that any of them might possess true integrity was astonishing to her. But only a part of her felt that, and as the tempo increased those voices of reason simply disappeared—not silenced, but drowned out and pounded under by the carefully conducted orchestra of innuendo and accusation.
Nor had she been devoid of other defenders. Catherine Montaigne, in the midst of a campaign which pitted her against her own party's leadership, had come out swinging. Her scathing denunciation of the tactics being em
ployed had been downright vicious, nor had she shrunk from identifying New Kiev and other senior members of the Liberal Party as accomplices in what she openly defined as a smear campaign. Ironically, even as the party leadership turned on her in fury for her temerity, it was actually helping her with the voters of High Threadmore. But that was one isolated borough, where people were actually listening to what was said in the course of a fiercely contested election, and not simply the sound and fury frothing on the surface.
Klaus and Stacey Hauptman had also come out strongly in her support, although there'd been little they could actually do. Stacey had made it clear the Hauptman resources were prepared to stand behind her, but to be honest, the Hauptman fortune, vast as it was, would not have added materially to the political war chest Honor could produce out of her own resources. Their private investigators (and also, though she had no intention of mentioning it to anyone, including William Alexander, Anton Zilwicki), however, had delved as deeply as the law permitted—and perhaps even a little deeper, in some instances—into Hayes' background and his files. That was one way they could help, because it allowed Honor to keep her own security people scrupulously away from the scandalmonger. But whoever was orchestrating Hayes' security was obviously very good at her job and had money to burn. Zilwicki's theory, which Elijah Sennett, the Hauptman Cartel's chief of security, shared was that the person doing that job was Countess North Hollow. Somehow, that didn't surprise Honor a bit.
Unfortunately, Manticoran slander and libel laws, while harder hitting than many, had their own loopholes. The most important one was that the law recognized a journalist's right to maintain the confidentiality of her sources and set a very high hurdle for plaintiff demands that those sources' identities be revealed. As long as Hayes restricted himself to reporting that his "sources" suggested that Honor and Hamish were lovers and never once said that he himself claimed they were, he stayed one thin millimeter on the safe side of the libel laws. Honor had done her dead level best to goad him into making that fatal assertion, but he'd refused to be drawn into that error. She could still sue for slander and, probably, win, but the trial would stretch out for years (at least), and however monumental the damages awarded might be in the end, it would have no impact on the current political situation . . . except to convince people that she was desperate to shut his mouth any way she could.
Fortunately, perhaps, the Code Duello also specifically exempted journalists from being challenged on the basis of published reporting or commentary. It would have been possible to contrive some other basis for a duel, perhaps, but she had to agree with William; in the end, it would only make the damage even worse. Besides, Hayes had obviously taken careful note of what had happened to Pavel Young. There was no way in the universe he was going to place himself in any position where Honor might possibly challenge him.
So there was simply no practical way to staunch the flow of rumors which fueled the corrosive speculation of the Government commentators and their supporters.
The Centrist columnists, many of them just as fiercely partisan as any Liberal or Conservative, fired back desperately. But the assaults came from too many directions, were conducted with too much skill, and here and there individual defenders began to fall silent. One or two who'd been expected to defend her and White Haven never really seemed to make a serious attempt, and she knew William was noting who those silent voices belonged to. Not simply to punish them for their lack of support later, but because he wondered why they were silent. Over the decades, there had been persistent rumors about the Earls of North Hollow and their ability to manipulate allies and opponents alike by judicious use of the secrets contained within their files. Which was why Alexander wondered if perhaps there was something he should know about those who were silent so conveniently to Stefan Young's advantage.
Yet in the end, all of the Centrist efforts, and even the direct support of the Queen herself, had proved insufficient. The crippling darts had been placed too skillfully. Honor knew she and White Haven continued to enjoy a solid core of support among Manticoran voters, but she also knew that support had eroded heavily. It couldn't affect their seats in the Lords, but the storm of public criticism over their alleged infidelities was reflected in a significant drop in voter support for their party allies in the Commons. They had been transformed from assets in both houses into liabilities in the house where it really mattered, the one High Ridge and his allies didn't already control.
Bad as it was for White Haven, it was even worse for Honor. For all his continuing vigor, Hamish Alexander was one hundred and three T-years old, almost fifty T-years older than she was. In a society with prolong, where life spans would be as much as three T-centuries, that gap meant very little. But Hamish was from the very first generation of Manticoran prolong recipients. Most first- and second-generation prolong recipients had grown to at least young adulthood surrounded by pre-prolong parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts. Their fundamental attitudes towards what age meant, and particularly towards the significance of differences in age, had been formed in a society which had not yet developed a true acceptance for how long people, themselves included, were now likely to live.
Worse, perhaps, the earlier, less advanced generations of the prolong therapies stopped the physical aging process at a later stage, cosmetically, at least. So, as a first-generation recipient, Hamish's black hair was liberally threaded with silver, his face more deeply graven by character lines and crows feet. In a pre-prolong society, he might have been taken for a vigorous man in his mid-forties or very early fifties. But Honor was a third-generation recipient. Physically, she was no more than into her late twenties, and so for many of those following the story, she was the "younger woman." The Jezebel. In their eyes, his "betrayal" of Lady White Haven after so many years of unwavering fidelity could only have resulted from the way she had tempted and systematically pursued him.
The one thing for which she was truly grateful at the moment was that she'd managed to convince both her parents to stay safely on Grayson. It would have been bad enough if her father had been in the Star Kingdom, because as gentle and compassionate a man as Alfred Harrington was, Honor knew perfectly well from whom she had inherited her own temper. Very few people had ever seen her father actually lose his temper; of those who had, not all had survived the experience, although that had been in his own days of naval service, and he seldom discussed it even with her.
But her mother would have been worse. Far worse. On Allison Chou Harrington's birth world of Beowulf, public opinion would have laughed itself silly at the hysterical thought that matters of the heart were the business of anyone except the individuals actually involved. The nature of the Alexanders' marriage vows would have weighed heavily in the scale of Beowulf opinion, but the Beowulfers would have concluded, with healthy rationality, that if the individuals in question—all the individuals in question—were prepared to modify those vows, that was their own affair. In any case, the notion that any of it could have any impact on Honor's public responsibilities would have been ludicrous.
Allison Harrington, despite almost a T-century as a citizen of the Star Kingdom, remained very much a Beowulfer in that respect. And Honor's mother. Her recent letters to Honor radiated a bare-clawed ferocity which was almost frightening, and Honor shuddered every time she thought of Allison loose on something like "Into the Fire." Or, even worse, in the same room as Regina Clausel. Her mother might be tiny, but so were treecats.
* * *
That thought brought her back to the present, and she looked up at her Queen and sighed.
"I don't know, Elizabeth," she said, and her own voice sounded flat and defeated to her. Her shoulders sagged, and she scrubbed her eyes wearily with her right hand. "I just don't know what might help anymore. Maybe going to Grayson would be a mistake, but all I know for certain is that every day I stay here and appear in the House of Lords seems to make it worse."
"It's my fault," Elizabeth told her sadly. "I should have manag
ed this whole thing better. Willie tried to tell me, but I was too angry, too badly hurt to listen. I needed Allen Summervale to shake some sense into me, and he was dead."
"Elizabeth—" Honor began, but the Queen shook her head.
"I should have held onto my temper," she said. "Should have tried sweet reason until I could find the issue to split them up instead of declaring war against them and driving them together!"
"Whatever you should or shouldn't have done is beside the point now," Honor said gently. "Personally, I don't think there ever was any 'wedge issue' you could have used to break them up. Not with the threat of the San Martino peers hanging over them."
"Then I should have gone the whole nine meters," Elizabeth said bitterly. "I should have said damn the constitutional crisis and refused to accept High Ridge as my Prime Minister. Let them try to govern without the Crown's support!"
"That would have flown in the face of every constitutional precedent we have," Honor shot back in her defense.
"So what? Precedents can be modified or replaced!"
"In the middle of a war?" Honor challenged.
"A war we were winning . . . until I let those unmitigated bastards accept Saint-Just's 'truce'!" Elizabeth snapped.
"Stop it, Elizabeth!" Honor half-glared at her monarch. "You can second-guess yourself forever, and it won't change a thing. You were like a captain in the middle of a battle. She has to decide what to do now, while the missiles and the beams are still flying. Anyone can sit down after the fact and see exactly what she ought to have done. But she had to make her choices then, with what she knew and felt at the time, and you didn't know how the war was going to end. And you certainly didn't know a High Ridge Government would use the truce talks to avoid a general election!
"Of course you could have provoked a showdown. But you can't foretell the future and you're not a mind reader. So you chose not to risk completely paralyzing our government when you didn't know how the war would end, and then High Ridge mousetrapped us all with these unending truce talks of his. No one's ever said he and Descroix and New Kiev don't understand how domestic politics work, especially the dirty variety."