by David Weber
Paul Tankersley went white. He rose from his barstool with the slow, over-controlled movements of a man hovering on the brink of violence. The stranger was taller than he was, and he looked fit, despite his slim, wiry build, but Paul never doubted he could smash the other into pulp, and he wanted nothing more than to do just that. But the alarm bells were louder and more insistent, even through the red haze of his fury. It had happened too quickly, come at him with too little warning, for him to think clearly, yet not too quickly for him to realize it was deliberate. He had no idea why this man had set out to provoke him, but he sensed the danger in allowing him to succeed.
He drew a deep breath, longing to erase the smiling sneer from that handsome face and leave it far less handsome in the process. He stood for one tense moment, and then, deliberately, turned his back to walk away. But the stranger wasn't done yet. He only stood himself, laughing at Paul's back, and his raised voice carried clearly through the hushed bar.
"Tell me, Captain Tankersley—are you really that good a fuck? Are you so good she was willing to throw away her entire command to save you? Or was it just that she was that desperate to have someone—anyone—between her legs?"
The sudden crudity was too much. It snapped Paul's control, and he whipped back around with death in his face. The other man's sneer slipped for just an instant, and two iron-hard fists caught him before he could even move.
Paul Tankersley held a black belt in coup de vitesse. He managed to pull the lethality of those blows, but only by a hair's breadth and just barely in time. The first fist sank deep into the stranger's belly. He doubled up with a whoop of agony, and the second fist came up from below and snapped his head back like a cracking whip.
The stranger hurtled away from Paul. Barstools flew in all directions as he bounced back, arms flailing, and somehow, without really knowing how, Tankersley stopped himself from following through and finishing him off.
He stood back, breathing heavily, shocked by his own actions and quivering with the need to smash that hateful face yet again, as the other man slid down the front of the bar with a sobbing scream. His hands cupped his face, and blood from pulped lips and a smashed nose oozed between his fingers as he rocked on his knees. The entire restaurant was frozen, shocked into utter immobility by the explosion of violence, and then, slowly, the kneeling man lowered his hands and glared up at his assailant.
He spat a broken tooth onto the floor in a gob of blood and phlegm, then dragged the back of his hand across his gory chin, and his eyes, no longer polished and mocking, glittered with madness.
"You struck me." His voice was thick, slurred with the pain of his smashed mouth and choked with hatred. "You struck me!"
Paul took a half-step towards him, eyes hot, before he could stop himself, but the other man never even flinched. He only stared up from his knees, his face a mask of blood and hate that bordered on outright insanity.
"How dare you lay hands on me?!" he breathed. Paul snarled in contempt and turned away, but that thick, hating voice wasn't finished.
"No one lays hands on me, Tankersley! You'll meet me for this—I demand satisfaction!"
Paul stopped dead. The silence was no longer shocked; it was deadly, and he suddenly realized what he'd done. He should have seen it sooner—would have seen it if he'd been even the tiniest bit less enraged. He hadn't, but now he knew. The man hadn't anticipated that Paul would actually attack him, yet he'd set out from the beginning to goad him into a rage for just one purpose: to provoke the challenge he'd just issued.
And Paul Tankersley, who'd never fought a duel in his life, knew he had no choice but to accept it.
"Very well," he grated, glaring down at his unknown enemy. "If you insist, I'll give you satisfaction."
Another man blended magically out of the crowd and assisted the stranger to his feet.
"This is Mr. Livitnikov," the bloody-faced man snarled, leaning on the other for support. "I'm sure he'll be happy to act for me."
Livitnikov nodded curtly and reached into a tunic pocket with his left hand, supporting the other man with his right, and extended something to Paul.
"My card, Captain Tankersley." The correct, chilly outrage in his hard voice was just a little too practiced, a bit too rehearsed. "I shall expect your friends to call upon me within twenty-four hours."
"Certainly," Paul said in an equally frozen voice. Livitnikov's sudden appearance was all the confirmation he'd needed that he'd been set up, and he gave the other man a contemptuous look as he took the card. He shoved it in his pocket, turned his back, and started for the door, then stopped.
Tomas Ramirez stood just inside the entrance, his face frozen, but he wasn't even looking at Paul. His eyes were locked in shocked understanding on the man his friend had assaulted—the man he'd never thought to mention to Paul—and he watched in numb horror as Livitnikov assisted a stumbling, bloody-faced Denver Summervale away through the crowd.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
At least the chair was comfortable.
That was more important than one might think, for Honor had spent at least eight hours a day in it for the last month, and the fatigue was building up. Grayson's twenty-six-plus-standard hour day was a bit long, even for her. The Sphinx day she'd been born to might be barely an hour shorter, but she'd spent the last three decades using Navy clocks matched to the twenty-three-hour day of the Star Kingdom's capital world. Not that she could honestly blame her present weariness on the length of the day.
She looked to her left, narrowing her eyes against the brilliant morning sun spilling in through the windows as the door closed behind her latest visitor. Her steadholder's mansion was overly luxurious for her tastes, especially in a new steading with a strained budget, but her own quarters occupied only a tiny portion of Harrington Houses total space. The rest was given up to bureaucratic offices, electronic and hardcopy files, communications centers, and all the other paraphernalia of government.
James MacGuiness, on the other hand, clearly regarded the magnificence as no more than her due, and, unlike her, he seemed delighted with the pomp and circumstance which had come her way. The Grayson servants accepted him as their mistress's official majordomo, and he'd shown an unanticipated talent for managing a staff which seemed entirely too large to Honor. He'd also seen to it Nimitz had a proper perch in her office, arranged to catch the maximum amount of sunlight. At the moment, the 'cat was sprawled comfortably along that perch, all six limbs dangling in utter contentment while he basked in the golden warmth.
She gazed at him in frank envy, then tipped her huge, thronelike armchair back, resting one foot on the hassock hidden under her enormous desk, and pinched the bridge of her nose. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, and a soft chuckle from her right made her turn her head in the other direction.
Howard Clinkscales sat behind a smaller desk with an even larger data terminal. His desk was turned at right angles to hers so that they both faced the center of the vast, paneled room, and she hadn't been too sure about the arrangement in the beginning. She wasn't used to having her exec in the same office with her, but it worked far better than she'd feared, and his presence had been invaluable. He knew every detail of her steading, and, like any skilled exec, he was always ready with the facts his CO required.
"Tired so soon, My Lady?" he asked now, shaking his head in half-mocking reproval. "It's barely ten o'clock!"
"At least I don't yawn in front of them," she said with a grin.
"True, My Lady. At least, you haven't done so yet."
Honor stuck out her tongue, and Clinkscales laughed. She wouldn't have bet a Manticoran cent on the chance of her regent's actually becoming a friend. Mutual respect, yes; she would have expected that, and been content with it, as well. But their intense cooperation over the past weeks had produced something much closer and warmer.
If it surprised her, it must have been even more surprising for him. He'd resigned command of the entire Planetary Security Force to assume the regency
of Harrington Steading, which he might easily have seen as a demotion. Nor should his opposition to at least half Protector Benjamin's social initiatives have made him any happier to work with—and for—the woman who'd provoked those changes. On top of which, he didn't really seem to have changed his own attitudes towards women in general by one iota.
None of which seemed to have any bearing where Honor was concerned. He never forgot she was a woman, and he treated her with all the exaggerated courtesy the Grayson code demanded, but he gave her the deference due any steadholder, as well. At first, she'd thought there might be a bit of irony in that, but she'd been wrong. So far as she could tell, he accepted her right to her position without even hidden reservations. More than that, he seemed to approve of her performance, and he'd even loosened up with her in private. He was unfailingly courteous, yes, but he'd come to treat her with a comfortable give and take that seemed decidedly odd in a man of such traditional leanings.
She checked her desk chrono. They had a few minutes before her next appointment, and she turned her chair to face him fully.
"Howard, would you mind if I asked you something a bit personal?"
"Personal, My Lady?" Clinkscales tugged at an earlobe. "Certainly you can ask. Of course," he smiled wryly, "if it's too personal, I can always choose not to answer."
"I suppose you can, at that," Honor agreed. She paused a moment, trying to think of a tactful way to phrase it, then decided there was no point. Clinkscales was as blunt and direct as she was, which probably meant it would be best simply to plunge right in and ask.
"I was just wondering how we work so well together," she said. His eyebrows rose, and she shrugged. "You know as well as I do how heavily I depend on your advice. I think I'm learning, but all of this is totally new to me. Without your guidance, I'd probably make a complete hash out of it; as it is, I think things are going quite well. I appreciate your help tremendously, but I also know you're going a lot further than the letter of your regent's oath requires, and sometimes that seems a little odd to me. I know you don't really approve of a lot of what's happening on Grayson, and I'm—well, I suppose Protector Benjamin was right when he called me a symbol of those changes. You could have made things a lot harder on me by just doing the job you promised to do and letting me learn things the hard way, and no one could have faulted you for it. I can't help wondering why you haven't."
"Because you're my Steadholder, My Lady," Clinkscales said.
"Is that the only reason?"
"It's enough of one." Clinkscales pursed his lips, fingers toying with the smaller, silver steadholder's key he wore around his neck, then gave his head a little toss. "In all honesty, however, the way you've tackled your responsibilities has something to do with it, as well. You could have settled for a figurehead role, My Lady; instead, you're working ten and twelve-hour days learning to be a real steadholder. I respect that."
"Even in a woman?" Honor asked softly.
He met her eyes and raised one hand in a small warding gesture.
"I shudder to think what you might do if I were to say 'especially in a woman,' My Lady." His tone was so droll Honor chuckled, and he smiled briefly, then sobered.
"On the other hand, My Lady, I understand what you're really asking." He tipped his own chair back with a sigh, resting his elbows on its arms and folding his hands across his middle. "I've never hidden my convictions from the Protector or from you, Lady Harrington," he said slowly. "I think the Protector is pushing his changes too rapidly, and they make me... uncomfortable. Our traditions have served us well, over the centuries. They may not be perfect, but at least we survived following them, and that's quite an accomplishment on a world like this. More than that, I believe most of our people—including our women—were content with the old ways. I certainly was. Of course, I'm also a man, which may affect my perceptions a bit."
Honor's right eyebrow curved at the admission, and he chuckled sourly.
"I'm not blind to the privileged position I held, My Lady, but I don't think that necessarily invalidates my judgment, nor do I see any reason why every world in the galaxy has to ape social patterns which may or may not suit it. And, to be perfectly frank, I don't think Grayson women are ready for the demands the Protector is placing upon them. Leaving aside the question of innate capability—which, I'm surprised to say, is easier to do since I began working with you than I once expected it to be—they don't have the training for it. I suspect many of them will be desperately unhappy trying to adjust to the changes. I shudder whenever I think about the consequences for our traditional family life, and it's not easy for the Church to make the transition, either. Besides, deep down inside I can't put aside an entire lifetime of thinking one way and start thinking another way just because someone tells me to."
Honor nodded slowly. The first time she'd met Howard Clinkscales, she'd thought he was a dinosaur, and perhaps he was. But there was nothing apologetic or even particularly defensive in his tone or manner. He didn't like the changes about him, yet he hadn't responded to them as the unthinking reactionary she'd once thought him, either.
"But whether or not I agree with everything Protector Benjamin does, he is my Protector," Clinkscales went on, "and a majority of the steadholders support him, as well." He shrugged. "Perhaps my doubts will prove unfounded if the new system works. Perhaps they'll even make it work better, by making me a little more aware of the sensibilities we're treading upon—cushioning the blows, as it were. Either way, I have a responsibility to do the best I can. If I can preserve worthwhile parts of our tradition along the way, I will, but I take my oath to Protector Benjamin—and to you, My Lady—seriously."
He fell silent for a moment, but Honor felt something more waiting to be said and let the stillness rest unbroken until he said it. Several seconds passed, and then he cleared his throat.
"In the meantime, My Lady, I may as well add that you aren't a Grayson by birth. By adoption, yes. You're one of our own now; even many of those who most resent the changes around them think of you that way. But you weren't born one. You don't act like a Grayson woman, and the Protector was right in more ways than one when he called you a symbol. You're proof that women can be—and, on other worlds, are—fully as capable as men. There was a time when I was ready to hate you for what's happened to Grayson, but that would be like hating water for being wet. You are what you are, My Lady. Someday—perhaps far sooner than an old reactionary like me believes possible—Grayson may produce women like you. In the meantime, I've never met a man with a stronger sense of duty, nor have I met one more capable or hardworking. Which means no old-fashioned chauvinist like me can let you prove that you're more capable or hardworking than I am. Besides," he shrugged again, and this time his smile was completely natural, if just a bit sheepish, "I like you, My Lady."
Honor's eyes softened. He sounded as if the admission had surprised even him, and she shook her head.
"I only wish I didn't feel like a fish out of water so much of the time. I have to keep reminding myself I'm not in the Star Kingdom anymore. Grayson etiquette baffles me. I don't think I'll ever really get used to the idea of being a steadholder, and figuring out how to avoid stepping on people's sensibilities while I do it is even harder."
She was as surprised to hear herself admit that as Clinkscales might have been to admit his liking to her, but he only smiled again.
"You seem to be doing well enough to me, My Lady. You have the habit of command, but I've never seen you act without thinking or give a capricious order to anyone."
"Oh, that." Honor waved a hand, mildly embarrassed and highly pleased by his comment. "I just fall back on my Navy experience. I like to think I'm a pretty fair starship commander, and I guess it shows." Clinkscales nodded, and she shrugged. "But that's the easy part. Learning to be a Grayson is hard, Howard. There's more to it than just putting on a dress—" she indicated the gown she wore "—and making the right command decisions."
Clinkscales cocked his head and regarded her t
houghtfully.
"May I give you a word of advice, My Lady?" Honor nodded, and he tugged at his ear once more. "Then I'd advise you not to try. Just be yourself. No one could fault the job you're doing, and trying to make yourself over into a 'proper' Grayson while we're all busy trying to redefine 'proper' anyway would be pointless. Besides, your holders like you just the way you are."
Both of Honor's eyebrows flew up in surprise, and he laughed.
"Before you took your seat in the Conclave, some of your people were worried about what would happen with 'that foreign woman' holding steading over them. Now that they're getting to know you, they're rather proud of your, um, eccentricities. This steading's been attracting people who were more eager than most for change from the beginning, My Lady; now a lot of them seem to hope some of your attitudes will rub off on them."
"Are you serious?" Honor demanded.
"Quite. In fact—"
Honor's chrono beeped, announcing the imminent arrival of her next caller, and Clinkscales cut himself off. He glanced down at his own data screen, then shook his head wryly.
"This should be interesting, My Lady. Your next appointment is with the engineer I mentioned to you."
Honor nodded and straightened her own chair as the quiet knock on the door came-exactly on schedule.
"Enter," she called, and an armsmen in the green-on-green colors she'd chosen for her steading opened the door to admit the engineer in question.
He was a young man, and there was something vaguely untidy about him. Not slovenly, and no one could have been more painfully clean, but he seemed uncomfortable in his formal clothing. He would, she thought, have looked far more natural in coveralls, festooned with micro-comps and the other tools of his trade, and his nervousness was palpable as he hesitated in the doorway.