Bethany inhaled sharply, and Carson and Austen stiffened behind her.

"My Lady, I never-that is, Howard didn't make this request because-"

"Do you think I could not realize that?" Honor asked gently. She handed the wooden box to her mother and bent slightly to embrace her dead Regent's widow, then kissed the older woman on the cheek.

"This is about service that went beyond any formal oath or obligation," she went on as she straightened once more. "It's about service that became love, and I should have done it long ago."

She looked at Carson again over his aunt's head, tasting his astonishment, and wondered if he'd been aware she even knew the formal phrases by which a Grayson steadholder created a legal familial relationship with another clan. The complex interweaving of clan networks had been integral to the Graysons' survival in their hostile planetary environment, and the creation of what equated to blood relationships between the great houses of the Steadholders and their closest allies and retainers had played a major role in forging those networks. In a sense, what Honor had done subordinated the Clinckscales Clan to the Harrington Clan, but it also bound Honor and her heirs personally to the defense and protection of Howard Clinckscales' descendants forever.

It was not a step to be taken lightly or impulsively, but Honor realized that her decision had been neither of those things. And that she truly ought to have done it much sooner, while Howard was still there to see it done. Well, no doubt he still could, from wherever he was at the moment, she thought fondly. And then her lips twitched as another thought struck her.

As Steadholder Harrington, she was the senior member of the Harrington Clan, which she suddenly realized, made her legally Carson's "Aunt Honor" under Grayson legal practice. And that meant....

Her lips twitched again, and she saw a sudden twinkle in Carson's eyes as the same realization hit him. They looked at each other, and then they began to chuckle. Honor felt her own chuckles segueing into full-bodied laughter, and gave Bethany a quick squeeze and stepped back.

"I'm sorry, Bethany!" she said. "I didn't mean to laugh. It's just that, I suddenly realized that-"

She broke off with another laugh, and Bethany shook her head with a fond smile.

"My Lady, I can think of many things that might have upset Howard. Having you laugh on the day of his funeral would never be one of them, though."

"That's a very good thing," Honor said with a smile, "because there's going to be more laughter before this is all over, you realize."

"My Lady?" Bethany looked at her quizzically.

"Of course there is," Honor said around another bubble of laughter of her own. "Faith and James were used to calling Howard 'Uncle Howard,' and I've heard them calling Austen 'uncle,' as well. But now she's going to be 'Aunt Faith' to him and Carson!" She shook her head. "We're never going to hear the end of this."

Chapter Four

"Welcome back, Your Grace."

"Thank you, Mercedes."

Honor followed Simon Mattingly through the private arrivals gate and held out her hand to the sturdy, plain-faced woman waiting for her in the Landing City VIP shuttle pad concourse. Mercedes Brigham still wore the commodore's uniform of her Manticoran rank rather than the rear admiral's star she would have been entitled to in Grayson's service. For that matter, she really ought to have traded in the double planets of her commodore's insignia even in the RMN. Honor knew perfectly well that Brigham had quietly made it clear to BuPers that she preferred her position as Honor's chief of staff, and promotion to rear admiral would have made her too senior for the slot. Honor had tried to convince her otherwise, though not as hard as she really felt she ought to have, but Mercedes had only grinned.

"If I really want command, Ma'am," she'd said, "all I have to do is go back to Grayson. At the moment, I think I'm more useful where I am. So unless you want to fire me...."

"And welcome back to you, too, Stinker," Brigham said now, reaching up to offer Nimitz her hand in turn. The treecat shook it solemnly, then flirted his tail and bleeked a laugh. Brigham chuckled, then turned back to Honor, her expression sympathetic.

"You look a bit frazzled, Your Grace."

"It's been a busy ten days," Honor conceded.

"Was it as hectic as you were afraid it would be?"

"No," Honor said. "Honestly, it wasn't. Not quite, at any rate. Austen's confirmation as Regent went very smoothly. There was a little opposition, mostly from Mueller. I don't think the present Lord Mueller is quite as reconciled to his father's execution as he tries to make it seem, and he's starting to regain a little of his steading's old influence in the Opposition. But Benjamin, Owens, Yanakov, and Mackenzie steamrollered the nomination through."

"I assume," Brigham continued as LaFollet and Spencer Hawke came through the gate to hover watchfully at Honor's back and four more armsmen in Harrington green appeared, heavily laden with baggage, "that you had an opportunity to discuss the general situation with High Admiral Matthews?"

"I did. Not that either one of us was able to add a great deal to the other's understanding." Honor grimaced. "At the moment, the 'situation' at least has the advantage of a certain grim simplicity."

"The other side is still trying to complicate it, though, Your Grace," Brigham said. "Did you hear about the raid on Alizon?"

"Yes." Honor looked at her sharply. "The preliminary dispatch came in just before Tankersley broke Grayson orbit, but there weren't any details. How bad was it?"

"Nowhere near as bad as what McQueen did in their Operation Icarus," Brigham said quickly. "Not that it was exactly good, you understand. We lost a couple of our own freighters, and they blew the hell out of a respectable chunk of the asteroid extraction platforms and mining boats. But human casualties were very low and they never got close enough to hit the main industrial platforms. None of our people even got scratched, and the Alizonians only lost a half-dozen or so miners." She twitched one shoulder in a half-shrug. "Even that looks like it was an accident. From everything I've seen, they appear to have done their dead level best to play it according to the rules."

"They used LACs? No hyper-capable units?"

"Only LACs, Your Grace." If Brigham was surprised by Honor's questions, she showed no sign of it. "According to Alizon Defense Command, they lost between thirty and forty of them, too. All to the missile pods."

"Did our LACs engage at all?" Honor asked, and Brigham gave her a thin smile.

"By the strangest turn of fate, no, Your Grace. I know what you're thinking, and Alizon Defense Command thought the same thing. This was a probing attack, testing our defenses. If they'd wanted to do serious damage to the system infrastructure, they'd have attacked in much heavier strength. So when Defense Command realized we were up against a raid that probably wasn't even going to try to penetrate the inner defenses, not a serious assault on the system, all our Shrikes and Ferrets and-especially-Katanas stayed covert. So did the outer-system pods, for that matter. ONI gives us ninety percent-plus odds that the Peeps never even saw them."

"Good," Honor said, then nodded towards the concourse exit where the armored air limo in Harrington livery waited. Mattingly had already taken up his post beside it, and her entire party flowed into motion towards him.

"It's not very likely someone like Theisman isn't going to figure the LACs, at least, were there, anyway," she continued, "but at least he wasn't able to confirm it." She frowned thoughtfully. "Have you heard anything about Alizon's reaction to the attack?"