“You are one of the Sandovals,” Caleb said haughtily, as if recognizing Erik bestowed imperial favor.

Of course, the dark topknot was a huge clue.

“I am, sire. Erik Sandoval-Groell.” A distaff line of the dynasty, but still strong. And related to Caleb within three generations. “Aide to Duke Aaron Sandoval, and a leader within the Swordsworn. A loyal subject of the Federated Suns.”

“How does a loyal subject of the Federated Suns rate title and rank within a Republic militia?” Caleb asked, suspicious.

“It’s all a matter of family, no matter where the borders are currently drawn. Wouldn’t you agree, Lord Davion?”

Which was as close as Erik could come—without Aaron Sandoval’s permission—to admitting the Swordsworn faction did indeed champion the Federated Suns and, by extension, House Davion. A token of faith, offered to Caleb, that he had friends inside The Republic, and within the room.

Caleb nodded Erik along with him. The two men paced each other, side by side, as they swung around behind the dais and found their own private conversation just to one side of Victor’s entombed body, screened by a trio of flags set in a stand at Victor’s feet. These were the flags of the Federated Suns, Lyran Alliance and ComStar’s ComGuards. Victor’s early life.

The flag of The Republic of the Sphere and the Terran ensign both stood at the tomb’s head. The colors Victor had died under.

Caleb plucked at one corner of the nearby flags, drawing it out to glance at the sword-and-sunburst crest of the Federated Suns. He had banked his dangerous energy, stepping it down now that he had found an audience.

“So,” he said, “as family, how would you say my father handled the… situation?”

Careful. “With great diplomacy.”

“By diplomacy, if you mean accepting the ungracious mockery of Vincent Kurita, and the direct and infuriating insult of the coordinator’s aide, I would agree.” Anger seethed in Caleb’s voice.

“That aide was Matsuhari Toranaga, Warlord of New Samarkand. If your father had acted upon the insult, and forced Vincent Kurita to address it for propriety’s sake, it would have given Toranaga the chance to directly flaunt the coordinator’s will in public. And Vincent Kurita sits uneasy on the throne as it is.”

Hindsight twenty-twenty. Erik wished he had put his political acumen to the task earlier, before nearly making a fool of himself. Think first—act second! Hadn’t Aaron been trying to school him in that for the past two years?

“So to appease Vincent Kurita, and help him in looking less weak, the Davion prince abases himself and so looks weaker in return?” Caleb looked ready to spit. “I would not have allowed the Dragon so easy a victory.”

Erik shrugged uneasily. Wondering how far he could push this topic with Caleb, absent his uncle’s guidance. Then again, what Aaron did not know… “Nor would I,” Erik said. “Perhaps it is time to show the Draconis Combine just how weak they really are. And how strong is House Davion.”

Caleb smiled. Just a slight grin that peeked through his dark eyes. “Perhaps it is,” the Davion heir agreed. “Perhaps I’ll mention that to my father. Thank you.”

Recognizing a dismissal when he heard it, Erik knew he had pushed his own agenda far enough for one day. A more satisfying meeting than he’d had with the prince’s champion. He bowed lightly and stepped back, ceding the floor to Caleb, who moved off to find his father’s side in the viewing line. Harrison made his way forward quickly, assisted by security agents and a Cathedral priest who politely asked others to step aside for the royal delegation. Most did. A few of the lesser dignitaries lingered to make the prince’s acquaintance, slowing the party, letting a few last well-wishers pay their final respects to Victor Steiner-Davion.

Erik had already walked through the viewing line on a previous day. He’d gazed through the frosted glass at the well-maintained face of an Inner Sphere legend. Even in death, Victor had looked both sincere and magnanimous. Or maybe that was what Erik brought with him to the small dais and the marble sarcophagus. Not all Sandovals treated Victor so kindly, but Erik remembered his Aunt Dorann had never said an unkind word about the prince-turned-paladin. That alone would have colored his perception.

Everyone brought some kind of personal baggage along on such an event. The old veterans who left medals in a neat and orderly line at the foot of the tomb. Men and women who saluted Victor with pride. A few who did so mockingly. Most gazed quietly, whispered a word or two, and left just as simply.

Erik, hovering at near the corner of the dais, behind the stand of flags, heard a few of the parting comments.

Fairly dull, most of them, especially out of context. A withered man wearing a ComGuards pin on his dark suit and old enough to be a contemporary of the deceased complained jokingly about the size of his children. He also laid a medal in the growing rank and file order. “Good men did something, Victor. You did.”

A middle-aged couple, dressed richly, who “came all the way from York. Thank you, Sire.”

Others. Everyone today a member of the privileged who could command some part of the time reserved for diplomats and family and long-time associates.

“For the memory of my grandfather, who served.”

“For Tikonov.”

“…wish you could have met him, Victor. Just once. Then everything would be complete.”

So familiar to the onetime prince and paladin, and yet so cold. Erik had been about to skirt the room again, to wait for his uncle and Prince Harrison near the exit. But the old woman in her black-laced dress and veil caught his attention.

As did the young man escorting her, letting her grip his arm for support. He wore a simple-cut black suit, appropriate for the circumstance, but his bearing and confident, steady gaze spoke of military. The scar at the outside of his left eye gave him a dangerous cast, though right now he remained very composed.

What he whispered, bending over to stare deeply through the ferroglass, was lost under his breath.

They, too, finally stepped aside. And when he escorted the woman past the lower flags, Erik caught a glimpse behind the veil and adjusted his estimate. Not an old woman, then. But not young, either. Beautiful, but frail, and a striking contrast to the roughly handsome man who held her arm.

Erik had followed them halfway around the room, then paused to stare back at the entombed paladin. “So many lives,” he whispered. Victor had reached and affected so many people in his hundred and five years, was it any wonder that the tributes went on, and on, and on?

Perhaps not.

Tara Campbell waited on the Cathedral steps. Patient. Confident. In full view of the press, who had their own island roped off across the street, where they could monitor the comings and goings of all important personages.

She could have stepped inside for a moment of peace. But she’d had her moment in Victor’s presence. And Exarch Levin wanted her in the camera’s eye as much as possible now that The Republic push against Senate loyalists had begun. If she wasn’t in a ’Mech, she was to be concerned with high-profile charity-relief efforts or championing the ad hoc summit of Inner Sphere leaders in any way she could.

Today, it was taking charge of the Davion security escort.

Tomorrow it might be arranging a second funeral service, if the dark, glowering faces on the exiting Kurita entourage were read correctly.

Warlord Toranaga led the way, his hand always gripped tight around the katana he habitually carried. Coordinator Kurita followed at a more leisurely pace, but there was no mistaking his hard scowl or the dark moods of his samurai escorts. True, she had rarely seen Combine nobility who did not look as if they had just found half a slug in their naranji, but that rarely caused white-knuckle grips on the hilts or scabbards of swords. Or the hard-bitten glares that stabbed her direction.