None of the side party had expected their monarch's sudden arrival, and not even naval discipline was enough to hide their astonishment.
"Eighth Fleet, arri—" a voice began over the boat bay speakers, then chopped off abruptly as the petty officer behind it realized who else had just appeared aboard his ship.
The smooth efficiency of the side party's formalities slithered to a halt, and Ensign Thistlewaite's jaw dropped. Then it closed with an almost audible snap, his face turned a considerably darker red than his hair, and he stared appealingly at the duchess.
"
Manticore
, arriving!" the speakers said suddenly as the petty officer recovered abruptly, and the bosun's pipes began to twitter again while three additional side boys came dashing up from somewhere.
"Permission to come aboard, Sir?" Elizabeth said gravely, managing not to smile, as the twitter of pipes came to an end. The first two bodyguards who'd emerged from the tube behind her, wearing the uniform of the Queen's Own, appeared rather less amused than she obviously was, but Thistlewaite's blue eyes looked back at her with desperate gratitude.
"Permission granted, Ma'am—I mean, Your Majesty!"
Honor hadn't believed the young man could turn even redder, but she'd been wrong.
"Permission to come aboard, Sir?" she repeated as Elizabeth stepped past her.
"Permission granted, Your Grace." Thistlewaite's relief at getting back to
something
familiar was obvious as she returned his salute, and she smiled slightly.
"My apologies, Ensign," she said. "We organized this on the fly, as it were, and we didn't want the newsies getting word of Her Majesty's visit. Apparently you didn't get the word in time, either."
"Uh, no, Ma'am," he admitted, blushing a bit less blindingly.
"Well, it happens," she said philosophically while another passel of armsmen and bodyguards appeared behind her and the queen, then nodded to him and turned to Elizabeth. "This way, Your Majesty," she said.
"Thank you, Admiral,"Elizabeth replied. She nodded smilingly to Thistlewaite in turn, then headed towards the lift banks at Honor's side, accompanied by three Grayson armsmen, six members of the Queen's Own, one plainclothes officer from Palace Security, and two treecats, who appeared inordinately amused by the two-legs' antics as they rode their persons' shoulders.
* * *
Elizabeth's amusement at poor Thistlewaite's reaction had dissipated by the time the door to Honor's day cabin slid aside in front of her.
The queen paused with extremely atypical hesitation as the door opened. Her spine was absolutely straight, her lips were tight, and she visibly braced herself before she continued into the cabin.
A dozen people had risen and turned to face the door, and despite decades of experience at the highest levels of politics, Elizabeth's nostrils flared as she found herself face to face with Eloise Pritchart.
The president was accompanied by her secretary of state, and Elizabeth recognized Secretary of War Thomas Theisman, as well. She also recognized Anton Zilwicki (who, fortunately, Honor had already warned her wasn't quite as dead as people had been assuming), and it didn't require much imagination to figure out that the young, coarse-haired man standing beside him must be Victor Cachat. Commodore Mercedes Brigham, Honor's chief of staff, Commander George Reynolds, her intelligence officer, and Waldemar Tümmel, her flag lieutenant, were also known faces, as was James MacGuiness. But she didn't have a clue who the others were, and she felt her bodyguards bristling as they faced the formidable crowd.
"Your Majesty," Honor said quietly into what could have become an awkward silence, "allow me to present President Eloise Pritchart, Secretary of State Leslie Montrose, Secretary of War Thomas Theisman, Attorney General Denis LePic, Director Kevin Usher of the Federal Investigation Agency, Special Officer Victor Cachat, and Dr.Herlander Simões." She smiled crookedly. "I believe you already know everyone else."
"Yes," Elizabeth said after a moment. "I believe I do."
Pritchart bowed to her very slightly, and the queen returned the courtesy with a nod, but even a space the size of Honor's day cabin was crowded by so many people, and the tension level could have been carved with a knife. Elizabeth glanced around for a moment, then looked at Honor.
"Please, everyone, be seated," Honor invited, acknowledging the silent command to continue in her role as official hostess.
Her "guests" obeyed, settling down around their two principals with a sort of instinctive social ranking, and she glanced at MacGuiness.
"May I assume your pantry is its normally efficient self despite the lateness of the hour, Mac?"
"Of course, Your Grace." MacGuiness bowed with perfect aplomb. "Would anyone care for refreshment?" he continued, turning to the others.
Although Elizabeth had just discovered a rather sudden craving for a strong whiskey, she suppressed it. No one seemed inclined to venture where she hadn't led the way, and after a moment, Honor shrugged slightly.
"It would appear not," she told the steward. "If anyone changes her mind, I'll buzz."
"Of course, Your Grace," MacGuiness murmured again, and withdrew.
Honor waited until the pantry door had closed behind him, then turned back to the others.
"In case any of you had managed to remain unaware of it," she said with another of those off-center smiles, "the tension level in this room is rather high, according to Nimitz." All eyes flitted to the treecat sitting on the back of her chair. "I can't imagine why that might be," she added.
Elizabeth surprised herself with a snort of laughter. It was harsh, but it was also genuine, and she shook her head reprovingly.
"I think I might be able to think of a reason or two," she said, then turned her own attention to Pritchart. "I must say, Madam President, that of all the possible scenarios under which you and I might have come face to face at last, this one would never have occurred to me." She let her eyes sweep over the cabinet secretaries flanking Pritchart. "If anything were to happen to this delegation, it would make a serious hole in your government, I believe."
"I thought that since you'd trusted us enough to send Admiral Alexander-Harrington to us, I should return the compliment, Your Majesty," Pritchart replied.
"Perhaps so," Elizabeth said. "But there was that one minor difference, I believe. I sent Duchess Harrington accompanied by an entire battle fleet."
"Indeed you did." Pritchart nodded, those striking topaz eyes meeting Elizabeth's levelly. "And I assure you, we missed neither element of the message behind that . . . arrangement. Neither the pointed suggestion, shall we say, that it would be wise of us to pay attention to her message and see to it that nothing untoward happened to her, nor the fact that you could have sent
just
the fleet . . . and its laser heads. Believe me, after all that's happened between our star nations, after the collapse of our own summit, after the Battle of Manticore, against the backdrop of the tensions mounting between the Star Empire and the League, I was as pleased as I was astonished that you were willing to talk instead of simply attacking when your advantage was so overwhelming."
"I suppose I could say the same thing, given your unexpected arrival after what happened to our system infrastructure," Elizabeth replied.
"Your Majesty, what happened to your star system has a lot to do with my presence here, but not, perhaps, in the way you believe."
"No?" Elizabeth regarded her intently, wishing with all her heart that she possessed even a hint of the empathic ability Honor had developed.
Honor had already briefed her fully on what she herself had sensed from Pritchart and the others—both during her time in Nouveau Paris, and since the president's totally unexpected arrival at Trevor's Star—but that wasn't the same thing as sensing it for herself. In fact, it wasn't even remotely the same thing.
Elizabeth Winton tried to be ruthlessly honest with herself. History was unfortunately replete with examples of kings and queens—and presidents—whose advisers had told them what they thought their rulers wanted to hear. And there'd been just as many—at least—of those kings and queens (and presidents) who'd told
themselves
what they wanted to hear. That was one of the lessons her father had always emphasized to her, and since taking the throne herself, she'd discovered just how wise he'd been to do that. And how difficult it was, at times, to remember it.
Yet because of that self honesty, she was well aware of her own temper, of how hard it was for her to forgive anyone who injured those she was responsible for protecting or those she loved. At this moment, in this day cabin, as she sat on Honor's couch, she looked into the eyes of the President of the Republic of Haven—the very personification of the star nation which had murdered her own father, her uncle, her cousin, and her prime minister. Of the conquering empire which had engulfed dozens of star systems, cost the lives of untold thousands of her military personnel, and forced the expenditure of literally incalculable floods of her people's treasure, as well as their blood. Every bulldog fiber of her being quivered with the tension of all that remembered bloodshed and violence, of the need to keep her guard up, to recall all those decades of treachery. It was her
job
to remember that, her duty to protect her people, and she would have given her own right arm to be able to know—not to be told, by someone else, however much she trusted that someone, but to
know
, beyond question or doubt—what the person behind those topaz eyes was truly thinking.
A soft, silken warmth pressed against the side of her neck, and Ariel's bone-deep, buzzing purr vibrated into her. She reached up to him, and he stroked his head against the palm of her hand, but his own fingers were still. They never moved, never signed a single word, and that, she realized suddenly, was the most eloquent thing he could possibly have told her.
"All right, Madam President," she said, and wondered if the others in that cabin were as surprised as she was by the gentleness of her own voice, "why don't you
tell
me why you're here?"
"Thank you," Pritchart said very quietly, as if she understood exactly what had been going through Elizabeth's mind. Then the president drew a deep breath and sat back in her chair.
"Before I say anything else, Your Majesty, there's one point I want to clear up. One which has bedeviled the relations between the Republic of Haven and the Star Empire for far too long."
She paused a moment, as if even now it was difficult to steel herself, then continued levelly.
"Your Majesty, we know who tampered with our prewar diplomatic correspondence. We did
not
know at the time the Republic resumed hostilities." She looked squarely at Elizabeth, facing the sudden resurgence of the queen's tension. "You have my word—my personal word, as well as that of the Republic of Haven—that it was only well after Operation Thunderbolt that we discovered, essentially by a fluke, that in fact the Star Empire was telling the truth about the High Ridge Government's correspondence. That the version which
I
saw in Nouveau Paris, and which my cabinet colleagues saw with me, had been altered before it ever reached us . . . and, despite the fact that it carried your own Foreign Office's valid authentication codes,
not
by any Manticoran. The two men responsible for it were Yves Grosclaude, our special envoy to you, and Secretary of State Arnold Giancola."
With the sole exception of Honor Alexander-Harrington and Anton Zilwicki, every Manticoran in the cabin stiffened in shock, and Elizabeth Winton's eyes blazed. She opened her mouth quickly, angrily . . . then forced herself to close it and sat back.
"We weren't aware of what Giancola had done until Mr. Grosclaude was killed in a highly suspicious 'air car accident.' One which looked remarkably like a suicide . . . or"—Pritchart's eyes bored into Elizabeth's, then flicked sideways to Honor—"like someone who'd been
compelled
to kill himself by flying into a cliff wall. Almost, you might say, like someone who'd been
adjusted
."
Elizabeth's eyes narrowed. She didn't have any idea where Pritchart was headed, but Ariel was still purring against her neck, and Honor's expression was still composed and calm, and so she made herself wait.
"Kevin, here," Pritchart nodded sideways at Usher, "has a nasty, suspicious mind which was already chewing the correspondence question over. When Grosclaude died so spectacularly, those suspicions of his started working overtime. It didn't take long for him to discover proof that the correspondence had been altered at our end. Unfortunately, the 'proof' had clearly been manufactured, apparently to implicate Giancola."
She smiled very thinly at Elizabeth's evident confusion.
"We came to the conclusion that Giancola had arranged it himself on the theory that if obviously forged evidence indicated he was the guilty party, it would be blindingly apparent to everyone that he'd been framed, and who would bother to frame a
guilty
man? In other words, he
wanted
us to bring that evidence forward publicly—or that was our theory, at least. And then," her expression hardened with remembered fury and frustration, "
Giancola
was killed in
another
air car accident, this time—as far as we've been able to determine—a
real
accident.
"So there we were. We had no real evidence, only documentation which had obviously been forged. The only two men we could be relatively certain knew what had happened were both dead. And, just to make matters worse, they'd both died in
air car accidents . . .
which just happened to have been State Security's favorite means for removing 'inconvenient' individuals. Given the strength of the war party in Congress, the fact that we couldn't
prove
any of it, and the enormous suspicion which was going to be produced throughout the entire Republic by the way in which Grosclaude and Giancola had died, we couldn't simply present our theory and expect Congress to go along with an admission that it was someone in the Republic—
not
the Republic itself, but a rogue element in the very highest levels of our administration—who'd manipulated our correspondence. Who'd manipulated us—manipulated
me—
into calling for a resumption of hostilities because we honestly believed the government of our adversaries was not simply using diplomacy for its own cynical ends but then lying about
our
diplomatic notes."