After a moment of startled silence, Brun said, “Yes. I will agree to that. A short life and a merry one.”
Stepan smiled. “Good—that’s the first step. I’ve found it a good bargain, by the way. Hard to hold in the middle, but I have no regrets at this point. Now. I haven’t had time to get to know you since your return, but I’ve had my feelers out. Viktor, hand her the cube—” Brun took the data cube. “You’ll want to view that in private—it’s your complete dossier. If there’s anything not on it, especially anything that could affect your political effectiveness, I need to know. How many Grand Council meetings have you been to now?”
“Five,” Brun said.
“Good. You’re over the awe of taking part, I hope.”
“Oh, yes,” Brun said.
“I’m going to ask you to address the Grand Council on behalf of our sept, at the next session. That is, as you might expect, coming up very shortly; the Consellines are demanding it to discuss Pedar’s death. It is a critical session, and I’m hoping that you’ll come as a startling surprise.”
Brun managed not to gulp audibly.
“What would you say,” Stepan said, “if you were going to speak now—knowing no more than you do?”
Brun gave Kevil a quick glance, but he was watching Stepan, not her. Ideas raced through her mind . . . which was the priority? Defend her Family and sept against the accusations of the Morrellines? Tackle the difficult and complicated subject of legal reform and its relation to rejuvenation? Attack the Rejuvenants? No . . . in a flash she saw that what was needed now—at this moment—was a common goal, something to bring the almost-warring Families into alignment, as the sight of running prey would pull bickering hounds into a line of cooperation. Was this how her father had done it? She couldn’t ask him; she’d have to figure it out for herself.
“Sirs and ladies,” she said, as if this were actually the Grand Council, “whatever other problems face our realm, we have one clear priority—for to solve the difficult and intricate problems, we need time and security, and the one thing which most threatens our security, at this time, is the mutiny within our Regular Space Service. First, let us give all support to the suppression of this mutiny, the maintenance of security to our population and our trade, so that we can have the time and peace we need to discuss other issues.”
Stepan nodded. “Good. Excellent, in fact.” He looked at Kevil. “You were right; she has the instincts and she’s learned to use them. You will want to flesh that out, polish it—but I like the spirit of it. How will you deal with questions about your family?”
Brun said, “With the truth, sir. And then tell them they can tear me and eat me later, if they want, but right now they must support the loyalists in Fleet.”
“One thing about a foxhunting background,” Kevil put in, “is that it provides a wealth of colorful metaphor and language.”
“Yes . . . as long as you have a fox for them to chase, and I’ll admit the mutiny is a very laudable fox which I hope we catch, cast, and tear before it gets to earth.”
Brun heard Kate coming down the hall and blanked the cube reader’s screen. She was breathing fast, more than a little astounded at the contents of Stepan’s dossier on her. That he could readily find out about many semipublic scrapes—the ones that had appeared in various newsvid shows—didn’t surprise her. But how had he dug up that mess at school when she was thirteen—and how had he found out that it wasn’t her fault, when even her own parents had always believed it was? How did he know Brigdis Sirkin had refused her?
“Only one more official appointment,” Kate said, throwing herself into a chair. “Then I’m free—” She looked at Brun, and her expression changed. “What’s happened to you, this afternoon? You look like someone ran over you with a herd of longhorns.”
“Old family stuff,” Brun said. “Did you ever come across something that let you know exactly what someone thought about you when you were a kid?”
“You mean like old letters or school records or something? Yes . . . I guess I know what you mean. Even if they say something nice, it’s never the kind of nice you expected or wanted. And usually it’s not. I remember when my mother showed me what old Miss Pennyfield had written on the bottom of my report: ‘Katharine Anne would be an excellent student if she would spend her energies on her studies instead of attempting to evade honest work.’ And I’d thought the old prune liked me; I could always make her laugh. She’d seen right through my clowning—I could hardly laugh for a month.”
“Exactly,” Brun said.
“’Course,” Kate said meditatively, “I did start workin’ harder, and I did learn a lot more about somethin’ other than making prune-faced teachers laugh. But then she had to spoil it by adding a note to the final report about how Katharine Anne was finally applying herself. That’s why I wrote ‘Old Prune-Face’ on her front porch floor with nail polish . . . and spent half the summer doin’ yard work for her to make up for it.”
“She caught you?”
“Not her—she’d left the day after school let out to go on vacation. That’s why I thought I was safe. It was her friend Miss Anson, who came by once a day—usually in the afternoons, but that day in the morning—who caught me in the act.” She grinned at the memory, then looked at Brun again. “So what did you find out?”
Brun told her about the mess in school.
“Well, what do they expect with a lot of girls that age locked up together? Ottala—was that the same Ottala Morrelline that Oskar Morrelline’s going on about?”
“The very same,” Brun said. “But I didn’t do anything that bad back to her.”
“No, I wouldn’t think you would. But—I hate to be self-serving about this—what effect is all this going to have on the stability of your government? It’s not going to do me much good to have things going well, go home, and then have it all come unravelled again. Rangers are supposed to settle a problem once and for all.”
“It’s our problem, not yours, to solve,” Brun said. Kate raised her eyebrows, but Brun was getting tired of the Ranger’s attitude. “But I’m arguing for Esmay’s approach. First we deal with the mutiny—get ourselves some secure breathing space—and then we can work on the rest. In the long run, we’ve got to make big changes, as you’ve said—as a lot of people recognize—but in the short run we need to get Fleet back on sound footing.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Kate said. “Have you had supper yet?”
“No,” Brun said. “You?”
“Just a snack. But you’re looking a bit peaked. We blondes need to keep our strength up for the roses in the cheeks; I could manage to keep you company in a snack . . .”
“All right . . .” Brun shut off the cube reader, and got up. “Now that you mention it, it’s odd that no one’s asked me. It’s not the staff’s day off, and they knew I’d be in this evening.”
At that, Kate’s eyes narrowed. “Where’s your security?” she asked softly.
“Outside the house, I assume. Why?”
“Weren’t when I got here. Not visibly.”
Brun felt a chill run down her back. Here, in the family house, she had no weapon to hand. She hadn’t thought she’d need one.
Kate gave her a long look, and said, quite clearly, “Well, never mind. Let’s have dinner out somewhere. Didn’t you tell me about a place Lady Cecelia liked?”
“Why not? This place is too quiet anyway.” Brun felt prickles all over her skin as she stood up, stretched, fished around under the desk for her shoes. She slipped the cube from the cube reader and put it in her pocket. She looked at Kate. Now what? An attack in the hall? Outside the door?