"I've been very satisfied with Merlin," Honor agreed. "And I've noticed Clarise always lends a certain...presence to any meeting. Whether she's actually there or not."
She smiled at Maxwell, and he grinned back at the studied understatement of her remark.
Merlin Odom was Willard Neufsteiller's handpicked deputy on Manticore, managing the operations of the steadily growing Harrington financial empire in the Star Kingdom in accordance with Neufsteiller's general directives from Grayson. At forty-two, he was much younger than Willard, and even less inclined to get out of the office in the name of heathen exercise. But the heavy-set lawyer with the brown hair, blue eyes, and startlingly red goatee was already demonstrating similar instincts. With a few more decades of experience, he would be more than ready to take over when Willard finally retired, which was a very high compliment indeed.
As for Childers, the mere fact that everyone knew her services were available to Honor at need was an asset beyond price. Not only was she one of the most capable attorneys in the Star Kingdom in her own right, but her firm's shortvery shortclient list loomed large in the mind of any commercial negotiator. Honor herself had become one of the richest individuals in the Star Kingdom over the past decade and a half, and her Sky Domes of Grayson was firmly established among the Kingdom Five Hundred list of top corporations. But Childers worked directly for Klaus Hauptman, whose personal and corporate wealth was at least equal to the combined assets of his half dozen closest competitors. Clarise Childers was the president and senior partner of the enormous law firm of Childers, Strauslund, Goldman, and Wu, whose sole clients were the Hauptman Cartel (which headed the Kingdom Five Hundred by a wide margin), the Hauptman family...and, on occasion, Honor Harrington.
"With the commercial side of things under control for the moment, Your Grace," Maxwell went on, his pleasantly ugly face thoughtful, "what I'd like to do next would be to spend some time setting up the Harrington judiciary."
"Do we really have to do that this quickly?" Honor asked with a small grimace. "It's not like we have anything approaching a true population in the duchy yet!"
"Your Grace," Maxwell said a bit sternly, "if anyone in the Star Kingdom should know better than that, it's you. You've already been through setting up a new steading on Grayson, after all."
"But I left most of that to Howard Clinkscales," Honor pointed out. "All I really did was sign off on the decisions he'd already reached."
"I happen to know from private correspondence with Lord Clinkscales that you were considerably more involved in the process than that, Your Grace," Maxwell disagreed respectfully. "And even if you hadn't been, you've had plenty of time to see how badly a well-organized infrastructure is needed in situations like this."
"The cases aren't parallel," Honor objected. "As a steadholder, I hold the powers of high, middle, and low justice in Harrington. I don't want them, mind you, and any steadholder's power of arbitrary decision has been steadily reduced by precedents over the last few centuries. Not to mention what the Sword's done to subordinate steading law codes to the planetary Constitution since the 'Mayhew Restoration.' But Steadholder Harrington is still a head of state in her own right, with all of the legal prerogatives and responsibilities that entails. Duchess Harrington is only an administratora Crown governor, basically."
"And, like a governor, the Duchess holds the powers of judicial review and commutation," Maxwell pointed out in turn. "And, like a governor, she's effectively the chief magistrate of her duchy. Which means she needs a functioning system of courts and law enforcement in place."
"To enforce it against whom?" Honor asked plaintively. "The total population of the duchy iswhat? Clear up to two thousand now? Scattered over how many thousands of square kilometers?"
"The actual number is a bit higher than that," Maxwell told her. "Not a lot, I'll admit, but higher. And it's about to get a lot higher than it is, for another reason with which your Grayson experience with Sky Domes should make you familiar. Once the survey and construction crews for the ski lodges move in, the current population is going to go up by at least a factor of five. And once the lodges and resorts start attracting tourists and the permanent population to service them, the number will skyrocket."
"All right, all right," Honor sighed. "I surrender. Pull together a proposal for me by next Wednesday, and I promise to get back to you on it as soon as I can."
"Hear that, Nimitz?" the attorney said over his shoulder, to the cream and gray 'cat sprawled comfortably on the custom-made perch beside his smaller, dappled brown and cream mate. Nimitz pricked up his ears, and Maxwell chuckled. "I expect you to keep an eye on her and see to it that she really does pay attention to my memos," he said.
Nimitz considered him for a moment, then rose to a half-sitting position on the perch, and raised his true-hands. He placed the right true-hand, fingers together and palm facing to the left, on the upturned palm of his left true-hand, which pointed away from his body. The right true-hand slid out along the left palm, over the left fingers, and stopped with its heel resting on the left fingertips.
"Traitor," Honor muttered darkly as she read the sign for "Okay," and Nimitz bleeked a laugh and started signing again.
<Not my fault you need a keeper,> the flashing fingers said. <Besides, he brings celery.>
"To think your loyalty can be bought so cheaply," Honor told him, shaking her head sorrowfully.
<Not loyalty,> Nimitz's true-hands replied. <Just cooperation.>
"Right," Honor snorted. Then she looked back at Maxwell. "Well, now that you've recruited your furry minion, I suppose I really don't have any choice but to read your memo. Although, exactly where you expect me to fit it into my schedule is beyond me."
"I'm sure that between them Mac and Miranda can find somewhere to steal an hour or two for you to spend reading. I promise I'll make it as concise as I can, too. But before you approve any plans, you really do need to read more than just the digest and the section heads, Your Grace. I'm flattered that you trust me, but the ultimate decisions and the consequences they may have are up to you."
"I know," she said more seriously, and tapped a command into the terminal at her desk. She studied the display for a few seconds, and then entered a brief note.
"I just picked Wednesday out of a hat," she admitted, "but it looks like it will actually work anyway. And it's a good thing, too, because I've got an exam at Saganami Island that afternoon. I'm going to be swamped grading papers in my copious free time at least through the weekend. So if you can get it to me by Wednesday morning, or even better, by Tuesday evening, I'll fit it in somehow before I get buried under papers."
"I'm glad to hear it, Your Grace," Maxwell told her, "but don't you have a session in the Lords Wednesday, as well? I thought I saw a notice that the Government intended to move its new budget this week, and even though this is important, I wouldn't want it to interfere with any preparations for that."
"No," Honor said with another, more heartfelt grimace. "It's been moved to next Wednesday. I'm not sure why, but the Government notified us day before yesterday that they were moving the debate back a week. And there won't be a lot of preparation to do, either. High Ridge will say exactly the same things he's been saying for the last three T-years, and Earl White Haven and I will say exactly the same things we've been saying for the last three years. Then the House will votenarrowly, of courseto draft the budget the Government wants, the Commons will move amendments to change it, the Lords will strip them back out again, and absolutely nothing will change."