White Haven enjoyed immense public respect on Grayson in his own right, yet that was almost beside the point. It was Honor who mattered, and they knew her. It was really that simple. They actually knew her there, and they remembered that she'd never denied she and Paul had been lovers, never tried to pretend she was anyone but who she was. Even those who continued to hate her for who she was knew she would have refused to deny the truth, and because of that, they recognized the lie when they heard it.
Which was precisely why the damage was even worse. The Graysons weren't angry at her over any allegations of impropriety which they knew were false; they were furious at Manticore for allowing those allegations to be made. They saw the entire agonizing ordeal as a public insult and humiliation to the woman who had twice saved their world from conquest, and at least once from nuclear bombardment by religious fanatics. Honor had always felt horribly embarrassed by the Graysons' unabashed hero worship of her, not least because she felt it denigrated the sacrifices made by so many others in the battles she'd fought at Yeltsin's Star. But her worst nightmares had never envisioned anything like this.
Grayson's attitude towards the Star Kingdom had shifted dangerously over the last three T-years. There were still immense reservoirs of gratitude, admiration, and respect for the Royal Navy, for the Centrists, and—especially—for Queen Elizabeth, herself. But there was also a deep, seething rage directed at the Kingdom's current government and the arrogant fashion in which it had arbitrarily and unilaterally accepted Oscar Saint-Just's truce offer when unequivocal victory had been within the Alliance's grasp. That decision was widely regarded as a betrayal of all of the Star Kingdom's allies, and especially of Grayson, which had made by far the greatest contribution—and sacrifices—of all those allies.
Nor had High Ridge's subsequent policy mitigated that outrage in any way. It was as obvious to Grayson as it was to the Havenites themselves that High Ridge and Descroix had no intention of negotiating in good faith. There might be different interpretations of the reasons for that, but recognition of their duplicity was virtually universal. High Ridge hadn't made things any better by continuing as he had begun, simply announcing his decisions to those who were supposed to be his treaty partners rather than consulting with them and acting in concert. Partly, Honor suspected, that insensitivity resulted from his intense focus on his purely domestic concerns, but it was also an inescapable reflection of his own personality. He considered Manticoran yeomen and commoners his infinite inferiors, and foreign commoners, by definition, were even less worthy of the expenditure of his precious time.
Benjamin IX and his Council, as well as a working majority of the Grayson Keys, recognized the unique and dangerous balance of political power within the Star Kingdom. They knew what was happening, and they were no strangers to complex internal political battles of their own. Yet even with that knowledge, it was difficult for them to restrain their anger and to remember to direct it against High Ridge and his cronies, rather than at the Star Kingdom as a whole. For the elected members of the Conclave of Steaders—and especially for the vast bulk of the Grayson population, who were not only less "sophisticated" but also less fully informed about the ramifications of which Benjamin was only too well aware—it was even more difficult.
And now the same people who'd already infuriated Grayson public opinion had falsely and publicly attacked their greatest planetary hero, who was also the second ranking officer of their navy, the Protector's Champion, only the second person in history to have received the Star of Grayson not merely once, but twice, and one of their eighty-two steadholders.
And a woman. Even now, the surviving strictures of Grayson's pre-Alliance social code absolutely precluded public insult to a woman. Any woman. And especially this woman.
Which meant that the very tactics which had so thoroughly neutralized Honor in the domestic Manticoran political calculus had produced exactly the opposite effect on Grayson. Public opinion and support there had rallied about her even more fiercely than before, but it was an angry public opinion. A rising sea of infuriated outrage which had turned her into a symbol which threatened the outright disruption of an alliance Benjamin was already holding together by his fingernails.
She had nowhere to go. She could accomplish nothing on Manticore, and her very presence here, combined with the High Ridge Government's determination to keep her neutralized, only kept the scandal alive and fanned the furnace of Grayson anger. Yet if she fled to Grayson, she would only make it worse, because the Graysons would undoubtedly decide (with justification) that she'd been hounded out of the Star Kingdom. The damage which had already been done would be multiplied, and her presence on Grayson would keep the planet's rage alive by keeping her very much in the public eye, and so she drew a deep, unhappy breath, and shook her head.
"No," she repeated to her monarch, "domestic politics aren't all we have to worry about."
"I don't like what we're hearing about Silesia." Sir Edward Janacek tilted back in his chair while he regarded the two men sitting on the far side of the magnificent desk he'd had moved into his office to replace the smaller, plainer one which had served Baroness Mourncreek.
Admiral Francis Jurgensen, Second Space Lord of Admiralty, was a small, neat man. His uniform, as always, was impeccable, and his brown eyes were open and guileless. Admiral Sir Simon Chakrabarti was much taller and broad shouldered. His complexion was almost as dark as Elizabeth Winton's, but aside from that he actually reminded people a great deal of Sir Thomas Caparelli—physically, at least, and at first glance. Any similarity was illusory, however. Chakrabarti had managed to attain his present very senior rank without ever commanding in combat. He'd last seen action as Lieutenant Commander Chakrabarti, executive officer in the heavy cruiser Invincible, against Silesian pirates, over thirty-five T-years before. Since that time, his career had been devoted primarily to administration, with a detour for a brief stint at BuWeaps.
Some might have questioned how that sort of career qualified a man to be First Space Lord, but as Janacek saw it, at this moment the Navy had less need of some grizzled veteran of a warrior than it did of a superior administrator. Anyone could win battles when his wall of battle held such a decisive qualitative edge, but it required someone who understood the ins and outs of administrative decisions and budgetary realities to balance the requirements of the Service against the need to downsize the Fleet. Chakrabarti had that understanding, not to mention exemplary political connections. His brother-in-law was Adam Damakos, the Liberal MP who was the ranking member of the Naval Affairs Committee of the House of Commons, but he was also the cousin of Akahito Fitzpatrick, the Duke of Gray Water, one of Baron High Ridge's closest allies in the Conservative Association. That would have made him the perfect choice for such an important position even without any other recommendations. And at least Janacek had been able to pick the man himself, instead of having someone foisted off on him the way that idiot Houseman had been chosen as Second Lord!
"I don't like it at all," he went on. "What the hell do the Andies think they're doing?" He looked pointedly at Jurgensen, and the admiral shrugged.
"The information we've been able to put together so far is still pretty self-contradictory," he said. "In the absence of any official explanations—or demands—from their foreign minister, all we can do is guess about their final intentions."
"I realize that, Francis." Janacek spoke mildly, but his eyes narrowed. "On the other hand, you are the head of the Office of Naval Intelligence. Doesn't that mean you're sort of in charge of guessing about these things?"