"All right, Miranda," she sighed. "I'll behave."

"I never doubted it, My Lady," Miranda replied with admirable gravity, then smiled. "But I'm afraid you are going to have to give your own speech in response to his."

Her gray eyes twinkled, and Honor swallowed a chuckle as Farragut bleeked a soft laugh from his person's far side. Honors "maid" wasn't the sort of radical likely to storm the bastions of male supremacy, but she was a sturdy, self-confident individual, and that aspect of her personality had come strongly to the fore. Without even realizing it, she'd begun sinking a few mines under the bastions she was unprepared to assault frontally, and Honor was glad of it. For all intents and purposes, Miranda had become her social and public relations chief of staff, and her number-two political advisor, with at least as much insight as and a rather different perspective from Howard Clinkscales. That would have occasioned no comment back in the Star Kingdom, but it could have been a source of major consternation here on Grayson, where it had never been "proper" for women to dabble in politics, however indirectly. Worse, Miranda had moved smoothly into the role of coordinator, giving directions to a primarily male staff with an assurance which mirrored her Steadholders.

It was possible that some of that assurance stemmed from an awareness that she shared in Honor's prestige and authority, but Honor thought that was only a very small part of it. Most of Miranda’s competent assurance sprang from the fact that her native ability had finally been given a chance to reveal itself and that she was simply incapable of not rising to that sort of challenge.

And I wonder, Honor mused, how much of a role that played in Farragut's decision to adopt her?

"Did the Colonel say anything about the upper review stand?" Major LaFollet asked his sister, and Miranda shrugged.

"I think he thinks you're being paranoid, but he agreed to have the engineers check it out. And to put two or three armsmen up there to keep an eye on things. And we've adjusted the schedule to give you the time you wanted for you and Lord Clinkscales to meet privately with the Chancellor, My Lady."

LaFollet’s on-duty expression relaxed enough to permit a small smile at the word "paranoid," but Honor sensed his satisfaction. The upper review stand actually overhung the area in which she would use the silver shovel for the official ground-breaking ceremony, and Andrew had disliked it from the outset. Which, she reflected, I can live with. Andrew may be a little on the "paranoid" side, but given what Burdette and his maniacs tried...

She brushed that thought aside and nodded. "Good," she told her henchpeople, then frowned and rubbed the tip of her nose. "Speaking of Lord Clinkscales and meetings, Miranda, please run down Stuart Matthews for me. I want a thumbnail technical-side briefing on Sky Domes' to bring me up to speed before we meet with Lord Prestwick."

"Yes, My Lady. But don't forget the audience with Deacon Sanderson, either. I've scheduled that for fifteen-hundred tomorrow."

Miranda's tone was respectful, but Honor suppressed a sudden desire to smack herself on her forehead, for she had forgotten the meeting with Sanderson. And it promised to be an important one, considering that Sanderson was the personal aide and direct representative of Reverend Sullivan. Honor hoped the audience's purpose was to express Sullivan's support for her newest project. She had no reason to expect anything else, but she still didn't know Sullivan well, and the new Reverend was a far cry from the gentle man he had succeeded. No one could have doubted the strength of Julius Hanks' personal faith, and those who'd known him well had always recognized that, for all his soft-spokenness, he had a whim of steel and a central core of titanium, but he'd never been a confrontational personality. Instead, he'd achieved his ends by a sort of spiritual akido, turning his most vociferous opponents into allies with the magic of his humor and inescapable... well, goodness. Honor had no doubt that the Church would nominate him for canonization at the earliest possible moment, and anyone who'd ever met him would support his elevation to sainthood with enthusiasm.

But Jeremiah Sullivan was cut from very different cloth. Thanks to Nimitz, Honor knew that Sullivan's faith was as deep as Hanks' had been, but where Hanks had often seemed almost too gentle for the real world, Sullivan went through life like a whirlwind. He'd spent years as Hanks' right-hand assistant and (when needed) hatchet man, and he'd embraced virtually all of Hanks' policies when he replaced the previous Reverend at the head of the Sacristy. But his bracing, aggressive, sometimes oppressively energetic temperament made him a very different person, and the Church was still coming to grips with the change in its leadership.

In the long run, Honor expected Sullivan to be good for Grayson. He would accomplish whatever he did in ways which would never have occurred to Hanks, but his devotion to his God, his flock, his church, and his Protector, in that order, were beyond question.

Unfortunately, however, he was also rather more of a social conservative than Hanks had been. Or, rather, than Hanks had become following Grayson's alliance with Manticore. The new Reverend had been zealous in proclaiming the Church's continued backing for the Protectors reforms, and his attitude towards Steadholder Harrington could hardly have been more supportive, yet Honor knew the concept of a female steadholder didn't come naturally to him. In a very real sense, Sullivan was forcing himself to do what his intellect and his understanding of his faith required of him despite a lingering, deep-seated emotional distaste for the changes in his world, and his own world view, that required.

Honor respected him for that, but it also meant that she nursed a tiny, perpetual fear that sooner or later his emotions were going to get the better of reason and bring the two of them, or, worse, Protector Benjamin and him, into painful collision. And given who she'd picked to head the clinic...

"Excuse me, Milady." White Havens voice broke into her reverie, and she gave her head an impatient shake and turned to face him. "I couldn't help overhearing," the earl went on. "May I ask just what you're breaking ground for?" He smiled wryly. "If you'll forgive my saying so, you do seem to have an unending flow of projects."

"This is a new steading, My Lord," Honor replied. "And, truth to tell, I sometimes think Harrington is Grayson's proving ground. My people are used to having their minds stretched, so we keep trying out new things here before we turn them loose on the conservatives. Don't we, Miranda?"

"I'm not sure I'd say 'we' do it, My Lady," her maid murmured, "but someone certainly does." She looked innocently at her Steadholder, and all three treecats bleeked in laughter.

"I'm keeping track," Honor told her, "and the day will come, Miranda LaFollet."

"What day would that be, My Lady?" Miranda asked demurely, eyes laughing.

"Don't worry," Honor said ominously. "You'll recognize it when it arrives." Miranda chuckled, and Honor glanced back at White Haven.

"As I was saying before the distraction, My Lord," she resumed, ignoring her maid and armsman as they joined the 'cats' laughter, "we tend to try things out here, and what we're trying out this time is Grayson’s first modern genetic clinic."

"Ah?" White Haven raised his eyebrows attentively, and Honor felt his fresh flicker of interest. Most of it was simply that, interest in the project she was describing, but there was more to it, as well. A dancing fire around the edges of his emotions. It was... admiration, she realized, and felt her cheeks heat. Darn it! Whatever White Haven, or Miranda, or Lord Prestwick, or even Benjamin Mayhew, might think, there was nothing extraordinary about her decision to bankroll the clinic. The entire initial endowment came to barely forty million, and Graysons suffered from an appalling number of genetic defects, many, if not most, of them correctable by modern medicine, after a millennium’s exposure to their planet's heavy metal concentrations. It would have been criminal for her not to get someone from the Star Kingdom out here to do something about that, so where did White Haven get off admiring her for it? What gave him the right to sit there and...