Thorvald was sixty-three that year. His and Siún’s oldest son, Cathal, was thirty, and every time Thorvald walked into Chez Berthelsen, he remembered that meeting he’d been too busy to make. Remembered how Siún had died. So he handed Chez Berthelsen to Cathal and retired to Thorvald’s Place and the memories of the young woman he’d met in its noisy, lively dining room and loved so very much.

  Two T-centuries later, Chez Berthelsen was still there, still under Berthelsen family management, and still at the very head of every guide to Landing’s five-star restaurants. But, like Landing City itself, times had changed in other ways. The Opera House had been demolished ninety T-years ago, and Chez Berthelsen’s low-lying, four-story building nestled at the foot of the gigantic ceramacrete tower that stretched to the heavens where once the Opera House had stood. The three-hectare footprint of the restaurant’s landscaped grounds, barely a kilometer from the Parliament Building itself, was worth an obscene amount, although the family would never have dreamed of selling it, and its clientele was even more stratospheric than it had ever been.

  Yet there was another side to Chez Berthelsen, because Thorvald’s policy of safeguarding his diners’ privacy remained in force, and his descendants had incorporated the best technology, updated regularly, to ensure that it did. And because they had, quite a few of Chez Berthelsen’s regular patrons ate there for reasons that had very little to do with the quality of its kitchens or the depth of its cellars. It was said that three quarters of Landing’s political deals and half its business mergers had been sealed in one of Chez Berthelsen’s private dining rooms. And it was rumored—no one could possibly prove it, of course—that those same dining rooms had hosted almost that many assignations between wealthy clients with . . . esoteric tastes and the courtesans who served them.

  What was less often spoken of, although the Landing City Police Department was well-informed on the matter, was the way arrangements of questionable legality were also finalized at Chez Berthelsen. It was inevitable that a certain class of criminal would be attracted to such an environment, assuming the criminals in question could convince the maître d’ to seat them (and that they behaved themselves, once they had). Far too many of the Star Kingdom’s wealthiest and most powerful had a strong interest in maintaining Chez Berthelsen’s confidentiality, for reasons which (of course) had nothing to do with criminal activity, for the minions of the law to surveil its clientele or intrude upon its precincts without a warrant.

  And warrants to intrude upon Chez Berthelsen were difficult to come by.

  Which was how the Earl of North Hollow found himself seated in the Cargill Room with Georgia Sakristos. The private dining room, which could seat parties of up to twenty in comfort, was scarcely inexpensive, even by the standards of his wealth, but he’d reserved the entire room and considered it money well spent. The food was as excellent as ever, his companion was astonishingly beautiful, and his hands could wander as widely as his heart desired. Not simply because the discreet staff would never dream of disturbing them unannounced, but also because the Cargill Room’s privacy screening was impervious to every known form of eavesdropping.

  That last point was very present in North Hollow’s mind as he and Sakristos sat back in their chairs with after-dinner snifters of brandy and a side door opened.

  The newcomer was slim and not especially tall, with fair hair and gray eyes, and he moved with a studied, almost predatory grace. He stopped, just inside the door, to survey the room, then crossed to the table and bowed.

  “Milord,” he said, then nodded rather more brusquely to Sakristos. “Georgia.”

  If he was disappointed—or surprised—to have arrived only after they’d finished supper, there was no sign of it in his tone or expression.

  “Please,” North Hollow invited. “Join us, Mr. Summervale.”

  “Thank you, Milord.”

  The new arrival settled into a chair across the table from the earl with that same feline grace, and North Hollow personally poured brandy into a third snifter and handed it to him. The newcomer took it in a manicured but remarkably sinewy hand, passed it under his nose, inhaling deeply, then sipped appreciatively.

  “The Montresor ’52,” he said. “I salute your taste, Milord.”

  “I’m glad you approve.” North Hollow set the bottle aside. “I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything else. I’ve told the staff that Georgia and I will need a little . . . additional privacy tonight.”

  “Of course.”

  There might have been the slightest trace of condescension for the statement of the obvious in Summervale’s voice, but North Hollow didn’t much care.

  “I believe Georgia’s explained to you what I need done?” he said.

  “She has.” Summervale nodded.

  “And the financial terms are acceptable?”

  “They are.” Summervale sipped more brandy. “And I suppose I might admit that there are certain fringe attractions to this assignment for me.”

  “I thought there might be.” North Hollow grimaced. “I’ve always found the Duke a bit overly sanctimonious, shall we say, for my own tastes. I imagine it must be even worse having our esteemed Prime Minister for a cousin.”

  “Oh, it has its moments, Milord.” Summervale bared his teeth. “Frankly, visualizing his reaction to what you’ve planned is one of them.”

  North Hollow smiled back at him.

  “You understand that this needs to happen sometime soon?” he asked then. “My latest information is that her ship will be out of yard hands sometime in the next two or three T-months. I’m sure she plans to return from Yeltsin well before that to oversee the refit’s final stages. It’s important to me that her planned return be . . . expedited by unexpected news from home.”

  His expression might still have been called a smile, assuming Old Terran sharks had known how to smile.

  “I believe that’s feasible,” Summervale said judiciously. “I’ve conducted some quiet reconnaissance, and I’m confident I can gain access, at any rate.”

  “Good!”

  North Hollow took another, deeper sip—almost a gulp—of the expensive brandy, then looked at Summervale with glittering eyes.

  “I would never dream of telling you how to do your own business, of course, Mister Summervale. One doesn’t hire a specialist and then tell him how to do his job. But I really want the terms of the challenge, the reason for it, to hurt. I want her to know this was for her. I want her to know she’s how you got to him. And the reason you did.”

  “Understood.”

  Summervale nodded serenely. North Hollow’s requirements came as no surprise. Sakristos had already made the basic parameters clear enough. Besides, he was accustomed to requests very like that. People tended to engage his services only when it was personal—very personal—for them. Still, the passion in the earl’s eyes was unusual, even in Summervale’s line of work.

  “I’ve already been thinking in that direction,” he continued, sitting back and cradling the snifter in both hands. “And not simply because of what you’ve just said. The first part of this operation has to be presented carefully, in a fashion that makes it reasonable for me to issue the challenge, because, frankly, he won’t challenge me.” Summervale smiled thinly. “He doesn’t approve of duels—that much I’ve already established—so I have to provoke him into provoking me, as it were. And in a way that discourages him from crying off once he’s had time to think about it. I believe I’ve found a way to do that, and I’m sure the way in which I do it will get back to her. In fact, I’m rather counting on it.”

  “You are?”

  “Oh, yes, Milord! It would be just a tad too obvious if I challenged both of them. So the trick is for the outcome of the first challenge to push her into challenging me. Especially since, as I understand it, you’d prefer the Ellington Protocol in her case?”

  “Yes.” North Hollow’s calm tone was a poor match for the fire in his eyes. “Yes, definitely.”

  “Well, as long as I’m the challenged party, I can guarantee that, Milord. You do understand, though, that I won’t be able to arrange that in his case?” Summervale grimaced. “Given his attitude, I’m afraid we can rely on his insisting on the Dreyfus Protocol.”

  “I know.” North Hollow’s nostrils flared. “I can’t say I don’t wish you could get him to agree to the Ellington. For more than one reason. I’m no expert with dueling pistols, of course, but forty meters . . . that’s a long range for an antique like that.”

  “Don’t worry, Milord. I realize it’s a long range, but I train at it regularly. And after he takes his shot—and misses—I can take my time to do it right. Trust me, I can do the business with a single shot. Of course, you do understand that, to assure that, it will have to be immediately fatal? The attending medical staff is very good, I’m afraid.”

  “I can’t have everything,” North Hollow said. “I knew that going in. I won’t pretend I wouldn’t prefer something rather more . . . extended in his case, too. I have quite a few scores to settle with him, as well. But the truth is that he’s more a means to an end in this case. As long”—his eyes stabbed Summervale across the table—“as you do ‘do the business’ with your single shot.”

  “Milord, I haven’t been clumsy enough to miss my mark in years. I won’t miss it this time.”

  North Hollow only looked at him, and Summervale shrugged.

  “Milord, the way Georgia’s arranged things, the funds will transfer only after the job is done. A third after the first duel; the balance after the second. If it should happen for some unimaginable reason that I do miss my mark, you’ll owe me nothing.”

  “That’s very reassuring, in a purely financial sense,” North Hollow said. “But to be honest, the financial aspect of our agreement is its least important part for me.”

  “By the time I’m called in, Milord, that’s almost always the case,” Summervale said almost gently. “Believe me, I understand that. And I might as well admit that in her case I have motives of my own which transcend your generous fee.”

  “You do?” North Hollow sounded surprised.

  “Oh, yes,” Summervale told him. “I have a bone of my own to pick with the Countess.” North Hollow’s eyes narrowed, and Summervale smiled slowly. “Don’t worry, Milord. It’s not something that will provide anyone with evidence that I have any personal motivation in this case. The truth is that even she doesn’t know it, but she did me a significant disservice some years ago. So you might say this gives me the chance to kill two birds with one stone, as it were.”

  “I see.” North Hollow gazed at him for another few seconds, then took another sip of brandy and set the empty snifter aside.

  “I believe our business tonight is concluded, then, Mr. Summervale?”

  “It is, Milord.” Summervale emptied his own snifter, set it on the table, and stood. “I trust our departure times will be sufficiently staggered?”

  “Oh, I think that can be arranged. After all, as I told our waiter, Georgia and I”—he smiled at Sakristos—“will need the room a bit longer.

  “Quite a bit longer, actually.”

  Dempsey’s Bar

  HMSS Hephaestus

  Manticore Planetary orbit

  Manticore Binary System

  March 20, 1906 PD

  “i don’t think you’re hearing everything Thomas and I are saying, Paul.”

  Alistair McKeon’s eyes were bleak, his expression grim, as he looked across the private dining room’s table at Paul Tankersley.

  “I hear everything you’ve said, Alistair,” Tankersley replied. “You and Tomas both. And I deeply appreciate how concerned both of you are. Hell, I’m concerned! But done is done. He’s challenged me, and I accepted the challenge.”

  “Only because I was ninety seconds late to the party,” Tomas Ramirez said bitterly. “If I’d gotten there even two minutes earlier—”

  “He was already launched by then, Tomas. And I didn’t have any reason to think—”

  “That’s only because I hadn’t already warned you what it was like when he was still a Marine! And if I’d been there—”

  “Oh, stop it!” Tankersley said sharply. “You couldn’t have known what was coming any more than I did!”

  “No, but I could damn well have stopped it when it did go down,” Ramirez grated.

  “After I broke his nose and took out one of his teeth?” Tankersley barked a laugh. “You really think he wouldn’t have issued the challenge after that no matter who’d been there?”

  “I know he wouldn’t have, because he’d have been fucking unconscious on a stretcher. Or on his way to the station morgue! That’s the problem, Paul. You pulled your damned punch!”

  “I couldn’t just kill him on the spot, no matter what he said.”

  “You didn’t have to kill him; you only had to take him down and then walk away. You were too fucking civilized!”

  Tomas Ramirez seldom used profanity or obscenities, but he was prepared to make an exception today. His voice was hammered iron, and Tankersley’s eyes were hot as he half-glared at his friends. He opened his mouth again, but McKeon raised a pacific hand before he could speak.

  “Look,” he said, “Tomas may not be the most diplomatic soul in the galaxy, and you know—now—that he has his own, call it an institutional bone to pick with Summervale. And what that son of a bitch said about Honor makes this personal for all three of us. Especially for you. But the critical point here is that there’s no way that bastard didn’t know exactly what he was doing when he goaded you into punching him out. And that means it damned well didn’t ‘just happen.’”

  “He doesn’t even know me,” Tankersley half-protested.

  “And what the fuck does that have to do with it?” Ramirez demanded harshly. “That man’s a professional duelist. Picking quarrels—goading people into attacking him so we can get them out on the dueling ground—is what he does.”

  “Then he should be in prison!”

  “And he would be if the Crown could prove people paid him to shoot their enemies under cover of the law,” Ramirez shot back. “But he’s good, Paul. He’s really, really good. And I’ll guarantee you a gun like his doesn’t come cheap. He’s careful not to take on too many ‘commissions’ or space them close enough together to create probable cause for an investigation, so I’m damned sure hiring him costs a bundle each time he does take a job. And the way he got to you, the things he said about Dame Honor . . .” He shook his head. “There’s only one person who could be behind this, and you know it.”

  “I know who you’re talking about,” Tankersley replied. “But to be honest, I find it hard to believe even he might think he’d get away with something like this. I have to admit the possibility, and God knows he’s the most likely suspect, assuming this really is a put-up job. I just . . . I just have trouble wrapping my mind around how he could possibly expect this wouldn’t lead straight back to him.”

  “I don’t know Young—North Hollow—as well as you do,” McKeon said. “I didn’t ever find myself stuck as his XO, for which I’m more grateful than I could possibly say. But I’ve done a lot of poking around over the years since he tried to screw Honor over in Basilisk, and there’s nothing—nothing, Paul!—that I’d put past that man. You probably know more about what happened between them at the Academy than I do, but I’ve dug up enough to make me want to put my boot right up his ass. And the other thing I know is that the man’s a complete sociopath. Right up to the moment they cashiered him, he expected his old man to ride in and snatch him out of the fire yet again. For most people, what actually happened would probably constitute a rude awakening, but I’ll guarantee you it hasn’t in his case. Just like nothing that ever happened to him is his fault, he’s absolutely convinced he can do whatever the hell he wants and get away with it. Hell, he’s got proof of it, as far as he’s concerned! The whole frigging Conservative Association—and the Liberal Party—ran cover for him.”

  “You may be right about that. No”—Tankersley shook his head—“scratch that. You are right. But that doesn’t change the situation. I still laid hands on Summervale. Hell, if he’d wanted to, he could’ve pressed charges against me for attempted murder! Or did you two forget I hold a fifth-degree black belt in coup de vitesse? There’s a reason my hands are legally considered deadly weapons, and the truth is, I came within a centimeter of putting him down as hard—and maybe even as permanently—as even you could wish Tomas. I was that angry.”

  His face was bleak, and Alistair McKeon felt his own smolder of rage. No one was repeating what Summervale had said about Honor. Not yet, anyway. But it was there, just waiting.

  “Tell me, Captain Tankersley—are you really that good a fuck? Are you so good she was willing to throw away her entire command to save you? Or was it just that she was that desperate to have someone—anyone—between her legs?”

  There was nothing the bastard could have said that could have hurt Honor worse. Except for the suggestion he’d also made that she’d held her course in Hancock, gotten thousands of additional Navy personnel killed, just because she refused to abandon the space station on which her lover was trapped.

  “Instead of doing that, he issued the challenge,” Tankersley continued. “And I’d accepted it before you got there to tell me about his reputation. But I’ll be honest with you both—after the things he said about her, and the fact that he said them in a public place where I know damned well some sick son of a bitch will repeat them to her even if no one dares to do it in print, I wouldn’t have walked away from this even if I could.”

  His face clenched in anger, and McKeon reached across to grip his shoulder.

  He was right, the captain thought, and as far as McKeon was concerned, that was the final proof of who was pulling the strings.

  Only a tiny handful of people knew Honor Harrington as well as Alistair McKeon did. Any healthy human being would be disgusted by the things Denver Summervale had said about her, but only that tiny handful could understand how vulnerable to them she was. Because only that tiny handful had ever been allowed deep enough inside to recognize how completely she’d shut down that part of her life after her Academy experiences. How hard and how far she’d run to hide from even the possibility of risking a relationship after Pavel Young attempted to rape a first-year midshipwoman and then used his family name to attempt to destroy his intended victim.