Her normal routine had been somewhat altered. As usual, she'd spent an hour working out with the Harrington Sword. Grand Master Thomas Dunlevy had come out of retirement last year to help program her training remote, and the ringing clash of the remote's blunt-edged training blade against the razor-sharp Harrington Sword had sent its harsh music through the gym. But the Steadholder had donned much heavier practice armor than usual, and she'd had Mattingly step down the remote's reaction speed. It was also a Monday, and usually on Mondays she put on her coup de vitesse training gi and pads and worked out full-contact against the training remote or Colonel LaFollet. But today, instead, she'd contented herself with the stretching exercises and training katas. And as if that weren't enough, she'd sent LaFollet himself away without her. Neither she nor the colonel had discussed exactly what it was he was doing today, but Mattingly and Hawke both knew it had something to do with the rather peculiar travel agenda Lady Harrington had laid out for LaFollet the evening before.
All of that was odd enough, yet it wasn't what had prompted Hawke's remark. There was a... distracted edge to her. She lacked that complete and total focus on whatever the task in hand happened to be which was usually so much a part of her. And she seemed both excited and apprehensive, which was very much not like her.
Mattingly glanced at the younger armsman. Hawke had not yet been briefed on the details of the aforementioned peculiar travel agenda. For that matter, Mattingly hadn't been fully briefed on it, himself, but he believed in being prepared. So he'd done a little research of his own on this "Briarwood Center" the Steadholder was intent upon visiting so privately.
"I've seen her in moods like this one," he said after a moment. "Not often, but once or twice. Thank God it's not as bad as the one she was in before they sent us to Marsh!"
"Amen," Hawke said with soft fervency, and remembered anger flickered in the backs of his usually mild eyes. Mattingly wasn't surprised to see it, but he was glad. He'd chosen that particular example deliberately, given what Hawke was going to inevitably figure out for himself tomorrow.
"She's got a lot on her mind," he continued quietly, watching the Steadholder flow gracefully through her katas. She was almost ten T-years older than he was, but she looked half his age. He'd become as accustomed to that as anyone could, who'd grown to adulthood on a planet without prolong, but he was finding it increasingly difficult to match her flexibility and speed.
No, he corrected himself. Not 'match them;' I never did manage that. But it's getting harder just to stay in shouting distance.
"I know she does," Hawke replied to his last remark, and cocked his head. "But this isn't just about her navy job."
"No, it isn't," Mattingly agreed. "There are some... personal issues involved, as well."
Hawke's eyes turned instantly opaque, and his expression blanked. It was a professional armsman's reaction which Mattingly found a bit amusing, under the circumstances. He couldn't really fault the younger man for probing for information-armsmen all too often found that their primaries had neglected to mention some vitally important bit of information because it hadn't seemed important to them. Or because they didn't want to share it. Or even sometimes, as happened much too frequently for Mattingly's peace of mind in the Steadholder's case, because they'd simply decided to subordinate security requirements to... other considerations.
But it was a mark of Hawke's relative youthfulness that he should go into immediate "the-Steadholder's-private-life-is-none-of-my-business" mode the instant he began to suspect where his probing might lead him.
"She's not going to tell you about them, you know," Mattingly said conversationally, his tone almost teasing, as the Steadholder finished her katas.
He watched her alertly, even here, wondering if she was going to head straight for the showers, but instead, she crossed to the indoor shooting range at the far end of the gymnasium. He'd already checked the range before the Steadholder ever entered the gym, and there were no other entrances to it, so he didn't try to intercept her at the range door. Instead, he jerked his head at Hawke, and the two of them walked over to flank the door, watching through the soundproof armorplast with one eye while they kept most of their attention focused on the only access routes.
"There's no reason she ought to tell me about them," Hawke said, just a bit stiffly. "She's my Steadholder. If she wants me to know something, she'll tell me."
"Oh, nonsense!" Mattingly snorted. He felt a small flicker of surprise when the Steadholder didn't put on her ear protectors, but his incipient twinge of concern vanished when he realized she didn't have her.45 at the shooting line. Unlike that thunderous, anachronistic, propellant-spewing monster, pulsers were relatively quiet.
Satisfied that his charge wasn't going to hammer her unprotected eardrums with gunfire, he looked back at Hawke. Who was regarding him with a moderately outraged expression.
"Spencer," he said, "Colonel LaFollet didn't handpick you for the Steadholder's personal detail because you're an idiot. You know-or you damned well ought to know, by now-that no primary ever tells his armsmen everything they need to know. And, frankly, the Steadholder's worse than most in that regard. She's better than she was, but, Tester-the things she used to do without even mentioning them to us ahead of time!"
He shook his head.
"The thing you have to understand, Spencer, is that there's the Job, and then there's everything else. The Job is to see to it that that lady in there stays alive, period. No ifs, no ands, and no buts. We do whatever it takes-whatever it takes-to see to it that she does. And it's our privilege to do that, because there are steadholders, and there are steadholders, and I tell you frankly that one like her comes along maybe once or twice in a generation. If we're lucky. And, yes, although I'm not going to tell her, I'd do the Job anyway, because I love her.
"But every so often, and more often in her case than in most, the Job and who the person we're protecting is run into one another head on. The Steadholder takes risks. Some of them are manageable, or at least reasonably so, like her hang-gliding and her sailboats. But she's also a naval officer, and a steadholder in the old sense-the kind who used to lead his personal troops from the front rank-so there are always going to be risks we can't protect her from, however hard we try. And as you may recall, those same risks have killed quite a few of her armsmen along the way.
"And there's another factor involved, where she's concerned. She wasn't born a steadholder. In a lot of ways, I think that's the secret of her strength as a steadholder; she doesn't think like someone who knew from the time he learned to walk that he was going to be one. That's probably a very good thing, over all, but it also means she didn't grow up with the mindset. It simply doesn't occur to her-or, sometimes it does occur to her and she simply chooses to ignore the fact-that she has to keep us informed if we're going to do the Job. And since she doesn't, every one of us-like every armsman who ever was-spends an awful lot of time trying to figure out what it is she isn't telling us about this time."
He grimaced wryly.
"And, of course, we spend most of the rest of our time keeping our big mouths shut about the things we have figured out. Especially the ones she didn't tell us about. You know, the things she knows that we know that she knows that we know but none of us ever discuss with her."
"Oh." Hawke frowned. "So you're saying I'm supposed to pry into her personal life?"
"We are her personal life," Mattingly said flatly. "We're as much her family as her mother and father, as Faith and James. Except that we're the expendable part of her family... and everyone knows and accepts that. Except her."
His own frown mingled affection, respect, and exasperation as he looked through the armorplast at his Steadholder. Hawke looked as well, and Mattingly felt the younger man twitch in something very like shock as the Steadholder calmly removed the very tip of her left index finger.