"Honor," she said after a moment. Her Grayson accent softened the name, but she spoke clearly and distinctly. "Honor Mayhew."
"Honor," Allison repeated, keeping the pain from her own voice, and smiled. "Thats a very good name for someone, dont you think?" Honor nodded wordlessly. Then she reached out and laid her hand in the one Allison still held extended. She looked up at Katherine and Elaine as if for approval, and Katherine smiled at her. She smiled back, then looked up at Allison.
"Im four," she announced.
"Four years old?" Allison asked.
"Uh-huh. And number four, too," Honor told her with a grin.
"I see." Allison nodded in grave approval and stood back fully erect, still holding Honors hand. Each of the adult Mayhews had corralled one of the older girls, and Allison dimpled as the major sighed in profound relief when MacGuiness, with the able assistance of Miranda and Farragut, began chivvying people up the steps.
"so we were delighted by the invitation," Benjamin said, leaning back in the comfortable armchair in the Harrington House library while he nursed a glass of Alfred Harringtons prized Delacourt. Allison had decided to use the library instead of one of the grander, more formal sitting rooms the architects had provided. Aside from the huge Harrington seal inlaid into the polished hardwood floor, the library managed not to shout that it was part of a consciously designed "great house," and the titles on its shelves and the relatively simple but comfortable furnishings and efficient data retrieval systems made her think of Honor. Given her determination to keep the night informal, Clinkscales had withdrawn with a gracious smile to join his wives while the Harringtons entertained their guests. Now she and Alfred and the adult Mayhews sat in a comfortably arranged conversational group near the main data terminal, and Benjamin waved his wineglass gently.
"I wont say we never get outtheres always some damned state occasion or anotherbut just to visit someone?" He shook his head.
"Actually," Katherine said with a wicked smile, "were all rather hoping some of the other Keys decide to follow your example, Allison. Tester knows half the wives out there are hovering on the brink of death from pure envy over your social coup right now!" Allisons eyebrows rose, and Katherine chuckled warmly. "Of course they are! Youre the first hostess outside the immediate Mayhew Clan or one of its core septs whos had the sheer nerve to simply invite the Protector and his family over for a friendly family dinner in over two hundred T-years!"
"Youre joking... arent you?"
"Oh, no she isnt," Benjamin said. "She checked the records. What was the last time, Cat?"
"Bernard VII and his wives were invited to a surprise birthday party by John Mackenzie XI on June 10, 3807um, 1704 P.D.," Katherine replied promptly. "And the experience clearly made a profound impression on Bernard, because I found the actual menu, including the ice cream flavors, in his personal diary."
"Two hundred and eight years?" Allison shook her head, unable to believe it. "That long without an invitation for anything but a state occasion?"
"I wouldnt imagine many people just screen Queen Elizabeth and ask her if shed like to drop by for a beer, Alley," Alfred observed dryly.
"No, but she has to get invitations at least a bit more frequently than once every two centuries!" Allison protested.
"Perhaps so," Benjamin agreed. "But here on Grayson, any informal or personal invitations traditionally go from the Protector to the steadholders, not the other way around."
"Oh, dear. Have we violated protocol that grossly?" Allison sighed.
"You certainly have," Benjamin replied. "And a darned good thing, too." Allison still looked a little concerned, but Elaine nodded in vigorous agreement with her husband even as she removed an old-fashioned printed book from Honors clutches before it could suffer serious damage.
"Benjamin warned Katherine and me both about protocol before he proposed," Elaine said over her shoulder, leading an indignant Honor firmly back towards where the older Mayhew girls were engaged in a board game with Miranda LaFollet. Rachel had expressed some rather pointed reservations about her younger siblings level of skill, but she had a basically sunny disposition, and shed let herself be talked into playing. By now, shed forgotten to maintain her air of exaggerated patience and entered as fully into the play as Jeanette or Theresa while Farragut watched over them all from the back of Mirandas chair.
The game was one Allison had never heard of before coming to Grayson, but like their peculiar sport of "baseball," it seemed ingrained into Graysons at an almost genetic level. At the moment, Miranda had just thrown the dice and finished moving her tokena scuffed and worn-out-looking antique shoe of cast silveraround the perimeter of the polished, inlaid wood board to a square labeled "Ventnor Avenue," and Theresa squealed in triumph.
"Ive got a hotel! Ive got a hotel!" she announced. "Pay me, Randa!"
"I can see taxes are going up if you ever become Minister of Finance," Miranda muttered, making all three sisters laugh, and began counting gaily-colored plaspaper strips of play money. Elaine parked Honor on a stool beside her, and Miranda looked up and then smiled at Honor. "I think Im in trouble here," she confided. "Want to help me and Farragut count all the money I owe your sister?"
Honor nodded vigorously, indignation suddenly forgotten, as Farragut flowed down to sit beside her stool and lean against her, and Elaine returned to join Katherine on the couch facing Allison across a coffee table of beaten copper.
"He warned us about all the protocol," she went on, recapturing the thread of her earlier conversation, "but I dont think either of us really believed him. I know I didnt, anyway! Did you, Cat?"
"Oh, intellectually, maybe," Katherine said. "But emotionally?" She shook her head and leaned back, putting an arm around her sister wifes shoulders, and Elaine leaned comfortably against her. "We both grew up on Grayson, of course, but I dont think anyone who hasnt experienced it from the inside can really understand just how... entrenched the protocol at Protectors Palace really is. Not deep down inside."
"Weve had a thousand years to make it ironclad," Benjamin said with a shrug. "Its like an unwritten constitution no one would dream of violating... except, thank God, for foreigners who dont know any better. Thats one reason Honor was such a breath of fresh-filtered air." He smiled a crooked smile of warm memory. "She started out standing protocol on its head during the Masadan War, and she never really stopped. I think she was trying to learn to be good about it, but she never quite got the knack, thank the Tester."
Allison nodded, squeezing Alfreds hand at the mention of her daughters name, then deliberately changed the subject.
"Given what youve just said, I really hate to mention anything which could be remotely construed as business, Your Grace, but did you have a chance to read the report I sent you?"
"Please, Allison, in private at least," Benjamin protested. Allison glanced at the two armsmen standing just inside the library doors and the second pair hovering watchfully if unobtrusively over the Protectors daughters and their game, then shrugged. "Privacy" was obviously a relative concept.
"Very well. But did you get a chance to read it, Benjamin?"
"I did," he said, his tone suddenly graver. "More to the point, I had Cat read it. She has a better biosciences background than I ever managed to acquire."
"Thats because I wasnt a stodgy old history and government science major," Katherine told him, and her eyes twinkled at Allison. "And I wanted to thank you for being the one who turned up the truth, Allison. Its exactly the sort of multifunction kick in the seat of the pants Ive come to expect from Harringtons!"