“He warned us about all the protocol,” she went on, recapturing the thread of her earlier conversation, “but I don’t think either of us really believed him. I know I didn’t, anyway! Did you, Cat?”

“Oh, intellectually, maybe,” Katherine said. “But emotionally?” She shook her head and leaned back, putting an arm around her sister wife’s shoulders, and Elaine leaned comfortably against her. “We both grew up on Grayson, of course, but I don’t think anyone who hasn’t experienced it from the inside can really understand just how… entrenched the protocol at Protector’s Palace really is. Not deep down inside.”

“We’ve had a thousand years to make it ironclad,” Benjamin said with a shrug. “It’s like an unwritten constitution no one would dream of violating… except, thank God, for foreigners who don’t know any better. That’s 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 Alfred’s hand at the mention of her daughter’s name, then deliberately changed the subject.

“Given what you’ve 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 Protector’s 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.”

“That’s because I wasn’t 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. It’s exactly the sort of multifunction kick in the seat of the pants I’ve come to expect from Harringtons!”

“Excuse me?” Allison looked puzzled, and Katherine grinned.

“I imagine you’ve heard at least a few people muttering about how ‘proper’ Grayson women don’t work?”

“Well, yes. I have,” Allison admitted.

“Well, that’s one of the stupider social fables around,” Katherine said roundly. “Traditionally, women haven’t been paid for working, but believe me, running a Grayson home requires more than someone to bear and raise children. Of course, most of us were never allowed the formal training men got—Benjamin was dreadfully unconventional in that regard—but you try tearing down an air filtration plant, or monitoring the metals levels in the vegetables you’re planning on cooking for supper, or managing the reclamation plant, or setting the toxicity alarms in the nursery, or any one of a thousand and one other ‘household’ chores without at least a practical education in biology, chemistry, hydraulics—!” She snorted with magnificent panache.