She looked out across the Chamber, huge holographic eyes sweeping scornfully over the men and women seated in the boxes spread across its floor, and shook her head.

“We all know what’s happening here. We all know the script, although the exact schedule may still be in some doubt. And we all know where this little play is headed and who’s directing and producing it. So I don’t expect truth and rationality to be any sort of effective defense. But the record will show what actually happened in Beowulf that day. Someday, the record of exactly what happened to Admiral Filareta will also be clearly and undisputedly available to anyone looking back at Mr. Reid and his motion and its consequences. A clean conscience and a reverence for the truth may not be much in demand in this Assembly today, but both of those are very much in demand in the Beowulf System. So bring on your inquiry. Present your case, and we’ll present ours. Not because we give one single solitary damn for your prepackaged, predetermined ‘impartial conclusions,’ but because we care about history. Because unlike you, we do care about truth. And because someday your successors, whoever they may be, will have a record of what you actually do here and will revile your memory with all the contempt and all the disdain your actions will so richly merit.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Three

Organ music swelled and the massed choir’s voices rose in the words of the ancient hymn which had announced every marriage in the groom’s family for over four T-centuries:

“Though I may speak with bravest fire,

and have the gift to all inspire,

and have not love, my words are vain,

as sounding brass, and hopeless gain.”*

The groom, clad in the blue and silver of the House of Winton stood before the altar rail and turned to face down the nave towards the narthex of King Michael’s Cathedral as the music soared about him. The cathedral itself was packed as it had not been in years—not since the somewhat premature state funeral of one Honor Harrington. Which was rather ironic, since Duchess Harrington was a member of the wedding procession and the current representatives of the star nation which was supposed to have executed her sat in the pew set aside for them as they, too, turned to watch that procession move down cathedral’s central aisle towards the waiting sanctuary.