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Every insider in Parliament, Lords and Commons alike, recognized exactly what had been done to her, and it didn’t matter at all. Hayes’ initial column had been followed quickly by the first op-ed piece, and that first “respectable” commentary had been the polished, meticulously crafted opening salvo in a carefully planned campaign. It was the first picador’s dart, placed with impeccable skill, and the fact that the High Ridge Government was an alliance of so many parties gave a disastrously broad base to the orchestrated attack. The Manticoran public was accustomed to vociferous exchanges between party organs and spokespeople, but this time the party lines were blurred. No, not blurred. The real problem was that the divisions were even clearer than usual… and that this time every single major party except the Centrists and Crown Loyalists was on the other side. The condemnation came from across the entire traditional political spectrum, and that gave it a dangerous degree of legitimacy in all too much of the public’s eyes. Surely so many people of such diverse views would never agree on anything which wasn’t self-evidently true!

That first column had appeared in the Landing Guardian, the flagship newsfax of the Manticoran Liberal Party, under the byline of Regina Clausel. Clausel had been a newsy for almost fifty T-years… and an operative of the Liberal Party for over thirty-five. She maintained her credentials as a reporter and ostensibly independent-minded political commentator, but she was recognized in professional media circles as one of the Liberals’ primary front people. She was also widely respected in those same circles for her ability, despite the way she’d subordinated it to the requirements of her ideology. Effectiveness was far more important than intellectual integrity, after all, Honor thought bitterly.

What mattered in this case, however, was her sheer visibility. She was a regular on four different issue-oriented HD programs, her column appeared in eighteen major and scores of lesser ’faxes, and her informal, comfortable prose and calm affability before the cameras had captured a broad readership and viewership. Many of her readers weren’t Liberals—indeed, a fair percentage were actually Centrists, who read her columns or watched her on HD because she seemed reassuring evidence that even someone one disagreed with politically could have a brain. Her well-crafted and presented arguments made even readers who disagreed with her think, and if one was inclined to agree with her already, they often seemed to sparkle with their own brand of brilliance.

She was also one of the very few political columnists outside the Centrist party who had not savaged Honor over her duels with Denver Summervale and Pavel Young. Honor wasn’t certain why, since the Liberal Party was officially dedicated to stamping out the custom of dueling. That was one of the few planks of their formal platform with which she found herself in agreement, whatever her bloodthirsty reputation might be. The suppression of the genetic slave trade was another, but she felt even more strongly—on a personal level—about the Code Duello. If duels had never been legal, Paul would never have been killed… and Honor wouldn’t have been forced to use the same custom as the only way she could punish the men who’d planned his death. The fact that she knew a predator part of her personality might find the code all too apt to her needs under certain circumstances was another reason she would have preferred to see it stamped out. She didn’t like wondering if she could trust herself in that regard.