“I haven’t had as long to observe you, Honor,” she said, “but I’m a bit surprised by the fact that you seem to be rather more… flexible than Hamish. Not that I think you’re any more willing to sacrifice your principles on the altar of expediency, but in the sense that you clearly do a better job of putting yourself inside the other person’s head.”

“Appearances can be deceiving,” Honor replied wryly. “I don’t begin to understand how a High Ridge or a Janacek thinks. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t want to.”

“You’re wrong, you know,” Emily disagreed so firmly that Honor looked at her in some surprise. “You don’t understand why they want the things they want, but you can accept that they do. And once you’ve done that, you also do an excellent job of analyzing how they might go about getting them.”

“Not always,” Honor said in a darker tone. “I never saw this—” she waved one hand around the table in a gesture which encompassed all three of them “—coming.”

“No, but now that it’s here, you know exactly what it is they’re trying to accomplish. That’s why it hurts you so much to see them getting away with it,” Emily said gently. “No one can fault you for being surprised by gutter tactics so alien to the way your own mind works, Honor, but even at your angriest, you haven’t let anger blind you. And from what I’ve seen of you both in the ’faxes and on HD, as well as here, now that I’ve had a chance to meet you in person, I think you could turn into a very effective politician, with time.”

Honor stared at her in disbelief, and Emily chuckled.

“Oh, you’d never be a natural politician the way Willie is! And, like Hamish, you’d always be most comfortable in the sort of collegial atmosphere the House of Lords is supposed to be. But I’ve viewed your speeches, and you’re much more effective as a public speaker than Hamish is.” She smiled at her husband. “That’s not an aspersion on him, you understand. But he gets impatient and starts to lecture, and you don’t.”

“There’s more to being politically effective than giving good speeches, Emily,” Hamish objected.

“Of course there is. But Honor has already demonstrated her ability to analyze military threat situations and devise strategies to meet them, and just listening to her speak in the Lords, it’s evident to me that she can bring that same analytical ability to bear in other arenas, once she learns the conditions which apply there. She still has a lot to learn about politics, especially the cutthroat version practiced here in the Star Kingdom, but it seems to me from watching her over the past few years that her learning curve is steep. She’s spent forty T-years learning to be a naval officer; give me half that long in politics, and I’ll make her Prime Minister!”

“Oh no you won’t!” Honor said roundly. “I’d cut my own throat in less than ten!”