Chapter Fifty-Nine

THE planet of Manticore was a blue-and-white-swirled beauty as the pinnace from GSNS Seneca Gilmore swooped into its outermost atmosphere. Admiral Lady Dame Honor Harrington, Duchess and Steadholder Harrington, sat in its large passenger compartment, alone but for her three-man security team, and watched the seas of featureless white turn into fluffy, wind-textured billows of cloud as the pinnace swept lower and lower towards the City of Landing.

It was a short flight, the last leg of the journey home from Sidemore which had begun two weeks earlier when the Protectors’ Own was finally recalled to Grayson by way of Manticore, and she sat very still, feeling the emptiness and the tension within her as the pinnace banked gracefully onto its final heading and settled towards the private landing pad behind Mount Royal Palace.

Queen Elizabeth had wanted to welcome Honor home in the manner in which she insisted Honor deserved to be welcomed, but Honor had managed to avoid that ordeal, at least. It was already obvious to her that there would be other ordeals, just as public and just as exhausting, which she would not be able to avoid. She’d seen the HD of the cheering crowds, celebrating wildly in the capital’s streets when news of the Second Battle of Sidemore was announced, and she dreaded what would happen when those same crowds learned “the Salamander” was home. But in this instance, her monarch—well, one of her monarchs, she supposed—had agreed to relent, and so there was no huge honor guard, no crowd of newsies, to observe her arrival once again upon the soil of her birth-kingdom’s capital planet.

There was a greeting party, however. One that consisted of four humans and three treecats. Queen Elizabeth herself and her consort, Prince Justin, headed the small group of two-footed people awaiting her. Ariel rode on Elizabeth’s left shoulder, while Monroe rode on Justin’s right shoulder. Behind them stood Lord William Alexander and his brother, the Earl of White Haven, with Samantha standing high and proud on his shoulder, eyes glowing as she tasted the mind-glow of her mate for the first time in far too long. Colonel Ellen Shemais stood alertly to one side, overseeing the small squad of Palace Security and Queen’s Own personnel guarding the perimeter of the landing pad, but that was their only function here. There were no bands, no flourishes and salutes. There were only seven people, friends all of them, waiting for her as she came home once more.

“Honor.” Elizabeth held out a hand to her, and Honor took it, only to find herself enveloped in a fierce hug. Five or six T-years before, she wouldn’t have had a clue how to respond to her Queen’s embrace. Now she simply returned it, tasting the equally fierce welcome which came with it.

Other emotions washed over her, flooding through her as she, too, sampled the mind-glows of those about her. Samantha’s spiraling joy and delight as she rose still higher on White Haven’s shoulder and began signing to Nimitz in joyous welcome. Prince Justin, as glad to see her, in his own way, as Elizabeth, and William Alexander, her friend, political mentor, and ally.