David Weber - Hell Hath No Fury

"Not all of them seem to share Jasak's view of exactly what honor requires, though," Jathmar said more darkly, and Gadrial nodded.

"That's what I meant when I called him a throwback. Don't get me wrong, he's not unique. There are a lot of Andaran throwbacks, and I'm still a bit surprised by just how grateful for that fact I've become over the last couple of months. But there's what I guess you could call a 'new generation' of Andarans, as well. People like that poisonous little toad Neshok we met in Erthos, or even Five Hundred Grantyl, back at Fort Wyvern. Neshok couldn't care less about Andaran honor codes-he probably thinks they're all hopelessly obsolete, at best, and an object for contempt, at worst. Five Hundred Grantyl, on the other hand, just thinks they're old-fashioned. He's willing to accept that a lot of people still believe in them, and that, because of that, he has to put up with what those people believe they require, but it's all part of the fading past, not the future, as far as he's concerned.

"Jasak doesn't think that way. Neither does his father, from what I've seen and heard about the Duke.

They both believe, Jathmar, and they'll do whatever honor requires of them, and damn the cost. It's what makes them who they are, and, to be honest, it's part of what makes the Duke's political base so strong.

Even Andarans who are no longer prepared to subjugate their own lives to the requirements of traditional honor codes deeply respect people who are prepared to. People who demonstrate that they're prepared to … and to accept whatever it costs them."

"Gadrial," Shaylar paused between steps and hooked one hand into Gadrial's elbow, stopping the other woman and turning Gadrial to face her, "you're worried. Why? You told us Jasak's father is the most powerful of all the Andaran noblemen."

"He is." Gadrial looked out the window for a moment, then back at Shaylar. "He is," she repeated, "and I know he'll accept Jasak's decision to declare you his shardonai. He'll protect you as he would the members of his own family-for that matter, you are members of his own family now-and he'll agree with Jasak's reasons for making you Olderhan shardonai. But what he won't do, what he can't do under that same honor code, is use the power of his office and his title to save Jasak's career or quash any courtmartial Jasak may face."

"Court-martial?" Jathmar repeated sharply.

"Do you really think the politicians and the most senior officers of the Union's military aren't going to be looking for a scapegoat if all of this goes as badly as it well might?" Gadrial asked bitterly. "Jasak hasn't discussed it with me-not in so many words-but he doesn't really have to. Someone's going to be blamed for what happened to your people, Jathmar. And if there is a war, someone's going to be blamed for starting it. And who's going to be an easier-or, for that matter, more reasonable-scapegoat than the man who was in command of the troops who wiped out the rest of your survey crew?"

"But-" Jathmar began, then chopped himself off, wrestling with his own complex feelings.

A part of him still couldn't forgive Jasak for what had happened to his friends. He suspected that whatever else might happen in his life, however his feelings might change in other respects, there would still be that small, bitter core where all the pain, fear, and loss was distilled down into a cold, dark canker. And that part was perfectly prepared to see Sir Jasak Olderhan pay the price for what had happened to his crewmates, to himself, to his wife.

Yet the rest of him knew Jasak was a decent, caring, honorable man who'd done everything he could to prevent that massacre. True, he'd made the mistake of doing what his own military's regulations required of him instead of relieving Shevan Garlath of command of his platoon, and he would never forgive himself for that. But after that mistake, he'd done everything humanly possible to stop the killing, and Jathmar and Shaylar were alive and as close to free as they were solely because of Jasak Olderhan. If there was a single human being on the Arcanan side who had consistently acted honorably and honestly throughout this entire debacle, it was Jasak.

"But that's wrong," Jathmar heard himself saying quietly, almost plaintively.

"Of course it is. I see that, you see that, Shaylar sees that. Everyone sees that … except for Jasak."

Gadrial threw up her hands in frustration. "He certainly knows I don't agree with him-that's why he won't talk to me about it. He only shrugs when I try to get him to. I've even accused him of masochism, of wanting to be punished for what happened to you and the rest of your people. But that's not it either, and he knows I know that as well as he does. He doesn't want to be court-martialed, doesn't want to be saddled with responsibility for the first inter-universal war in history. He just refuses to even try to run away from it, just as his father is going to refuse to use his political power and prestige to save him from facing it. The Duke will do everything in his power to help defend Jasak if a court-martial's impaneled, but he won't step a single inch over the line to stop one, even to save his own son."

"Gadrial, I-"

"No, Shaylar." Gadrial shook her head. "Don't say it. Jasak doesn't blame you or Jathmar at all. Neither do I, and neither will any member of his family. It's just the way Andarans-some Andarans, at least-

are." Her expression was an odd mixture of sorrow, exasperation, and a curious, almost forlorn sort of pride. "You can't change them. And if you could, they-he-wouldn't be the people they are, now would they?"

"I suppose not."

"But what I meant before, about Jasak and the Duke being throwbacks," Gadrial said, "is that it's exactly that same stubborn, bullheaded, obsolete, hopelessly romantic sense of honor which absolutely guarantees that the Duke of Garth Showma will protect his son's shardonai with his very life, no matter what else may happen."

"Good evening, Your Majesty," His Crowned Eminence, the Seneschal of Othmaliz said as his visitor was shown into his private apartment in what had, until a very few weeks before, been known as the Great Palace.

"Good evening, Your Eminence," Chava Busar, Emperor of Uromathia, replied.

The two men were a study in contrasts in many ways.

The Seneschal was a short, round man, addicted to decorating his already colorful religious robes with additional jewels, bullion embroidery, lace, and pearls, while rings dripped from his fingers. He literally glittered when he walked, and the beautiful little silver bells which adorned his unique, stovepipeshaped, gold-encrusted religious headgear jingled musically with every movement.

Chava Busar was also short. That, however, was the only real similarity between them. Where the Seneschal was so obese that he seemed to roll along, rather than walk, Chava was lean and athletic, especially for a man in his late fifties. Unlike the clean-shaven, moon-faced Seneschal, the Emperor favored a neatly trimmed, dramatically shaped dagger beard, and his eyebrows-bushy for a Uromathia

– floated above almond-shaped eyes dark as still water on a moonless night. There was a hardness in those eyes, as well, like a shelf of obsidian just under the water's surface. For his height, he was broad shouldered and powerfully built, and where the Seneschal seemed to roll into a room, Chava strode purposely forward into a universe which belonged-or ought to have belonged, at any rate-exclusively to him.

Yet for all the physical contrasts between them, there were similarities under the skin, as well, and it was those similarities which had brought the Emperor to this very private meeting. Indeed, a meeting so private that not a single advisor-or bodyguard-was in sight. In fact, none of the servants with whom the Seneschal routinely surrounded himself was present, either.