On the relaxed ride up to the ship, Master Chief Wallens told Claire anecdotes about the crew and asked after her family and steading, Claire skipped over explaining about Jezzy and Noah and told him about Steadholder Burdette instead.
Claire gave the master chief points for not flinching at the oblique reference to the late Lord William Fitzclarence, Steadholder Burdette. That Lord Burdette, in the most extreme case of steadholder bad behavior in recent memory, had challenged Steadholder Harrington as Protector Benjamin's champion to a duel and lost. Fatally.
The new Steadholder Burdette, Nathan Fitzclarence, had chosen to send female midshipmen candidates to Saganami Island for his steading's Academy nominations as a peace offering to Protector Benjamin IX and, in a less direct way, to Steadholder and Admiral Harrington. He'd made it quite clear to the three women he'd nominated that he didn't expect actual graduation from Saganami. The Academy curriculum would be far more advanced than a women's finishing school, and of course they would be wanting to start families in short order. He took it as a personal favor that their fathers had allowed the attempt and that the girls were willing themselves. Claire, at Aunty Jezzy's advice, had not mentioned that with her father dead and most of the Bedlam women unmarried, her head-of-household was actually her younger cousin, Noah.
Lord Burdette had rationalized that one couldn't expect mere Graysons to be Harringtons after all. The Harrington woman was a marvel beyond her sex, an admiral in both the Grayson Space Navy and the Royal Manticoran Navy. Likely no other woman would ever be able to fill her slippers. She was even a steadholder. Lord Nathan had said the words with a reverence of one bred to honor the steadholder position. Even years later, he still seemed stunned to be holding that exalted position himself.
It was only at Saganami that Claire understood the duel. The single combat broadcast on live, planet-wide HD ending in the steadholder's shameful death had been a steading-wide embarrassment and not something explained to children. Better recordings existed, but in the way of students of war unaccustomed to actual carnage, the favorite at Saganami was the most gruesome. It showed a bad angle with not much audio except barely muttered curses by Lord Burdette directed at Steadholder Harrington. The vid wouldn't have caught the attention of midshipmen at all, except for the final seconds. Burdette's back obscured the view just long enough to fill the screen with a solid twelve inches of steel sheering through the wet meat of the man's neck from Harrington's killing blow.
The other two Burdette midshipwomen dropped out of Saganami Island as soon as their families arranged other options for them. Claire vaguely remembered meeting one later with her husband, an older wife, and several children. Claire had stayed. She hadn't dared do otherwise.
The initial application was for a position that promised full Grayson Space Navy health pension and dependent aid benefits in exchange for arduous space duty. When Claire found herself nominated for an appointment to Saganami Island, with a position as an officer to follow if she could complete the course of study, Aunt Jezzy and the extended family had lost no time in sharing their feelings on whether or not it would be acceptable to demurely resign her position should the Academy prove too arduous for her gentle sensibilities. They were agreed to the woman. She could quit if she liked, but if she did, Claire could find some other family to come back to.
The Tester gave a steader family an opportunity like this but once every seventh generation or so. Had they realized just what Claire was applying for, they'd have sent . . . Well, maybe there wasn't anyone better in the family to send, but by All That Was Holy, she had better not blow this.
There hadn't been a Bedlam to attend, let alone finish, an advanced school as far back as they could remember. There may have been a Lecroix or two a few generations back, but Claire's father had died in an industrial accident when she was nine. Like most steader families, there just weren't that many men. When he'd died, his sisters were already married into other families.
The Bedlams weren't a good family anyway, and it didn't help that Claire was an only child. Her mother had, at least in Claire's memory, been attempting one fertility aid after another. At least three times that