Cousin-Captain Lucan Holm-Brackett

Lucan is the only living child of a marriage the Holm and Brackett houses arranged to settle a foundry-rights dispute that had run sixty years. The marriage produced one heir and then ended badly. Both houses now treat him with exactly as much politeness as protocol requires.

He grew up between two estates, two sets of hand-signals, and two halls whose silver came from different forges. The Marriage Debt, his commission ship, was built half in a Holm yard and half in a Brackett yard, and the seam shows if you know where to look. The name was their joke. He has chosen not to be hurt by it. He fights her in tight arcs, close, with a pair of forward boring-lances, and the crew is drawn equally from both academies. He has told both grandmothers that whichever house treats him better in retirement inherits the ship. Both grandmothers are ninety-one. He is in no hurry.