"Am I the first to know?" Miles trolled.
"Not quite," said Gregor. "We've been taking turns. Lady Alys was first, of course; she's been in on this from the start, or nearly so."
"I sent the message to my parents yesterday. And I've told Captain Galeni," added Laisa. "I owe him so much. He and you both."
"And, ah, what did he say?"
"He agreed it might be good for planetary accord," said Gregor, "which, considering his background, I find most heartening."
In other words, you asked him point-blank, and he said, Yes, Sire. Poor, excellent Duv. No wonder he called me. It was that or explode. "Galeni . . . is a complex man."
"Yes, I know you like him," said Gregor. "And I sent a message to your parents that should arrive tonight. I expect to hear back from them by tomorrow."
"Oh," Miles said, reminded. "Aunt Alys was ahead of you, I think. My father asked me to send on his personal assurance of support. And my mother asked me to tell you the same particularly, Dr. Toscane."
"I'm looking forward to meeting the legendary Cordelia Vorkosigan," Laisa said, with evident sincerity. "I think I could learn a lot from her."
"I think you could too," admitted Miles. "Good God. They'll be coming home for this, won't they."
"I can think of no one I want more to stand on my wedding circle than them, except you," said Gregor. "I trust you will be my Second?"
Just like a duel. "Certainly. Uh . . . what's the timetable on the public-circus part of this?"
Gregor sagged slightly. "Lady Alys seems to have some very definite ideas on that score. I wanted the betrothal ceremony immediately, but she's insisting it not even be announced till after her return from Komarr. I'm dispatching her to be my Voice to Laisa's parents, all the proper forms, you know. And the formal betrothal not for two months. And the wedding not for nearly a year! We compromised on one month after her return to the betrothal, and are still arguing about the other. She says if we don't give the Vor ladies time to dress properly, they'll never forgive me. I didn't see why it should take them two months to get dressed."
"Mm. I'd give her a free rein in this, if I were you. She could have the conservative Old Vor faction eating out of her hand for you without them ever knowing what hit them. Which is half your problem solved. I can't speak for the radical Komarran half, I'm afraid."
"Alys thinks we should have two weddings, one here, one on Komarr," said Gregor. "A double ordeal." He glanced aside, and squeezed Laisa's hand. "But worth it."
Staring down the social gauntlet opening with increasing complexity before them, they both looked like they were thinking of eloping. "You'll get through it all right," Miles assured them heartily. "We'll all help, won't we, Ivan?"
"My mother's already volunteered me," Ivan admitted glumly.
"Have you, ah, told Illyan?" Miles asked.
"I sent Lady Alys to break the news to him before anyone else," said Gregor. "He called on me in person to assure me of his personal and professional support—that phrase about support keeps cropping up. Do I look like I'm about to faint? I couldn't tell if he was pleased or horrified, but then, Illyan can be hard to read sometimes."
"Not that hard. I'd guess he was personally pleased, and professionally horrified."
"He did suggest I do all I could to expedite the return of your lady mother before the betrothal, to, as he put it, lend her clout to Lady Alys. I wondered if you'd add your voice to that plea for us, Miles. She's so hard to detach from your father."
"I'll try. Actually, it would probably take a wormhole blockade to keep her away."
Gregor grinned. "Congratulations to you too, Miles. Your father before you needed a whole army to do it, but you've changed Barrayaran history just with a dinner invitation."
Miles shrugged helplessly. God, is everybody going to blame me for this? And for everything that follows? "Let's try to avoid making history on this one, eh? I think we should push for unalleviated domestic dullness."
"With all my heart," Gregor agreed. With a cheery salute, he cut the com.
Miles laid his head down on the table, and moaned. "It's not my fault!"
"Yes, it is," said Ivan. "It was all your idea. I was there when you came up with it."
"No, it wasn't. It was yours. You're the one who dragooned me into attending the damned State dinner in the first place."
"I only invited you. You invited Galeni. And anyway, my mother dragooned me."
"Oh. So it's all her fault. Good. I can live with that."
Ivan shrugged agreement. "Well, should we drink to the happy couple? There are things in your cellars with more dust on them than an old Vor."
Miles thought it over. "Yeah. Let's go exploring."
Over the racks downstairs, just after violently rejecting Miles's diffident suggestion of maple mead as the after-dinner poison of choice, Ivan added reluctantly, "D'you think Galeni will try to do anything he'd regret? Or that we'd regret?"
Miles hesitated a long time before saying, "No."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ivan did not make good his threat to follow up his harassment about Miles's medical treatment, or lack of it, because he was press-ganged into assisting Lady Alys's departure for Komarr. She paused in passing Vorkosigan House to drop off several kilos of historical references about previous Imperial weddings, with orders for Miles to study up. When she returned, she'd doubtless have a lengthy list of chores for everyone from Ivan outward. And the next man outward from Ivan was Miles.
Miles leafed through the old books in some dismay. How many of these dusty ceremonies were they going to drag out of the museum? It had been forty years since the last Imperial wedding, between Prince Serg of glorious/dubious memory and the ill-fated Princess Kareen. That had been a circus of monumental proportions, and Serg had only been the heir, not the reigning Emperor. Still, Miles supposed such a renewal of the forms of the Vor cemented their fraying identity as a class. Perhaps a well-conceived and conducted ceremony would act as a kind of social immunosuppressant, to keep the Vor from rejecting the transplanted Komarran tissue. Alys certainly seemed to think so, and she ought to know; the Vorpatrils were as old-Vor as they came.
Glumly, he contemplated his future duties. He supposed being the Second to the Emperor at his wedding was politically as well as socially important, given the degree to which the two modes could run together in Vorbarr Sultana, but it still made him feel about as useful as a plaster lawn statue holding up a flambeau. Well . . . duty had brought him much stranger tasks before this. Would he rather be back cleaning freezing drains under Camp Permafrost? Or running around Jackson's Whole one step ahead of some psychotic local baron's goon squads?
Don't answer that, boy.
Lady Alys had found a temporary replacement for herself as Gregor's social chaperone in Drou Koudelka, the Commodore's wife and Delia's mother. Miles discovered this when Madame Koudelka called to issue an invitation/command for him to come be Vorishly ornamental at another of Gregor's courting picnics. Miles arrived a trifle early at the Residence's east portico only to run into a mob of men in parade red and blues just leaving some ultraformal morning ceremony. He stood aside to let the uniformed officers pass, trying to keep the naked envy out of his face.
One man stepped down the stairs slowly and carefully, leaning on the railing. Miles recognized him instantly, and quelled an impulse to try to duck behind the nearest topiaried bush. Lieutenant Vorberg. Vorberg had never seen Admiral Naismith, only a sawed-off suit of combat armor. It had apparently been Gregor's day to hand out various Imperial recognitions, for a new decoration gleamed on Vorberg's chest, the one for being wounded in the Emperor's Service. Miles had half a jar full of similar ones at home in a drawer; at some point Illyan had stopped issuing them to him anymore, perhaps fearing that Miles's threat to don them all at once sometime was not facetious. But it was clearly the first serious honor Vorberg had ever had occasion to collect, for he wore it with a bemused self-consciousness.
Miles couldn'
t help himself. "Ah—Vorberg, is it?" he essayed, as the lieutenant passed him.
Vorberg blinked uncertainly at him, then his face cleared. "Vorkosigan, yes? I've seen you around Galactic Affairs HQ on Komarr, I believe." He nodded cordially, one ImpSec courier and fellow Vor to another.
"Where'd you collect the bad luck charm?" Miles nodded to Vorberg's chest. "Or should I not ask?"
"It's not that classified. I was on a routine—fairly routine—run out past Zoave Twilight. Bunch of goddamn hijackers captured the ship I was on."
"Not one of our courier ships! Surely I'd have heard about that. It would have been a major flap."
"I wish it had been. ImpSec might have sent a proper force after me for that. It was just a commercial freighter of Zoavan registry. So anyway, ImpSec in its infinite wisdom, and doubtless under the advice of the same budget-pinching accountants who booked me on that damned ship in the first place, scraped up some low-bidder merc outfit to try and spring me. It was a real foul-up." He lowered his voice confidentially. "If you're ever out that way yourself, avoid the collection of clowns calling itself the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. They're deadly."
"Isn't that the idea?"
"Not to your own side it's not."
"Oh." Someone must have told Vorberg he'd been hit by friendly fire. The surgeon, probably: she was incurably honest. "But I've heard of the Dendarii. I mean, obviously they have some renegade Barrayarans in their ranks, or they wouldn't have named themselves after my District's chief geographical feature. Unless they had some military history buff who was impressed by my grandfather's guerrilla campaigns."
"Their exec officer was some expatriate Barrayaran, yes. I met him. Their commander's rumored to be Betan. Apparently he escaped Betan therapy."
"I thought the Dendarii were supposed to be good."
"Not notably."
"You're here, aren't you?" said Miles, nettled. He controlled himself. "So . . . are you going back on duty?"
"I get to ride a desk or something at HQ for a couple of weeks, after this." Vorberg's vague nod indicated the ceremony just concluded. "Make-work. I don't see why my legs can't finish healing while I travel, but evidently the docs think I ought to be able to run away at full speed if required."
"That's the truth," Miles admitted ruefully. "If I had only moved a little faster myself . . ." He cut off his words.
For the first time, Vorberg seemed to become aware of Miles's subdued civilian garb. "Are you on medical leave too?"
Miles's voice went curt. "I'm on medical discharge."
"Oh." Vorberg had the grace to look embarrassed. "But—I thought you had some kind of special dispensation from, um, above." Vorberg might be a little vague on who Miles was, but he knew exactly who Miles's father was.
"I exceeded it. Courtesy of a needle grenade."
"Ouch," said Vorberg. "That sounds even more unpleasant than plasma fire. I'm sorry to hear it. What do you plan to do, then?"
"I really don't know."
"Will you go back to your District?"
"No . . . I have, um, social duties that will keep me in Vorbarr Sultana for a while." The general announcement of Gregor's betrothal had not yet been made; there would doubtless be a leak sometime, but Miles was determined it wouldn't be from him. ImpSec HQ was going to be a very busy place, once these nuptial preparations went into full swing. If Miles were still working there, now would be a wonderful time to seek some extended and very distant galactic mission. But he couldn't very well warn Vorberg of that. "Vorkosigan House is . . . home enough."
"Perhaps I'll see you around. Good luck to you."
"You too." Miles gave him an analyst's salute, and passed on. Vorberg, of course, did not return the salute-like gesture to a civilian, but merely nodded politely.
Gregor's majordomo ushered Miles through to another garden party, minus the horse this time, and not so intimate. Gregor's close friend Count Henry Vorvolk and his Countess were present, and a couple of other of Gregor's cronies. The social agenda of the afternoon seemed to be to introduce the prospective bride to the next circle of Imperial acquaintances, outward from foster family such as Alys, Miles, and Ivan. Gregor arrived a little late, obviously having just changed from the parade uniform of this morning's award ceremony.
Drou Koudelka, Delia's mother, presided cheerfully in the absent Alys's place. Drou had formerly been Gregor's own bodyguard in his childhood, before she'd married Koudelka, and had also run security for Miles's mother. Miles could see that Gregor was anxious that Drou and Laisa hit it off well.
Gregor needn't have worried. Madame Koudelka, immensely experienced in the Vorbarr Sultana scene, got on well with everyone. As a close observer of the Vor while not one of them, she was very well placed to pass on private advice to Laisa, which seemed to be Gregor's idea.
Laisa did well too, as usual. She had the instincts of an ambassador, was observant, and never made the same mistake twice. Dropping her down in a Barrayaran city slum or the far backcountry and expecting her to survive might be optimistic, but it was clear she could handle Barrayar's galactic interface quite comfortably.
Despite the agenda, Gregor did manage to get his fiancée to himself for a while, when at his broad Imperial hint the group broke up for a postprandial stroll through the grounds. Miles ducked out with Delia Koudelka to sit on a bench overlooking the formal section of the gardens, and watch the minuet as the diligent strollers charitably tried to avoid Gregor and Laisa along the branching paths.
"How's your da?" Miles asked her, when they'd settled. "I should go see him, I suppose."
"Yes, he'd wondered why you seemed to be avoiding him this home leave. Then we heard about your medical discharge. He told me to tell you he was awfully sorry about that. Did you already know it was coming up that night we went to the State dinner? You never let on. But it couldn't have been a surprise to you."
"I was still desperately hoping I might skin out of it somehow." Not strictly true; he'd been in a state of complete denial, not thinking about it at all. Bad mistake, in retrospect.
"How's your Captain Galeni?"
"Despite everyone's assumption to the contrary, Duv Galeni is not my personal property."
She pursed her lips impatiently. "You know what I mean. How's he taking Laisa's engagement to Gregor? I was sure he was sweet on her, that night."
"Not real well," Miles admitted, "but he'll get over it. He was just courting too slowly, I guess. She must have decided he wasn't that interested."
"It would be a nice change from louts trying to crawl all over you," Delia sighed.
Miles pictured himself with pitons, and lots and lots of rope, attempting Mount Delia. A very dangerous face, that one. "And how are you getting on with Ivan these days? I didn't know if I ought to apologize for hijacking you from him, that night."
"Oh, Ivan."
Miles smiled faintly. "Are you looking forward to this Imperial wedding?"
"Well, Mother's all excited, at least for Gregor's sake. She's planning all our clothes already, and wondering if my sister Kareen can get back from Beta Colony for it. I wonder if she thinks weddings are contagious. We keep getting these little hints that Ma and Da would like the house back for themselves someday. Or at least the bathrooms."
"And you?"
"Well, there will be dancing." She brightened. "And maybe interesting men."
"Ivan's not an interesting man?"
"I said men, not boys."
"He's almost thirty. You're what, twenty-four?"
"It's not the years, it's the attitude. Boys just want to get laid. Men want to get married, and get on with their lives."
"I'm pretty sure men want to get laid too," Miles said rather apologetically.
"Well, yes, but it's not such an all-encompassing desire. They have some brain cells left over for other functions."
"You can't tell me women don't reciprocate."
"Maybe we're more selective."
"Your argument is not supported by the sta
tistics. Almost everybody seems to get married. They can't be that selective."
She looked thoughtful, apparently struck by this. "Only in our culture. Kareen says on Beta Colony they do it differently."
"They do everything differently on Beta Colony."
"So maybe it is just contagious."
So how come I seem immune? "I'm surprised none of you girls have been snapped up yet."
"It's because there's four of us, I think," Delia confided. "Fellows get close to the herd, and then get all confused as to who's their target."
"I can see that," Miles allowed. En masse, the Koudelka blondes were a most unnerving phenomenon. "Looking to ditch your sisters, are you?"
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