He was half an hour into these tasks when a call came in over his comconsole which, after a glance at the sender ID, he sent to voice delay. After another few moments, the display above his vid plate flickered and gave way to a smiling, or at least smirking, face he didn’t especially want to deal with. Damned Imperial Auditor override…
“Hi, Miles,” Ivan sighed, and waited. No point in stirring any waters not already roiling.
“Sorry for the interruption”—Miles did not look in the least sorry—“but I must not be behindhand in conveying my thanks for the extremely thoughtful gift you forwarded from Komarr. Ekaterin actually wondered if she should put flowers in it, next time you came over, but I suggested target practice. Or passing it along to the twins, which might be an even faster way to dispose of it. At which point the light dawned, and she looked very relieved.”
“Hey, it took me half an hour to find that vase!” said Ivan in mock-indignation.
“Hidden in the back of the store, was it, lest it frighten away customers?”
Ivan’s lips twitched. “Yep.”
Miles leaned back, his smile stretching in an unsettling way—that is, if you knew Miles. “I also understand some very unexpected congratulations are in order.”
“News gets around fast,” Ivan grumped.
“I was in on it from the first day the reports started coming in. Your mother called me to ask me to explain it to her, as if I would know anything—I told her to apply to Allegre, which she did, apparently to more satisfactory effect.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not my fault,” muttered Ivan.
Miles’s brows rose, most annoyingly. “You married a woman you’d known barely a day, and it wasn’t your fault?”
“Well, it wasn’t! It was an accident. And anyway, it’s only a temporary expedient. If you’ve read the ImpSec reports, you know why. She was in danger.”
“I heard various recaps, from various people.” Miles drummed his fingertips on his comconsole desk.
“My mother talk to you this morning?”
“No, not her. In any case, I have called to invite you to bring your blushing accident and her blue—she really is bright blue?”
Ivan nodded.
“—and her blue companion to Vorkosigan House this afternoon for a get-to-know-you Ma Kosti tea.”
Ivan hesitated, concealing the small spurt of saliva that spontaneously appeared in his mouth at any reference to Miles’s famous cook. Damned conditioning. “That’s bribery.”
“As an Imperial Auditor, I am only above taking bribes, not handing them out.”
“You’ve never shown an interest in any of my girlfriends before.”
“You’ve never married any of your girlfriends before, Ivan. And in any case, I’m off to Sergyar soon for what may be an extended stay, so I don’t want to miss my chance.”
“To roast me? You’ll doubtless have others.” Get in line.
“Ah…” Miles took in, and let out, a long breath. “Make that requests and requires your attendance. Someone else wants to meet her, in an informal setting. We figured my library would do. Doubling up on my mission planning at the same time.”
Ivan paused, his heart sinking. “Oh.”
“Sixteen-hundred sharp.”
“Uh, right. Sharp.”
“See you then.” Miles cut the com in his best grandiose My-Lord-the-Imperial-Auditor-dismisses-you style.
There was really no call to whimper. But Ivan wanted to.
* * *
Tej sat in the passenger side of Ivan Xav’s sporty two-seater groundcar, with Rish balanced awkwardly on her lap, and fumed in terror.
Gregor, he’d said. As if it might be just any Gregor off the street, and not, say, the absolute ruler of three worlds, as far above a Great House baron as a baron was above a gutter grubber. Mister Lord Ivan Xav Oh-I’m-not-anyone-important had led her astray, Tej swore, for the last time. And now she was being semi-forcibly carted off to meet Gregor, no, THE Gregor—oh, yeah, no, he wants to meet you—in about the most diametrical opposite of hide-and-be-sought-by-no-one as she could have imagined. No, she couldn’t have imagined this. Tej felt as if she had laser targeters dancing all over her skin.
And the Imperial Auditor Coz was scarcely better. She’d barely had time to look up the definition of the title before having to get ready. The man had the power to order summary executions, for pity’s sake.
At least she and Rish were dressed well for it. Lady Alys’s expert had guided them to a semi-custom shop, the sort of place where one had a personal laser scan and then spent a happy hour poring over the vid catalog and experimenting with various virtual try-ons upon one’s three-dimensional holovid replica, before selecting garments to be made up on-demand, to fit exactly, by computerized fabricators. The dresser had dubbed the results ‘casual,’ which Tej eventually realized simply meant not suitable for an Imperial function or ambassadorial ball. They had returned burdened with bags to Ivan Xav’s flat, where the dresser had reported judiciously to the waiting husband, The new Lady Vorpatril has an excellent eye for color. Having experienced the dresser in action, Tej took that as no small compliment. And then Ivan Xav had dropped the news, or bomb, of where they were going next…Had Lady Alys known?
Ivan, with a glance aside at his stacked and glaring passengers, took the next corner with improved caution, and then slowed, thank the hovering fates. A tall stone wall topped with iron spikes sped by, and then he slowed some more, turning in to a short space in front of broad wrought-iron gates. A man in a strange brown uniform with silver embroidery on the collar and cuffs, flanked by a second in black, with silver frosting ditto, emerged from a kiosk and approached the groundcar. Ivan Xav raised the canopy, and they peered suspiciously in. “Ah. Lord Ivan.”
Ivan Xav raised a hand in greeting. “And two guests, as per.”
The man in black, unsmiling, aimed some sort of scanner at Tej and Rish, then nodded.
“You are expected.” The man in brown and silver waved them on as the gates swung open.
A huge archaic-looking stone pile of a mansion—four stories high—rose above the Earth-import trees, almost bare of leaves in this turning season. Ivan drove in under a porte-cochère, parked, raised the canopy, and helped Rish and Tej extricate themselves. The dresser’s tutorial on what styles a woman wore for what hours and occasions had been swift but thorough. The Barrayaran-style calf-length afternoon skirts were no more awkward to manage than Komarran loose trousers, Tej was pleased to discover; with some practice, they might even prove more comfortable. The faintest vibration from an invisible force screen shielding the house faded momentarily, carved wooden double doors swung wide, and yet another man in brown and silver motioned them through into a spacious, two-story-high entry hall. An elaborate wooden staircase with a polished banister swept down from a gallery above. Wide archways opened to the right and the left, with a lesser archway under the gallery straight ahead.
Rish stopped short; Tej nearly tripped over her. The hall was stunningly paved in a marvelous colored mosaic like a stone garden underfoot, wildly proliferating with plants and flowers, insects and small creatures peeking from the leaves. The stonework was so fine it looked at first glance like a master’s painting in oils. Tej half-expected the plants to crunch underfoot, giving up strange perfumes. The walls carried the theme skyward, with meticulously hand-painted vines and flowers madly twining, as if the living forest on the floor surged up to reach for the light.
Rish was riveted. “Oh,” she said. “I could dance the most amazing dance across this…”
A shrill squeal sounded from the right, and a man’s light, amused voice, “’Ware escapee!”
Ivan Xav jerked and swung around. He muttered in alarm under his breath, “Oh, God, they’re moving on their own now.” From the archway, a stark naked boy-child not much over two feet high toddled determinedly, as fast as his little legs could carry him. He was pursued by an even more startling figure. The man swinging a cane who limpe
d after the child was less than five feet tall, shockingly short for an adult Barrayaran male, which he obviously was. Dark hair neatly cut, a slightly oversized head set on a short neck, faintly lined face, hunched shoulders, fine white shirt, gray trousers and matching jacket—and if Tej had thought Alys and her Simon had borne a palpable presence, this man’s authority filled the hall, drawing the eye away even from the astonishing floor and the happily shrieking child thumping across it.
The toddler stopped dead, staring up at the strangers. No, staring at Rish. “Ooh,” he cooed, mouth falling open in flattering wonder.
“Ivan, grab Sasha,” the short man ordered, a trifle out of breath.
Ivan Xav stepped forward and gingerly scooped up the child, holding him out well away from his body and handing him off as quickly as possible to the short man. The toddler squirmed like a large pink starfish, reaching out toward Rish and repeating “Ooh, ooh!”
The short man informed Ivan Xav, “Sasha has learned three new tricks this week: how to divest his diaper, how to get lost in Vorkosigan House, and how to outrun me. If only he would take up talking, like his sister, I’d dub him a proper little genius.” He then, with difficulty, brought his wristcom to his lips around his unwieldy and resisting burden. “Ekaterin? Found him. Stand down your patrol. He broke cover in the dining room, but was cut off at the pass in the front hall.”
“So where is his partner in crime?” asked Ivan Xav, bending to look warily around at floor level.
“Sleeping. They take it in shifts, you know, trying to wear us down. I think they’re aiming for unconditional surrender and total world domination. But I can hire shifts too, hah!” He gave up attempting to hold the heavy wriggler and set him on the floor, where the child’s attention was caught by a bug in the mosaic; he attempted several times to pick it up and put it in his mouth, without success, and made a moue of frustration.
A tall, breathless, dark-haired woman scuffed rapidly down the staircase. She said to the short man, “How in the world did he manage to get down the stairs without breaking his neck?”
“Crawled backward, I believe. He’s actually surprisingly cautious. I broke an arm and a leg on those same stairs, once. Well, sequentially. Different years.”
“I remember the arm,” muttered Ivan Xav. “Competitive banister-sliding.”
The woman gathered up the boy, one arm firmly supporting his little bottom. They made a rather more proportional combination. “Hi, Ivan,” she said, and raised her brows invitingly.
Ivan Xav broke out of his infant-induced paralysis, and said, “Miles, Ekaterin, may I make known to you my wife, Lady Tej, and her companion Rish. This is my cousin Miles and his wife Ekaterin, Lord and Lady Vorkosigan.” He peered uneasily at the child. “And his heir, Lord Sasha.”
“Ackle,” Lord Sasha remarked gnomically, reaching up to dislodge a hank of his mother’s sleeked-back hair and chew on it.
Lady Ekaterin smiled in distraction. “Welcome to Vorkosigan House, Tej, Rish. I’m so glad you could visit before we have to leave.” She added aside to Ivan Xav, “I’m taking the twins to Sergyar to see their grandparents while Miles is about his affairs.”
“Nikki, too?” asked Ivan Xav.
She nodded. “He’s not too happy about having to do all the make-up work for school, but he’s tremendously excited about the travel.” She added over her shoulder to her husband. “Miles, why don’t you take them on into the library, and I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
The burdened woman trudged back up the staircase, and Lord Vorkosigan gestured them to follow him through the archway to the left. On the far side of a large antechamber with walls covered in pale green silk, double doors painted white were swung open by an unseen hand. Their host ushered them into a long room lined with antique bookcases. Tej’s station-bred eye was briefly shocked by the orange flicker of a fire, burning tamely in a white marble fireplace—no, not an emergency here, just décor. A pair of short sofas and some other chairs were grouped invitingly around the hearth. Upon one of the sofas, a lean, dark-haired, rather hatchet-faced man looked up from his viewer at their entry, stood, and waited with a grave smile. He was dressed in one of those Barrayaran faux-military suits, dark blue and very plain.
“Sire,” said Ivan Xav, as they herded up.
“Hi, Ivan. But I’m doing Count Vorbarra today,” said the man, his smile turning briefly saturnine. “It cuts down the circus by at least half.”
“Right,” said Ivan Xav. He was apparently growing introduction-fatigued at the most inopportune time, for he went on far too casually, “Gregor, my wife Tej, her friend Rish. I suppose you read the reports?”
“I had Allegre’s précis. And I talked in person with your mother this morning, which was rather more informative.” He turned to the women. “How do you do, Lady Vorpatril, Mademoiselle Rish. Welcome to Barrayar.”
He said this in the exact same way that Lady Vorkosigan had said, Welcome to Vorkosigan House. It came to Tej that he was the one man here who was not a subject. Did that make him an object…? He sat, apparently the signal for everyone else to do likewise. Ivan Xav gathered Tej to him and seized the other sofa, Lord Vorkosigan swung his cane out of the way and dropped into a smallish armchair, and Rish perched gingerly on a similar one.
Rish had to be madly trying to parse the many unfamiliar scents, of which the wood smoke was the strongest and strangest. There were two more men in the black uniforms standing statue-like in the room, one by a pair of glass doors at the far end, apparently leading outside, the other at the wall by their entry. They looked back over the two women like a pair of sleek guard dogs studying a couple of cats that had strayed onto their territory. As if they might grab them in their teeth and break their necks with one sharp shake, if their doggish reflexes were triggered by a wrong move. Tej tried to sit extra-carefully, and not let her fur stand on end.
The emperor of Barrayar leaned back at his ease, one arm stretched out along the top of the sofa, and asked genially, “So, Lady Tej—how did you come to meet our Ivan?”
Tej glanced wildly at Rish, whose stark, stuffed expression returned, This one’s all yours, sweetling. How far back was she supposed to begin? She swallowed, grabbed Ivan Xav’s hand for luck, and started at random: “We’d run out of money, trying to get to—” Wait, should she—but he said he’d talked to Lady Alys, how much of—
“Trying to get to your brother on Escobar, as I now understand it?” said The Gregor.
Tej gulped and nodded. “We were stuck downside on Komarr, dodging what we think were hirelings of the Prestene syndicate. I was working at this grubber shipping store, trying to rebuild our stake, and Rish was in hiding at our flat. Ivan Xav brought in this vase, wanting it packed and shipped—” To here, come to think. She looked up at him in belated indignation. “Hey! You bought that horrible thing on purpose just to have an excuse to come into the shop, didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “Well, sure.”
“We were just closing. He tried to pick me up.” Tej scowled in memory.
The Lord Auditor Coz pressed a hand to his lips, briefly. “What, and failed?”
Tej nodded again. “Then he turned up on my front steps. I thought he might be a capper stalking me. So I invited him in, and Rish shot him.”
The cousin jerked slightly. The emperor’s eyebrows went up.
“Stunned him, sweetling,” Rish corrected, urgently. “Just a little light stun, really.”
“And then we dragged him up to our flat,” Tej went on.
“This wasn’t in the ImpSec report,” said The Gregor.
“It wasn’t relevant by then,” said Ivan Xav, in a distant tone. “Forgive, forget…”
“So we tied him to a chair for the night,” said Tej.
The Lord Auditor Coz made a strange little wheeing sound. He was biting his own hand, Tej noticed. Ivan Xav pointedly ignored him.
“Which proved to be very lucky,” Tej forged on, “because when the real kidnappers turned up,
we woke up and heard them talking to him and were able to get the drop on them.”
“That wasn’t luck,” protested Ivan Xav. “I engaged them in delay as loudly as I could, till the reinforcements came up. Rather slowly.”
“Quick thinking—for a man tied to a chair,” murmured the Coz.
“Well, it was!” said Ivan Xav.
“Anyway,” Tej plowed on, “he invited us to hide out in his flat for the next few days, which worked fine, till the Prestene contact thought of putting Komarran Immigration onto us, to smoke us out of hiding so they could target us. So Byerly, who came to warn us, and the Immigration officers, and those Dome cops who were trying to arrest Ivan Xav for kidnapping me, which he didn’t, all arrived at once before anyone had drunk any coffee, and then Admiral Desplains called Ivan Xav, very irate about the Dome cops, I think, and I was so tired and scared, and we—we panicked.” She glanced at Rish. Still no help there.
“Quit laughing,” said Ivan Xav irritably to the Coz, who actually wasn’t, out loud at least, except for the madly crinkling eyes. “It wasn’t funny at the time.”
Ivan Xav glanced aside at Tej, and his hand squeezed hers. She squeezed back. No, it hadn’t been. Not that part, not at the time.
In retrospect, though…“So he threw his wristcom into the refrigerator, grabbed this box of instant groats, and asked me to marry him. To keep the Immigration people from arresting me and the Dome cops from arresting him. And I said yes.”
“I see,” said The Gregor. “I think…”
“It worked,” said Ivan Xav, sounding stung.
“Why did he throw his wristcom into the freezer?” asked the Coz, diverted by this detail.
“His admiral kept calling back.”
“Ah. Makes perfect sense.”
“It does?” said The Gregor. The Coz nodded, and he seemed to accept this.
“And then Ivan Xav brought us here to Barrayar, where we are supposed to find this man named Count Falco who will give us a divorce, and then…” Tej ran aground, till she bethought herself of the kind and shrewd Lady Alys. “And Lady Alys’s Simon suggested that Rish and I might be smuggled to Escobar on a Barrayaran government courier vessel, if Ivan Xav would ask the right people.” She gathered her courage and looked up from her lap at The Gregor. “Would that be you, sir?”
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