Barrayar b-2

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “That’s … interesting,” said Cordelia, “but I was wondering about the man personally. His, ah, likes and dislikes, for example. Do you like him?”

  “At one time,” said Kareen slowly, “I wondered if Vidal might be powerful enough to protect me from Serg. After Ezar died. As Ezar grew more ill, I was thinking, I had better look to my own defense. Nothing appeared to be happening, and no one told me anything.”

  “If Serg had become emperor, how could a mere count have protected you?” asked Cordelia.

  “He would have had to become … more. Vidal had ambition, if it were properly encouraged—and patriotism, God knows if Serg had lived he might have destroyed Barrayar—Vidal might have saved us all. But Ezar promised I’d have nothing to fear, and Ezar delivered. Serg died before Ezar and … and I have been trying to let things cool, with Vidal, since.”

  Cordelia abstractedly rubbed her lower lip. “Oh. But do you, personally—I mean, do you like him? Would becoming Countess Vordarian be a nice retirement from the dowager-princess business, someday?”

  “Oh! Not now. The Emperor’s stepfather would be too powerful a man, to set up opposite the Regent. A dangerous polarity, if they were not allied or exactly balanced. Or were not combined in one person.”

  “Like being the Emperor’s father-in-law?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “I’m having trouble understanding this … venereal transmission of power. Do you have some claim to the Imperium in your own right, or not?”

  “That would be for the military to decide,” she shrugged. Her voice lowered. “It is like a disease, isn’t it? I’m too close, I’m touched, infected… . Gregor is my hope of survival. And my prison.”

  “Don’t you want a life of your own?”

  “No. I just want to live.”

  Cordelia sat back, disturbed. Did Serg teach you not to give offense? “Does Vordarian see it that way? I mean, power isn’t the only thing you have to offer. I think you underestimate your personal attractiveness.”

  “On Barrayar … power is the only thing.” Her expression grew distant. “I admit… I did once ask Captain Negri to get me a report on Vidal. He uses his courtesans normally.”

  This wistful approval was not exactly Cordelia’s idea of a declaration of boundless love. Yet that hadn’t been just desire for power she’d seen in Vordarian’s eyes at the ceremony, she would swear. Had Aral’s appointment as Regent accidentally messed up the man’s courtship? Might that very well account for the sex-tinged animosity in his speech to her … ?

  Droushnakovi returned on tiptoe. “He fell asleep,” she whispered fondly. Kareen nodded, and tilted her head back in an unguarded moment of rest, until a Vorbarra-liveried messenger arrived and addressed her: “Will you open the dancing with my lord Regent, Milady? They’re waiting.”

  Request, or order? It sounded more sinister-mandatory than fun, in the servant’s flat voice.

  “Last duty for the night,” Kareen assured Cordelia, as they both shoved their shoes back on. Cordelia’s footgear seemed to have shrunk two sizes since the start of the evening. She hobbled after Kareen, Drou trailing.

  A large downstairs room was floored in multi-toned wood marquetry in patterns of flowers, vines, and animals. The polished surface would have been put on a museum wall on Beta Colony; these incredible people danced across it. A live orchestra—selected by cutthroat competition from the Imperial Service Band, Cordelia was informed—provided music, in the Barrayaran style. Even the waltzes sounded faintly like marches. Aral and the princess were presented to each other, and he led her off for a couple of good-natured turns around the room, a formal dance that involved each mirroring the other’s steps and slides, hands raised but never quite touching. Cordelia was fascinated. She’d never guessed that Aral could dance. This seemed to complete the social requirements, and other couples filtered out onto the floor. Aral returned to her side, looking stimulated. “Dance, Milady?”

  After that dinner, more like a nap. How did he keep up that alarming hyperactivity? Secret terror, probably. She shook her head, smiling. “I don’t know how.”

  “Ah.” They strolled, instead. “I could show you how,” he offered as they exited the room onto a bank of terraces that wound off into the gardens, pleasantly cool and dark but for a few colored lights to prevent stumbles on the pathways.

  “Mm,” she said doubtfully. “If you can find a private spot.” If they could find a private spot, she could think of better things to do than dance, though.

  “Well, here we—shh.” His scimitar grin winked in the dark, and his grip tightened warningly on her hand. They both stood still, at the entrance to a little open space screened from eyes above by yews and some pink feathery non-Earth plant. The music floated clearly down.

  “Try, Kou,” urged Droushnakovi’s voice. Drou and Kou stood facing each other on the far side of the terrace-nook. Doubtfully, Koudelka set his stick down on the stone balustrade, and held up his hands to hers. They began to step, slide, and dip, Drou counting earnestly, “One-two-three, one-two-three …”

  Koudelka tripped, and she caught him; his grip found her waist. “It’s no damned good, Drou.” He shook his head in frustration.

  “Sh …” Her hand touched his lips. “Try again. I’m for it. You said you had to practice that hand-coordination thing, how long, before you got it? More than once, I bet.”

  “The old man wouldn’t let me give up.”

  “Well, maybe I won’t let you give up either.”

  “I’m tired,” complained Koudelka.

  So, switch to kissing, Cordelia urged silently, muffling a laugh. That you can do sitting down. Droushnakovi was determined, however, and they began again. “One-two-three, one-two-three …” Once again the effort ended in what seemed to Cordelia a very good start on a clinch, if only one party or the other would gather the wit and nerve to follow through.

  Aral shook his head, and they backed silently away around the shrubbery. Apparently a little inspired, his lips found hers to muffle his own chuckle. Alas, their delicacy was futile; an anonymous Vor lord wandered blindly past them, stumbled across the terrace nook, freezing Kou and Drou in mid-step, and hung over the stone balustrade to be very traditionally sick into the defenseless bushes below. Sudden swearing, in new voices, one male, one female, rose up from the dark and shaded target zone. Koudelka retrieved his stick, and the two would-be dancers hastily retreated. The Vor lord was sick again, and his male victim started climbing up after him, slipping on the beslimed stonework and promising violent retribution. Vorkosigan guided Cordelia prudently away.

  Later, while waiting by one of the Residence’s entrances for the groundcars to be brought round, Cordelia found herself standing next to the lieutenant. Koudelka gazed pensively back over his shoulder at the Residence, from which music and party-noises wafted almost unabated.

  “Good party, Kou?” she inquired genially.

  “What? Oh, yes, astonishing. When I joined the Service, I never dreamed I’d end up here.” He blinked. “Time was, I never thought I’d end up anywhere.” And then he added, giving Cordelia a slight case of mental whiplash, “I sure wish women came with operating manuals.”

  Cordelia laughed aloud. “I could say the same for men.

  “But you and Admiral Vorkosigan—you’re different.”

  “Not … really. We’ve learned from experience, maybe. A lot of people fail to.”

  “Do you think I have a chance at a normal life?” He gazed, not at her, but into the dark.

  “You make your own chances, Kou. And your own dances.”

  “You sound just like the Admiral.”

  Cordelia cornered Illyan the next morning, when he stopped in to Vorkosigan House for the daily report from his guard commander.

  “Tell me, Simon. Is Vidal Vordarian on your short list, or your long list?”

  “Everybody’s on my long list,” Illyan sighed.

  “I want you to move him to your short list.”

>   His head cocked. “Why?”

  She hesitated. She wasn’t about to reply, Intuition, though that was exactly what those subliminal cues added up to. “He seems to me to have an assassin’s mind. The sort that fires from cover into the back of his enemy.”

  Illyan smiled quizzically. “Beg pardon, Milady, but that doesn’t sound like the Vordarian I know. I’ve always found him more the openly bullheaded type.”

  How badly must he hurt, how ardently desire, for a bullheaded man to turn subtle? She was unsure. Perhaps, not knowing how deeply Aral’s happiness with her ran, Vordarian did not recognize how vicious his attack upon it was? And did personal and political animosity necessarily run together? No. The man’s hatred had been profound, his blow precisely, if mistakenly, aimed.

  “Move him to your short list,” she said.

  Illyan opened his hand; not mere placation, by his expression some chain of thought was engaged. “Very well, Milady.”

  Chapter Six

  Cordelia watched the shadow of the lightflyer flow over the ground below, a slim blot arrowing south. The arrow wavered across farm fields, creeks, rivers, and dusty roads—the road net was rudimentary, stunted, its development leapfrogged by the personal air transport that had arrived in the blast of galactic technology at the end of the Time of Isolation. Coils of tension unwound in her neck with each kilometer they put between themselves and the hectic hothouse atmosphere of the capital. A day in the country was an excellent idea, overdue. She only wished Aral could have shared it with her.

  Sergeant Bothari, cued by some landmark below, banked the lightflyer gently to its new course. Droushnakovi, sharing the back seat with Cordelia, stiffened, trying not to lean into her. Dr. Henri, in front with the Sergeant, stared out the canopy with an interest almost equal to Cordelia’s.

  Dr. Henri turned half around, to speak over his shoulder to Cordelia. “I do thank you for the luncheon invitation, Lady Vorkosigan. It’s a rare privilege to visit the Vorkosigans’ private estate.”

  “Is it?” said Cordelia. “I know they don’t have crowds, but Count Piotr’s horse friends drop in fairly often. Fascinating animals.”

  Cordelia thought that over a second, then decided Dr. Henri would realize without being told that the “fascinating animals” applied to the horses, and not Count Piotr’s friends. “Drop the least little hint that you’re interested, and Count Piotr will probably show you personally around the stable.”

  “I’ve never met the General.” Dr. Henri looked daunted by the prospect, and fingered the collar of his undress greens. A research scientist from the Imperial Military Hospital, Henri dealt with high rankers often enough not to be awed; it had to be all that Barrayaran history clinging to Piotr that made the difference.

  Piotr had acquired his present rank at the age of twenty—two, fighting the Cetagandans in the fierce guerilla war that had raged through the Dendarii Mountains, just now showing blue on the southern horizon. Rank was all then—emperor Dorca Vorbarra could give him at the time; more tangible assets such as reinforcements, supplies, and pay were out of the question in that desperate hour. Twenty years later Piotr had changed Barrayaran history again, playing kingmaker to Ezar Vorbarra in the civil war that had brought down Mad Emperor Yuri. Not your average HQ staffer, General Piotr Vorkosigan, not by anybody’s standards.

  “He’s easy to get along with,” Cordelia assured Dr. Henri. “Just admire the horses, and ask a few leading questions about the wars, and you can relax and spend the rest of your time listening.”

  Henri’s brows went up, as he searched her face for irony. Henri was a sharp man. Cordelia smiled cheerfully.

  Bothari was silently watching her in the mirror set over his control interface, Cordelia noticed. Again. The sergeant seemed tense today. It was the position of his hands, the cording of the muscles in his neck, that gave him away. Bothari’s flat yellow eyes were always unreadable; set deep, too close together, and not quite on the same level, above his sharp cheekbones and long narrow jaw. Anxiety over the doctor’s visit? Understandable.

  The land below was rolling, but soon rucked up into the rugged ridges that channeled the lake district. The mountains rose beyond, and Cordelia thought she caught a distant glint of early snow on the highest peaks. Bothari hopped the flyer over three running ridges, and banked again, zooming up a narrow valley. A few more minutes, a swoop over another ridge, and the long lake was in sight. An enormous maze of burnt—out fortifications made a black crown on a headland, and a village nestled below it. Bothari brought the flyer down neatly on a circle painted on the pavement of the village’s widest street.

  Dr. Henri gathered up his bag of medical equipment. “The examination will only take a few minutes,” he assured Cordelia, “then we can go on.”

  Don’t tell me, tell Bothari. Cordelia sensed Dr. Henri was a little unnerved by Bothari. He kept addressing her instead of the Sergeant, as if she were some translator who would put it all into terms that Bothari would understand. Bothari was formidable, true, but talking past him wouldn’t make him magically disappear.

  Bothari led them to a little house set in a narrow side street that went down to the glimmering water. At his knock, a heavyset woman with greying hair opened the door and smiled. “Good morning, Sergeant. Come in, everything’s all ready. Milady.” She favored Cordelia with an awkward curtsey.

  Cordelia returned a nod, gazing around with interest. “Good morning, Mistress Hysopi. How nice your house looks today.” The place was painfully scrubbed and straightened—as a military widow, Mistress Hysopi understood all about inspections. Cordelia trusted the everyday atmosphere in the hired fosterer’s house was a trifle more relaxed.

  “Your little girl’s been very good this morning,” Mistress Hysopi assured the Sergeant. “Took her bottle right down—she’s just had her bath. Right this way, Doctor. I hope you’ll find everything’s all right… .”

  She guided the way up narrow stairs. One bedroom was clearly her own; the other, with a bright window looking down over rooftops to the lake, had recently been made over into a nursery. A dark—haired infant with big brown eyes cooed to herself in a crib. “There’s a girl,” Mistress Hysopi smiled, picking her up. “Say hi to your daddy, eh, Elena? Pretty—pretty.”

  Bothari entered no further than the door, watching the infant warily. “Her head has grown a lot,” he offered after a moment.

  “They usually do, between three and four months,” Mistress Hysopi agreed.

  Dr. Henri laid out his instruments on the crib sheet, and Mistress Hysopi carried the baby back over and began undressing her. The two began a technical discussion about formulae and feces, and Bothari walked around the little room, looking but not touching. He did look terribly huge and out-of-place among the colorful, delicate infant furnishings, dark and dangerous in his brown and silver uniform. His head brushed the slanting ceiling, and he backed cautiously to the door.

  Cordelia hung curiously over Henri and Hysopi’s shoulders, watching the little girl wriggle and attempt to roll. Infants. Soon enough she would have one of those. As if in response her belly fluttered. Piotr Miles was not, fortunately, strong enough to fight his way out of a paper bag yet, but if his development continued at this rate, the last couple of months were going to be sleepless. She wished she’d taken the parents’ training course back on Beta Colony even if she hadn’t been ready to apply for a license. Yet Barrayaran parents seemed to manage to ad lib. Mistress Hysopi had learned on the job, and she had three grown children now.

  “Amazing,” said Dr. Henri, shaking his head and recording his data. “Absolutely normal development, as far as I can tell. Nothing to even show she came out of a uterine replicator.”

  “I came out of a uterine replicator,” Cordelia noted with amusement. Henri glanced involuntarily up and down at her, as if suddenly expecting to find antennae sprouting from her head. “Betan experience suggests it doesn’t matter so much how you got here, as what you do after you arrive.”


  “Really.” He frowned thoughtfully. “And you are free of genetic defects?”

  “Certified,” Cordelia agreed.

  “We need this technology.” He sighed, and began packing his things back up. “She’s fine, you can dress her again,” he added to Mistress Hysopi.

  Bothari loomed over the crib at last, to stare down, the lines creased deep between his eyes. He touched the infant only once, a finger to her cheek, then rubbed thumb and finger together as if checking his neural function. Mistress Hysopi studied him sideways, but said nothing.

  While Bothari lingered to settle up the month’s expenses with Mistress Hysopi, Cordelia and Dr. Henri strolled down to the lake, Droushnakovi following.

  “When those seventeen Escobaran uterine replicators first arrived at Imp Mil,” said Henri, “sent from the war zone, I was frankly appalled. Why save those unwanted fetuses, and at such a cost? Why land them on my department? Since then I’ve become a believer, Milady. I’ve even thought of an application, spin-off technology, for burn patients. I’m working on it now, the project approval came down just a week ago.” His eyes were eager, as he detailed his theory, which was sound as far as Cordelia understood the principles.

  “My mother is a medical equipment and maintenance engineer at Silica Hospital,” she explained to Henri, when he paused for breath and approval. “She works on these sorts of applications all the time.” Henri redoubled his technical exposition.

  Cordelia greeted two women in the street by name, and politely introduced them to Dr. Henri.

  “They’re wives of some of Count Piotr’s sworn armsmen,” she explained as they passed on.

  “I should have thought they’d choose to live in the capital.”

  “Some do, some stay here. It seems to depend on taste. The cost of living is much lower out here, and these fellows aren’t paid as much as I’d imagined. Some of the backcountry men are suspicious of city life, they seem to think it’s purer here.” She grinned briefly. “One fellow has a wife in each location. None of his brother-armsmen have ratted on him yet. A solid bunch.”