"Something I let slip, I fear." Vormoncrief shrugged. "No matter. He's not Vor. It gives me an edge with her family Zamori can't touch. She married Vor before, after all. And she must know a woman alone has no business raising a son. It'll be a financial stretch, but I think if I take a firm hand I can convince her to fire him off to a real Vor school soon after the knot is tied. Make a man of him, knock that little obnoxious streak right out of him before it becomes a habit."
They finished their beer; Ivan ordered the next round. Vormoncrief went off to find the head.
Ivan chewed on his knuckle, and stared at By.
"Problems, Ivan?" By inquired easily.
"My cousin Miles is courting Madame Vorsoisson. He told me to back off her under pain of his ingenuity."
By's brows twitched up. "Then watching him annihilate Vormoncrief should amuse you. Or would it be the other way around that would charm?"
"He's going to eviscerate me out my ass when he finds out I tipped Vormoncrief onto the widow. And Zamori, oh God."
By smiled briefly with one side of his mouth. "Now, now. I was there. Vormoncrief bored her to tears."
"Yes, but . . . maybe her situation isn't comfortable. Maybe she would take the first ticket out that was offered . . . wait, you? How did you come there?"
"Alexi . . . leaks. It's a habit of his."
"Didn't know you were wife-hunting."
"I'm not. Don't panic. Nor am I about to inflict a Baba—good lord, what an anachronism—on the poor woman. Though I may note that I did not bore her. She was even a little intrigued, I fancy. Not bad for a first reconnaissance. I may take Vormoncrief along on my future amorous starts, for flattering contrast." By glanced up, to be sure the object of their analysis was not on the way back, and leaned forward and lowered his voice to a more confidential tone. But he did not go on to carve the block further or more wittily. Instead he murmured, "You know, I think my cousin Lady Donna would be very glad of your support in her upcoming case. You could be of real use to her. You have the ear of a Lord Auditor—short, but surprisingly convincing in his new role, I was impressed—Lady Alys, Gregor himself. Important people."
"They're important. I'm not." Why the hell was By flattering him ? He must want something—badly.
"Would you be willing to meet with Lady Donna, when she returns?"
"Oh." Ivan blinked. "That, gladly. But . . ." He thought it through. "I'm not quite sure what she expects to accomplish. Even if she blocks Richars, the Countship can only go to one of his sons or younger brothers. Unless you're planning mass murder at the next family reunion, which is more exertion than I'd expect of you, I don't see how it delivers any benefit to you."
By smiled briefly. "I said I don't want the Countship. Meet with Donna. She will explain it all to you."
"Well . . . all right. Good luck to her, anyway."
By sat back. "Good."
Vormoncrief returned, to dither about his Vor mating ploys into his second beer. Ivan tried without success to change the subject. Byerly drifted off just before it was his turn to buy the next round. Ivan made excuses involving obscure Imperial duties, and escaped at last.
How to avoid Miles? He couldn't put in for transfer to some distant embassy till this damned wedding was over. That would be too late. Desertion was a possibility, he thought morosely—maybe he could go off and join the Kshatryan Foreign Legion. No, with all Miles's galactic connections, there wasn't a cranny of the wormhole nexus, no matter how obscure, sure to be safe from his wrath. And ingenuity. Ivan would have to trust to luck, Vormoncrief's stultifying personality, and for Zamori—kidnapping? Assassination? Maybe introduce him to more women? Ah, yes! Not to Lady Donna, though. That one, Ivan proposed to keep for himself.
Lady Donna. She was no pubescent prole. Any husband who dared to trumpet in her presence risked being sliced off at the knees. Elegant, sophisticated, assured . . . a woman who knew what she wanted, and how to ask for it. A woman of his own class, who understood the game. A little older, yes, but with lifespans extending so much these days, what of that? Look at the Betans; Miles's Betan grandmother, who must be ninety if she was a day, was reported to have a gentleman-friend of eighty. Why hadn't he thought of Donna earlier?
Donna. Donna, Donna, Donna. Mmm. This was one meeting he wouldn't miss for worlds.
* * *
"I set her to wait in the antechamber to the library, m'lord," Pym's familiar rumble came to Kareen's ears. "Would you like me to bring you anything, or ah, anything?"
"No. Thank you," came Lord Mark's lighter voice in reply from the front hall. "Nothing, that will be all, thank you."
Mark's footsteps echoed off the stone paving: three rapid strides, two skips, a slight hesitation, and a more measured footfall to the archway into the antechamber. Skips? Mark? Kareen bounced to her feet as he rounded the corner. Oh, my, surely it could not have been good for him to lose that much weight that quickly—instead of the familiar excessively round solidity, he looked all saggy , except for his grin, and his blazing eyes—
"Ah! Stand right there!" he ordered her, seized a footstool, placed it before her knees, climbed up, and flung his arms around her. She wrapped her arms around him in turn, and the conversation was buried for a moment in frantic kisses given and received and returned redoubled.
He came up for air long enough to inquire, "How did you get here?" then didn't let her answer for another minute.
"Walked," she said breathlessly.
"Walked! It must be a kilometer and a half!"
She put her hands on his shoulders, and backed off far enough to focus her eyes on his face. He was too pale, she thought disapprovingly, almost pasty. Worse, his buried resemblance to Miles was edging toward the surface with his bones, an observation she knew would horrify him. She kept it to herself. "So? My father used to walk to work here every day in good weather, stick and all, when he was the Lord Regent's aide."
"If you'd called, I would have sent Pym with the car—hell, better, I'd have come myself. Miles says I can use his lightflyer whenever I want."
"A lightflyer, for six blocks?" she cried indignantly, between a couple more kisses. "On a beautiful spring morning like this?"
"Well, they don't have slidewalks here . . . mmm. . . . Oh, that's good . . ." He nuzzled her ear, inhaled her tickling curls, and planted a spiral line of kisses from her earlobe to her collarbone. She hugged him tight. The kisses seemed to burn across her skin like little fiery footprints. "Missed you, missed you, missed you . . ."
"Missed you missed you missed you too." Though they could have traveled home together, if he hadn't insisted on his Escobaran detour.
"At least the walk made you all warm . . . you could come up to my room, and take off all those hot clothes . . . can Grunt come out to play, hmm . . . ?"
"Here ? In Vorkosigan House ? With all the Armsmen around?"
"It's where I live, presently." This time, he broke off and leaned back to eye-focusing distance. "And there's only three Armsmen, and one sleeps in the daytime." A worried frown started between his eyes. "Your house . . . ?" he ventured.
"Worse. It's full of parents. And sisters.Gossipy sisters."
"Rent a room?" he offered after a puzzled moment.
She shook her head, groping for an explanation of muddled feelings she hardly understood herself.
"We could borrow Miles's lightflyer . . ."
This brought an involuntary giggle to her lips. "There's really not enough room. Even if we both took your nasty meds."
"Yes, he can't have been thinking, when he purchased that thing. Better a huge aircar, with vast comfortable upholstered seats. That you can fold down. Like that armored groundcar he has, left over from the Regency—hey! We could crawl in the back, mirror the canopy . . ."
Kareen shook her head, helplessly.
"Anywhere on Barrayar?"
"That's the trouble," she said. "Barrayar."
"In orbit . . . ?" He pointed skyward in hope.
She laughed,
painfully. "I don't know , I don't know . . ."
"Kareen, what's wrong?" He was looking very alarmed, now. "Is it something I've done? Something I said? What have I—are you still mad about the drugs? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'll stop them. I'll, I'll gain the weight back. Whatever you want."
"It's not that ." She stepped back half a pace further, though neither let go of the other's hands. She cocked her head. "Though I don't understand why being a body narrower should make you suddenly look half a head shorter. What a bizarre optical illusion. Why should mass translate to height, psychologically? But no. It's not you. It's me."
He clutched her hands and stared in earnest dismay. "I don't understand."
"I've been thinking about it the whole ten days, waiting for you to get home here. About you, about us, about me. All week, I've been feeling stranger and stranger. On Beta Colony, it seemed so right, so logical. Open, official, approved. Here . . . I haven't been able to tell my parents about us. I tried to work up to it. I haven't even been able to tell my sisters. Maybe, if we'd come home together, I wouldn't have lost my nerve, but . . . but I did."
"Were . . . are you thinking about that Barrayaran folktale where the girl's lover ended up with his head in a pot of basil, when her relatives caught up with him?"
"Pot of basil? No!"
"I thought about it . . . I think your sisters could, y'know, if they teamed up. Hand me my head, I mean. And I know your mother could; she trained you all."
"How I wish Tante Cordelia were here!" Wait, that was perhaps an unfortunate remark, in the context. Pots of basil, good God. Mark was so paranoid . . . quite . Never mind. "I wasn't thinking of you, at all."
"Oh." His voice went rather flat.
"That's not what I mean! I was thinking of you day and night. Of us. But I've been so uncomfortable, since I got back. It's like I can just feel myself, folding back up into my old place in this Barrayaran culture-box. I can feel it, but I can't stop it. It's horrible."
"Protective coloration?" His tone suggested he could understand a desire for camouflage. His fingers noodled back along her collarbone, crept around her neck. One of his wonderful neck rubs would feel so good, just now . . . He'd worked so hard, to learn to touch and be touched, to overcome the panic and the flinching and the hyperventilation. He was breathing faster now.
"Something like that. But I hate secrets and lies."
"Can't you just . . . tell your family?"
"I tried. I just couldn't. Could you?"
He looked nonplused. "You want me to? It would be the basil for sure."
"No, no, I mean hypothetically."
"I could tell my mother."
"I could tell your mother. She's Betan. She's another world, the other world, the one where we were so right. It'smy mother I can't talk to. And I always could, before." She found she was trembling, a little. Mark could feel it through her hands; she could tell by the stricken look in his eyes as he raised his face to hers.
"I don't understand how it can feel so right there, and so wrong here," Kareen said. "It should be not wrong here. Or not right there. Or something."
"That makes no sense. Here or there, what's the difference?"
"If there's no difference, why did you go to so much trouble to lose all that weight before you would set foot on Barrayar again?"
His mouth opened, and closed. He finally got out, "Well, so. It's only for a couple of months. I can take a couple of months."
"It gets worse. Oh, Mark! I can't go back to Beta Colony."
"What? Why not? We'd planned—you'd planned—is it that your parents suspect, about us? Have they forbidden you—"
"It's not that. At least, I don't think it is. It's just money. Or just no money. I couldn't have gone, last year, without the Countess's scholarship. Mama and Da say they're strapped, and I don't know how I can earn so much in just the few months." She bit her lip in renewed determination. "But I mean to think of something."
"But if you can't—but I'm not done yet, on Beta Colony," he said plaintively. "I have another year of school, and another year of therapy."
Or more . "But you do mean to come back to Barrayar, after, don't you?"
"Yes, I think. But a whole year apart—" He gripped her tighter, as though looming parents were bearing down upon them to rip her from his grasp on the spot. "It would be . . . excessively stressful, without you," he mumbled in muffled understatement into her flesh.
After a moment, he took a deep breath, and peeled himself away from her. He kissed her hands. "There's no need to panic," he addressed her knuckles earnestly. "There's months to figure something out. Anything could happen." He looked up, and feigned a normal smile. "I'm glad you're here anyway. You have to come see my butter bugs." He hopped down from the footstool.
"Your what?"
"Why does everyone seem to have so much trouble with that name? I thought it was simple enough. Butter bugs. And if I hadn't gone by Escobar, I would never have run across 'em, so that much good has come of it all. Lilly Durona tipped me on to them, or rather, onto Enrique, who was in a spot of trouble. Great biochemist, no financial sense. I bailed him out of jail, and helped him rescue his experimental stocks from the idiot creditors who'd confiscated 'em. You'd have laughed, to watch us blundering around in that raid on his lab. Come on, come see."
As he towed her by the hand through the great house, Kareen asked dubiously, "Raid? On Escobar?"
"Maybe raid is the wrong word. It was entirely peaceful, miraculously enough. Burglary , perhaps. I actually got to dust off some of my old training, believe it or not."
"It doesn't sound very . . . legal."
"No, but it was moral. They were Enrique's bugs—he'd made 'em, after all. And he loves them like pets. He cried when one of his favorite queens died. It was very affecting, in a bizarre sort of way. If I hadn't been wanting to strangle him at just that moment, I'd have been very moved."
Kareen was just starting to wonder if those cursed weight-loss meds had any psychological side-effects Mark hadn't seen fit to confide to her, when they arrived at what she recognized as one of Vorkosigan House's basement laundry rooms. She hadn't been back in this part of the house since she'd played hide-and-seek here with her sisters as children. The windows high in the stone walls let in a few strips of sunlight. A lanky fellow with crisp dark hair, who looked no older than his early twenties at the outside, was puttering distractedly about among piles of half-unpacked boxes.
"Mark," he greeted them. "I must have more shelving. And benches. And lighting. And more heat. The girls are sluggish. You promised."
"Check the attics first, before you go running out to buy stuff new," Kareen suggested practically.
"Oh, good idea. Kareen, this is Dr. Enrique Borgos, from Escobar. Enrique, this is my . . . my friend , Kareen Koudelka. My best friend." Mark held tightly and possessively to her hand as he announced this. But Enrique merely nodded vaguely at her.
Mark turned to a broad covered metal tray, balanced precariously on a crate. "Don't look yet," he said over his shoulder to her.
A memory of life with her older sisters whispered through Kareen's mind—Open your mouth and close your eyes, and you will get a big surprise . . . Prudently, she ignored his directive and advanced to see what he was doing.
He lifted the tray's cover to reveal a writhing mass of brown-and-white shapes, chittering faintly and crawling over one another. Her startled eye sorted out the details—insectoid, big, lots of legs and waving feelers—
Mark plunged his hand in amongst the heaving masses, and she blurted, "Eck!"
"It's all right. They don't bite or sting," he assured her with a grin. "Here, see? Kareen, meet butter bug. Bug, Kareen."
He held out a single bug, the size of her thumb, in his palm.
Does he really want me to touch that thing? Well, she'd got through Betan sex education, after all. What the hell. Torn between curiosity and revulsion, she held out her hand, and Mark tipped the bug into it.
Its little
clawed feet tickled her skin, and she laughed nervously. It was quite the most incredibly ugly live thing she'd ever seen in her life. Though she had perhaps dissected nastier items in her Betan xenozoology course last year; nothing looked its best after pickling. The bugs didn't smell too bad, just sort of green, like mown hay. It was the scientist who needed to wash his shirt.
Mark embarked on an explanation of how the bugs reprocessed organic matter in their really disgusting-looking abdomens, complicated by pedantic technical corrections about the biochemical details from his new friend Enrique. It all made sense biologically, as far as Kareen could tell.
Enrique pulled a single petal from a pink rose which lay piled with half a dozen others in a box. The box, also balanced on a stack of crates, bore the mark of one of Vorbarr Sultana's premier florists. He set the petal in her palm next to the bug; the bug clutched it in its front claws, and began nibbling off the tender edge. He smiled fondly at the creature. "Oh, and Mark," he added, "the girls need more food as soon as possible. I got these this morning, but they won't last the day." He waved at the florist's box.
Mark, who had been anxiously watching Kareen contemplate the bug in her hand, seemed to notice the roses for the first time. "Where did you get the flowers? Wait, you bought roses for bug fodder ?"
"I asked your brother how to get some Earth-descended botanical matter that the girls would like. He said, call there and order it. Who is Ivan? But it was terribly expensive. We're going to have to rethink the budget, I'm afraid."
Mark smiled thinly, and seemed to count to five before answering. "I see. A slight miscommunication, I fear. Ivan is our cousin. You will doubtless not be able to avoid meeting him sooner or later. There is Earth-descended botanical matter available much more cheaply. I believe you can collect some outside—no, maybe I'd better not send you out alone. . . ." He stared at Enrique with an expression of deeply mixed emotion, rather the way Kareen stared at the butter bug in her palm. It was about halfway through munching down the rose petal now.
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