The Count's brow wrinkled. "Lecture? Oh. Yes." He smiled briefly. "So that stuck in his mind, good. You wonder sometimes, with young people, if anything you say goes in, or if you're just throwing your words on the wind."
Miles stirred uncomfortably, wondering if any of that last remark was to his address. All right, how much of that remark. "Mm?" he prompted.
"I wouldn't have called it a lecture. Just a useful distinction, to clarify thought." He spread his hand, palm up, in a gesture of balance. "Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself."
"Hm."
"The friction tends to arise when the two are not the same. In the matter of Vorsoisson's death, how do you stand with yourself?"
How does he strike to the center in one cut like that? "I'm not sure. Do impure thoughts count?"
"No," said the Count firmly. "Only acts of will."
"What about acts of ineptitude?"
"A gray area, and don't tell me you haven't lived in that twilight before."
"Most of my life, sir. Not that I haven't leaped up into the blinding light of competence now and then. It's sustaining the altitude that defeats me."
The Count raised his brows, and smiled crookedly, but charitably refrained from agreeing. "So. Then it seems to me your immediate problems lie more in the realm of reputation."
Miles sighed. "I feel like I'm being gnawed all over by rats. Little corrosive rats, flicking away too fast for me to turn and whap them on the head."
The Count studied his fingernails. "It could be worse. There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reputation wraps you in rewards. That's soul-destroying. The other way around is merely very, very irritating."
"Very," said Miles bitterly.
"Heh. All right. Can I offer you some consoling reflections?"
"Please do, sir."
"First, this too shall pass. Despite the undoubted charms of sex, murder, conspiracy, and more sex, people will eventually grow bored with the tale, and some other poor fellow will make some other ghastly public mistake, and their attention will go haring off after the new game."
"What sex?" Miles muttered in exasperation. "There hasn't been any sex. Dammit. Or this would all seem a great deal more worthwhile. I haven't even gotten to kiss the woman yet!"
The Count's lips twitched. "My condolences. Secondly, given this accusation, no charge against you that's less exciting will ruffle anyone's sensibilities in the future. The near future, anyway."
"Oh, great. Does this mean I'm free to run riot from now on, as long as I stop short of premeditated murder?"
"You'd be amazed." A little of the humor died in the Count's eyes, at what memory Miles could not guess, but then his lips tweaked up again. "Third, there is no thought control—or I'd certainly have put it to use before this. Trying to shape, or respond to, what every idiot on the street believes—on the basis of little logic and less information—would only serve to drive you mad."
"Some people's opinions do matter."
"Yes, sometimes. Have you identified whose, in this case?"
"Ekaterin's. Nikki's. Gregor's." Miles hesitated. "That's all."
"What, your poor aging parents aren't on that short list?"
"I should be sorry to lose your good opinion," said Miles slowly. "But in this case, you're not the ones . . . I'm not sure how to put this. To use Mother's terminology—you are not the ones sinned against. So your forgiveness is moot."
"Hm," said the Count, rubbing his lips and regarding Miles with cool approval. "Interesting. Well. For your fourth consoling thought, I would point out that in this venue," a wave of his finger took in Vorbarr Sultana, and by extension Barrayar, "acquiring a reputation as a slick and dangerous man, who would kill without compunction to obtain and protect his own, is not all bad. In fact, you might even find it useful."
"Useful! Have you found the name of the Butcher of Komarr a handy prop, then, sir?" Miles said indignantly.
His father's eyes narrowed, partly in grim amusement, partly in appreciation. "I've found it a mixed . . . damnation. But yes, I have used the weight of that reputation, from time to time, to lean on certain susceptible men. Why not, I paid for it. Simon says he's experienced the same phenomenon. After inheriting ImpSec from Negri the Great, he claimed all he had to do in order to unnerve his opponents was stand there and keep his mouth shut."
"I worked with Simon. He damned well was unnerving. And it wasn't just because of his memory chip, or Negri's lingering ghost." Miles shook his head. Only his father could, with perfect sincerity, regard Simon Illyan as an ordinary, everyday sort of subordinate. "Anyway, people may have seen Simon as sinister, but never as corrupt. He wouldn't have been half as scary if he hadn't been able to convincingly project that implacable indifference to, well, any human appetite." He paused in contemplation of his former commander-and-mentor's quelling management style. "But dammit, if . . . if my enemies won't allow me minimal moral sense, I wish they'd at least give me credit for competence in my vices! If I were going to murder someone, I'd have done a much smoother job than that hideous mess. No one would even guess a murder had occurred, ha!"
"I believe you," soothed the Count. He cocked his head in sudden curiosity. "Ah . . . have you ever?"
Miles burrowed back into the sofa, and scratched his cheek. "There was one mission for Illyan . . . I don't want to talk about it. It was close, unpleasant work, but we brought it off." His eyes fixed broodingly on the carpet.
"Really. I had asked him not to use you for assassinations."
"Why? Afraid I'd pick up bad habits? Anyway, it was a lot more complicated than a simple assassination."
"It generally is."
Miles stared away for a minute into the middle distance. "So what you're telling me boils down to the same thing Galeni said. I have to stand here and eat this, and smile."
"No," said his father, "you don't have to smile. But if you're really asking for advice from my accumulated experience, I'm saying, Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards."
Miles's gaze flicked up curiously to his father's face. He'd never known him when his hair wasn't gray; it was nearly all white now. "I know you've been up and down over the years. The first time your reputation took serious damage—how did you get through it?"
"Oh, the first time . . . that was a long time ago." The Count leaned forward, and tapped his thumbnail pensively on his lips. "It suddenly occurs to me, that among observers above a certain age—the few survivors of that generation—the dim memory of that episode may not be helping your cause. Like father, like son?" The Count regarded him with a concerned frown. "That's certainly a consequence I could never have foreseen. You see . . . after the suicide of my first wife, I was widely rumored to have killed her. For infidelity."
Miles blinked. He'd heard disjointed bits of this old tale, but not that last wrinkle. "And, um . . . was she? Unfaithful?"
"Oh, yes. We had a grotesque blowup about it. I was hurt, confused—which emerged as a sort of awkward, self-conscious rage—and severely handicapped by my cultural conditioning. A point in my life when I could definitely have used a Betan therapist, instead of the bad Barrayaran advice we got from . . . never mind. I didn't know—couldn't imagine such alternatives existed. It was a darker, older time. Men still dueled, you know, though it was illegal by then."
"But did you . . . um, you didn't really, um . . ."
"Murder her? No. Or only with words." It was the Count's turn to look away, his eyes narrowing. "Though I was never one hundred percent sure your grandfather hadn't. He'd arranged the marriage; I know he felt responsible."
Miles's brows rose, as he considered this. "Remembering Gran'da, that does seem faintly and horribly possible. Did you ever ask him?"
"No." The Count sighed. "What, after all, would I have done if he'd said yes?"
Aral Vorkosigan had been what, twenty-two at the tim
e? Over half a century ago. He was far younger then than I am now. Hell, he was just a kid. Dizzily, Miles's world seemed to spin slowly around and click into some new and tilted axis, with altered perspectives. "So . . . how did you survive?"
"I had the luck of fools and madmen, I believe. I was certainly both. I didn't give a damn. Vile gossip? I would prove it an understatement, and give them twice the tale to chew upon. I think I stunned them into silence. Picture a suicidal loon with nothing to lose, staggering around in a drunken, hostile haze. Armed. Eventually, I got as sick of myself as everyone else must have been of me by that time, and pulled out of it."
That anguished boy was gone now, leaving this grave old man to sit in merciful judgment upon him. It did explain why, old-Barrayaran though he was in parts, his father had never so much as breathed the suggestion of an arranged marriage to Miles as a solution to his romantic difficulties, nor murmured the least criticism of his few affairs. Miles jerked up his chin, and favored his father with a tilted smile. "Your strategy does not appeal to me, sir. Drink makes me sick. I'm not feeling a bit suicidal. And I have everything to lose."
"I wasn't recommending it," the Count said mildly. He sat back. "Later—much later—when I also had too much to lose, I had acquired your mother. Her good opinion was the only one I needed."
"Yes? And what if it had been her good opinion that had been at risk? How would you have stood then?" Ekaterin . . .
"On my hands and knees, belike." The Count shook his head, and smiled slowly. "So, ah . . . when are we going to be permitted to meet this woman who has had such an invigorating effect on you? Her and her Nikki. Perhaps you might invite them to dinner here soon?"
Miles cringed. "Not . . . not another dinner. Not soon."
"My glimpse of her was so frustratingly brief. What little I could see was very attractive, I thought. Not too thin. She squished well, bouncing off me." Count Vorkosigan grinned briefly, at this memory. Miles's father shared an archaic Barrayaran ideal of feminine beauty that included the capacity to survive minor famines; Miles admitted a susceptibility to that style himself. "Reasonably athletic, too. Clearly, she could outrun you. I would therefore suggest blandishments, rather than direct pursuit, next time."
"I've been trying ," sighed Miles.
The Count regarded his son, half amused, half serious. "This parade of females of yours is very confusing to your mother and me, you know. We can't tell whether we're supposed to start bonding to them, or not."
"What parade?" said Miles indignantly. "I brought home one galactic girlfriend. One . It wasn't my fault things didn't work out."
"Plus the several, um, extraordinary ladies decorating Illyan's reports who didn't make it this far."
Miles thought he could feel his eyes cross. "But how could he—Illyan never knew—he never told you about—no. Don't tell me. I don't want to know. But I swear the next time I see him—" He glowered at the Count, who was laughing at him with a perfectly straight face. "I suppose Simon won't remember. Or he'll pretend he doesn't. Damned convenient, that optional amnesia he's developed." He added, "Anyway, I've mentioned all the important ones to Ekaterin already, so there."
"Oh? Were you confessing, or bragging?"
"Clearing the decks. Honesty . . . is the only way, with her."
"Honesty is the only way with anyone, when you'll be so close as to be living inside each other's skins. So . . . is this Ekaterin another passing fancy?" The Count hesitated, his eyes crinkling. "Or is she the one who will love my son forever and fiercely—hold his household and estates with integrity—stand beside him through danger, and dearth, and death—and guide my grandchildren's hands when they light my funeral offering?"
Miles paused in momentary admiration of his father's ability to deliver lines like that. It put him in mind of the way a combat drop shuttle delivered pinpoint incendiaries. "That would be . . . that would be Column B, sir. All of the above." He swallowed. "I hope. If I don't fumble it again."
"So when do we get to meet her?" the Count repeated reasonably.
"Things are still very unsettled." Miles climbed to his feet, sensing that his moment to retreat with dignity was slipping away rapidly. "I'll let you know."
But the Count did not pursue his erratic line of humor. Instead he looked at his son with eyes gone serious, though still warm. "I am glad she came to you when you were old enough to know your own mind."
Miles favored him with an analyst's salute, a vague wave of two fingers in the general vicinity of his forehead. "So am I, sir."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ekaterin sat at her aunt's comconsole, attempting to compose a r?sum? that would conceal her lack of experience from the supervisor of an urban plant nursery that supplied the city's public gardens. She was not, drat it, going to name Lord Auditor Vorkosigan as a reference. Aunt Vorthys had left for her morning class, and Nikki for an outing with Arthur Pym under the aegis of Arthur's elder sister; when the door chime's second ring tore her attention from her task, Ekaterin was abruptly aware that she was alone in the house. Would enemy agents bent on kidnapping come to the front door? Miles would know. She pictured Pym, at Vorkosigan House, frostily informing the intruders that they would have to go round back to the spies' entrance . . . which would be sprinkled with appropriate high-tech caltrops, no doubt. Controlling her new paranoia, she rose and went to the front hall.
To her relief and delight, instead of Cetagandan infiltrators, her brother Hugo Vorvayne stood on the front stoop, along with a pleasant-featured fellow she recognized after an uncertain blink as Vassily Vorsoisson, Tien's closest cousin. She had seen him exactly once before in her life, at Tien's funeral, where they had met long enough for him to officially sign over Nikki's guardianship to her. Lieutenant Vorsoisson held a post in traffic control at the big military shuttleport in Vorbretten's District; when she'd first and last seen him, he'd worn Service dress greens as suited the somber formality of the occasion, but today he'd changed to more casual civvies.
"Hugo, Vassily! This is a surprise—come in, come in!" She gestured them both into the Professora's front parlor. Vassily gave her a polite, acknowledging nod, and refused an offer of tea or coffee, they'd had some at the monorail station, thank you. Hugo gave her hands a brief squeeze, and smiled at her in a worried way before taking a seat. He was in his mid-forties; the combination of his desk work in the Imperial Bureau of Mines and his wife Rosalie's care was broadening him a trifle. On him, it looked wonderfully solid and reassuring. But alarm tightened Ekaterin's throat at the tension in his face. "Is everything all right?"
"We're all fine," he said with peculiar emphasis.
A chill flushed through her. "Da—?"
"Yes, yes, he's fine too." Impatiently, he gestured away her anxiety. "The only member of the family who seems to be a source of concern at the moment is you, Kat."
Ekaterin stared at him, baffled. "Me? I'm all right." She sank down into her uncle's big chair in the corner. Vassily pulled up one of the spindly chairs, and perched a little awkwardly upon it.
Hugo conveyed greetings from the family, Rosalie and Edie and the boys, then looked around vaguely and asked, "Are Uncle and Aunt Vorthys here?"
"No, neither one. Aunt will be back from class in a while, though."
Hugo frowned. "I was hoping we could see Uncle Vorthys, really. When will he be back?"
"Oh, he's gone to Komarr. To clear up some last technical bits about the solar mirror disaster, you know. He doesn't expect to be back till just before Gregor's wedding."
"Whose wedding?" said Vassily.
Gah, now Miles had her doing it. She wasnot on a first-name basis with Grego—with the Emperor, she was not . "Emperor Gregor's wedding. As an Imperial Auditor, Uncle Vorthys will of course attend."
Vassily's lips formed a little O of enlightenment, that Gregor.
"No chance of any of us getting near it, I suppose," Hugo sighed. "Of course, I have no interest in such things, but Rosalie and her lady friends have all gone quite s
illy over it." After a short hesitation, he added inconsistently, "Is it true that the Horse Guards will parade in squads of all the uniforms they've worn through history, from the Time of Isolation through Ezar's day?"
"Yes," said Ekaterin. "And there will be massive fireworks displays over the river every night." A faintly envious look crept into Hugo's eyes at this news.
Vassily cleared his throat, and asked, "Is Nikki here?"
"No . . . he went out with a friend to see the pole-barge regatta on the river this morning. They have it every year; it commemorates the relief of the city by Vlad Vorbarra's forces during the Ten-Years' War. I understand they're doing a bang-up job of it this summer—new costumes, and a reenactment of the assault on the Old Star Bridge. The boys were very excited." She did not add that they expected to have an especially fine view from the balconies of Vorbretten House, courtesy of a Vorbretten Armsman friend of Pym's.
Vassily stirred uncomfortably. "Perhaps it's just as well. Madame Vorsoisson—Ekaterin—we actually came down here today for a particular reason, a very serious matter. I should like to talk with you frankly."
"That's . . . generally best, when one is going to talk," Ekaterin responded. She glanced in query at Hugo.
"Vassily came to me . . ." Hugo began, and trailed off. "Well, you explain it, Vassily."
Vassily leaned forward with his hands clasped between his knees and said heavily, "You see, it's this. I received a most disturbing communication from an informant here in Vorbarr Sultana about what has been happening—what has recently come to light—some very disturbing information about you, my late cousin, and Lord Auditor Vorkosigan."
"Oh," she said flatly. So, the circuit of the Old Walls, what remained of them, did not limit the slander to the capital; the slime-trail even stretched to provincial District towns. She had somehow thought this vicious game an exclusively High Vor pastime. She sat back and frowned.
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