"No!" cried Kareen.
"If she wants me to walk downtown backwards on my hands, I'll try. Whatever she wants," Mark finished up.
The thoughtful expression on Mama's face suggested that at least she liked his attitude. . . . "Is it that you wish to just be betrothed?" she asked Kareen.
"That's almost the same as marriage, here," said Kareen. "You give these oaths."
"You take those oaths seriously, I gather?" said Tante Cordelia, with a flick of her eyebrow toward the occupants of the mystery couch.
"Of course ."
"I think it's down to you, Kareen," said Tante Cordelia with a small smile. "What do you want?"
Mark's hands clenched on his knees. Mama sat breathless. Da looked as if he was still worrying about the implications of that happily-ever-after remark.
This was Tante Cordelia. That wasn't a rhetorical question. Kareen sat silent, struggling for truth in confusion. Nothing less or else than truth would do. Yet where were the words for it? What she wanted was simply not a traditional Barrayaran option . . . ah. Yes. She sat up, and looked Tante Cordelia, and then Mama and Da, and then Mark in the eye.
"Not a betrothal. What I want . . . what I want—is an option on Mark."
Mark sat up, brightening. Now she was speaking a language they both understood.
"That's not Betan," said Mama, sounding confused.
"This isn't some weird Jacksonian practice, is it?" Da demanded suspiciously.
"No. It's a new Kareen custom. I just now made it up. But it fits." Her chin lifted.
Tante Cordelia's lips twitched up in amusement. "Hm. Interesting. Well. Speaking as Mark's, ah, agent in the matter, I would point out that a good option is not infinitely open-ended, nor all one-way. They have time limits. Renewal clauses. Compensation."
"Mutual," Mark broke in breathlessly. "Mutual option!"
"That would appear to cover the problem of compensation, yes. What about time limits?"
"I want a year," said Kareen. "To next Midsummer. I want at least a year, to see what we can do. I don't want anything from anybody," she glared at her parents, "but to back off !"
Mark nodded eagerly. "Agreed, agreed!"
Da jerked his thumb at Mark. "He'd agree to anything!"
"No," said Tante Cordelia judiciously. "I think you'll find he won't agree to anything that would make Kareen unhappy. Or smaller. Or unsafe."
Da's frown took on a serious edge. "Is that so? And what about her safety from him? All that Betan therapy wasn't for no reason!"
"Indeed not," agreed Tante Cordelia. Her nod acknowledged that seriousness. "But I believe it has been effective—Mark?"
"Yes, ma'am!" He sat there trying desperately to look Cured. He couldn't quite bring it off, but the effort was clearly sincere.
The Countess added quietly, "Mark is as much a veteran of our wars as any Barrayaran I know, Kou. He was conscripted earlier, is all. In his own strange and lonely way, he fought as hard, and risked as much. And lost as much. Surely you can grant him as much time to heal as you needed?"
The Commodore looked away, his face grown still.
"Kou, I wouldn't have encouraged this relationship if I thought it was unsafe for either of our children."
He looked back. "You? I know you! You trust beyond reason."
She met his eyes steadily. "Yes. It's how I get results beyond hope. As you may recall."
He pursed his lips, unhappily, and toed his swordstick a little. He had no reply for this one. But a funny little smile turned Mama's mouth, as she watched him.
"Well," said Tante Cordelia cheerfully into the lengthening silence, "I do believe we've achieved a meeting of the minds. Kareen to have an option upon Mark, and vice versa, until next Midsummer, when perhaps we should all meet again and evaluate the results, and consider negotiating an extension."
"What, are we supposed to just stand back while those two just—carry on?" cried Da, in a last fading attempt at indignation.
"Yes. Both to have the same freedom of action that, ah, you two," she nodded at Kareen's parents, "had at the same phase of your lives. I admit, carrying on was made easier for you, Kou, by the fact that all your fianc?e's relatives lived in other towns."
"I remember you were terrified of my brothers," Mama recalled, the funny little smile spreading a bit. Mark's eyes widened thoughtfully.
Kareen marveled at this inexplicable bit of history; her Droushnakovi uncles all had hearts of butter, in her experience. Da set his teeth, except that when he looked at Mama his eyes softened.
"Agreed," said Kareen firmly.
"Agreed," echoed Mark at once.
"Agreed," said Tante Cordelia, and raised her brows at the couple on the couch.
Mama said, "Agreed." That quizzical, quirky smile in her eyes, she waited for Da.
He gave her a long, appalled, You, too?! stare. "You've gone over to their side!"
"Yes, I believe so. Won't you join us?" Her smile broadened further. "I know we don't have Sergeant Bothari to knock you on the jaw and help kidnap you along against your better judgment this time. But it would've been dreadfully unlucky for us to have tried to go collect the Pretender's head without you." Her grip on his hand tightened.
After a long moment, Da turned from her and frowned fiercely at Mark. "You understand, if you hurt her, I'll hunt you down myself!"
Mark nodded anxiously.
"Your codicil is accepted," murmured Tante Cordelia, her eyes alight.
"Agreed, then!" Da snapped. He sat back grumpily, with a See-what-I-do-for-you-people look on his face. But he didn't let go of Mama's hand.
Mark was staring at Kareen with a smothered elation. She could almost picture the entire Black Gang, jumping up and down in the back of his head, cheering, and Lord Mark hushing them lest they draw attention to themselves.
Kareen took a breath, for courage, dipped her hand into her bolero pocket, and drew out her Betan earrings, the pair that declaimed her implant and her adult status. With a little push, she slipped one into each earlobe. It was not, she thought, a declaration of independence, for she still lived in a web of dependencies. It was more of a declaration of Kareen. I am who I am. Now, let's see how much I can do.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Armsman Pym, a little out of breath, admitted Ekaterin to the front hall of Vorkosigan House. He tugged his tunic's high collar into adjustment, and smiled his usual welcome.
"Good afternoon, Pym," Ekaterin said. She was satisfied that she was able to keep any tremor out of her voice. "I need to see Lord Vorkosigan."
"Yes, ma'am."
That Yes, milady! in this hall the night of the dinner party had been a revealing slip of his tongue, Ekaterin realized belatedly. She hadn't noticed it at the time.
Pym keyed his wrist com. "M'lord? Where are you?"
A faint thump sounded from the com link, and Miles's muted voice: "North wing attic. Why?"
"Madame Vorsoisson is here to see you."
"I'll be right down—no, wait." A brief pause. "Bring her up. She'll like to see this, I bet."
"Yes, m'lord." Pym gestured toward the back entry. "This way." As she followed him to the lift tube, he added, "Little Nikki not with you today, ma'am?"
"No." Her heart failed her at the prospect of explaining why. She left it at that.
They exited the tube at the fifth level, a floor she hadn't penetrated on that first, memorable tour. She followed him down an uncarpeted hallway and through a pair of double doors into an enormous low-ceilinged room that extended from one side of the wing to the other. Roof beams hand-sawn from great trees crossed it overhead, with yellowing plaster between. Utilitarian lighting fixtures hung from them along a pair of center aisles created by the high-piled stowage.
Part of it was normal attic detritus: shabby furniture and lamps rejected even from the servants' quarters, picture frames that had lost their contents, spotted mirrors, wrapped squares and rectangles that might be some of the paintings, rolled tapestries. Still
older oil lamps and candelabras. Mysterious crates and cartons and cracking leather-bound cases and scarred wooden trunks with long-dead people's initials burned in below their latches.
From there it grew more remarkable. A bundle of rusty cavalry javelins with wrinkled, faded brown-and-silver pennons wrapped about them wedged up against a hand-sawn post. Racks of faded Armsmen's uniforms bunched tightly together, brown and silver. Quantities of horse gear: saddles and bridles and harnesses with rusty bells, with unraveling tassels, with tarnished silver facings, with clacking beads all battered with their bright paint flaking off; hand-embroidered hangings and saddle blankets, with the Vorkosigans' VK and variations of their crest elaborated in thread. Dozens of swords and daggers, thrust randomly into barrels like steel bouquets.
Miles, in shirtsleeves, sat in the debris in the middle of one aisle about two-thirds of the way down the long room, surrounded by three open trunks and several half-sorted piles of papers and flimsies. One of the trunks, apparently just unlocked, was full to the brim with a miscellaneous cache of obsolete energy weapons, their power cartridges, Ekaterin trusted, long gone. A second, smaller case seemed to be the source of some of the papers. He glanced up and gave her an exhilarated grin.
"I told you the attics were something to see. Thank you, Pym."
Pym nodded and withdrew, giving his lord what Ekaterin's eye was now able to decode as a little good-luck salute.
"You weren't exaggerating," Ekaterin agreed. What kind of stuffed bird was that, hung upside down in the corner, glaring down at them through malignant glass eyes?
"The one time I had Duv Galeni up here, he nearly had a gibbering fit. He reverted right in front of my eyes back into Doctor Professor Galeni, and raved at me for hours—days—about the fact that we haven't cataloged all this junk. He's still on about it, if I make the mistake of reminding him. I should have thought that my father installing that climate-controlled document room would have been enough." He waved her to a seat on a long polished walnut chest.
She sat, and smiled mutely at him. She should tell him her bad news, and leave. But he was so clearly in an expansive mood, she hated to derail him. When had his voice become a caress upon her ears? Let him babble on just a little longer . . .
"Anyway, what I ran across that I thought might interest you—" His hand started for a lump covered with a heavy white cloth, then wavered over the trunk of weapons. "Actually, this is pretty interesting, too, though it might be more in Nikki's line. Does he appreciate the grotesque? I'd have thought it a fabulous find when I was his age. I don't know how I missed it—oh, of course, Gran'da would have held the keys." He held up a coarse brown cloth bag, and poked a little dubiously into its contents. "I believe this is a sack of Cetagandan scalps. Want to see?"
"See, maybe. Touch, no."
Obligingly, he held it open for her inspection. The dried yellowing parchmentlike scraps with bits of hair clinging, or in some cases, falling off, indeed looked like human scalps to her. "Eeuw," she said appreciatively. "Did your grandfather take them himself?"
"Mm, possibly, though it seems rather a lot for one man, even General Piotr. I think it's more likely they were collected and brought to him as trophies by his guerillas. All fine, but then what could he do with 'em? Can't throw 'em away, they're presents ."
"What are you going to do with them?"
He shrugged, and laid the bag back in the trunk. "If Gregor needed to send a subtle diplomatic insult to the Cetagandan Empire, which he doesn't just now, I suppose we could return them with elaborate apologies. Can't think of any other use offhand."
He shut the trunk, sorted through a variety of mechanical keys in the little pile at his knee, and locked it again. He rose to his knees, upended a crate in front of her, hoisted the shrouded object onto it, and pulled back the covering for her inspection.
It was a beautiful old saddle, similar to the old-fashioned cavalry style but more lightly built, for a lady. Its dark leather was elaborately carved and stamped in leaf, fern and flower patterns. The green velvet of its padded and stitched seat was worn half-bald, dried and split, the stuffing peeking out. Maple and olive leaves, carved and delicately tinted in the leather, surrounded a V flanked by a smaller B and K all closed in an oval. More embroidery, its colors surprisingly bright, echoed the botanical pattern in a blanket pad.
"There ought to be a matching bridle, but I haven't found it yet," Miles said, his fingers tracing over the initials. "It's one of my paternal grandmother's saddles. General Piotr's wife, Princess-and-Countess Olivia Vorbarra Vorkosigan. She obviously used this one quite a bit. My mother could never be persuaded to take up riding—I never was able to figure out why not—and it wasn't one of my father's passions. So it was left to Gran'da to try to teach me to keep the tradition alive. But I didn't have time to keep it up once I was an adult. Didn't you say you ride?"
"Not since I was a child. My great-aunt kept a pony for me—though I suspect it was as much for the manure for her garden. My parents had no room in town. He was a fat, ill-tempered beast, but I adored him." Ekaterin smiled in memory. "Saddles were a bit optional."
"I was thinking, maybe we could get this repaired and reconditioned, and put it back into use."
"Use? Surely that belongs in a museum! Hand-made—absolutely unique—historically significant—I can't even imagine what it would fetch at auction!"
"Ah—I had this same argument with Duv. It wasn't just hand-made, it was custom-made, especially for the Princess. Probably a gift from my grandfather. Imagine the fellow, not just a worker but an artist, selecting the leather, piecing and stitching and carving. I picture him hand-rubbing in the oil, thinking of his work used by his Countess, envied and admired by her friends, being part of this—this whole work of art that was her life." His finger traced the leaves around the initials.
Her guess of its value kept ratcheting up in time to his words. "For heaven's sake get it appraised first!"
"Why? To loan to a museum? Don't need to set a price on my grandmother for that. To sell to some collector to hoard like money? Let him hoard money, that's all that sort wants anyway. The only collector who'd be worthy of it would be someone who was personally obsessed with the Princess-and-Countess, one of those men who fall hopelessly in love across time. No. I owe it to its maker to put it to its proper use, the use he intended."
The weary straitened housewife in her—Tien's pinchmark spouse—was horrified. The secret soul of her rang like a bell in resonance to Miles's words. Yes. That was how it should be. This saddle belonged under a fine lady, not under a glass cover. Gardens were meant to be seen, smelled, walked through, grubbed in. A hundred objective measurements didn't sum the worth of a garden; only the delight of its users did that. Only the use made it mean something. How had Miles learned that? For this alone I could love you . . .
"Now." He grinned in response to her smile, and drew breath. "God knows I need to start doing something for exercise, or all this culinary diplomacy I do nowadays will defeat Mark's attempt to differentiate himself from me. There are several parks here in town with hacking paths. But it's not much fun to ride by myself. Think you'd be willing to keep me company?" He blinked a trifle ingenuously.
"I would love to," she said honestly, "but I can't." She could see in his eyes a dozen counterarguments springing up, ready to charge into the breach. She held up a hand to stop him bursting into speech. She must bring this little self-indulgent ration of pretend-happiness to a close, before her will broke. Her forced agreement with Vassily only permitted her a taste of Miles, not a meal. Not a banquet . . . Back to harsh reality. "Something new has come up. Yesterday, Vassily Vorsoisson and my brother Hugo came to see me. Set on, apparently, by a nasty letter from Alexi Vormoncrief."
Tersely, she detailed their visit. Miles sat back on his heels, his face setting, listening closely. For once, he didn't interrupt.
"You set them straight?" he said slowly, when she paused for breath.
"I tried . It was infuri
ating to watch them just . . . dismiss my word, in favor of all those sordid insinuations from that fool Alexi, of all men. Hugo was genuinely worried about me, I suppose, but Vassily is all wound up in this misconstrued family duty and some inflated ideas about the depraved decadence of the capital."
"Ah," said Miles thinly. "A romantic, I see."
"Miles, they were ready to take Nikki away right then! And I have no legal way to fight for custody. Even if I took Vassily to the Vorbretten District magistrate's court, I couldn't prove him grossly unfit—he's not. He's just grossly gullible. But I thought—too late, last night—about Nikki's security classification. Would ImpSec do something to stop Vassily?"
Miles frowned, his brows drawing down. "Possibly . . . not. It's not as if he wanted to take Nikki off-world. ImpSec could have no objection to Nikki going to live on a military base—in fact, they'd probably consider it a better safe-zone than your uncle's or Vorkosigan House either one. More anonymous. I can't think they'd be too keen about a lawsuit drawing more public attention to the Komarran affair, either."
"Would they quash it? In whose favor?"
He hissed thoughtfully through his teeth. "Yours, if I asked them to, but it would be just like them to do so in a way that provides maximum support to the cover story—which is how they've classified this murder-slander in their little one-track minds this week. I hardly dare touch it; I'd only make things worse. I wonder if somebody . . . I wonder if somebody anticipated that?"
"I know Alexi's pulling Vassily's strings. Do you think someone's pulling Alexi's strings, trying to bait you into making some ruinous public move?" That would make her the last link in a chain by which his hidden enemy sought to yank Miles into an untenable position. A chilling realization. But only if she—and Miles—did what that enemy anticipated.
"I . . . hm. Possibly." His frown deepened. "Better by far that your uncle straighten things out, anyway, privately, inside the family. Is he still due back from Komarr before the wedding?"
"Yes, but that's only if his so-called few little technical matters don't get more complicated than he anticipates."
A Civil Campaign b-12 Page 43
