Miles grimaced in sympathetic understanding. "No guarantees then, right." He paused. "Vorbretten's District, eh? If push came to shove, I could quietly call in a favor from Ren? Vorbretten, and have him, ah, arrange things. You could jump over the magistrate's court and take it to him on direct appeal. I wouldn't have to involve ImpSec or appear in the matter at all. That wouldn't work if Sigur holds Countship of the Vorbretten's District by then, though."
"I don't want push to come to shove. I don't want Nikki troubled more at all. It's been ghastly enough for him." She sat tight and trembling, whether with fear or anger or a venomous combination she could hardly say.
Miles scrambled up off his heels, and came round and sat rather tentatively next to her on the walnut chest, and gave her a searching look. "One way or another, we can make it come round right in the end. In two days, both these District inheritance votes come due in the Council of Counts. Once the vote's over, the political motivation to stir up trouble with this accusation against me evaporates, and the whole thing will start to fade." That would have sounded very comfortable, if he hadn't added, "I hope."
"I shouldn't have suggested putting you in quarantine till my mourning year was over. I should have tried Vassily on Winterfair first. I thought of that too late. But I can't risk Nikki, I just can't. Not when we've come so far, survived so much."
"Sh, now. I think your instincts are right. My grandfather had an old cavalry saying: `You should get over heavy ground as lightly as you can.' We'll just lie low for a little while here so as not to rile poor Vassily. And when your uncle gets back, he'll straighten the fellow out." He glanced up at her, sideways. "Or, of course, you could simply not see me for a year, eh?"
"I should dislike that exceedingly," she admitted.
"Ah." One corner of his mouth curled up. After a little pause, he said, "Well, we can't have that, then."
"But Miles, I gave my word. I didn't want to, but I did."
"Stampeded into it. A tactical retreat is not a bad response to a surprise assault, you know. First you survive. Then you choose your own ground. Then you counterattack."
Somehow, not her doing, his thigh lay by hers, not quite touching but warm and solid even through two layers of cloth, gray and black. She couldn't exactly lay her head on his shoulder for comfort, but she might sneak her arm around his waist, and lean her cheek on the top of his head. It would be a pleasant sensation, easing to the heart. I shouldn't do that.
Yes, I should. Now and always . . . No.
Miles sighed. "Bitten by my reputation. Here I thought the only opinions that mattered were yours, Nikki's, and Gregor's. I forgot Vassily's."
"So did I."
"My da gave me this definition: he told me reputation was what other people knew about you, but honor was what you knew about yourself."
"Was that what Gregor meant, when he told you to talk to him? Your da sounds wise. I'd like to meet him."
"He wants to meet you, too. Of course, he immediately followed this up by asking me how I stood with myself. He has this . . . this eye ."
"I think . . . I know what he means." She might curl her fingers around his hand, lying loosely on his thigh so close to hers. Surely it would lie warm and reassuring in her palm . . . You've betrayed yourself before, in starvation for touch. Don't. "The day Tien died, I went from being the kind of person who made, and kept, a life-oath, to one who broke it in two and walked away. My oath had mattered the world to me, or at least . . . I'd traded the world for it. I still don't know if I was forsworn for nothing or not. I don't suppose Tien would have gone charging out in that stupid way that night if I hadn't shocked him by telling him I was leaving." She fell silent for a little. The room was very still. The thick old stone walls kept out the city noises. "I am not who I was. I can't go back. I don't quite like who I have become. Yet I still . . . stand. But I hardly know how to go on from here. No one ever gave me a map for this road."
"Ah," said Miles. "Ah. That one." His voice was not in the least puzzled; he spoke in a tone of firm recognition.
"Towards the end, my oath was the only piece of me left that hadn't been ground down. When I tried to talk about this to Aunt Vorthys, she tried to reassure me that it was all right because everyone else thought Tien was an ass. You see . . . it has nothing to do with Tien, saint or monster. It was me, and my word."
He shrugged. "What's hard to see about that? It's blazingly obvious to me ."
She turned her head, and looked down at his face, which looked up at her in patient curiosity. Yes, he perfectly understood—yet did not seek to comfort her by dismissing her distress, or trying to convince her it didn't matter. The sensation was like opening the door to what she'd thought was a closet, and stepping through into another country, rolling out before her widening eyes. Oh.
"In my experience," he said, "the trouble with oaths of the form, death before dishonor , is that eventually, given enough time and abrasion, they separate the world into just two sorts of people: the dead, and the forsworn. It's a survivor's problem, this one."
"Yes," she agreed quietly. He knows. He knows it all, right down to that bitter muck of regret at the bottom of the soul's well. How does he know?
"Death before dishonor. Well, at least no one can complain I got them out of order . . . You know . . ." He started to look away, but then looked back, to hold her eye directly. His face was a little pale. "I wasn't exactly medically discharged from ImpSec. Illyan fired me. For falsifying a report about my seizures."
"Oh," she said. "I didn't know that."
"I know you didn't. I don't exactly go round advertising the fact, for pretty obvious reasons. I was trying so hard to hang on to my career—Admiral Naismith was everything to me, life and honor and most of my identity by then—I broke it instead. Not that I didn't set myself up for it. Admiral Naismith began as a lie, one I redeemed by making him come true later. And it worked really well, for a while; the little Admiral brought me everything I ever thought I wanted. After a while I began to think all sins could be redeemed like that. Lie now, fix it later. Same as I tried to do with you. Even love is not as strong as habit, eh?"
Now she did dare to tighten her arm around him. No reason for them both to starve. . . . For a moment, he went as breathless as a man laying food before a wild animal, trying to coax it to his hand. Abashed, she drew back.
She inhaled, and ventured, "Habits. Yes. I feel as if I'm half-crippled with old reflexes." Old scars of mind. "Tien . . . seems never more than a thought away from me. Will his death ever fade, do you suppose?"
Now he didn't look at her. Didn't dare? "I can't answer for you. My own ghosts just seem to ride along, mostly unconsulted, always there. Their density gradually thins, or I grow used to them." He stared around the attic, blew out his breath, and added elliptically, "Did I ever tell you how I came to kill my grandfather? The great general who survived it all, Cetagandans, Mad Yuri, everything this century could throw at him?"
She declined to be baited into whatever shocked response he thought this dramatic statement deserved, but merely raised her brows.
"I disappointed him to death, eh, the day I blew my Academy entrance exams, and lost my first chance at a military career. He died that night."
"Of course," she said dryly, "you were the cause. It couldn't possibly have had anything to do with his being nearly a hundred years old."
"Yeah, sure, I know." Miles shrugged, and gave her a sharp look up from under his dark brows. "The same way you know Tien's death was an accident."
"Miles," she said, after a long, thoughtful pause, "are you trying to one-up my dead?"
Taken aback, his lips began to form an indignant denial, which weakened to an, "Oh." He gently thumped his forehead on her shoulder as if beating his head against a wall. When he spoke again, his ragging tone did not quite muffle real anguish. "How can you stand me? I can't even stand me!"
I think that was the true confession. We are surely come to the end of one another. "Sh. Sh."
Now he did take her hand, his fingers tightening around it as warmly as any embrace. She did not jerk back in startlement, though an odd shiver ran through her. Isn't starving yourself a betrayal too, self against self?
"To use Kareen's Betan psychology terminology," she said a little breathlessly, "I have this Thing about oaths. When you became an Imperial Auditor, you took oath again. Even though you were forsworn once. How could you bear to?"
"Oh," he said, looking around a little vaguely. "What, when they issued you your honor, didn't they give you the model with the reset button? Mine's right here." He pointed to the general vicinity of his navel.
She couldn't help it; her black laughter pealed out, echoing off the beams. Something inside her, wrapped tight to the breaking-point, loosened at that laugh. When he made her laugh like that, it was like light and air let in upon wounds too dark and painful to touch, and so a chance at healing. "Is that what that's for? I never knew."
He smiled, recapturing her hand. "A very wise woman once told me—you just go on. I've never encountered any good advice that didn't boil down to that, in the end. Not even my father's."
I want to be with you always, so you can make me laugh myself well . He stared down at her palm in his as though he wanted to kiss it. He was close enough that she could feel their every breath, matching rhythms. The silence lengthened. She had come to give him up, not get into a necking session . . . if this went on, she'd end up kissing him. The scent of him filled her nose, her mouth, seemed rushed by her blood to every cell of her body. Intimacy of the flesh seemed easy, after the far more terrifying intimacy of the mind.
Finally, with enormous effort, she sat up straight. With perhaps equal effort, he released her hand. Her heart was thumping as though she'd been running. Trying for an ordinary voice, she said, "Then your considered opinion is, we should wait for my uncle to take on Vassily. Do you really think this nonsense is meant as a trap?"
"It has that smell. I can't quite tell yet how many levels down the stench is coming from. It might only be Alexi trying to cut me out."
"But then one considers who Alexi's friends are. I see." She attempted a brisk tone. "So, are you going to nail Richars and the Vormoncrief party, in the Council day after tomorrow?"
"Ah," he said. "There's something I need to tell you about that." He looked away, tapped his lips, looked back. He was still smiling, but his eyes had gone serious, almost bleak. "I believe I've made a strategic error. You, ah, know Richars Vorrutyer seized on this slander as a lever to try and force a vote from me?"
She said hesitantly, "I'd gathered something of a sort was going on, behind the scenes. I didn't realize it was quite so overt."
"Crude. Actually." He grimaced. "Since blackmail wasn't a behavior I wished to reward, my answer was to put all my clout, such as it is, behind Dono."
"Good!"
He smiled briefly, but shook his head. "Richars and I now stand at an impasse. If he wins the Countship, my open opposition almost forces him to go on to make his threat good. At that point, he'll have the right and the power. He won't move immediately—I expect it will take him some weeks to collect allies and marshal resources. And if he has any tactical wits, he'll wait till after Gregor's wedding. But you see what comes next."
Her stomach tightened. She could see all too well, but . . . "Can he get rid of you by charging you with Tien's murder? I thought any such charge would be quashed."
"Well, if wiser heads can't talk Richars out of it . . . the practicalities become peculiar. In fact, the more I think about it, the messier it looks." He spread his fingers on his gray-trousered knee, and counted down the list. "Assassination is out." By his grimace, that was meant as a joke. Almost. "Gregor wouldn't authorize it for anything less than overt treason, and Richars is embarrassingly loyal to the Imperium. For all I know, he really does believe I murdered Tien, which makes him an honest man, of sorts. Taking Richars quietly aside and telling him the truth about Komarr is right out. I'd expect a lot of maneuvering around the lack of evidence, and a verdict of Not Proven. Well, ImpSec might manufacture some evidence, but I'm getting pretty queasy wondering what kind. Neither my reputation nor yours will be their top priority. And you're bound to be sucked into it at some point, and I . . . won't be in control of all that happens."
She found her teeth were pressed together. She ran her tongue over her lips, to loosen the taut muscles of her jaw. "Endurance used to be my specialty. In the old days."
"I was hoping to bring you some new days."
She scarcely knew what to say to this, so merely shrugged.
"There is another choice. Another way I can divert this . . . sewer."
"Oh?"
"I can fold. Stop campaigning. Cast the Vorkosigan's District vote as an abstention . . . no, that likely wouldn't be enough to repair the damages. Cast it for Richars, then. Publicly back down."
She drew in her breath. No! "Has Gregor asked you to do this? Or ImpSec?"
"No. Not yet, anyway. But I was wondering if . . . you would wish it so."
She looked away from him, for three long breaths. When she looked back, she said levelly, "I think we'd both have to use that reset button of yours, after that."
He took this in with almost no change of expression, but for a weird little quirk at the corner of his mouth. "Dono doesn't have enough votes."
"As long as he has yours . . . I should be satisfied."
"As long as you understand what's likely coming down."
"I understand."
He vented a long, covert exhalation.
Was there nothing she could do to help his cause? Well, Miles's hidden enemies wouldn't be jerking so many strings if they didn't want to produce some ill-considered motions. Stillness, then, and silence—not of the prey that cowered, but of the hunter who waited. She regarded Miles searchingly. His face was its usual cheerful mask, but nerve-stretched underneath . . . "Just out of curiosity, when was the last time you used your seizure stimulator?"
He didn't quite meet her eye. "It's . . . been a while. I've been too busy. You know it knocks me on my ass for a day."
"As opposed to falling on your ass in the Council chamber on the day of reckoning? No. I believe you have a couple of votes to cast. You use it tonight. Promise me!"
"Yes, ma'am," he said humbly. From the odd little gleam in his eye, he was not so crushed as his briefly hang-dog look suggested. "I promise."
Promises. "I have to go."
He rose without argument. "I'll walk you out." They strolled arm in arm, picking their way down the aisle through the hazards of discarded history. "How did you get here?"
"Autocab."
"Can I have Pym give you a lift home?"
"Sure."
In the end, he rode with her, in the back of the vast old armored groundcar. They talked only of little things, as if they had all the time in the world. The drive was short. They did not touch each other, when he let her off. The car pulled away. The silvered canopy hid . . . everything.
* * *
Ivan's smile muscles were giving out. Vorhartung Castle was brilliantly appointed tonight for the Council of Counts' reception for the newly arrived Komarran delegation to Gregor's wedding, which the Komarrans persisted in calling Laisa's wedding. Lights and flowers decorated the main entry hall, the grand staircase to the Council Chamber gallery, and the great salon where dinner had been held. The party did dual duty, also celebrating the augmented solar mirror array voted by, or rammed through, depending on one's political view, the Council last week. It was an Imperial bride-gift of truly planetary scope.
The feast had been followed by speeches and a holovid presentation displaying plans not only for the mirror array, vital to Komarr's ongoing terraforming, but unveiling designs for a new jump-point station to be built by a joint Barrayaran-Komarran consortium including Toscane Industries and Vorsmythe Ltd. His mother had assigned Ivan a Komarran heiress to squire about this intimate little soiree of five hundred persons; alas that she was sixt
y-plus years old, married, and the empress-to-be's aunt.
Unintimidated by her high Vor surroundings, this cheerful gray-haired lady was serene in her possession of a large chunk of Toscane Industries, a couple of thousand Komarran planetary voting shares, and an unmarried granddaughter upon whom she plainly doted. Ivan, admiring the vid pix, agreed that the girl was charming, beautiful, and clearly vastly intelligent. But since she was also only seven years old, she'd been left at home. After dutifully conducting Aunt Anna and her immediate hangers-on about the castle and pointing out its most salient architectural and historical features, Ivan managed to wedge the whole party back into the crowd of Komarrans around Gregor and Laisa, and plotted his escape. As Aunt Anna, in a voice raised to pierce the hubbub, informed Ivan's mother that he was a very cute boy , he faded backwards through the mob, angling toward the servitors stationed by the side walls handing out after-dinner drinks.
He almost bounced off a young couple making their way down the side aisle, who were looking at each other instead of where they were going. Lord William Vortashpula, Count Vortashpula's heir, had lately announced his engagement to Lady Cassia Vorgorov. Cassie was in wonderful looks: eyes bright, face becomingly flushed, low-cut gown—dammit, had she done something to augment her bustline, or had she simply matured a bit over the past couple of years? Ivan was still trying to decide when she caught his gaze; she tossed her head, making the flowers wound in her smooth brown hair bounce, smirked, gripped her fianc?'s arm more tightly, and stalked past him. Lord Vortashpula twittered a brief distracted greeting to Ivan before he was towed off.
"Pretty girl," said a gruff voice at Ivan's elbow, making him flinch. Ivan turned to find his cousin-several-times-removed Count Falco Vorpatril watching him from under fiercely bushy gray eyebrows. "Too bad you missed your chance with her, Ivan. Dumped you for a better berth, did she?"
"I was not dumped by Cassie Vorgorov," said Ivan a little hotly. "I was never even courting her."
Falco's deep chuckle was unpleasantly disbelieving. "Your mother told me Cassie had quite a crush on you, at one time. She seems to have recovered nicely. Cassie, not your mother, poor woman. Although Lady Alys seems to have got over all her disappointments in your ill-fated love matches, too." He glanced across the room toward the group around the Emperor, where Illyan attended upon Lady Alys with his usual quiet panache.
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