The argument continued, at rising volume, through several antechambers. In the black-and-white tiled entry hall, Mark dug in his heels. He nipped around in front of the pack and stood between Enrique and the door, spread-legged and bulldoggish, and snarled, "If you've been after Enrique for two bloody months, Gustioz, another half hour can make no difference to you. You will wait!"
"If you dare to impede me in the legal discharge of my duties, I will find some way to charge you, I guarantee it!" Gustioz snarled back. "I don't care who you're related to!"
"You start a brawl in Vorkosigan House, and you'll damned well find it matters very much who I'm related to!"
"You tell him, Mark!" Kareen cried.
Enrique and Martya added their voices to the uproar. Muno took a tighter grip on his prisoner, and eyed Roic warily, but Kareen and Martya more warily. As long as the reddening Gustioz was still bellowing, Mark reasoned, he had him blocked; when he took a deep breath and switched to forward motion, it would then descend to the physical, and then Mark was not at all sure who would be in control anymore. Somewhere in the back of Mark's head, Killer whined and scratched like an impatient wolf.
Gustioz took a deep breath, but suddenly stopped yelling. Mark tensed, dizzy with the loss of center/self/safety as the Other started to surge forward.
Everybody else stopped yammering, too. In fact, the noise died away as though someone had cut the power line. A breath of warm summer air stirred the hairs on the back of Mark's neck as the double doors, behind him, swung wide. He wheeled.
Framed in the doorway, a large party of persons paused in astonishment. Miles, resplendent in full Vorkosigan House livery, stood in the center with Ekaterin Vorsoisson on his arm. Nikki and Professora Vorthys flanked the couple on one side. On the other, two men Mark didn't know, one in lieutenant's undress greens and the other a stoutish fellow in civvies, goggled at the butter-beslimed arguers. Pym stared over Miles's head.
"Who is that?" whispered Gustioz uneasily. And there just wasn't any question which who he referred to.
Kareen snapped back under her breath, "Lord Miles Vorkosigan. Imperial Auditor Lord Vorkosigan! Now you've done it!"
Miles's gaze traveled slowly over the assembled multitude: Mark, Kareen and Martya, the stranger-Escobarans, Enrique—he winced a little—and up and down the considerable length of Armsman Roic. After a long, long moment, Miles's teeth unclenched.
"Armsman Roic, you appear to be out of uniform."
Roic stood to attention, and swallowed. "I'm . . . I was off-duty. M'lord."
Miles stepped forward; Mark wished to hell he knew how Miles did it, but Gustioz and Muno automatically braced too. Muno didn't let go of Enrique, though.
Miles gestured at Mark. "This is my brother, Lord Mark. And Kareen Koudelka, and her sister Martya. Dr. Enrique Borgos, from Escobar, my brother's, um, houseguest." He indicated the group of people who'd trailed him in. "Lieutenant Vassily Vorsiosson. Hugo Vorvayne," he nodded at the stoutish man, "Ekaterin's brother ." His emphasis supplied the undertext, This had better not be the sort of screwup it looks like . Kareen winced.
"Everyone else, you know. I'm afraid I haven't met these other two gentlemen. Are your visitors, by chance, on their way out, Mark?" Miles suggested gently.
The dam broke; half a dozen people simultaneously began to explain, complain, excuse, plea, demand, accuse, and defend. Miles listened for a couple of minutes—Mark was uncomfortably reminded of how appallingly smoothly his progenitor-brother handled the multitracking inputs of a combat command helmet—then, at last, flung up a hand. Miraculously, he got silence, barring a few trailing words from Martya.
"Let me see if I have this straight," he murmured. "You two gentlemen," he nodded at the slowly drying Escobarans, "wish to take Dr. Borgos away and lock him up? Forever?"
Mark cringed at the hopeful tone in Miles's voice.
"Not forever," Parole Officer Gustioz admitted regretfully. "But certainly for a good long time." He paused, and held out his wad of flimsies. "I have all the proper orders and warrants, sir!"
"Ah," said Miles, eyeing the sticky jumble. "Indeed." He hesitated. "You will, of course, permit me to examine them."
He excused himself to the mob of people who'd accompanied him, gave a squeeze to Ekaterin's hand—wait a minute, hadn't they been not talking to each other? Miles had walked around all day yesterday in a dark cloud of negative energy like a black hole in motion; just looking at him had given Mark a headache. Now, beneath that heavy layer of irony, he frigging glowed . What the hell was happening here? Kareen, too, eyed the pair with growing surmise.
Mark abandoned this puzzle temporarily as Miles beckoned Gustioz to a side table beneath a mirror. He plucked the flower arrangement from it and handed it off to Roic, who scrambled to receive it, and had Gustioz lay down his extradition documents in a pile.
Slowly, and Mark had not the least doubt Miles was using every theatrical trick to buy time to think, he leafed gingerly through them. The entire audience in the entry hall watched him in utter silence, as if enspelled. He carefully touched the documents only with his fingertips, with an occasional glance up at Gustioz that had the Escobaran squirming in very short order. Every once in a while he had to pick up a couple of flimsies and gently peel them apart. "Mm-hm," he said, and "Mm-hm," and "All eighteen, yes, very good."
He came to the end, and stood thoughtfully a moment, his fingers just touching the pile, not releasing them back to the hovering Gustioz. He glanced up questioningly under his eyebrows at Ekaterin. She gazed rather anxiously back at him, and smiled wryly.
"Mark," he said slowly. "You did pay Ekaterin for her design work in shares, not cash, as I understand?"
"Yes," said Mark. "And Ma Kosti too," he hastened to point out.
"And me!" Kareen put in.
"And me!" added Martya.
"The company's been a little cash-strapped," Mark offered cautiously.
"Ma Kosti too. Hm. Oh, dear." Miles stared off into space a moment, then turned and smiled at Gustioz.
"Parole Officer Gustioz."
Gustioz stood upright, as if to attention.
"All the documents you have here do indeed appear to be legal and in order."
Miles picked the stack up between thumb and forefinger, and returned them to the officer's grasp. Gustioz accepted them, smiled, and inhaled.
"However," Miles continued, "you are missing one jurisdiction. Quite a critical one: the Imp Sec gate guard should not have let you in here without it. Well, the boys are soldiers, not lawyers; I don't think the poor corporal should be reprimanded. I will have to tell General Allegre to make sure it's part of their briefing in future, though."
Gustioz stared at him in horror and disbelief. "I have permissions from the Empire—the planetary local space—the Vorbarra District—and the City of Vorbarr Sultana. What other jurisdiction is there?"
"Vorkosigan House is the official residence of the Count of the Vorkosigan's District," Miles explained to him in a kindly tone. "As such, its grounds are considered Vorkosigan District soil, very like an embassy's. To take this man from Vorkosigan House , in the city of Vorbarr Sultana, in the Vorbarra District, on Barrayar, in the Imperium, you need all those," he waved at the tacky pile, "and also an extradition authorization, an order in the Count's Voice—just like this one you have here for the Vorbarra's District—from the Vorkosigan's District."
Gustioz was trembling. "And where," he said hoarsely, "can I find the nearest Vorkosigan's District Count's Voice?"
"The nearest?" said Miles cheerily. "Why, that would be me."
The Parole Officer stared at him for a long moment. He swallowed. "Very good, sir," he said humbly, his voice cracking. "May I please have an order of extradition for Dr. Enrique Borgos from, the, the Count's Voice?"
Miles looked across at Mark. Mark stared back, his lips twisting. You son of a bitch, you're enjoying every second of this. . . .
Miles vented a long, rather regretful sigh—the entir
e audience swayed with it—and said briskly, "No. Your application is denied. Pym, please escort these gentlemen off my premises, then inform Ma Kosti that we will be sitting, um," his gaze swept the entry hall, "ten for lunch, as soon as possible. Fortunately, she likes a challenge. Armsman Roic . . ." He stared at the young man, still clutching the flowers, who stared back in pitiful panic. Miles just shook his head, "Go get a bath ."
Pym, tall, sternly middle-aged, and in full uniform, advanced intimidatingly upon the Escobarans, who broke before him, and weakly let themselves be cowed out the doors.
"He'll have to leave this house sometime, dammit!" Gustioz shouted over his shoulder. "He can't hole up in here forever!"
"We'll fly him down to the District in the Count's official aircar," Miles called back in cheery codicil.
Gustoiz's inarticulate cry was cut off by the doors swinging shut.
"The butter bug project is really very fascinating," said Ekaterin brightly to the two men who'd come in with her and Miles. "You should see the lab."
Kareen signaled a frantic negative. "Not now, Ekaterin!"
Miles passed a grimly warning eye over Mark, and gestured his party in the opposite direction. "In the meantime, perhaps you would enjoy seeing Vorkosigan House's library. Professora, would you be so kind as to point out some of its interesting historical aspects to Hugo and Vassily, while I take care of a few things? Go with your aunt, Nikki. Thank you so much . . ." He held onto Ekaterin's hand, keeping her by him, as the rest of the party shuffled off.
"Lord Vorkosigan," cried Enrique, his voice quavering with relief, "I don't know how I can ever repay you!"
Miles held up a hand, dryly, to cut him off in midlaunch. "I'll think of something."
Martya, a little more alive to Miles's nuances than Enrique, smiled acerbically and took the Escobaran by the hand. "Come on, Enrique. I think maybe we'd better start working off your debt of gratitude by going down and cleaning up the lab, don't you?"
"Oh! Yes, of course . . ." Firmly, she hauled him off. His voice drifted back, "Do you think he'll like the butter bugs Ekaterin designed . . . ?"
Ekaterin smiled down fondly at Miles. "Well played, love."
"Yes," said Mark gruffly. He found himself staring at his boots. "I know how you feel about this whole project. Um . . . thanks, eh?"
Miles reddened slightly. "Well . . . I couldn't risk offending my cook, y'know. She seems to have adopted the man. It's the enthusiastic way he eats my food, I suppose."
Mark's brows lowered in sudden suspicion. "Is it true that a Count's Residence is legally a part of his District? Or did you just make that up on the spot?"
Miles grinned briefly. "Look it up. Now if you two will excuse us, I think I'd better go spend some time calming the fears of my in-laws-to-be. It's been a trying morning for them. As a personal favor, dear brother, could you please refrain from springing any more crises upon me, just for the rest of today?"
"In-laws-to . . . ?" Kareen's lips parted in thrilled delight. "Oh, Ekaterin, good! Miles, you—you rat! When did this happen?"
Miles grinned, a real grin this time, not playing to the house. "She asked me, and I said yes." He glanced up more slyly at Ekaterin, and went on, "I had to set her a good example, after all. You see, Ekaterin, that's how a proposal should be answered—forthright, decisive, and above all, positive!"
"I'll keep it in mind," she told him. She was poker-faced, but her eyes were laughing as he led her off toward the library.
Kareen, watching them go, sighed in romantic satisfaction, and leaned into Mark. All right, so this stuff was contagious. This was a problem? Screw the black suit. He slipped an arm around her waist.
Kareen ran a hand through her hair. "I want a shower."
"You can use mine," Mark offered instantly. "I'll scrub your back . . ."
"You can rub everything," she promised him. "I think I pulled some muscles in the tug-of-Enrique."
By damn, he might salvage this afternoon yet. Smiling fondly, he turned with her toward the staircase.
At their feet, the queen Vorkosigan-liveried butter bug scuttled out of a shadow and waddled quickly across the black-and-white tiles. Kareen yipped, and Mark dove after the huge bug. He skidded to a halt on his stomach under the side table by the wall just in time to see the silver flash of her rear end slide out of sight between the baseboard and a loose paving stone. "God damn but those things can flatten out! Maybe we ought to get Enrique to make them, like, taller or something." Dusting his jacket, he climbed back to his feet. "She went into the wall." Back to her nest in the walls somewhere, he feared.
Kareen peered doubtfully under the table. "Should we tell Miles?"
"No," said Mark decisively, and took her hand to mount the stairs.
EPILOGUE
From Miles's point of view, the two weeks to the Imperial wedding sped past, though he suspected that Gregor and Laisa were running on a skewed relativistic time-distortion in which time went slower but one aged faster. He manufactured appropriate sympathetic noises whenever he encountered Gregor, agreeing that this social ordeal was a terrible burden, but, truly, one that everyone must bear, a commonality of the human condition, chin up, soldier on. Inside his own head, a continuous counterpoint ran in little popping bubbles, Look! I'm engaged! Isn't she pretty? She asked me. She's smart, too. She's going to marry me. Mine, mine, all mine. I'm engaged! To be married! To this woman! an effervescence that emerged, he trusted, only as a cool, suave smile.
He did arrange to dine over at the Vorthys's three times, and have Ekaterin and Nikki to meals at Vorkosigan House twice, before the wedding week hit and all his meals—even breakfasts, good God—were bespoken. Still, his timetable was not as onerous as Gregor's and Laisa's, which Lady Alys and ImpSec between them had laid out in one-minute increments. Miles invited Ekaterin to accompany him to all his social obligations. She raised her brows at him, and accepted a sensible and dignified three. It was only later that Kareen pointed out that there were limits to the number of times a lady wanted to be seen in the same dress, a problem which, had he but realized it existed, he would gladly have set out to solve. It was perhaps just as well. He wanted Ekaterin to share his pleasure, not his exhaustion.
The cloud of amused congratulation that surrounded them for their spectacular betrothal was marred only once, at a dinner in honor of the Vorbarr Sultana Fire Watch which had included handing out awards for men exhibiting notable bravery or quick thinking in the past year. Exiting with Ekaterin on his arm, Miles found the door half blocked by the somewhat drunken Lord Vormurtos, one of Richars's defeated supporters. The room had mostly emptied by that time, with only a few earnestly chatting groups of people left. Already the servers were moving in to clean up. Vormurtos leaned on the frame with his arms crossed, and failed to move aside.
At Miles's polite, "Excuse us, please," Vormurtos pursed his lips in exaggerated irony.
"Why not? Everyone else has. It seems if you are Vorkosigan enough, you can even get away with murder."
Ekaterin stiffened unhappily. Miles hesitated a fractional moment, considering responses: explanation, outrage, protest? Argument in a hallway with a half-potted fool? No. I am Aral Vorkosigan's son, after all. Instead, he stared up unblinkingly, and breathed, "So if you truly believe that, why are you standing in my way? "
Vormurtos's inebriated sneer drained away, to be replaced by a belated wariness. With an effort at insouciance that he did not quite bring off, he unfolded himself, and opened his hand to wave the couple past. When Miles bared his teeth in an edged smile, he backed up an extra and involuntary step. Miles shifted Ekaterin to his other side and strode past without looking back.
Ekaterin glanced over her shoulder once, as they made their way down the corridor. In a tone of dispassionate observation, she murmured, "He's melted. You know, your sense of humor is going to get you into deep trouble someday."
"Belike," Miles sighed.
* * *
The Emperor's wedding, Miles decided,
was very like a combat drop mission, except that, wonderfully, he wasn't in command. It was Lady Alys's and Colonel Lord Vortala the Younger's turn for nervous breakdowns. Miles got to be a grunt. All he had to do was keep smiling and follow orders, and eventually it would all be over.
It was fortunate that it was a Midsummer event, because the only site large enough for all the circles of witnesses (barring the stunningly ugly municipal stadium) was the former parade ground, now a grassy sward, just to the south of the Residence. The ballroom was the backup venue in the event of rain, in Miles's view a terrorist plan that courted death by overheating and oxygen deprivation for most of the government of the Imperium. To match the blizzard that had made the Winterfair betrothal so memorable, they ought to have had summer tornadoes, but to everyone's relief the day dawned fair.
The morning began with yet another formal breakfast, this time with Gregor and his groom's party at the Residence. Gregor looked a little frayed, but determined.
"How are you holding up?" Miles asked him in an undervoice.
"I'll make it through dinner," Gregor assured him. "Then we drown our pursuers in a lake of wine and escape."
Even Miles didn't know what refuge Gregor and Laisa had chosen for their wedding night, whether one of the several Vorbarra properties or the country estate of a friend or maybe aboard a battle cruiser in orbit. He was sure there wasn't going to be any sort of unscheduled Imperial shivaree. Gregor had chosen all his most frighteningly humorless ImpSec personnel to guard his getaway.
Miles returned to Vorkosigan House to change into his very best House uniform, ornamented with a careful selection of his old military decorations that he otherwise never wore. Ekaterin would be watching him from the third circle of witnesses, in company with her uncle and aunt and the rest of his Imperial Auditor colleagues. He likely wouldn't see her till the vows were over, a thought that gave him a taste of what Gregor's anxiety must be.
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