Ekaterin sputtered, momentarily beyond words, and looked around frantically for a weapon. The only one that suggested itself was the fireplace poker, but whether to whap it on his skull or jam it up his ass . . . ? Nikki was crying openly now, thin strained sobs, and Vormoncrief stood between them. She began to dodge around him; ill-advisedly, Vormoncrief tried to wrap her lovingly in his arms.
"Ow!" he cried, as the heel of her hand crunched into his nose, with all the strength of her arm behind it. It didn't drive his nasal bone up into his brain and kill him on the spot the way the books said—she hadn't really thought it would—but at least his nose began to swell and bleed. He grabbed both her wrists before she could muster aim and power for a second try. He was forced to hold them tight, and apart, as she struggled against his grip.
Her sputtering found words at last, shrieked at the top of her voice: "Let go of me, you blithering twit!"
He stared at her in astonishment. Just as she gathered her balance to find out if that knee-to-the-groin thing worked any better than that blow-to-the-nose one, Illyan's voice interrupted from the archway behind her, deadly dry.
"The lady asked you to unhand her, Lieutenant. She shouldn't have to ask twice. Or . . . once."
Vormoncrief looked up, and his eyes widened with belated recognition of the former ImpSec chief. His hands sprang open, his fingers wriggling a little as if to shake off their guilt. His lips moved on one or two tries at speech, before his mouth at last made it into motion. "Captain Illyan! Sir!" His hand began to salute, the realization penetrated that Illyan wore civvies, and the gesture was converted on the fly to a tender exploration of his bunged and dripping nose. Vormoncrief stared at the blood smear on his hand in surprise.
Ekaterin swerved around him to slide into her uncle's armchair and gather up the sniffling Nikki, hugging him tight. He was trembling. She buried her nose in his clean boy-hair, then glared furiously over her shoulder. "How dare you come in here uninvited and interrogate my son without my permission! How dare you harass and frighten him like this! How dare you!"
"A very good question, Lieutenant," said Illyan. His eyes were hard and cold and not kindly at all. "Would you care to answer it for both of our curiosities?"
"You see, you see, sir, I, I, I . . ."
"What I saw," said Illyan, in that same arctic voice, "was that you entered the home of an Imperial Auditor, uninvited and unannounced, while the Auditor was not present, and offered physical violence to a member of his family." A beat, while the dismayed Alexi clutched his nose as if trying to hide the evidence. "Who is your commanding officer, Lieutenant Vormoncrief?"
"But she hit—" Vormoncrief swallowed; he abandoned his nose and came to attention, his face faintly green. "Colonel Ushakov, sir. Ops."
In a supremely sinister gesture, Illyan pulled an audiofiler from his belt, and murmured this information into it, together with Alexi's full name, the date, time, and location. Illyan returned the audiofiler to its clip with a tiny snap, loud in the silence.
"Colonel Ushakov will be hearing from General Allegre. You are dismissed, Lieutenant."
Cowed, Vormoncrief retreated, walking backwards. His hand rose toward Ekaterin and Nikki in one last, futile gesture. "Ekaterin, please, let me help you . . ."
"You lie," she snarled, still gripping Nikki. "You lie vilely. Don't you ever come back here!"
Alexi's sincere, if daunted, confusion was more infuriating than his anger or defiance would have been. Did the man not understand a word she'd said? Still looking stunned, he made it to the entry hall, and let himself out. She set her teeth, listening to his bootsteps fade down the front walk.
Illyan remained leaning against the archway, his arms folded, watching her curiously.
"How long were you standing there?" she asked him, when her breath had slowed a bit.
"I came in on the part about the fast-penta interrogation. All those key words—ImpSec, complicity . . . Vorkosigan. My apologies for eavesdropping. Old habits die hard." His smile came back, though it regained its warmth rather slowly.
"Well . . . thank you for getting rid of him. Military discipline is a wonderful thing."
"Yes. I wonder how long it will take him to realize I don't command him, or anyone else? Ah, well. So, just what was the obnoxious Alexi blithering about?"
Ekaterin shook her head, and turned to Nikki. "Nikki, love, what happened? How long was that man here?"
Nikki sniffed, but he was no longer trembling as badly. "He came to the door right after Aunt Vorthys left. He asked me all kinds of questions about when Lord Vorkosigan and Uncle Vorthys stayed with us on Komarr."
Illyan, his hands in his pockets, strolled nearer. "Can you remember some of them?"
Nikki's face screwed up. "Was Lord Vorkosigan alone with Mama much—how would I know? If they were alone, I wouldn't 'a been there! What did I see Lord Vorkosigan do. Eat dinner, mostly. I told him about the aircar ride . . . he asked me all about breath masks." He swallowed, and looked wildly at Ekaterin, his hand clenching on her arm. "He said Lord Vorkosigan did something to Da's breath mask! Mama, is it true?"
"No, Nikki." Her own grip around him tightened in turn. "That wasn't possible. I found them, and I know." The physical evidence was plain, but how much could she say to him without violating security? The fact that Lord Vorkosigan had been chained to a rail by the wrists and unable to do anything to anyone's breath mask including his own led immediately to the question of who had chained him there and why. The fact that there were a myriad of things about that nightmare night Nikki didn't know led immediately to the question of how much more he hadn't been told, why Mama, how Mama, what Mama, why, why, why . . .
"They made it up," she said fiercely. "They made it all up, only because Lord Vorkosigan asked me at his party to marry him, and I turned him down."
"Huh?" Nikki wriggled around and stared at her in astonishment. "He did? Wow! But you'd be a Countess! All that money and stuff!" He hesitated. "You said no? Why?" His brow wrinkled. "Is that when you quit your job too? Why were you so mad at him? What did he lie to you about?" Doubt rose in his eyes; she could feel him tense again. She wanted to scream.
"It was nothing to do with Da," she said firmly. "This—what Alexi told you—is just a slander against Lord Vorkosigan."
"What's a slander?"
"It's when somebody spreads lies about somebody, lies that damage their honor." In the Time of Isolation, you could have fought a duel with the two swords over something like this, if you'd been a man. The rationale of dueling made sudden sense to her, for the first time in her life. She was ready to kill someone right now, but for the problem of where to aim. It's being whispered all over town . . .
"But . . ." Nikki's face was taut, puzzled. "If Lord Vorkosigan was with Da, why didn't he help him? In school on Komarr, they taught us how to share breath masks in an emergency . . ."
She could watch it in his face, as the questions began to twine. Nikki needed facts, truth to combat his frightened imaginings. But the State secrets were not hers to dispense.
Back on Komarr, she and Miles had agreed between them that if Nikki's curiosity became too much for Ekaterin to deal with, she would bring him to Lord Auditor Vorkosigan, to be told from his Imperial authority that security issues prevented discussing Tien's death until he was older. She had never imagined that the subject would take this form, that the Authority would himself be accused of Nikki's father's murder. Their neat solution suddenly . . . wasn't. Her stomach knotted. I have to talk to Miles.
"Well, now," Illyan murmured. "Here's an ugly little bit of politicking. . . . Remarkably ill-timed."
"Is this the first you've heard of this? How long has this been going around?"
Illyan frowned. "It's news to me. Lady Alys usually keeps me apprised of all the interesting conversations circulating in the capital. Last night, she had to give a reception for Laisa at the Residence, so my intelligence is a day behind . . . internal evidence suggests this has to have blown up sin
ce Miles's dinner party."
Ekaterin's horrified glance rose to his face. "Has Miles heard about this yet, do you think?"
"Ah . . . perhaps not. Who would tell him?"
"It's all my fault. If I hadn't gone charging out of Vorkosigan House in a huff . . ." Ekaterin bottled the remainder of this thought, as sudden distress thinned Illyan's mouth; yes, he imagined he held a link in this causal chain too.
"I need to go talk with some people," said Illyan.
"I need to go talk with Miles. I need to go talk with Miles right now."
A calculating look flashed across Illyan's face, to be succeeded by his normal bland politeness. "I happen to have a car and driver waiting. May I offer you a lift, Madame Vorsoisson?"
But where to park poor Nikki? Aunt Vorthys wouldn't be back for a couple of hours. Ekaterin could not have him present for this—oh, what the hell, it was Vorkosigan House. There were half a dozen people she could send him off to be with—Ma Kosti, Pym, even Enrique. Eep—she'd forgot, the Count and Countess were home now. All right, five dozen people. After another moment of frenzied hesitation, she said, "Yes."
She got shoes on Nikki, left a message for her aunt, locked up, and followed Illyan to his car. Nikki was pale, and growing quieter and quieter.
The drive was short. As they turned into Vorkosigan House's street, Ekaterin realized she didn't even know if Miles would be there. She should have called him on the comconsole, but Illyan had been so prompt with his offer. . . . They passed the bare, baking Barrayaran garden, sloping down from the sidewalk. On the far side of the desert expanse, a small, lone figure sat on the curving edge of a raised bed of dirt.
"Wait, stop!"
Illyan followed her glance, and signaled his driver. Ekaterin had the canopy popped and was climbing out almost before the vehicle had sighed to the pavement.
"Is there anything else I can do for you, Madame Vorsoisson?" Illyan called after her, as she stood aside to let Nikki exit.
She leaned back toward him to breathe venomously, "Yes. Hang Vormoncrief."
He offered her a sincere salute. "I shall do my humble best, madame."
His groundcar pulled away as, Nikki in tow, she turned to step over the low chain blocking foot traffic from the site, and strode down into the garden.
Soil was a living part of a garden, a complex ecosystem of microorganisms, but this soil was going to be dead in the sun and gone in the rains if no one got its proper ground cover installed . . . Miles, she saw as she drew nearer, was sitting next to the only plant in this whole blighted expanse, the little skellytum rootling. It was hard to say which of them looked more desperate and forlorn. An empty pitcher sat on the wall next to his knee, and he stared in worry at the rootling and the spreading stain of water on the soil around it. He glanced up at the sound of their approaching steps. His lips parted; the most appalling thrilled look passed over his face, to be suppressed almost instantly and replaced by an expression of wary courtesy.
"Madame Vorsoisson," he managed. "What are you uh, doing . . . um, welcome. Welcome. Hello, Nikki . . ."
She couldn't help it; the first words out of her mouth were nothing she'd rehearsed in the groundcar, but rather, "You haven't been pouring water over the barrel, have you?"
He glanced at it, and back to her. "Ah . . . shouldn't I?"
"Only around the roots. Didn't you read the instructions?"
He glanced guiltily again at the plant, as if expecting to find a tag he'd overlooked. "What instructions?"
"The ones I sent you, the appendix—oh, never mind." She pressed her fingers to her temples, clutching for coherence in her seething brain.
His sleeves were rolled up in the heat; the ragged red scars ringing his wrists were plainly visible in the bright sunlight, as were the fine pale lines of the much older surgical scars running up his arms. Nikki stared at them in worry. Miles's gaze finally tore itself from her general hereness, and took in her agitated state.
His voice went flatter. "I gather gardening isn't what you came about."
"No." This was going to be hard—or maybe not. He knows. And he didn't tell me. "Have you heard about this . . . this monstrous accusation going around?"
"Yesterday," he answered bluntly.
"Why didn't you warn me?"
"General Allegre asked me to wait on ImpSec's security evaluation. If this . . . ugly rumor has security implications, I am not free to act purely on my own behalf. If not . . . it's still a difficult business. An accusation, I could fight. This is something subtler." He glanced around. "However, since it's now come to you perforce, his request is moot, and I shall consider myself relieved of it. I think perhaps we'd better continue this inside."
She contemplated the desolate space, open to the sky and the city. "Yes."
"If you will?" He gestured toward Vorkosigan House, but made no move to touch her. Ekaterin took Nikki by the hand, and they accompanied him silently up the path and around through the guarded front gate.
He led them up to "his" floor, back to the cheerful sunny room in which he'd fed her that memorable luncheon. When they reached the Yellow Parlor, he seated her and Nikki on the delicate primrose sofa and himself on a straight chair across from them. There were lines of tension around his mouth she hadn't seen since Komarr. He leaned forward with his hands clasped between his knees and asked her, "How and when did it come to you?"
She gave a, to her ears, barely coherent account of Vormoncrief's intrusion, corroborated by occasional elaborations from Nikki. Miles listened gravely to Nikki's stammering recital, attending to him with a serious respect which seemed to steady the boy despite the horrifying nature of the subject. Although he did have to suck a smile back off his lips when Nikki got to a vivid description of how Vormoncrief acquired his bloody nose—"And he got it all over his uniform, too!" Ekaterin blinked, taken aback to find herself receiving exactly the same look of pleased masculine admiration from both parties.
But the moment of enthusiasm passed.
Miles rubbed his forehead. "If it were up to my judgment, I'd answer several of Nikki's questions here and now. My judgment is unfortunately suspect. Conflict of interest doesn't even begin to cover my position in this." He sighed softly, and leaned back on the hard chair in an unconvincing simulation of ease. "The first thing I would like to point out is that at the moment, all the onus is on me. The backsplash of this sewage appears to have missed you. I'd like to see it stay that way. If we . . . don't see each other, no one will have pretext to target you with further slander."
"But that would make you look worse," said Ekaterin. "It would make it look as if I believed Alexi's lies."
"The alternative would make it look as if we had somehow colluded in Tien's death. I don't see how to win this one. I do see how to cut the damage in half."
Ekaterin frowned deeply. And leave you standing there to be pelted with this garbage all alone? After a moment she said, "Your proposed solution is unacceptable. Find another."
His eyes rose searchingly to her face. "As you wish . . ."
"What are you talking about?" Nikki demanded, his brows drawn down in confusion.
"Ah." Miles touched his lips, and regarded the boy. "The reason, it seems, that my political opponents have accused me of sabotaging your da's breath mask, is that I want to court your mother."
Nikki's nose wrinkled, as he worked through this. "Did you really ask her to marry you?"
"Well, yes. In a pretty clumsy way. I did." Was he actually reddening? He spared her a quick glance, but she didn't know what he saw in her face. Or what he made of it. "But now I'm afraid that if she and I continue to go around together, people will say we must have plotted together against your da. She's afraid that if we don't continue to go around together, people will say that proves she thinks I did—I'm sorry if this distresses you—murder him. It's called, damned if you do, damned if you don't."
"Damn them all," said Ekaterin harshly. "I don't care what any of those ignorant idiots think, or say,
or do. People can go choke on their vile gossip." Her hands clenched in her lap. "I do care what Nikki thinks." Rot Vormoncrief.
Vorkosigan raised an eyebrow at her. "And you think this version wouldn't come around to him too, the way the first one did?"
She looked away from him. Nikki was scrunching up again, glancing uncertainly from adult to adult. This was not, Ekaterin decided, the moment to tell him to keep his feet off the good furniture.
"Right," Miles breathed. "All right, then." He gave her a ghost of a nod. She was shaken by a weird inner vision of a knight drawing down his visor before facing the tilt. He studied Nikki a moment, and moistened his lips. "So—what do you think of it all so far, Nikki?"
Miles in Love Page 76
