Miles in Love (100 page)

"Oh," said Nikki. Gingerly, after turning it over again, he tucked the card into his tunic's breast pocket.

By the slight easing of Gregor's posture, and of Uncle Vorthys's, Ekaterin concluded the audience was over. She shifted, preparing to catch the cue to rise, but then Miles lifted a hand—did he always seize the last word?

"Gregor—while I appreciate your gesture of confidence in refusing my resignation—"

Uncle Vorthys's brows shot up. "Surely you didn't offer to resign your Auditorship over this miserable gibble-gabble, Miles!"

Miles shrugged. "I thought it was traditional for an Imperial Auditor not only to be honest, but to appear so. Moral authority and all that."

"Not always," said Gregor mildly. "I inherited a couple of damned shifty old sticks from my grandfather Ezar. And for all that he's called Dorca the Just, I believe my great-grandfather's main criterion for his Auditors was their ability to convincingly terrorize a pretty tough crew of liegemen. Can you imagine the nerve it would have taken one of Dorca's Voices to stand up to, say, Count Pierre Le Sanguinaire?"

Miles smiled at this vision. "Given the enthusiastic awe with which my grandfather recalled old Pierre . . . the mind boggles."

"If public confidence in your worth as an Auditor is that damaged, my Counts and Ministers will have to indict you themselves. Without my assistance."

"Unlikely," growled Uncle Vorthys. "It's a smarmy business, my boy, but I doubt it will come to that pass."

Miles looked less certain.

"You've now danced through all the proper forms," said Gregor. "Leave it, Miles."

Miles nodded what seemed to Ekaterin reluctant, if relieved, acceptance. "Thank you, Sire. But I wanted to add, I was also thinking of the personal ramifications. Which are going to get worse before they bottom out and die away. Are you quite sure you want me standing on your wedding circle, while this uproar persists?"

Gregor gave him a direct, and slightly pained, look. "You will not escape your social duty that easily. If General Alys does not request I remove you, there you will stand."

"I wasn't trying to escape—! . . . anything." He ran down a trifle, in the face of Gregor's grim amusement.

"Delegation is a wonderful thing, in my line of work. You may let it be known that anyone who objects to the presence of my foster-brother in my wedding circle may take their complaints to Lady Alys, and suggest whatever major last-minute dislocations in her arrangements they . . . dare."

Miles could not quite keep the malicious smile off his lips, though he tried valiantly. Fairly valiantly. Some. "I would pay money to watch." His smile faded again. "But it's going to keep coming up as long as—"

"Miles." Gregor's raised hand interrupted him. His eyes were alight with something between amusement and exasperation. "You have, in-house, possibly the greatest living source of Barrayaran political expertise in this century. Your father's been dealing with uglier Party in-fighting than this, with and without weapons, since before you were born. Go tell
him
your troubles. Tell him I said to give you that lecture on honor versus reputation he gave me that time. In fact . . . tell him I request and require it." His hand-wave, as he rose from his armchair, put an emphatic end to the topic. Everyone rustled to their feet.

"Lord Auditor Vorthys, a word before you depart. Madame Vorsoisson—" he took Ekaterin's hand again "—we'll talk more when I am less pressed for time. Security concerns have deferred public recognition, but I hope you realize you've earned a personal account of honor with the Imperium of great depth, which you may draw upon at need and at will."

Ekaterin blinked, startled almost to protest. Surely it was for Miles's sake that Gregor had wedged open this slice of his schedule? But this was all the oblique reference to the
further
events on Komarr they dared to make in front of Nikki. She managed a short nod, and a murmur of thanks for the Imperial time and concern. Nikki, modeling himself a little awkwardly upon her, did likewise.

Uncle Vorthys bid her and Nikki good-bye, and lingered for whatever word his Imperial master wanted before he took ship. Miles escorted them into the corridor, where he told the waiting liveried man, "I'll see them out, Gerard. Call for Madame Vorsoisson's car, please."

They began the long walk around the building. Ekaterin glanced back over her shoulder toward the Emperor's private office.

"That was . . . that was more than I'd expected." She looked down at Nikki, walking between them. His face was set, but not crumpled. "Stronger."
Harsher.

"Yes," said Miles. "Be careful what you ask for . . . . There are special reasons I trust Gregor's judgment in this above anyone else's. But . . . I think perhaps I'm not the only fish who doesn't think about water. Gregor is routinely expected to endure daily pressures that would drive, well, me, to drink, madness, or downright lethal irritability. In return, he overestimates us, and we . . . scramble not to disappoint him."

"
He
told me the truth," said Nikki. He marched on in silence for a moment more. "I'm glad."

Ekaterin held her peace, satisfied.

Miles found his father in the library.

Count Vorkosigan was seated on one of the sofas flanking the fireplace, perusing a hand-reader. By his semiformal garb, a dark green tunic and trousers reminiscent of the uniforms he'd worn most of his life, Miles deduced he was on his way out soon, doubtless to one of the many official meals the Viceroy and Vicereine seemed obliged to munch their way through before Gregor's wedding. Miles was reminded of the intimidating list of engagements that Lady Alys had handed him, coming up soon. But whether he dared try to mitigate their social and culinary rigors by having Ekaterin accompany him was now a very dubious question.

Miles flung himself onto the sofa opposite his father; the Count looked up and regarded him with cautious interest.

"Hello. You look a trifle wrung."

"Yes. I've just come from one of the more difficult interviews of my Auditorial career." Miles rubbed the back of his neck, still achingly tense. The Count lifted politely inquiring eyebrows. Miles continued, "I asked Gregor to straighten out Nikki Vorsoisson on this slander mess to the limit he judged wise. He set the limit a lot further out than Ekaterin or I would have."

The Count sat back, and laid his reader aside. "Do you feel he compromised security?"

"No, actually," Miles admitted. "Any enemy snatching Nikki for questioning would already know more than he does. They could empty him out in ten minutes on fast-penta, and no harm done. Maybe they'd even bring him back. Or not . . . He's no more a security risk than before. And no more nor less
at
risk, as a lever on Ekaterin."
Or on me
. "The real conspiracy was very closely held even among the principals. That's not the problem."

"And the problem is—?"

Miles leaned his elbows on his knees, and stared at his dim distorted reflections in the toes of his half-boots. "I thought, because of Crown Prince Serg, Gregor would know how—or whether—someone ought to be apprised that his da was a criminal. If you can call Prince Serg that, for his secret vices."

"I can," breathed the Count. "Criminal, and halfway to raving mad, by the time of his death." Then-Admiral Vorkosigan had been an eyewitness to the Escobaran invasion disaster on the highest levels, Miles reflected. He sat up; his father looked him full in the face, and smiled somberly. "That Escobaran ship's lucky shot was the best piece of political good fortune ever to befall Barrayar. In hindsight, though, I regret that we handled Gregor so poorly on the matter. I take it that he did better?"

"I think he handled Nikki . . . well. At any rate, Nikki won't experience that sort of late shock to his world. Of course, compared to Serg, Tien wasn't much worse than foolish and venal. But it was hard to watch. No nine-year-old should have to deal with something this vile, this close to his heart. What will it make him?"

"Eventually . . . ten," the Count said. "You do what you have to do. You grow or go under. You have to believe he will grow."

Miles drummed his fingers on the sofa's padded arm. "Gregor's subtlety is still dawning on me. By admitting Tien's peculation, he's pulled Nikki to the inside with us. Nikki too now has a vested interest in maintaining the cover story, to protect his late da's reputation. Strange. Which is what brings me to you, by the way. Gregor asks—requests and requires, no less!—you give me the lecture you gave him on honor versus reputation. It must have been memorable."

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?"