Miles in Love (120 page)

The ambassador glanced at Miles, waved polite greeting, and said something to the ghem-general, who nodded. To Ekaterin's surprise, the ghem-general and the pink bubble left their party and strolled/floated over to them.

"Ghem-general Benin," said Miles, suddenly on-stage in his most flowing Imperial Auditor's style. His eyes were alight with curiosity and, oddly, pleasure. He swept a sincere bow at the bubble. "And haut Pel. So good to see you—so to speak—once more. I hope your unaccustomed travel has not proved too wearing?"

"Indeed not, Lord Auditor Vorkosigan. I have found it quite stimulating." Her voice came from a transmitter in her bubble. To Ekaterin's astonishment, her bubble grew almost transparent for a moment. Seated in her float chair behind the pearly sheen, a tall blonde woman of uncertain age in a flowing rose-pink gown appeared momentarily. She was staggeringly beautiful, but something about her ironic smile did not suggest youth. The concealing screen clouded up once more.

"We are honored by your presence, haut Pel," Miles said formally, while Ekaterin blinked, feeling temporarily blinded. And suddenly horribly dowdy. But all the admiration in Miles's eyes burned for her, not for the pink vision. "May I introduce my fiancée, Madame Ekaterin Nile Vorvayne Vorsoisson."

The distinguished officer murmured polite greetings. He then turned his thoughtful gaze upon Miles, and touched his lips in an oddly ceremonious gesture before speaking.

"My Imperial Master the haut Fletchir Giaja had asked me, in the event that I should encounter you, Lord Vorkosigan, to extend his
personal
condolences for the death of your close friend, Admiral Naismith."

Miles paused, his smile for a moment a little frozen. "Indeed. His death was a great blow to me."

"My Imperial Master adds that he
trusts
that he will remain deceased."

Miles glanced up at the tall Benin, his eyes suddenly sparkling. "Tell your Imperial Master from me—I
trust
his resurrection will not be required."

The ghem-general smiled austerely, and favored Miles with an inclination of his head. "I shall convey your words exactly, my lord." He nodded cordially at them both, and he and the pink bubble drifted back to their delegation.

Ekaterin, still awed by the blonde, murmured to Miles, "What was
that
all about?"

Miles sucked on his lower lip. "Not news, I'm afraid, though I'll pass it on to General Allegre. Benin just confirms something Illyan had suspected over a year ago. My covert ops identity was come to the end of its usefulness, at least as far as its being a secret from the Cetagandans was concerned. Well, Admiral Naismith and his various clones, real and imagined, kept 'em confused for longer than I'd have believed possible."

He gave a short nod, not dissatisfied, she thought, despite his little flash of regret. He took a firmer grip on her.

Regret . . . And what if she and Miles had met at twenty, instead of she and Tien? It had been possible; she'd been a student at the Vorbarra District University, he'd been a newly minted officer in and out of the capital. If their paths had crossed, might she have won a less bitter life?

No. We were two other people, then
. Traveling in different directions: their intersection must have been brief, and indifferent, and unknowing. And she could not unwish Nikki, or all that she had learned, not even realizing she was learning, during her dark eclipse.
Roots grow deep in the dark
.

She could only have arrived here by the path she'd taken, and here, with Miles,
this
Miles, seemed a very good place to be indeed.
If I am his consolation, he is most surely mine as well
. She acknowledged her years lost, but there was nothing in that decade she needed to circle back for, not even regret; Nikki, and the learning, traveled with her. Time to move on.

"Ah," said Miles, looking up as a Residence servitor approached them, smiling. "They must be rounding up the strays for dinner. Shall we go in, milady?"

From Armsman Roic's wrist com the gate guard's voice reported laconically, "They're in. Gate's locked."

"Right," Roic returned. "Dropping the house shields." He turned to the discreet security control panel beside the carved double doors of Vorkosigan House's main entry hall, pressed his palm to the read-pad, and entered a short code. The faint hum of the force shield protecting the great house faded.

Roic stared anxiously out one of the tall narrow windows flanking the portal, ready to throw the doors wide when m'lord's groundcar pulled into the porte-cochère. He glanced no less anxiously down the considerable length of his athletic body, checking his House uniform: half-boots polished to mirrors, trousers knife-creased, silver embroidery gleaming, dark brown fabric spotless.

His face heated in mortified memory of a less expected arrival in this very hall—also of Lord Vorkosigan with honored company in tow—and the unholy tableau they'd surprised with the Escobaran bounty hunters and the gooey debacle of the bug butter. Roic had looked an utter fool in that moment, nearly naked except for a liberal coating of sticky slime. He could still hear Lord Vorkosigan's austere, amused voice, as cutting as a razor-slash across his ears—
Armsman Roic, you're out of uniform
.

He thinks I'm an idiot.
Worse, the Escobarans' invasion had been a security breach, and while he'd not, technically, been on duty—he'd been
asleep
, dammit—he'd been present in the house and therefore on call for emergencies. The mess had been in his lap, literally. M'lord had dismissed him from the scene with no more than an exasperated,
Roic . . . get a bath
, somehow more keenly excoriating than any bellowed dressing-down.

Roic checked his uniform again.

The long silvery groundcar pulled up and sighed to the pavement. The front canopy rose on the driver, the senior and dauntingly competent Armsman Pym. He released the rear canopy and hurried around the car to assist m'lord and his party. The senior armsman spared a glance through the narrow window as he strode by, his eye passing coolly over Roic and scanning the hall beyond to make sure it contained no unforeseen drama this time. These were Very Important Off-world Wedding Guests, Pym had impressed upon Roic. Which Roic might have been left to deduce by m'lord going personally to the shuttleport to greet their descent from orbit—but then, Pym had walked in on the bug butter disaster, too. Since that day, his directives to Roic had tended to be couched in words of one syllable, with no contingency left to chance.

A short figure in a well-tailored gray tunic and trousers hopped out of the car first: Lord Vorkosigan, gesturing expansively at the great stone mansion, talking non-stop over his shoulder, smiling in proud welcome. As the carved doors swung wide, admitting a blast of Vorbarr Sultana winter night air and a few glittering snow crystals, Roic stood to attention and mentally matched the other people exiting the groundcar with the security list he'd been given. A tall woman held a baby bundled in blankets; a lean, smiling fellow hovered by her side. They had to be the Bothari-Jeseks. Madame Elena Bothari-Jesek was the daughter of the late, legendary Armsman Bothari; her right of entrée into Vorkosigan House, where she had grown up with m'lord, was absolute, Pym had made sure Roic understood. It scarcely needed the silver circles of a jump pilot's neural leads on mid-forehead and temples to identify the shorter middle-aged fellow as the Betan jump pilot, Arde Mayhew—should a jump pilot look so jump-lagged? Well, m'lord's mother Countess Vorkosigan was Betan, too; and the pilot's blinking, shivering stance was among the most physically unthreatening Roic had ever seen. Not so the final guest. Roic's eyes widened.

The hulking figure unfolded from the groundcar and stood up, and up. Pym, who was almost as tall as Roic, did not come quite up to its shoulder. It shook out the swirling folds of a gray and white greatcoat of military cut, and threw back its head. The light from overhead caught the face and gleamed off . . . were those
fangs
, hooked over the out-slung lower jaw?

Sergeant Taura
was the name that went with it, by process of elimination. One of m'lord's old military buddies, Pym had given Roic to understand, and—don't be fooled by the rank—of some
particular
importance (if rather mysterious, as was everything connected with Lord Miles Vorkosigan's late career in Imperial Security.) Pym was former ImpSec himself. Roic was not, as he was reminded, oh, three times a day on average.

At Lord Vorkosigan's urging, the whole party poured into the entry hall, shaking off snow-spotted garments, talking, laughing. The greatcoat was swung from those high shoulders like a billowing sail, its owner turning neatly on one foot, folding the garment ready to hand over. Roic jerked back to avoid being clipped by a heavy, mahogany-colored braid of hair as it swept past, and rocked forward to find himself face to . . . nose to . . . staring directly into an entirely unexpected cleavage. It was framed by pink silk in a plunging vee. He glanced up. The outslung jaw was smooth and beardless. The curious pale amber eyes, irises circled with a sleek black line, looked back down at him with, he instantly feared, some amusement.
Her
fang-framed smile was deeply alarming.

Pym was efficiently organizing servants and luggage. Lord Vorkosigan's voice jerked Roic back to focus. "Roic, did the Count and Countess get back in from their dinner engagement yet?"

"About twenty minutes ago, m'lord. They went upstairs to their suite to change."

Lord Vorkosigan addressed the woman with the baby, who was attracting cooing maids. "My parents would skin me if I didn't take
you
up to them instantly. Come on. Mother's pretty eager to meet her namesake. I predict Baby Cordelia will have Countess Cordelia wrapped around her pudgy little fingers in about, oh, three and a half seconds. At the outside."

He turned and started up the curve of the great staircase, shepherding the Bothari-Jeseks and calling over his shoulder, "Roic, show Arde and Taura to their assigned rooms, make sure they have everything they want. We'll meet back in the library when you all are freshened up or whatever. Drinks and snacks will be laid on there."

So, it was a
lady
sergeant. Galactics had those; m'lord's mother had been a famous Betan officer in her day.
But this one's a bloody giant mutant lady sergeant
was a thought Roic suppressed more firmly. Such backcountry prejudices had no place in
this
household. Though she was clearly bioengineered, had to be. He recovered himself enough to say, "May I take your bag, um . . . Sergeant?"

"Oh . . . all right." With a dubious look down at him, she handed over the satchel she'd had slung over one arm. The pink enamel on her fingernails did not quite camouflage their shape as claws, heavy and efficient as a leopard's. The bag's descending weight nearly jerked Roic's arm out of its socket. He managed a desperate smile and began lugging it two-handed up the staircase in m'lord's wake.

He deposited the tired-looking pilot first. Sergeant Taura's second floor guest room was one of the modernized ones, with its own bath, around the corridor's corner from m'lord's own suite. She reached up and trailed a claw along the ceiling, and smiled in evident approval of Vorkosigan House's three-meter headspace.

"So," she said, turning to him, "is a Winterfair wedding considered especially auspicious, in Barrayaran custom?"

"They're not so common as in summer. Mostly I think it's now because m'lord's fiancée is between semesters at University."

Her thick brows rose in surprise. "She's a student?"

"Yes, ma'am." He had a notion one addressed female sergeants as
ma'am.
Pym would have known.

"I didn't realize she was such a
young
lady."

"No, ma'am. Madame Vorsoisson's a widow—she has a little boy, Nikki—nine years old. Mad about jumpships. Do you happen t' know—does that pilot fellow like children?" Mayhew was bound to be a magnet for Nikki.

"Why . . . I don't know. I don't think Arde knows either. He hardly ever meets any in a free mercenary fleet."

He would have to watch, then, to be sure little Nikki didn't set himself up for a painful rebuff. M'lord and m'lady-to-be might not be paying their usual attention to him, under the circumstances.

Sergeant Taura circled the room, gazing with what Roic hoped was approval at its comfortable appointments, and glanced out the window at the back garden, shrouded in winter white, the snow luminous in the security lighting. "I suppose it makes sense that he'd have to wed one of his own Vor kind, in the end." Her nose wrinkled. "So, are the Vor a social class, a warrior caste, or what? I never could quite figure it out from Miles. They way he talks about them you'd half think they were a religion. Or at any rate,
his
religion."

Roic blinked in bafflement. "Well, no. And yes. All of that. The Vor are . . . well, Vor."

"Now that Barrayar has modernized, isn't a hereditary aristocracy resented by the rest of your classes?"

"But they're
our
Vor."

"Says the Barrayaran. Hm. So,
you
can criticize them, but heaven help any outsider who dares to?"

"Yes," he said, relieved that she seemed to have grasped it despite his stumbling tongue.

"A family matter.
I
see." Her grin faded into a frown that was actually less alarming—not so much fang. Her fingers clenching the curtain inadvertently poked claws through the expensive fabric; wincing, she shook her hand free and tucked it behind her back. Her voice lowered. "So she's Vor, well and good. But does she
love
him?"

Roic heard the odd emphasis in her voice, but was unclear how to interpret it. "I'm very sure of it, ma'am," he avowed loyally. M'lady-to-be's frowns, her darkening mood, were surely just pre-wedding nerves piled atop examination stress, on the substrate of her not-so-distant bereavement.

"Of course." Her smile flicked back in a perfunctory sort of way. "Have you served Lord Vorkosigan long, Armsman Roic?"