Irresistible Forces

'She's not dying, is she?' Roic asked again, to be sure. In this spate of dramatic angst, it was a little hard to tell. 'The bit of exposure she got isn't going to have any permanent effects, is it?'

M'lord began to pace in circles around the entry hall, while Roic followed vainly trying to take his coat. 'The doctor said not, not once the headaches pass off, which they seem to have done now. She was so relieved to find out what it really was she burst into tears. Go figure that one out, eh?'

'Yeah, except that—' Roic began, then bit his tongue. Except that the crying jag he'd inadvertently witnessed had occurred well before the poisoning.

'What?'

'Nothing, m'lord.'

Lord Vorkosigan paused at the archway to the antechamber. 'ImpSec. We must call ImpSec to take away all those gifts and recheck them for—'

'They already came and collected them, m'lord,' Roic soothed him, or tried to. 'An hour ago. They say they'll try't' get as many as possible cleared and back before the wedding guests start arriving come midafternoon.'

'Oh. Good.' M'lord stood still a moment, staring into nothing, and Roic finally managed to get his coat away from him.

'M'lord… you don't think your Admiral Quinn sent that necklace, do you?'

'Oh, good heavens, no. Of course not.' M'lord dismissed this fear with a startlingly casual wave of his hand. 'Not her style at all. If she were ever that mad at me, she'd kick me downstairs personally. Great woman, Quinn.'

'Sergeant Taura was worried. I think she thought this Quinn might a' been, um, jealous.'

M'lord blinked. 'Why? I mean, yes, it's almost exactly a year since Elli and I parted company, but Ekaterin had nothing to do with that. Didn't even meet her till a couple of months later. The timing's pure coincidence, you can assure her. Yeah, so Elli turned down the wedding invitation — she has responsibilities. She got the fleet, after all.' A small sigh escaped him. His lips screwed up in further thought. 'I'd sure like to know who knew enough to steal Quinn's name to smuggle that hellish package in here, though. That's the real puzzle. Quinn's connected to Admiral Naismith, not to Lord Vorkosigan. Which was the sticking point in the first place, but never mind now. I want ImpSec to put every available resource on to tearing that one apart.'

'I believe they already are, m'lord.'

'Oh. Good.' He looked up, and his face grew, if possible, more serious. 'You saved my House last night, you know. Eleven generations of Vorkosigans have narrowed down to the choke point of me, this generation, this marriage. I'd have been the last, but for that chance — no, not chance — that moment of shrewd observation.'

Roic waved an embarrassed hand. 'Wasn't me who spotted it, m'lord. It was Sergeant Taura. She'd have reported it herself earlier, if she hadn't been half taken in by't' bad guy's nasty camouflage with your, um, friend Admiral Quinn's name.'

M'lord took up his taut orbit of the hall again. 'Bless Taura, then. A woman beyond price. Which I already knew, but anyway. I could kiss her feet, by God. I could kiss her all over!'

Roic was beginning to think that line about the barbed-wire choke chain wasn't such a joke after all. All this frenetic tension was, if not precisely infectious, starting to get on what was left of his nerves. He remarked dryly, in Pym-like periods, 'I was given to understand you already had, m'lord.'

M'lord jerked to a halt again. 'Who told you that?'

Under the circumstances, Roic decided not to mention Madame Vorsoisson. 'Taura.'

'Eh, maybe it's the women's secret code. I don't have the key, though. You're on your own there, boy.' He snorted a trifle hysterically. 'But if you ever do win an invitation from her, beware — it's like being mugged in a dark alley by a goddess. You're not the same man after. Not to mention critical feminine body parts on a scale you can actually find, and as for the fangs, there's no thrill quite like—'

'Miles,' a bemused voice interrupted from overhead. Roic glanced up to see the countess, wrapped in a robe, leaning over the balcony railing and observing her son. How long had she been standing there? She was Betan; maybe m'lord's last remarks wouldn't discombobulate her as much as they did Roic. In fact, he reflected, he was certain they couldn't.

'Good morning, Mother,' m'lord managed. 'Some bastard tried to poison Ekaterin, did you hear? When I catch up with him, I swear I'm going to make the Dismemberment of Mad Emperor Yuri look like a house party —'

'Yes, ImpSec has kept your father and me fully apprised during the night, and I just spoke with Helen. Everything seems under control for the moment, except for persuading Pym not to throw himself off the Star Bridge in expiation. He's pretty distraught over this slipup. For pity's sake, come up and take a sleeptimer and lie down for a while.'

'I don't want a pill. I have to check the garden. I have to check everything—'

'The garden is fine. Everything is fine. As you have just discovered in Armsman Roic here, your staff is more than competent.' She started down the stairs, a distinctly steely look in her eye. 'It's either a sleeptimer or a sledgehammer for you, son. I am not handing you off to your blameless bride in the state you're in, or the worse one it'll be if you don't get some real sleep before this afternoon. It's not fair to her.'

'Nothing about this marriage is fair to her,' m'lord muttered, bleak. 'She was afraid it would be the nightmare of her old marriage all over again. No! It's going to be a completely different nightmare— much worse. How can I ask her to step into my line of fire if —'

'As I recall, she asked you. I was there, remember? Stop gibbering.' The countess took his arm, and began more or less frog-marching him upstairs. Roic made a mental note of her technique for future reference. She glanced over her shoulder and gave Roic a reassuring, if rather unexpected, wink.

The brief remainder of the most memorable night shift of his career passed, to Roic's relief, without further incident of note. He dodged excited maidservants hurrying to the big day's tasks and mounted the stairs to his tiny fourth-floor bedroom thinking that m'lord wasn't the only one who should get some sleep before the afternoon's more public duties. M'lord's last, decidedly free-floating comments kept him awake for some time, though, beguiling him with visions of somewhat shocking charm. Such as he'd never dreamed of back in Hassadar. He fell asleep with his lips curling up.

A few minutes before his alarm was set to go off, Roic was awakened by Armsman Jankowski tapping at his bedroom door.

'Pym says you're to report to m'lord's suite right away. Some kind of briefing — you don't have to be in your uniform yet.'

'Right.'

Dress uniform, Jankowski meant, although Jankowski was already sharp in his own. Roic slipped on last night's wear and ran a comb through his hair, frowned in frustration at his beard shadow—right away presumably meant just that— and hurried downstairs.

Roic found m'lord in his suite's sitting room, halfway dressed in a silk shirt, the brown trousers with silver side-piping and the silver-embroidered suspenders that went-with and slippers. He was attended by his cousin Ivan Vorpatril, resplendent in his own House's blue-and-gold uniform. As m'lord's Second and chief witness in the imminent ceremony, Lord Ivan was also playing groom's batman as well as general supporter.

One of Roic's fonder secret memories from the past weeks was of witnessing, in his role as disregarded coat-rack, the great Viceroy Count Vorkosigan himself taking his handsome nephew aside and promising, in a voice so low as to be almost a whisper, to have Ivan's hide for a drumskin if he allowed his misplaced sense of fun to do anything at all to screw up the impending ceremony for m'lord. Ivan had been humorless as a judge all week; side bets were being taken belowstairs for how long it would last. Remembering that deeply ominous voice, Roic had selected the longest shot in the pool — and thought himself likely to win.

Taura, also in last night's gear of skirt and lacy blouse, lounged on one of the small sofas in the bay window, apparently offering bracing advice. M'lord had evidently taken the sleeptimer, for he looked vastly better: clean, shaved, clear-eyed, and very nearly calm.

'Ekaterin's here,' he told Roic, in the awed tone of a besieged garrison commander describing the