Irresistible Forces

When Lady Vorpatril removed herself to consult with the head server about some fine point, Taura leaned over to whisper, 'She's very good at this, isn't she?'

'Yes. The best.'

She sat back with a smile of satisfaction. 'Miles's people generally are.' She regarded Roic appraisingly.

A server guided a well-dressed Vor matron shepherding a girl-child about Nikki's age past their table toward their own seating. The girl stopped short and stared at Taura. Her hand lifted, pointing in astonishment. 'Mama, look at that gigantic—'

The mother captured the hand, shot an alarmed glance at them, and began some hushed admonishment about it not being polite to point. Taura essayed a big friendly smile at the girl. A mistake…

The girl screamed and buried her face in her mother's skirts, hands frantically clutching. The woman shot.

Taura a furious, frightened glower and hustled the little girl away, not toward their table but to the exit. Across the tearoom, Lady Alys's head swiveled around.

Roic looked back at Taura, then wished he hadn't. Her face froze, appalled, then crumpled in distress; she seemed about to burst into tears but caught herself with a long indrawn breath, held for a moment.

Tensed to spring — where? — Roic instead eased back helplessly in his chair. Hadn't m'lord specifically detailed him to prevent this sort of thing?

With a gulp, Taura brought her breathing back under control. She looked as wan as though she'd been wounded by a knife thrust. Yet what could he have done? He couldn't very well draw his stunner and pot some Vor lady's terrified kid…

Lady Alys, taking in the incident, returned quickly. With a special frown at Roic, she slid back into her seat. She smoothed over the moment with some light comment, but the outing did not recover its cheerful tone; Taura kept trying to shrink down and sit smaller, a futile exercise, and whenever she began to smile, stopped and tried to hold her hand over her mouth.

Roic wished he were back patrolling Hassadar alleys.

Roic arrived with his charges back at Vorkosigan House feeling as though he'd been run through a wringer. Backward. Several times. He peered around the tower of garment boxes he carried — the rest, Madame Estelle had assured Taura, would be delivered — and managed not to drop them getting through the carved doors. Under Lady Vorpatril's direction, he handed off the boxes to a pair of maidservants, who whisked them away.

M'lord's voice wafted from the antechamber to the library. 'Is that you, Aunt Alys? We're in here.'

Roic trod belatedly after the two disparate women just in time to see m'lord introduce Sergeant Taura to his fiancee, Madame Ekaterin Vorsoisson. Like, it seemed, everyone but Roic, she had apparently been warned in advance; she didn't even blink, holding out one hand to the huge galactic woman and offering her an impeccably polite welcome. M'lady-to-be looked fatigued this evening, although that might be partially the effect of the drab gray half-mourning she still wore, her dark hair drawn back in a severe knot. The garb went with the gray civilian suits m'lord favored, though, giving the effect of two players on the same team.

M'lord regarded the new green outfit with unfeigned enthusiasm. 'Splendid work, Aunt Ays! I knew I could rely on you. That's a stunning look with the hair, Taura.' He peered upward. 'Are the fleet medicos making some new headway with the extension treatments? I don't see any gray at all. Great!'

She hesitated, then replied, 'No, I just got some customized dye to match it.'

'Ah.' He made an apologetic motion, as if brushing away his last words. 'Well; it looks lovely.'

New voices sounded from the entry hall, Armsman Pym admitting a visitor.

'No need to announce me, Pym.'

'He's right in there, then, sir. Lady Alys just arrived.'

'Better still.'

Simon Illyan (ImpSec, retired) entered upon these words, bent to kiss Lady Alys's hand, then tucked it through one arm as he straightened. She smiled fondly at him, and he snugged her in close to his side. He, too, absorbed his introduction to the towering Sergeant Taura with unruffled calm, bowing over her hand and saying, 'I am so pleased to have a chance to meet you at last, Sergeant. I hope your visit to Barrayar has been pleasant so far?'

'Yes, sir,' she rumbled back, apparently controlling an impulse to salute the man only because he still held her hand. Roic didn't blame her; he was taller than Illyan, too, but the formidable former Chief of Imperial Security made him want to salute, and he'd never even been in the military. 'Lady Alys has been wonderful.' No one, it seemed, was going to mention the unfortunate incident in the tearoom.

'I'm not surprised. Oh, Miles,' Illyan continued, 'I've just come from the Imperial Residence. Some good news came in when I was saying good-bye to Gregor. Lord Vorbataille was arrested this afternoon at the Vorbarr Sultana shuttleport, trying to leave the planet in disguise.'

M'lord blew out his breath. 'That's going to put that ugly little case to bed, then. Good. I was afraid it was going to drag on over Winterfair.'

Illyan smiled. 'I wondered if that might have had something to do with the energy with which you tackled it.'

'Heh. I shall give dear Gregor the benefit of the doubt and assume he did not have my personal deadline in mind when he assigned me to it. The mess did proliferate unexpectedly.'

'Case?' Sergeant Taura inquired.

'My new job as one of the nine Imperial Auditors for Emperor Gregor took an odd and unexpected turn into criminal investigation a month or so back,' m'lord explained. 'We found that Lord Vorbataille, who is a count's heir — like me — from one of our southern districts, had involved himself with a Jacksonian smuggling ring. Or, possibly, been suborned by it. Anyway, by the time his sins caught up with him he was up to his eyebrows in illicit traffic, hijacking, and murder. Very bad company, now wholly out of business, I'm pleased to report. Gregor is considering sending the Jacksonians home in a box, suitably frozen; let their backers decide if they are worth the expense of reviving. If everything is finally proved on Vorbataille that I think will be… for his father's sake, he may be allowed to suicide in his cell.' M'lord grimaced. 'If not, the Council of Counts will have to be persuaded to endorse a more direct redemption of the honor of the Vor. Corruption on this level can't be allowed to slop over and give us all a bad name.'

'Gregor is very pleased with your work on this one,' Illyan remarked.

'I'll bet. He was livid about the Princess Olivia hijacking, in his own understated way. An unarmed ship, all those poor dead passengers — God, what a nightmare.'

Roic listened a bit wistfully to all this. He thought he might have done more this past month when m'lord was buzzing in and out on the high-profile case, but Pym hadn't assigned him to the duty. Granted, someone had to stand night guard for Vorkosigan House. Week after week…

'But enough of this nasty business' — m'lord caught Madame Vorsoisson's grateful glance—'let's turn to more cheerful affairs. Why don't you finish opening that next package, love?'

Madame Vorsoisson turned back to the crowded table and the task everyone's arrival had interrupted. 'Here's the card. Oh. Admiral Quinn, again?'

M'lord took it, brows rising. 'What, no limerick this time? How disappointing.'

'Perhaps this one is to make up for — Oh, my. I imagine so. And all the way from Earth!' From a small box, she drew a short, triple strand of matched pearls and held them up to her throat. 'Choker-style… oh, how pretty.' Momentarily, she let the iridescent spheres line up upon her neck, touching the two ends of the clasp in back.

'Would you like me to fasten it?' her bridegroom offered.

'Just for a moment…' She bent her head, and m'lord. reached up and fiddled with the catch at her nape. She walked to the mirror over the room's unlit fireplace, turning to watch the exquisite ornament catch the light, and gave m'lord a quizzical smile. 'I believe they would go perfectly with what I'm wearing the day after tomorrow. Don't you think, Lady Alys?'

Lady Alys tilted her head in sartorial judgment. 'Why, yes, indeed.'

M'lord bowed at this endorsement by the highest authority. The look he exchanged with his bride was less decipherable to Roic, but he seemed very pleased, even relieved. Sergeant Taura, watching the byplay, frowned in unease.

Madame Vorsoisson removed the strands and laid them back in their velvet-lined box, where they glowed