Irresistible Forces

softly. 'I believe we should let your guests freshen up before dinner, Miles.'

'Oh, yes. Except I need to borrow Simon for a moment. Will you excuse us? There will be drinks in the library again when you are all ready. Someone let Arde know. Where is Arde?'

'Nikki captured him and carried him off,' said Madame Vorsoisson. 'I should probably go rescue the poor man.'

M'lord and Illyan withdrew to the library. Lady Alys escorted Taura away, presumably for one last tutorial on Barrayaran etiquette before the impending formal dinner with Count and Countess Vorkosigan. Taura glanced back at the bride, still frowning. Roic watched the giant woman out with some regret, distracted by the sudden speculation of what it would be like to patrol a Hassadar alley with her.

'M'lady — Madame Vorsoisson, that is,' Roic began as she started to turn away.

'Not for much longer.' She smiled, turning back.

'What's with… that is, how old is Sergeant Taura? Do you know?'

'Around twenty-six standard, I believe.'

A little younger than Roic, actually. It felt unfair that the galactic woman should seem so much more… complicated. 'Then why is her hair turning gray? If she's bioengineered, I wouldn't have thought they'd muff up such details.'

Madame Vorsoisson made a little gesture of apology. 'I believe that is a private matter for her, which is not mine to discuss.'

'Oh.' Roic's brow wrinkled in bafflement. 'Where'd she come from? Where did m'lord meet her?'

'On one of his old covert ops missions, he tells me. He rescued her from a particularly vile bioengineering facility on the planet of Jackson's Whole. They were trying to develop a super-soldier. Having escaped enslavement, she became an especially valued colleague on his ops team.' She added after a contemplative moment, 'And sometime-lover. Also especially valued, I understand.'

Roic felt suddenly very… rural. Backcountry. Not up to speed on the sophisticated, galactic-tinged Vor life of the capital. 'Er… he told you? And — and you're all right with that?' He wondered if meeting Sergeant Taura had rattled her more than she'd let on.

'It was before my time, Roic.' Her smile crimped a little. 'I actually wasn't sure if he was confessing or bragging, but now that I've seen her, I rather think he was bragging.'

'But — but how would… I mean, she's so tall, and he's, urn…'

Now her eyes narrowed with laughter at him, although her lips remained demure. 'He didn't supply me with that much detail, Roic. It wouldn't have been gentlemanly.'

'To you? No, I guess not.'

'To her.'

'Oh. Oh. Um, yeah.'

'For what it's worth, I have heard him remark that a height differential matters much less when two people are lying down. I find I must agree.' With a smile he really didn't dare try to interpret, she moved off in search of Nikki.

A scant hour later, Roic was surprised when Pym gave him a heads-up on his wrist com to bring m'lord's groundcar around. He parked it under the porte cochere and entered the black-and-white paved hall to find m'lord assisting Madame Vorsoisson on with her wraps.

'Are you sure you don't want me to go with you?' m'lord asked her anxiously. 'I'd like to go with you, see you get home and in all right.'

Madame Vorsoisson pressed a hand to her forehead. Her face was pale and damp, almost greenish. 'No. No. Roic will get me there. Go back to your guests. They've come so far, and you'll only be getting to see them for such a short time. I'm sorry to be such a drip. Give my abject apologies to the count and countess.'

'If you don't feel well, you don't feel well. Don't apologize. Do you think you're coming down with something? I could send our personal physician round.'

'I don't know. I hope not, not now! It mostly seems to be a headache.' She bit her lip. 'I don't think I have a fever.'

He reached up to touch her brow; she winced. 'No, you're not hot. But you're all clammy.' He hesitated, then asked more quietly, 'Nerves, d'you think?'

She hesitated, too. 'I don't know.'

'I have all the wedding logistics under control, you know. All you have to do is show up.'

Her smile was pained. 'And not fall over.'

He was silent a little longer this time. 'You know, if you decide that you really can't go through with it, you can call a halt. Any time. Right up to the last. Hope you won't, of course. But I need you to know you could.'

'What, with everyone from the emperor and the empress on down coming? I think not.'

'I'd cover it, if I had to.' He swallowed. 'I know you said you wanted a small wedding, but I didn't realize you meant tiny. I'm sorry.'

She blew out her breath in something like exasperation. 'Mles, I love you dearly, but if I'm going to start throwing up, I'd really prefer to be home first.'

'Oh. Yes. Roic, if you please?' He motioned to his armsman.

Roic took Madame Vorsoisson's arm, which was trembling.

'I'll send Nikki home safely with one of the armsmen after dessert, or after he wears Arde out. I'll call your house and let them know you're coming,' m'lord called after her.

She waved in acknowledgment; Roic helped her into the rear compartment and closed the canopy. Her shadowed form sat bent, head clutched in her hands.

M'lord chewed on his knuckle and stared in distress as the house doors swung shut upon him.

Roic's night shift was cut short at dawn the next morning when the count's guard commander called him on his wrist com and told him to report to the front hall in running gear; one of m'lord's guests wanted to go out to take some exercise.

He arrived, shrugging on his jacket, to find Taura bending and stretching in a vigorous series of warm-ups under Pym's bemused eye. Lady Alys's modiste hadn't gotten around to providing active wear, it appeared, because the huge woman wore a plain set of well-worn ship knits, although in neutral gray rather than blinding pink. The fabric hugged the smooth curves of a lean musculature that, without being bulky, gave an unmistakable impression of coiled power. The braid down her back looked cheery and sporting in this comfortable context.

'Oh, Armsman Roic, good morning,' she said, started to smile, then lifted her hand to her mouth.

'You don't—' Roic motioned inarticulately. 'You don't have to do that for me. I like your smile.' It wasn't, he realized, altogether a polite lie. Now that I'm getting used to it.

Her fangs glinted. 'I hope they didn't drag you out of bed. Mles said his people just used the sidewalk around this block for their running track, since it was about a kilometer. I don't think I can go astray.'

Roic intercepted a Look from Pym. Roic hadn't been called out to keep m'lord's galactic guest from getting lost; he was there to deal with any altercations that might result from startled Vorbarr Sultana drivers crashing their vehicles onto the sidewalk or each other at the sight of her.

'No problem,' said Roic promptly. 'We usually use the ballroom for a sort of gymnasium in weather like this, but it's being all decorated for the reception. So I'm behind on my fitness training for the month. It'll be a nice change to do my laps with someone who's not so much older, um, that is, so much shorter than me.' He sneaked a glance at Pym.

Pym's wintry smile promised retribution for that dig as he coded open the doors for them. 'Enjoy yourselves, children.'

The biting air blew away Roic's night's fatigue. He guided Taura out past the guard at the main gate and turned right along the high gray wall. After a few steps, she extended herself and began an easy lope. Within a very few minutes, Roic was regretting his cheap shot at the middle-aged Pym; Taura's long legs ate the distance. Roic kept half an eye on the early morning traffic, fortunately still light, and concentrated the rest of his attention on not disgracing House Vorkosigan by collapsing in a gasping heap. Taura's eyes grew brilliant with exhilaration as she ran, as if her spirit expanded into her body as her body stretched out to make room.

Half a dozen laps barely winded her, but she slowed at last to a walk, perhaps out of pity for her guide. 'Let's circle through the garden to cool down,' Roic wheezed. Madame Vorsoisson's garden, which occupied a third of the