appreciation of his figure.”
“Really, Tej!” But the Baronne’s hand stole to the kissed spot nonetheless.
Dada and Byerly arrived back then, the Baron with a heartening bustle, and Ivan Xav strolled in on their heels, ending this little mother-daughter ordeal. Moment. Again. Until the next time. Tej wondered if it would be redundant to think, Don’t ever change, Baronne.
Tej, Rish, Byerly, and Ivan Xav rendezvoused briefly in the living room, as the luggage was staged around them.
“So how did it go with Ser Imola?” Tej asked By.
“Succinctly.” By tilted a hand. “I was sent in part to impede long conversations, but it wasn’t necessary. You could just see the man fold into himself.” He added after a contemplative moment, “And prison-smock orange is so not Imola’s color. It was all quite, quite satisfying.”
“And you?” Ivan Xav asked.
Byerly grimaced, though a speculative glance under his unfairly long lashes at the listening Rish undercut his put-upon air. “Running around like a mad thing, of course. I’m going to have to leave a moving company to clear my apartment and put it all in storage. I packed last night-it was like trying to decide what to grab from a burning building. The story is I’m shipping out just ahead of imminent arrest for collusion with your in-laws for grand-theft- history. I am to be a Barrayaran renegade.” He struck a pose. “Rake’s regress, or something.”
“I’m sure you’ll do well,” Tej tried to console him.
“It’s bloody Jackson’s Whole. Where enemies are killed and eaten.”
“We do not!” said Rish indignantly.
Byerly waved this away. “I speak, of course, metaphorically.” Though he looked as if he weren’t entirely sure.
“Well, if you get in over your head, just try channeling your great-great-grandfather Bloody Pierre,” advised Ivan Xav. He added after a moment, “Or your great-great-grandmother. For you, either one.”
By cast a sneer at him.
Ivan Xav grinned, undaunted. He explained aside to Tej and Rish, “It was said that the only two people Le Sanguinaire feared were his wife, and Dorca Vorbarra. And no one’s too sure about Dorca.”
“Really?” said Tej, the golden glasses they’d all been drinking tunnel water from the other night becoming more interesting in retrospect.
“Vorrutyer family history,” By told her, “is the very essence of unreliable news source. Don’t listen to Vorpatril.” He sighed. “Though it is evident that you will. Congratulations, Ivan, if I failed to say that earlier.”
“Thank you,” Ivan Xav returned, bland.
And then it was time to all pitch in and help carry things down to the garage, where three luxurious governmental groundcars were pulled up waiting. Going out in style? Tej detected Lady Alys’s diplomatic hand at work; the Arquas might as easily have been carted away in one big prison van.
A pair of men in black-and-silver livery arrived in a separate, quite unremarkable groundcar, and transferred to the boot of one of the other vehicles a pair of familiar, heavy boxes, with old Ninth Satrapy seals on the tops. The senior of them approached the Baron and Baronne, and saluted.
“My Imperial master’s compliments, sir, and he commends to you this souvenir of your visit. May it help to speed you on your way.”
Dada’s brows shot up. Tej tried to calculate the value, in either Barrayaran marks or Betan dollars, of forty- four kilos of old Cetagandan gold coins, but ran afoul of her lack of experience with the antiquities market.
“Precisely two boxes out of forty,” murmured Dada. “Five percent. How scrupulous of him.” He raised his voice to the Vorbarra armsman. “Tell your Imperial master that Baron and Baronne Cordonah are as pleased to accept his memento as he is to bestow it.”
A little edged, don’t you think, Dada? But the armsman took it in expressionlessly, and marched off with his fellow to, Tej was fairly sure, deliver the words verbatim. The bulk of the payout would arrive later, by some boring tightbeam transfer. With a meticulous deduction for this payment-in-kind but, she was sure, otherwise in full.
Lady Alys and Simon arrived from upstairs, lending a touch of formality to the final farewell. Dada came over to Ivan Xav and Tej, standing together.
“They tell me,” he said, “that in some Barrayaran weddings, the father is expected to give away the bride. That struck me as valuing her much too low.”
“Just a figure of speech, sir,” Ivan Xav assured him, looking amused. “In actual high Vor marriages, the behind-the-scenes dealings over the details of the marriage contract can go on for months.”
“Well, that’s a little better,” the Baron allowed. “Your Gregor has to have obtained his skills from somewhere.”
Ivan Xav added, as if by way of consolation, “And, after all, you’re getting Byerly in trade.”
The Baron smiled thinly. “Yes, I know…” He turned to his daughter. “Your mother tells me, Tej, that she did convey our invitation for you to ride along to Pol Station, yes?”
“Yes, Dada,” said Tej. “But I’m staying right here.” She gripped Ivan Xav’s arm firmly; he covered her hand with his own.
“You know me-there’s no such thing as a last chance this side of death,” said Dada. “If ever you want to come home…”
“Thank you, Dada,” said Tej, wondering how many karma points she was totting up for not pointing out that actually, he hadn’t secured a home for her to come to, yet. It had better be a lot. On impulse, she pulled him aside, placed her hands on his shoulders, and looked him in the eye. It was a shock to her to discover they were the same height.
“Look at it this way, Dada. You’re coming away from Barrayar with everyone’s freedom, a ride, and a war chest. Not to mention the covert alliance with The Gregor. I can’t imagine any House heir alive who could match that bride-price, right now. It’s princely, more literally than anyone here quite lets on.” Barrayarans! “And do you think that you’d have had any of it if I hadn’t married Ivan Xav?”
“Mm…”
“You’ve got a great deal here. Don’t screw it up!”
“But I didn’t deal, not for him,” he returned, in some very Dada-ish frustration. “And I always meant to, for you!”
“I understand.” The corners of her mouth tugged up. “But Ivan Xav is a gift.”
She leaned, not up, but over, and kissed him on the cheek. It worked to divert him, too, from his argument-he patted her in distraction. She led him back, and linked arms with her Barrayaran husband once more.
“So…take good care of her, then, Captain Vorpatril.” Formally, Dada shook Ivan Xav’s free hand. His eyes narrowed right down, suddenly cold and hard; his grip did not loosen. “And you’d better believe that I can find some way to touch you, if you don’t.”
“No doubt at all, sir!” Ivan Xav assured him. He flinched under the pressure of that stare, and paw, but, she was proud to see, didn’t step back.
“That’s not necessary, Dada,” said Tej through her teeth.
“Yes, yes, Tej, love…”
And it was all swallowed up in last embraces, waves, cries, the clicking of silvered canopies, the hiss of groundcar engines, and…silence. More golden than Cetagandan coins.
Rubbing his hand on his trouser seam, Ivan Xav said plaintively. “Is asking Who can I kill for you? usually how people say I love you in Jacksonian?”
“No, just Dada,” Tej sighed. “Though the Baronne is more dangerous-she might not ask.”
“Ee,” said Ivan Xav.
“I’ve been reading your histories,” said Tej, giving him a hug. “Don’t try to tell me some of your ancestors didn’t think the same way. Starting with your Aunt Cordelia’s famous Winterfair gift to your Uncle Aral, and she wasn’t even Barrayaran! Severed heads, really?”
“Only the one,” he protested. “And I,” he added, drawing himself up with dignity, “am a much more modern Barrayaran.”
Tej pressed a smile out straight. “I’m sure you are, Lord Vorpatril.”
Their meeting the next morning with The Gregor was very short.
