Count Falco Vorpatril sat in judgment, as had several equally stodgy ancestors before him, in one of the few remaining Time-of-Isolation public buildings still left standing in downtown New Evias. The structure’s musty legal smell seemed to be ageless. Tej, who had grown very silent, perked up at the dark woodwork and elaborate stone carving gracing the architecture. “Now, this really looks like Barrayar,” she said. Ivan was gratified.
In a second-floor corridor, they encountered, prematurely, the count himself, who seemed to be on his way back from lunch.
“Ivan, my boy!” Falco hailed them.
He was still white-haired, stout, jovial-like a sly Father Frost with a hidden agenda. Falco was nothing if not a political survivor, Conservative by inclination, Centrist by calculation. He wore the formal Vorpatril House uniform of dark blue and gold, which adapted itself to his contours much as he adapted himself to the political landscape. A clerk bearing an electronic case filer stamped with the Vorpatril crest dogged his steps, obsequiously. Falco eyed Tej in open appreciation as they stopped and he strolled up.
“Sir.” Ivan came to attention. “May I introduce my wife, Lady Tej?”
“Indeed, you may.” Count Falco shook Tej’s hand, aborting a vague attempt on her part at a curtsey. “I’ve heard about you, young lady.”
“How do you do, Count Vorpatril, sir,” said Tej. Loading it all in, just in case, Ivan guessed.
“Talk with Mamere, did you, sir?” Ivan hazarded.
“Quite an entertaining talk, yes.”
“Oh, good, that’ll save a shipload of time.” Ivan squeezed Tej’s hand. “See, didn’t I say it’ll be fine?” Tej smiled gratefully and squeezed back, huddling closer. Ivan slipped a supporting arm around her waist.
Falco smiled benignly. “Countess Vorpatril was very curious about your nuptials, Ivan,” he went on, tapping Ivan familiarly on the chest with one broad finger. “She’d like to hear about them from you, by preference. We will both be down to the capital later in the week, note, where you may find her at Vorpatril House at the usual hours. You are behindhand on your courtesy visit, head of the clan and all that.”
“It’s only a temporary marriage, sir, as I hope Mamere explained? To rescue Tej from some, um, legal complications on Komarr. Which worked fine, all right and tight-got her all fixed up, free of them. Now we just have to get her free of me, and she’ll be, um…free.”
The clerk touched his wristcom, indicating time issues, and Count Falco gave him an acknowledging wave. “Yes, yes, I know. Well, good luck to you both…”
Falco toddled off down the corridor to the back door of his chambers. Ivan led Tej in the opposite direction, where they found the waiting area. Another clerk took their names, and left them to wait.
Tej circled the room, eyeing the woodwork and the items decorating the walls, mostly historical artifacts and prints, then stood studying the big wall viewer displaying successive scans of New Evias and rural District scenes since the Time of Isolation.
Ivan, too, rose after a while, because sitting was becoming unbearable, and studied the woodwork, or pretended to. “I’m glad they didn’t just knock this old place down like most of the rest of it. Makes it feel like our past isn’t just something to be thrown on a scrap heap, now we’re all turning galactic, y’know?”
This brought a smile to Tej’s lips, one of the few in the past hours. “Is that what you Barrayarans think you’re doing?”
But before Ivan could figure out a reply, the clerk returned to say, “Captain and Lady Vorpatril? Your case is up next.”
The clerk led them down the hall to Falco’s hearings chamber. They stood aside to let a group, no, two groups of people exit, one set looking elated, the other downcast and grumpy. The wood-paneled room was surprisingly small, and, to Ivan’s relief, uncrowded: just Falco and his clerk sitting at a desk on a raised dais; a couple of desks toward the front, where a woman lawyer was gathering up what appeared to be stacks of yellowing physical documents dating back to the Time of Isolation, along with her electronic case book; some empty backless benches bolted to the floor; and, by the door, an elderly sergeant-at-arms in a Vorpatril District uniform. The sergeant received Ivan and Tej from the clerk, who departed again, presumably to deal with whoever next needed to wait, and directed them to the empty tables.
“Um, should be one of you at each of these,” he said doubtfully, “and your respective counsels.”
“I’ll be out of here in just a moment,” said the lawyer, stacking faster.
“We’re skipping the counsel,” said Ivan. “Don’t need it.”
“And we’d rather sit together,” said Tej. Ivan nodded, and they both slipped behind the empty desk. Ivan let his hand dangle down between their uncomfortable wooden chairs, and Tej slid hers into it. Her fingers felt cold and bloodless, not at all like her usual self.
Count Falco lifted his head from some low-voiced consultation with his recording clerk, then made a sign to the sergeant-at-arms, who turned to the room and announced formally: “Next case, Captain Lord Ivan Xav Vorpatril versus Lady…” The sergeant paused and looked down at a slip in his hand, his lips moving. They rounded in doubt; he finally settled on, “His wife, Lady Vorpatril.”
The lawyer, about to make her exit, instead turned around and slid onto one of the back benches, her chin lifting in arrested curiosity. Ivan decided to ignore her.
The recording clerk leaned over, grasped an ancient cavalry spear bearing a blue-and-gold pennant that leaned drunkenly against the table edge, tapped its butt loudly in its wooden rest, and intoned, “Your Count is listening. Complainants please step forward.”
Tej looked at Ivan in panic; Count Falco leaned forward and encouraged them to their feet with a little crooking of his hands. A charitable pointing of one thick finger indicated where they should stand. Ivan and Tej stood and shuffled to a spot beneath his countly eye, holding hands very tightly.
The clerk observed into his recorder, “Petition for the dissolution of a marriage number six-five-five-seven- eight, oaths originally taken”-he gave the date of that mad scramble in Ivan’s rental flat-“Solstice Dome, Komarr.”
Ivan wasn’t sure whether to think, Wait, was it only a month ago? or Is it a whole month already? It had not been like any other month of his acquaintance, anyway.
“So…” Falco laced his hands together and stared down at Ivan and Tej for a long, thoughtful moment. Ivan, rendered uneasy by the sheer geezerish Falco-ness of his expression, edged closer to Tej.
Falco leaned back in his chair. “So, Captain Vorpatril, Lady Vorpatril. On what grounds do you petition this court for release from your spoken oaths?”
Ivan blinked. “Grounds, sir?” he hazarded.
“What is, or are, the substances of your complaint or complaints against each other?”
“It was understood from the beginning to be a temporary deal.”
“Yet you took permanent oath all the same.”
“Er, yes, sir?”
“Do you happen to be able to remember what you said?”
“Yes?”
“Repeat it for the court, please?”
Ivan did so, stumbling less than he had the first time, and leaving out the of sound mind and body part because he was afraid the lady lawyer would laugh.
Falco turned to Tej. “Is that as you also remember it, Lady Vorpatril?”
“Yes, sir, Count Vorpatril.” She glanced at Ivan, and ventured, “So what are the usual grounds for divorce on Barrayar, Count Vorpatril, sir?”
Falco folded his arms on his desk, smiling toothily. “Well, let’s just run down the list, shall we? Did either of you, at the time of your marriage, bear a concealed mutation?”
Tej’s eyebrows rose, for a moment almost haughty. Or haut-like. “I was gene-cleaned at conception, certified free of over five thousand potential defects.”
“Mm, no doubt. And the Cetagandan element has undergone recent revision of precedent here, so that won’t count either. Besides, I believe Ivan knew of your ancestry?”
“Yes, sir, Count Vorpatril, sir.”
“Ivan?” Falco prodded.
“Huh?” Ivan started. “Oh, you know I’m fine, sir!”
“So we all have long hoped,” Falco murmured. “Well, that disposes of that issue. Next, adultery. Do either of
