quietly, although he was less fond of stumbling over Byerly at breakfast.
As Ivan was scarfing down his morning groats standing, prior to toddling off to Ops HQ, Byerly, en dishabille in shirtsleeves but slightly less bleary than usual, sipped his tea and remarked, “Interesting chit-chat last night about you and Tej. From Jon Vorkeres, of all people. Countess Vorbretten’s little brother, y’know.”
Ivan frowned, glad he’d left Tej sleeping. She didn’t need to hear anything poisonous. “What was he doing in one of your venues?”
“Hey, not all of my venues are a hazard to the morality of our Vor youth. Else I should have gently steered him out. Jon says that gossip among certain of the more fossilized high Vor dames in town is that your surprise marriage is a disaster for Lady Alys, for all that she feigns otherwise. That Tej’s haut genes and connections would render any progeny you two might pop utterly disqualified for the Imperial camp stool, should, God forbid, anything untoward happen to Gregor et al. And, presumably, you disqualified along with them, unless you could be persuaded to some second marital attempt, I suppose.”
Ivan choked on his groats. “Seriously?”
“Very seriously. Count Rene Vorbretten is keeping his jaw clamped shut on the discussion, naturally.” Byerly eyed him sidelong.
Ivan’s brows climbed as the full import of this slowly sank in. “Huh. That’s an advantage that hadn’t crossed my mind, but you’re right!” The corners of his mouth tugged up. “Me and my children, ducking right out of the Vorbarr Sultana political crossfire-oh, superb. Have to point that out to Mamere, next time I see her. It would cheer her up no end.”
Byerly took a delicate sip, and inquired, “What children?”
Ivan reddened. “Uh…”
Byerly patted his lips-curving in the most maddening way-with his napkin, but did not pursue the point.
It was only as he was entering Ops that it occurred to Ivan that Byerly had been watching his reaction for more reasons than just sly personal amusement. No, dammit, I have never wanted Gregor’s job! He almost turned around right there and then to go find By and a body of water to hold his head under till he stopped thinking like that.
Frigging ImpWeasel.
“I bought these bells for my ankles,” said Tej to Rish, holding them up and shaking them. They made a cheery chime-tuned to chords, not just randomly dissonant. “If we pushed the furniture back, there’d be room for a real dance practice. I could take Jet’s part. Keep the beat for you.”
Rish wheeled, sizing up Ivan Xav’s living room. “I suppose we could try. I have an hour or so till By comes to get me.”
They skinned into their knits and collaborated on shoving sofas and chairs around, clearing a nice, wide space on the carpet. An afternoon without Ma Kosti was an afternoon when boredom and brooding loomed, but Tej had thought ahead, this time. As they began their bends and stretches, Tej asked as-if-casually, “So. By, again. What do you and he do every night, anyway?”
Rish’s lips twitched. “Really, Tej, you had the same erotic arts tutors that I did. Use your imagination.”
“I mean besides that.” Tej tossed her head impatiently, then had to blow stray hair out of her mouth. “What does he talk about? I mean, when he’s not just camouflaging?”
“If his mouth is moving, he’s camouflaging,” said Rish. But added after a few torso-twists, “Usually.”
“Ah?” When this encouraging noise did not pry out further clarification, Tej tried, “Do you still like him?”
“Well…he hasn’t stopped being interesting, yet.”
Tej dared, “Do you love him?”
Rish snorted. “He’s not the warm and fuzzy sort, sweetling.”
“Neither are you.”
Rish’s ambiguous smile crept a tiny bit wider, before she hid her expression in some toe-touches. “I did meet his infamous cousin Dono, in passing. At a party where By had gone to gossip.”
“I thought he wasn’t on speaking terms with his family?”
“Apparently Count Dono Vorrutyer is an exception to the general trend-he laughed when By introduced me. Delighted, apparently, by a Vorrutyer being even more shocking than himself. Herself. Whatever.” A few overhead reaches. “Still, By hasn’t spoken to his father for eighteen years, his mother has been estranged from everyone for a decade and barely communicates, and By secretly helped ImpSec put his even more obnoxious cousin Richars in prison. With cause. No love lost there. On the whole, not a close-knit clan.”
“How sad.”
“Not…really.”
“Oh?” Tej raised her arms and her eyebrows, waggling both.
A long pause, while Rish stretched hamstrings. “ In vino veritas, By calls it,” she said at last. “Like some primitive native fast-penta. Except By is almost never as drunk as he appears. If he’s slurring and staggering, he’s certainly spinning out lines to catch something. When he’s actually smashed, his diction gets very precise and distant, like…like a scientist reporting the results of an unsatisfactory experiment. It’s oddly disturbing.”
Tej sat on the floor with her legs out, put her hands behind her head, and bent to touch her elbows to her knees. And waited, not in vain.
Her voice and movements slowing, Rish went on, “We were watching some old vids of the Jewels’ performances that ImpSec came up with, and testing out some really dreadful Barrayaran inebriants. Which got us onto the subject of sisters, somehow, which got us onto the subject of his younger sister…It seems they were very close when they were teens-By fancied himself quite the brotherly protector. Till their father, as a result of some vile report he had from who-knows-where, accused By of molesting her. And went on believing it, despite the pair of them protesting to the rafters. By says he was more enraged at his father for swallowing the smear than he ever was at the anonymous clown who made it. Which was when he left school and came east to the capital. I’m not sure if you can disinherit your parents, but it seems that break was mutual.”
Rish stood on one foot, bent backward, and touched the sole of the other to the back of her head, then alternated. Tej merely essayed a few less ambitious back-bends, while she thought this through. She finally collapsed to the carpet and asked, “What in the world did you trade to him for that confession?”
“I’m not at all sure,” said Rish, in a tone that frankly echoed this wonder. “But he was enunciating very clearly, just before he passed out.”
Tej squinted. “Puts rather a different spin on his choice of careers, maybe?”
“I think, yeah. At first I thought he was in it for the money, and then for the mischief, and then I figured both of those were covers for this crazy Barrayaran patriotism all these Vor fellows go on and on about. Then I thought maybe it was for revenge, for nailing the guilty. Now I wonder if this furtive obsession for sorting truth from lies is actually in aid of clearing the innocent.”
“That seems like two sides of one coin, to me.”
“Yeah, but it’s like the man bets tails, every time.”
“Hm.”
“In which case…”
“Hm?”
“He won’t give it up. No matter how much he despises the work. Or his subjects. Or himself.”
“Do you think…this planet. Barrayar. Since this divorce thing snagged up, what would you think of staying here? For a while. Longer.” Tej forced herself not to hold her breath.
Rish shrugged. “It’s been a more interesting place to visit than I would’ve imagined, but I wouldn’t want to live here. I want”-she hesitated-“what I had.”
“You miss the Jewels.” It wasn’t a question.
Rish stretched like a starfish on her back, then closed her arms and legs in tight. “As I would miss my limbs, amputated. I keep reaching, but they’re not there.”
Tej buckled the bell straps around her ankles, rose, and stamped. The bells sang back in a ragged chorus. “I’ll take Jet’s part,” she offered again. Keeping, somehow, the quaver out of her voice.
Rish rolled to her bare blue feet, kicked once in air, and took up her position. “Do your best.” She eyed Tej more closely. “Don’t worry, sweetling. I won’t abandon you on this benighted world. We’ll get out together.”
That’s not quite what I meant, Rish… Tej bit her lip, nodded, extended her arms, and bent her legs, taking up
