A Civil Campaign

EPILOGUE

From Miles's point of view, the two weeks to the Imperial wedding sped past, though he suspected that Gregor and Laisa were running on a skewed relativistic time-distortion in which time went slower but one aged faster. He manufactured appropriate sympathetic noises whenever he encountered Gregor, agreeing that this social ordeal was a terrible burden, but, truly, one that everyone must bear, a commonality of the human condition, chin up, soldier on. Inside his own head, a continuous counterpoint ran in little popping bubbles, Look! I'm engaged! Isn't she pretty? She asked me. She's smart, too. She's going to marry me. Mine, mine, all mine. I'm engaged! To be married! To this woman! an effervescence that emerged, he trusted, only as a cool, suave smile.

He did arrange to dine over at the Vorthys's three times, and have Ekaterin and Nikki to meals at Vorkosigan House twice, before the wedding week hit and all his meals—even breakfasts, good God—were bespoken. Still, his timetable was not as onerous as Gregor's and Laisa's, which Lady Alys and ImpSec between them had laid out in one-minute increments. Miles invited Ekaterin to accompany him to all his social obligations. She raised her brows at him, and accepted a sensible and dignified three. It was only later that Kareen pointed out that there were limits to the number of times a lady wanted to be seen in the same dress, a problem which, had he but realized it existed, he would gladly have set out to solve. It was perhaps just as well. He wanted Ekaterin to share his pleasure, not his exhaustion.

The cloud of amused congratulation that surrounded them for their spectacular betrothal was marred only once, at a dinner in honor of the Vorbarr Sultana Fire Watch which had included handing out awards for men exhibiting notable bravery or quick thinking in the past year. Exiting with Ekaterin on his arm, Miles found the door half blocked by the somewhat drunken Lord Vormurtos, one of Richars's defeated supporters. The room had mostly emptied by that time, with only a few earnestly chatting groups of people left. Already the servers were moving in to clean up. Vormurtos leaned on the frame with his arms crossed, and failed to move aside.

At Miles's polite, 'Excuse us, please,' Vormurtos pursed his lips in exaggerated irony.

'Why not? Everyone else has. It seems if you are Vorkosigan enough, you can even get away with murder.'

Ekaterin stiffened unhappily. Miles hesitated a fractional moment, considering responses: explanation, outrage, protest? Argument in a hallway with a half-potted fool? No. I am Aral Vorkosigan's son, after all. Instead, he stared up unblinkingly, and breathed, 'So if you truly believe that, why are you standing in my way? '

Vormurtos's inebriated sneer drained away, to be replaced by a belated wariness. With an effort at insouciance that he did not quite bring off, he unfolded himself, and opened his hand to wave the couple past. When Miles bared his teeth in an edged smile, he backed up an extra and involuntary step. Miles shifted Ekaterin to his other side and strode past without looking back.

Ekaterin glanced over her shoulder once, as they made their way down the corridor. In a tone of dispassionate observation, she murmured, 'He's melted. You know, your sense of humor is going to get you into deep trouble someday.'

'Belike,' Miles sighed.

* * *

The Emperor's wedding, Miles decided, was very like a combat drop mission, except that, wonderfully, he wasn't in command. It was Lady Alys's and Colonel Lord Vortala the Younger's turn for nervous breakdowns. Miles got to be a grunt. All he had to do was keep smiling and follow orders, and eventually it would all be over.

It was fortunate that it was a Midsummer event, because the only site large enough for all the circles of witnesses (barring the stunningly ugly municipal stadium) was the former parade ground, now a grassy sward, just to the south of the Residence. The ballroom was the backup venue in the event of rain, in Miles's view a terrorist plan that courted death by overheating and oxygen deprivation for most of the government of the Imperium. To match the blizzard that had made the Winterfair betrothal so memorable, they ought to have had summer tornadoes, but to everyone's relief the day dawned fair.

The morning began with yet another formal breakfast, this time with Gregor and his groom's party at the Residence. Gregor looked a little frayed, but determined.

'How are you holding up?' Miles asked him in an undervoice.

'I'll make it through dinner,' Gregor assured him. 'Then we drown our pursuers in a lake of wine and escape.'

Even Miles didn't know what refuge Gregor and Laisa had chosen for their wedding night, whether one of the several Vorbarra properties or the country estate of a friend or maybe aboard a battle cruiser in orbit. He was sure there wasn't going to be any sort of unscheduled Imperial shivaree. Gregor had chosen all his most frighteningly humorless ImpSec personnel to guard his getaway.

Miles returned to Vorkosigan House to change into his very best House uniform, ornamented with a careful selection of his old military decorations that he otherwise never wore. Ekaterin would be watching him from the third circle of witnesses, in company with her uncle and aunt and the rest of his Imperial Auditor colleagues. He likely wouldn't see her till the vows were over, a thought that gave him a taste of what Gregor's anxiety must be.

The Residence's grounds were filling when he arrived back. He joined his father, Gregor, Drou and Kou, Count Henri Vorvolk and his wife, and the rest of the first circle in their assigned staging area, one of the Residence's public rooms. The Vicereine was off somewhere in support of Lady Alys. Both women and Ivan arrived with moments to spare. As the light of the summer evening gilded the air, Gregor's horse, a gloriously glossy black beast in gleaming cavalry regalia, was led to the west entrance. A Vorbarra Armsman followed with an equally lovely white mare fitted out for Laisa. Gregor mounted, looking in his parade red-and-blues both impressively Imperial and endearingly nervous. Surrounded by his party on foot, he proceeded decorously across the grounds through an aisle of people to the former barracks, now remodeled as guest quarters, where the Komarran delegation was housed.

It was then Miles's job to pound on the door and demand in formal phrases that the bride be brought forth. He was watched by a bevy of giggling Komarran women from the wide- flung flower-decked windows overhead. He stepped back as Laisa and her parents emerged. The bride's dress, he noted in the certainty that there would be a quiz later, included a white silk jacket with fascinating glittery stuff over various other layers, a heavy white silk split skirt and white leather boots, and a headdress with garlands of flowers all cascading down. Several tensely smiling Vorbarra Armsmen made sure the whole ensemble got loaded without incident aboard the notably placid mare—Miles suspected equine tranquilizers. Gregor shifted his horse around to lean across and grip Laisa's hand briefly; they smiled at each other in mutual amazement. Laisa's father, a short, round Komarran oligarch who had never been near a horse in his life before he'd had to practice for this, valiantly took the lead line, and the cavalcade wound its stately way back through the aisles of well-wishers to the south lawn.

The marriage pattern was laid on the ground in little ridges of colored groats, hundreds of kilos of them altogether, Miles had been given to understand. The small central circle awaited the couple, surrounded by a six-pointed star for the principal witnesses, and a series of concentric rings for guests. First close family and friends—then Counts and their Countesses—then high government officials, military officers, and Imperial Auditors—then diplomatic delegations; after that, people packed to the limit of the Residence's walls, and more in the street beyond. The cavalcade split, bride and groom dismounting and entering the circle each from opposite sides. The horses were led away, and Laisa's female Second and Miles were handed the official bags of groats to pour upon the ground and close the couple in, which they managed to do without either dropping the bags, or getting too many groats down their respective footwear.

Miles took his place upon his assigned star point, his parents and