A Civil Campaign

added, 'Fortunately for them.'

'Hm.' The Count tamped down a smile. 'Perhaps you are wise.' He hesitated. 'Your Aunt Alys gave us a blow-by-blow account of your dinner party. With editorials. She was particularly insistent that I tell you she trusts ,' Miles could hear his aunt's cadences mimicked in his father's voice, 'you would not have fled the scene of any other losing battle the way you deserted last night.'

Ah. Yes. His parents had been left with the mopping up, hadn't they. 'But there was no hope of being shot dead in the dining room if I stayed with the rear guard.'

His father flicked up an eyebrow. 'And so avoid the subsequent court martial?'

'Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,' Miles intoned.

'I am sufficiently your partisan,' said the Countess, 'that the sight of a pretty woman running screaming, or at least swearing, into the night from your marriage proposal rather disturbs me. Though your Aunt Alys says you scarcely left the young lady any other choice. It's hard to say what else she could have done but walk out. Except squash you like a bug, I suppose.'

Miles cringed at the word bug .

'Just how bad—' the Countess began.

'Did I offend her? Badly enough, it seems.'

'Actually, I was about to ask, just how bad was Madame Vorsoisson's prior marriage?'

Miles shrugged. 'I only saw a little of it. I gather from the pattern of her flinches that the late unlamented Tien Vorsoisson was one of those subtle feral parasites who leave their mates scratching their heads and asking, Am I crazy? Am Icrazy? ' She wouldn't have those doubts if she married him , ha.

'Aah,' said his mother, in a tone of much enlightenment. 'One of those . Yes. I know the type of old. They come in all gender-flavors, by the way. It can take years to fight your way out of the mental mess they leave in their wake.'

'I don't have years,' Miles protested. 'I've never had years.' And then pressed his lips shut at the little flicker of pain in his father's eyes. Well, who knew what Miles's second life expectancy was, anyway. Maybe he'd started his clock all over, after the cryorevival. Miles slumped lower. 'The hell of it is, I knew better. I'd had way too much to drink, I panicked when Simon . . . I never meant to ambush Ekaterin like that. It was friendly fire . . .'

He went on after a little, 'I had this great plan, see. I thought it could solve everything in one brilliant swoop. She has this real passion for gardens, and her husband had left her effectively destitute. So I figured, I could help her jump-start the career of her dreams, slip her some financial support, and get an excuse to see her nearly every day,and get in ahead of the competition. I had to practically wade through the fellows panting after her in the Vorthys's parlor, the times I went over there—'

'For the purpose of panting after her in her parlor, I take it?' his mother inquired sweetly.

'No!' said Miles, stung. 'To consult about the garden I'd hired her to make in the lot next door.'

'Is that what that crater is,' said his father. 'In the dark, from the groundcar, it looked as though someone tried to shell Vorkosigan House and missed, and I'd wondered why no one had reported it to us.'

'It is not a crater . It's a sunken garden. There's just . . . just no plants in it yet.'

'It has a very nice shape, Miles,' his mother said soothingly. 'I went out and walked through it this afternoon. The little stream is very pretty indeed. It reminds me of the mountains.'

'That was the idea,' said Miles, primly ignoring his father's mutter of. . . after a Cetagandan bombing raid on a guerilla position . . .

Then Miles sat bolt upright in sudden horror. Not quite no plants. 'Oh, God! I never went out to look at her skellytum! Lord Dono came in with Ivan—did Aunt Alys explain to you about Lord Dono?—and I was distracted, and then it was time for dinner, and I never had the chance afterwards. Has anyone watered—? Oh, shit, no wonder she was angry. I'm dead meat twice over—!' He melted back into his puddle of despair.

'So, let me get this straight,' said the Countess slowly, studying him dispassionately. 'You took this destitute widow, struggling to get on her own feet for the first time in her life, and dangled a golden career opportunity before her as bait, just to tie her to you and cut her off from other romantic possibilities.'

That seemed an uncharitably bald way of putting it. 'Not . . . not just ,' Miles choked. 'I was trying to do her a good turn. I never imagined she'd quit—the garden was everything to her.'

The Countess sat back, and regarded him with a horribly thoughtful expression, the one she acquired when you'd made the mistake of getting her full, undivided attention. 'Miles . . . do you remember that unfortunate incident with Armsman Esterhazy and the game of cross-ball, when you were about twelve years old?'

He hadn't thought of it in years, but at her words, the memory came flooding back, still tinged with shame and fury. The Armsmen used to play cross-ball with him, and sometimes Elena and Ivan, in the back garden of Vorkosigan House: a low-impact game, of minimum threat to his then-fragile bones, but requiring quick reflexes and good timing. He'd been elated the first time he'd won a match against an actual adult, in this case Armsman Esterhazy. He'd been shaken with rage, when a not-meant-to-be-overheard remark had revealed to him that the game had been a setup. Forgotten. But not forgiven.

'Poor Esterhazy had thought it would cheer you up, because you were depressed at the time about some, I forget which, slight you'd suffered at school,' the Countess said. 'I still remember how furious you were when you figured out he'd let you win. Did you ever carry on about that one. We thought you'd do yourself a harm.'

'He stole my victory from me,' grated Miles, 'as surely as if he'd cheated to win. And he poisoned every subsequent real victory with doubt. I had a right to be mad.'

His mother sat quietly, expectantly.

The light dawned. Even with his eyes squeezed shut, the intensity of the glare hurt his head.

'Oh. Noooo,' groaned Miles, muffled into the cushion he jammed over his face. 'I did that to her ?'

His remorseless parent let him stew in it, a silence sharper-edged than words.

'I did that to her . . .' he moaned, pitifully.

Pity did not seem to be forthcoming. He clutched the cushion to his chest. 'Oh. God. That's exactly what I did. She said it herself. She said the garden could have been her gift. And I'd taken it away from her. Too. Which made no sense, since it was she who'd just quit . . . I thought she was starting to argue with me. I was so pleased, because I thought, if only she would argue with me . . .'

'You could win?' the Count supplied dryly.

'Uh . . . yeah.'

'Oh, son.' The Count shook his head. 'Oh, poor son.' Miles did not