lift her chin and laugh. His hand rested a moment familiarly upon her robed knee, and her hand briefly covered his, before he clambered back to his feet and bowed, and made way for the next man. Kareen’s smile faded as Vordarian turned his back.
Gregor’s sad glance crossed Aral, Cordelia, and Droushnakovi; he spoke earnestly up to his mother. Kareen motioned a guard over, and a few minutes later a guard commander approached them, for permission to carry off Drou. She was replaced by an unobtrusive young man who trailed them out of earshot, a mere flicker at the corner of the eye, a neat trick for a fellow that large.
Happily, Cordelia and Aral soon ran across Lord and Lady Vorpatril, someone Cordelia dared talk to without a politico-social pre-briefing. Captain Lord Vorpatril’s parade red-and-blues set off his dark-haired good looks to perfection. Lady Vorpatril barely outshone him in a carnelian dress with matching roses woven into her cloud of black hair, stunning against her velvety white skin. They made, Cordelia thought, an archetypal Vor couple, sophisticated and serene, the effect only slightly spoiled by the gradual awareness from his disjointed conversation that Captain Vorpatril was drunk. He was a cheerful drunk, though, his personality merely stretched a bit, not unpleasantly transformed.
Vorkosigan, drawn away by some men who bore down on him with Purpose in their eyes, handed Cordelia off to Lady Vorpatril. The two women cruised the elegant hors d’oeuvre trays being offered around by yet more human servants, and compared obstetrical reports. Lord Vorpatril hastily excused himself to pursue a tray bearing wine. Alys plotted the colors and cut of Cordelia’s next gown. “Black and white, for you, for Winterfair,” she asserted with authority. Cordelia nodded meekly, wondering if they were actually going to sit down for a meal soon, or if they were expected to keep grazing off the passing trays.
Alys guided her to the ladies’ lavatory, an object of hourly interest to their pregnancy-crowded bladders, and introduced her on the return journey to several more women of her rarified social circle. Alys then fell into an animated discussion with a longstanding crony regarding an upcoming party for the woman’s daughter, and Cordelia drifted to the edge of the group.
She stepped back quietly, separating herself (she tried not to think, from the herd) for a moment of quiet contemplation. What a strange mix Barrayar was, at one moment homey and familiar, in the next terrifying and alien … they put on a good show, though … ah! That’s what was missing from the scene, Cordelia realized. On Beta Colony a ceremony of this magnitude would be fully covered by holovid, to be shared real-time planet-wide. Every move would be a carefully choreographed dance around the vid angles and commentators’ timing, almost to the point of annihilating the event being recorded. Here, there wasn’t a holovid in sight. The only recordings were made by ImpSec, for their own purposes, which did not include choreography. The people in this room danced only for each other, all their glittering show tossed blithely away in time, which carried it off forever; the event would exist tomorrow only in their memories.
“Lady Vorkosigan?”
Cordelia started from her meditations at the urbane voice at her elbow. She turned to find Commodore Count Vordarian. His wearing of red-and-blues, rather than his personal House livery colors, marked him as being on active service, ornamenting Imperial Headquarters no doubt—in what department? Yes, Ops, Aral had said. He had a drink in his hand, and smiled cordially.
“Count Vordarian,” she offered in return, smiling, too. They’d seen each other in passing often enough, Cordelia decided to take him as introduced. This Regency business wasn’t going to go away, however much she might wish it to; it was time and past time for her to start making connections of her own, and quit pestering Aral for guidance at every new step.
“Are you enjoying the party?” he inquired.
“Oh, yes.” She tried to think of something more to say. “It’s extremely beautiful.”
“As are you, Milady.” He raised his glass to her in a gesture of toast, and sipped.
Her heart lurched, but she identified the reason why before her eyes did more than widen slightly. The last Barrayaran officer to toast her had been the late Admiral Vorrutyer, under rather different social circumstances. Vordarian had accidently mimicked his precise gesture. This was no time for torture-flashbacks. Cordelia blinked. “Lady Vorpatril helped me a lot. She’s very generous.”
Vordarian nodded delicately toward her torso. “I understand you also are to be congratulated. Is it a boy or a girl?”
“Uh? Oh. Yes, a boy, thank you. He’s to be named Piotr Miles, I’m told.”
“I’m surprised. I should have thought the Lord Regent would have sought a daughter first.”
Cordelia cocked her head, puzzled by his ironic tone. “We started this before Aral became Regent.”
“But you knew he was to receive the appointment, surely.”
“I didn’t. But I thought all you Barrayaran militarists were mad after sons. Why did you think a daughter?” I want a daughter… .
“I assumed Lord Vorkosigan would be thinking ahead to his long-term, ah, employment, of course. What better way to maintain the continuity of his power after the Regency is over than to slip neatly into position as the Emperors father-in-law?”
Cordelia boggled. “You think he’d bet the continuity of a planetary government on the chance of a couple of teenagers falling in love, a decade and a half from now?”
“Love?” Now he looked baffled.
“You Barrayarans are—” she bit her tongue on the crazy. Impolite. “Aral is certainly more … practical.” Though she could hardly call him unromantic.
“That’s extremely interesting,” he breathed. His eyes flicked to and away from her abdomen. “Do you fancy he contemplates something more direct?”
Her mind was running tangential to this twisting conversation, somehow. “Beg pardon?”
He smiled and shrugged.
Cordelia frowned. “Do you mean to say, if we were having a girl, that’s what everyone would be thinking?”
“Certainly.”
She blew out her breath. “God. That’s … I can’t imagine anyone in their right mind wanting to get near the Barrayaran Imperium. It just makes you a target for every maniac with a grievance, as far as I can see.” An image of Lieutenant Koudelka, bloody-faced and deafened, flashed in her mind. “Also hard on the poor fellow who’s unlucky enough to be standing next to you.”
His attention sharpened. “Ah, yes, that unfortunate incident the other day. Has anything come of the investigation, do you know?”
“Nothing that I’ve heard. Negri and Illyan are talking Cetagandans, mostly. But the guy who launched the grenade got away clean.”
“Too bad.” He drained his glass, and exchanged it for a freshly charged one presented immediately by a passing Vorbarra-liveried servant. Cordelia eyed the wineglasses wistfully. But she was off metabolic poisons for the duration. Yet another advantage of Betan-style gestation in uterine replicators, none of this blasted enforced clean living. At home she could have poisoned and endangered herself freely, while her child grew, fully monitored round- the-clock by sober techs, safe and protected in the replicator banks. Suppose she had been under that sonic grenade … She longed for a drink.
Well, she did not need the mind-numbing buzz of ethanol; conversation with Barrayarans was mind- numbing enough. Her eyes sought Aral in the crowd—there he was, Kou at his shoulder, talking with Piotr and two other grizzled old men in counts’ liveries. As Aral had predicted, his hearing had returned to normal within a couple of days. Yet still his eyes shifted from face to face, drinking in cues of gesture and inflection, his glass a mere untasted ornament in his hand. On duty, no question. Was he ever off-duty, anymore?
“Was he much disturbed by the attack?” Vordarian inquired, following her gaze to Aral.
“Wouldn’t you be?” said Cordelia. “I don’t know … he’s seen so much violence in his life, almost more than I can imagine. It may be almost like … white noise. Tuned out.” I wish I could tune it out.
“You have not known him that long, though. Just since Escobar.”
“We met once before the war. Briefly.”
“Oh?” His brows rose. “I didn’t know that. How little one truly knows of people.” He paused, watching Aral, watching her watch Aral. One corner of his mouth crooked up, then the quirk vanished in a thoughtful pursing of his lips. “He’s bisexual, you know.” He took a delicate sip of his wine.
