enter the library and seat himself, stiffly and carefully, at the comconsole. I shan’t interrupt him; he at least has real work to do, she thought, not yet returning to her page, but still comforted by his unconscious company.
He worked only for a moment or two, then shut down the machine with a sigh, staring abstractedly into the empty carved fireplace that was the room’s original centerpiece, still not noticing her. So, I’m not the only one who can’t concentrate. Maybe it’s this strange grey weather. It does seem to have a depressing effect on people…
Picking up his swordstick, he ran a hand down the smooth length of its casing. He clicked it open, holding it firmly and releasing the spring silently and slowly. He sighted along the length of the gleaming blade, which almost seemed to glow with a light of its own in the shadowed room, and angled it, as if meditating on its pattern and fine workmanship. He then turned it end for end, point over his left shoulder and hilt away from him. He wrapped a handkerchief around the blade for a hold, and pressed it, very lightly, against the side of his neck over the area of the carotid artery. The expression on his face was distant and thoughtful, his grip on the blade as light as a lover’s. His hand tightened suddenly.
Her indrawn breath, the first half of a sob, startled him from his reverie. He looked up to see her for the first time; his lips thinned and his face turned a dusky red. He swung the sword down. It left a white line on his neck, like part of a necklace, with a few ruby drops of blood welling along it.
“I … didn’t see you, Milady,” he said hoarsely. “I … don’t mind me. Just fooling around, you know.”
They stared at each other in silence. Her own words broke from her lips against her will. “I hate this place! I’m afraid all the time, now.”
She turned her face into the high side of the sofa, and, to her own horror, began to cry. Stop it! Not in front of Kou of all people! The man has enough real troubles without you dumping your imaginary ones on him. But she couldn’t stop.
He levered himself up and limped over to her couch, looking worried. Tentatively, he seated himself beside her.
“Um …” he began. “Don’t cry, Milady. I was just fooling around, really.” He patted her clumsily on the shoulder.
“Garbage,” she choked back at him. “You scare the hell out of me.” On impulse she transferred her tear- smeared face from the cold silken fabric of the sofa to the warm roughness of the shoulder of his green uniform. It tore a like honesty from him.
“You can’t imagine what it’s like,” he whispered fiercely. “They pity me, you know? Even he does.” A jerk of his head in no particular direction indicated Vorkosigan. “It’s a hundred times worse than the scorn. And it’s going to go on forever.”
She shook her head, devoid of answer in the face of this undoubted truth.
“I hate this place, too,” he continued. “Just as much as it hates me. More, some days. So you see, you’re not alone.”
“So many people trying to kill him,” she whispered back, despising herself for her weakness. “Total strangers … one of them is bound to succeed in the end. I think about it all the time, now.” Would it be a bomb? Some poison? Plasma arc, burning away Aral’s face, leaving no lips even to kiss goodbye?
Koudelka’s attention was drawn achingly from his pain to hers, brows drawing quizzically together.
“Oh, Kou,” she went on, looking down blindly into his lap and stroking his sleeve. “No matter how much it hurts, don’t do it to him. He loves you … you’re like a son to him, just the sort of son he always wanted. That,” she nodded toward the sword laid on the couch, shinier than silk, “would cut out his heart. This place pours craziness on him every day, and demands he give back justice. He can’t do it except with a whole heart. Or he must eventually start giving back the craziness, like every one of his predecessors. And,” she added in a burst of uncontrollable illogic, “it’s so damn wet here! It won’t be my fault if my son is born with gills!”
His arms encircled her in a kindly hug. “Are you … afraid of the childbirth?” he inquired, with a gentle and unexpected perceptiveness.
Cordelia went still, suddenly face-to-face with her tightly suppressed fears. “I don’t trust your doctors,” she admitted shakily.
He smiled in deep irony. “I can’t blame you.”
A laugh puffed from her, and she hugged him back, around the chest, and raised her hand to wipe away the tiny drops of blood from the side of his neck. “When you love someone, it’s like your skin covers theirs. Every hurt is doubled. And I do love you so, Kou. I wish you’d let me help you.”
“Therapy, Cordelia?” Vorkosigan’s voice was cold, and cut like a stinging spray of rattling hail. She looked up, surprised, to see him standing before them, his face frozen as his voice. “I realize you have a great deal of Betan … expertise, in such matters, but I beg you will leave the project to someone else.”
Koudelka turned red, and recoiled from her. “Sir,” he began, and trailed off, as startled as Cordelia by the icy anger in Vorkosigan’s eyes. Vorkosigan’s gaze flicked over him, and they both clamped their jaws shut.
Cordelia drew in a very deep breath for a retort, but released it only as a furious “Oh!” at Vorkosigan’s back as he wheeled and stalked out, spine stiff as Kou’s swordblade.
Koudelka, still red, folded into himself, and using his sword as a prop levered himself to his feet, his breath too rapid. “Milady. I beg your pardon.” The words seemed quite without meaning.
“Kou,” said Cordelia, “you know he didn’t mean that hateful thing. He spoke without thinking. I’m sure he doesn’t, doesn’t …”
“Yes, I realize,” returned Koudelka, his eyes blank and hard. “I am universally known to be quite harmless to any man’s marriage, I believe. But if you will excuse me—Milady—I do have some work to do. Of a sort.”
“Oh!” Cordelia didn’t know if she was more furious with Vorkosigan, Koudelka, or herself. She steamed to her feet and left the room, throwing her words back over her shoulder. “Damn all Barrayarans to hell anyway!”
Droushnakovi appeared in her path, with a timid, “Milady?”
“And you, you useless … frill,” snarled Cordelia, her rage escaping helplessly in all directions now. “Why can’t you manage your own affairs? You Barrayaran women seem to expect your lives to be handed to you on a platter. It doesn’t work that way!”
The girl stepped back a pace, bewildered. Cordelia contained her seething outrage, and asked more sensibly, “Which way did Aral go?”
“Why … upstairs, I believe, Milady.”
A little of her old and battered humor came to her rescue then. “Two steps at a time, by chance?”
“Um … three, actually,” Drou replied faintly.
“I suppose I’d better go talk to him,” said Cordelia, running her hands through her hair and wondering if tearing it out would have any practical benefit. “Son of a bitch.” She did not know herself if that was expletive or description. And to think I never used to swear.
She trudged after him, her anger draining with her energy as she climbed the stairs. This pregnancy business sure slows you down. She passed a duty guard in the corridor. “Lord Vorkosigan go this way?” she asked him.
“To his rooms, Milady,” he replied, and stared curiously after her. Great. Love it, she thought savagely. The old newlyweds’ first real fight will have plenty of built-in audience. These old walls are not soundproof. I wonder if I can keep my voice down? Aral’s no problem; when he gets mad he whispers.
She entered their bedroom, to find him seated on the side of the bed, removing uniform jacket and boots with violent, jerky gestures. He looked up, and they glared at each other. Cordelia opened fire first, thinking, Let’s get this over with.
“That remark you made in front of Kou was totally out of line.”
“What, I walk in to find my wife … cuddling, with one of my officers, and you expect me to make polite conversation about the weather?” he bit back.
“You know it was nothing of the sort.”
“Fine. Suppose it hadn’t been me? Suppose it had been one of the duty guards, or my father. How would you have explained it then? You know what they think of Betans. They’d jump on it, and the rumors would never be stopped. Next thing I knew, it would be coming back at me as political chaff. Every enemy I have out there is just waiting for a weak spot to pounce on. They’d love one like that.”
“How the devil did we get onto your damned politics? I’m talking about a friend. I doubt you could have come up with a more wounding remark if you’d funded a study project. That was foul, Aral! What’s the matter with you, anyway?”
