on. Not only did they fasten, they were loose. She had been sick.
Rather aggressively, she left them on, and chose a long-sleeved flowered smock-top to go with them. Very comfortable. She smiled at her slim, if pale, profile in the mirror.
“Ah, dear Captain.” Aral stuck his head in the bedroom door. “You’re up.” He glanced at Droushnakovi. “You’re both here. Better still. I think I need your help, Cordelia. In fact, I’m certain of it.” Aral’s eyes were alight with the strangest expression. Amazement, bemusement, worry? He let himself in. He was wearing his standard gear for off-duty time at Vorkosigan Surleau, old uniform trousers and a civilian shirt. He was trailed by a tense and miserable Koudelka, dressed in neat black fatigues with his red lieutenant’s tabs bright on the collar. He clutched his swordstick. Drou backed to the wall, and crossed her arms.
“Lieutenant Koudelka—he tells me—wishes to make a confession. He is also, I suspect, hoping for absolution,” said Aral.
“I don’t deserve that, sir,” Koudelka muttered. “But I couldn’t live with myself anymore. This has to come out.” He stared at the floor, meeting no one’s eyes. Droushnakovi watched him breathlessly. Aral eased over and sat on the edge of the bed beside Cordelia.
“Hold on to your hat,” he murmured to her out of the corner of his mouth. “This one took me by surprise.”
“I think I may be way ahead of you.”
“That wouldn’t be a first.” He raised his voice. “Go ahead, Lieutenant. This won’t be any easier for being dragged out.”
“Drou—Miss Droushnakovi—I came to turn myself “in. And to apologize. No, that sounds trivial, and believe me, I don’t think it trivial. You deserve more than apology, I owe you expiation. Whatever you want. But I’m sorry, so sorry I raped you.”
Droushnakovi’s mouth fell open for a full three seconds, then shut so hard Cordelia could hear her teeth snap. “What?!”
Koudelka flinched, but never looked up. “Sorry … sorry,” he mumbled.
“You. Think. You. What?!” gasped Droushnakovi, horrified and outraged. “You think you could—oh!” She stood rigid now, hands clenched, breathing fast. “Kou, you oaf! You idiot! You moron! You-you-you—” Her words sputtered off. Her whole body was shaking. Cordelia watched in utter fascination. Aral rubbed his lips thoughtfully.
Droushnakovi stalked over to Koudelka and kicked his swordstick out of his hand. He almost fell, with a startled “Huh?”, clutching at it and missing as it clattered across the floor.
Drou slammed him expertly into the wall, and paralyzed him with a nerve thrust, her fingers jammed up into his solar plexus. His breath stopped.
“You goon. Do you think you could lay a hand on me without my permission? Oh! To be so, to be so, so, so—” Her baffled words dissolved into a scream of outrage, right next to his ear. He spasmed.
“Please don’t break my secretary, Drou, the repairs are expensive,” said Aral mildly.
“Oh!” She whirled away, releasing Koudelka. He staggered and fell to his knees. Hands over her face, biting her fingers, she stomped out the door, slamming it behind her. Only then did she sob, sharp breaths retreating up the hallway. Another door slammed. Silence.
“I’m sorry, Kou,” said Aral into the long lull. “But it doesn’t look as though your self-accusation stands up in court.”
“I don’t understand.” Kou shook his head, crawled after his swordstick, and climbed very shakily to his feet.
“Do I gather you are both talking about what happened between you the night of the soltoxin attack?” Cordelia asked.
“Yes, Milady. I was sitting up in the library. Couldn’t sleep, thought I’d run over some figures. She came in. We sat, talked… . Suddenly I found myself… well … it was the first time I’d been functional since I was hit by the nerve disruptor. I thought it might be another year, or forever—I panicked, I just panicked. I … took her … right there. Never asked, never said a word. And then came the crash from upstairs, and we both ran out into the back garden and … she never accused me, next day. I waited and waited.”
“But if he didn’t rape her, why did she get so angry just now?” asked Aral.
“But she’s been mad,” said Koudelka. “The looks she’s given me, these last three weeks …”
“The looks were fear, Kou,” Cordelia advised him.
“Yes, that’s what I thought.”
“Because she was afraid she was pregnant, not because she was afraid of you,” Cordelia clarified.
“Oh.” Koudelka’s voice went small.
“She’s not, as it happens.” (Kou echoed himself with another small “Oh.”) “But she’s mad at you now, and I don’t blame her.”
“But if she doesn’t think I—what reason?”
“You don’t see it?” She frowned at Aral. “You either?”
“Well …”
“It’s because you just insulted her, Kou. Not then, but right now, in this room. And not just in slighting her combat prowess. What you just said revealed to her, for the first time, that you were so intent on yourself that night, you never saw her at all. Bad, Kou. Very bad. You owe her a profound apology. Here she was, giving her Barrayaran all to you, and you so little appreciated what she was doing, you didn’t even perceive it.”
His head came up suddenly. “Gave me? Like some charity?”
“Gift of the gods, more like,” murmured Aral, lost in some appreciation of his own.
“I’m not a—” Koudelka’s head swiveled toward the door. “Are you saying I should run after her?”
“Crawl, actually, if I were you,” recommended Aral. “Crawl fast. Slither under her door, go belly-up, let her stomp on you till she gets it out of her system. Then apologize some more. You may yet save the situation.” Aral’s eyes were openly alight with amusement now.
“What do you call that? Total surrender?” said Kou indignantly.
“No. I’d call it winning.” His voice grew a shade cooler. “I’ve seen the war between men and women descend to scorched-earth heroics. Pyres of pride. You don’t want to go down that road. I guarantee it.”
“You’re—Milady! You’re laughing at me! Stop!”
“Then stop making yourself ridiculous,” said Cordelia sharply. “Get your head out of your ass. Think for sixty consecutive seconds about somebody besides yourself.”
“Milady. Milord.” His teeth were gritted now with frozen dignity. He bowed himself out, well slapped. But he turned the wrong way in the hallway, the opposite direction to which Droushnakovi had fled, and clattered down the end stairs.
Aral shook his head helplessly, as Koudelka’s footsteps faded. A splutter escaped him.
Cordelia punched him softly on the arm. “Stop that! It’s not funny to them.” Their eyes met; she sniggered, then caught her breath firmly. “Good heavens, I think he wanted to be a rapist. Odd ambition. Has he been hanging around with Bothari too much?”
This slightly sick joke sobered them both. Aral looked thoughtful. “I think … Kou was flattering his self- doubts. But his remorse was sincere.”
“Sincere, but a trifle smug. I think we may have coddled his self-doubts long enough. It may be time to tack his tail.”
Aral’s shoulders slumped wearily. “He owes her, no doubt. Yet what should I order him to do? It’s worthless, if he doesn’t pay freely.”
Cordelia growled agreement.
It wasn’t until lunch that Cordelia noticed something missing from their little world.
“Where’s the Count?” she asked Aral, as they found the table set only for two by Piotr’s housekeeper, in a front dining room overlooking the lake. The day had failed to warm. The earlier mist had risen only to clot into low scudding grey clouds, windy and chilly. Cordelia had added an old black fatigue jacket of Aral’s over her flowered blouse.
“I thought he went to the stables. For a training session with that new dressage prospect of his,” said Aral, also regarding the table uneasily. “That’s what he told me he was going to do.”
The housekeeper, bringing in soup, volunteered, “No, m’lord. He went off in the groundcar early, with two
