belly flecked with fresh mud. In addition to an old cavalry saddle like Piotr’s horse’s, the pinto bore four large saddlebags, a pair in front and a pair behind, and a bedroll. The old man, as unshaven as Piotr, wore an Imperial Postal Service jacket so weatherworn its blue had turned grey. This was supplemented by odd bits of other old uniforms: a black fatigue shirt, an ancient pair of trousers from a set of dress greens, worn but well-oiled officer’s knee-high riding boots on his bent bowlegs. He also wore a non-regulation felt hat with a few dried flowers stuck in its faded print headband. He smacked his black-stained lips and stared at Cordelia. He was missing several teeth; the rest were long and yellow-brown. The old man’s gaze fell on Gregor, holding Cordelia’s hand. “So that’s him, eh? Huh. Not much.” He spat reflectively into the weeds by the side of the path.
“Might do in time,” asserted Piotr. “If he gets time.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Gen’ral.” Piotr grinned, as if at some private joke. “You have any rations on you?”
“ ’Course.” The old man smirked, and turned to rummage in one of his saddlebags. He came up with a package of raisins in a discarded plastic flimsy, some little cakes of brownish crystals wrapped in leaves, and what looked like a handful of strips of leather, again in a twist made of a used plastic flimsy. Cordelia caught a heading, Update of Postal Regluations C6.77a, modified 6/17. File Immediately In Permanent Files.
Piotr looked the stores over judiciously. “Dried goat?” He nodded toward the leathery mess. “Mostly,” said the old man.
“We’ll take half. And the raisins. Save the maple sugar for the children.” Piotr popped one cube in his mouth, though. “I’ll find you in maybe three days, maybe a week. You remember the drill from Yuri’s War, eh?”
“Oh, yes,” drawled the old man.
“Sergeant.” Piotr waved Bothari to him. “You go with the Major, here. Take her, and the boy. He’ll take you to ground. Lie low till I come get you.”
“Yes, m’lord,” Bothari intoned flatly. Only his flickering eyes betrayed his uneasiness.
“What we got here, Gen’ral?” inquired the old man, looking up at Bothari. “New one?”
“A city boy,” said Piotr. “Belongs to my son. Doesn’t talk much. He’s good at throats, though. He’ll do.”
“Aye? Good.”
Piotr was moving a lot more slowly. He waited for Esterhazy to give him a leg up on his horse. He settled into his saddle with a sigh, his back temporarily curved in an uncharacteristic slump. “Damn, but I’m getting old for this sort of thing.”
Thoughtfully, the man Piotr had called the Major reached into a side pocket and pulled out a leather pouch. “Want my gum-leaf, Gen’ral? A better chew than goat, if not as long-lasting.”
Piotr brightened. “Ah. I would be most grateful. But not your whole pouch, man.” Piotr dug among the pressed dried leaves that filled the container, and crumbled himself off a generous half, which he stuffed in his breast pocket. He put a wad in his cheek, and returned the pouch with a sincere salute. Gum-leaf was a mild stimulant; Cordelia had never seen Piotr chew it in Vorbarr Sultana.
“Take care of m’lords horses,” called Esterhazy rather desperately to Bothari. “They’re not machines, remember.
Bothari grunted something noncommittal, as the Count and Esterhazy headed their animals back down the trail. They were out of sight in a few moments. A profound quiet descended.
Chapter Twelve
The Major put Gregor, comfortably padded by the bedroll and saddlebags, up behind him. Cordelia faced one more climb onto that torture-device for humans and horses called a saddle. She would never have made it without Bothari. The Major took her reins this time, and Rose and his horse walked side by side with a lot less jerking of the bridle. Bothari dropped back, trailing watchfully.
“So,” said the old man after a time, with a sideways look at her, “you’re the new Lady Vorkosigan.”
Cordelia, rumpled and filthy, smiled back desperately. “Yes. Ah, Count Piotr didn’t mention your name, Major … ?”
“Amor Klyeuvi, Milady. But folks up here just call me Kly.”
“And, uh … what are you?” Besides some mountain kobold Piotr had conjured out of the ground.
He smiled, an expression more repellent than attractive given the state of his teeth. “I’m the Imperial Mail, Milady. I ride the circuit through these hills, out of Vorkosigan Surleau, every ten days. Been at it for eighteen years. There are grown kids up here with kids of their own who never knew me as anything but Kly the Mail.”
“I thought mail went to these parts by lightflyer.”
“They’re phasing them in. But the flyers don’t go to every house, just to these central drop—points. No courtesy to it, anymore.” He spat disgust and gum-leaf. “But if the General’ll hold ’em off another two years here, I’ll make my last twenty, and be a triple-twenty-years Service man. I retired with my double-twenty, see.”
“From what branch, Major Klyuevi?”
“Imperial Rangers.” He watched slyly for her reaction; she rewarded him with impressed raised brows. “I was a throat-cutter, not a tech. ’S why I could never go higher than major. Got my start at age fourteen, in these mountains, running rings around the Cetagandans with the General and Ezar. Never did get back to school after that. Just training courses. The Service passed me by, in time.”
“Not entirely, it seems,” said Cordelia, staring around the apparently unpeopled wilderness.
“No …” His breath became a purse-lipped sigh, as he glanced back over his shoulder at Gregor in meditative unease.
“Did Piotr tell you what happened yesterday afternoon?”
“No. I left the lake day-before-yesterday morning. Missed all the excitement. I expect the news will catch up with me before noon.”
“Is … anything else likely to catch up with us by then?”
“We’ll just have to see.” He added more hesitantly, “You’ll have to get out of those clothes, Milady. The name VORKOSIGAN, A., in big block letters over your jacket-pocket isn’t any too anonymous.”
Cordelia glanced down at Aral’s black fatigue shirt, quelled.
“My lord’s livery sticks out like a flag, too,” Kly added, looking back at Bothari. “But you’ll pass well enough, in the right clothes. I’ll see what I can do, in a bit here.”
Cordelia sagged, her belly aching in anticipation of rest. Refuge. But at what price to those who gave her refuge? “Will helping us put you in danger?”
His tufted grey brow rose. “Belike.” His tone did not invite further comment on the topic.
She had to bring her tired mind back on-line somehow, if she was to be asset and not hazard to everyone around her. “That gum-leaf of yours. Does it work anything like coffee?”
“Oh, better than coffee, Milady.”
“Can I try some?” Shyness lowered her voice; it might be too intimate a request.
His cheeks creased in a dry grin. “Only backcountry sticks like me chew gum-leaf, Milady. Pretty Vor ladies from the capital wouldn’t be caught dead with it in their pearly teeth.”
“I’m not pretty, I’m not a lady, and I’m not from the capital. And I’d kill for coffee right now. I’ll try it.”
He let his reins drop to his steadily plodding horse’s neck, rummaged in his blue-grey jacket pocket, and pulled out his pouch. He broke off a chunk, in none-too-clean fingers, and leaned across.
She regarded it a doubtful moment, dark and leafy in her palm. Never put strange organics in your mouth till they’ve been cleared by the lab. She lapped it up. The wad was made self-sticking by a bit of maple syrup, but after her saliva washed away the first startling sweetness, the flavor was pleasantly bitter and astringent. It seemed to peel away the night’s film coating her teeth, a real improvement. She straightened.
Kly regarded her with bemusement. “So what are you, off-worlder not-a-lady?”
“I was an astrocartographer. Then a Survey captain. Then a soldier, then a POW, then a refugee. And then I was a wife, and then I was a mother. I don’t know what I’m going to be next,” she answered honestly, around the gum-leaf. Pray not widow.
“Mother? I’d heard you were pregnant, but … didn’t you lose your baby to the soltoxin?” He eyed her waist
