“This is very undignified,” Aral complained as she let him up.
“Afraid I’ll shock Negri’s fisher of men out there?”
“They’re beyond shock, I guarantee.”
Cordelia waved at the distant hoverboat, whose occupant steadfastly ignored the gesture. She had been at first angered, then resigned to learn that Aral was being kept under continuous observation by Imperial Security. The price, she’d supposed, of his involvement in the secret and lethal politics of the Escobar War, and the penalty for some of his less welcome outspoken opinions.
“I can see why you took up baiting them for a hobby. Maybe we ought to unbend and invite them to lunch or something. I feel they must know me so well by now, I’d like to know them.” Had Negri’s man recorded the domestic conversation she’d just had? Were there bugs in their bedroom? Their bathroom?
Aral grinned, but replied, “They wouldn’t be permitted to accept. They don’t eat or drink anything but what they bring themselves.”
“Heavens, how paranoid. Is that really necessary?”
“Sometimes. Theirs is a dangerous trade. I don’t envy them.”
“I’d think sitting around down here watching you would constitute a nice little vacation. He’s got to have a great suntan.”
“The sitting around is the hardest part. They may sit for a year, and then be called to five minutes of all-out action of deadly importance. But they have to be instantly ready for that five minutes the whole year. Quite a strain. I much prefer attack to defense.”
“I still don’t understand why anybody would want to bother you. I mean, you’re just a retired officer, living in obscurity. There must be hundreds like you, even of high Vor blood.”
“Hm.” He’d rested his gaze on the distant boat, avoiding answer, then jumped to his feet. “Come on. Let’s go spring the good news on Father.”
Well, she understood it now. Count Piotr drew her hand through his arm, and carried her off to the dining room, where he ate a late supper between demands for the latest obstetrical report, and pressed fresh garden dainties upon her that he’d brought with him from the country. She ate grapes obediently.
After the Count’s supper, walking arm in arm with him into the foyer, Cordelia’s ear was caught by the sound of raised voices coming from the library. The words were muffled but the tones were sharp, chop-cadenced. Cordelia paused, disturbed.
After a moment the—argument?—stopped, the library door swung open, and a man stalked out. Cordelia could see Aral and Count Vortala through the aperture. Aral’s face was set, his eyes burning. Vortala, an age- shrunken man with a balding liver-spotted head fringed with white, was brick-pink to the top of his naked scalp. With a curt gesture the man collected his waiting liveried retainer, who followed smartly, blank-faced.
The curt man was about forty years old, Cordelia guessed, dressed expensively in the upper-class style, dark-haired. He was rendered a bit dish-faced by a prominent forehead and jaw that his nose and moustache had trouble overpowering. Neither handsome nor ugly, in another mood one might call him strong-featured. Now he just looked sour. He paused, coming upon Count Piotr in the foyer, and managed—just barely—a polite nod of greeting. “Vorkosigan,” he said thickly. A reluctant good evening was encoded in his jerky half-bow.
The old count tilted his head in return, eyebrows up. “Vordarian.” His tone made the name an inquiry.
Vordarian’s lips were tight, his hands clenching in unconscious rhythm with his jaw. “Mark my words,” he ground out, “you, and I, and every other man of worth on Barrayar will live to regret tomorrow.”
Piotr pursed his lips, wariness in the crow’s-feet corners of his eyes. “My son will not betray his class, Vordarian.”
“You blind yourself.” His stare cut across Cordelia, not lingering long enough to be construed as insult, but cold, very cold, repelling introduction. With effort, he made the minimum courtesy of a farewell nod, turned, and exited the front door with his retainer-shadow.
Aral and Vortala emerged from the library. Aral drifted to the foyer to stare moodily into the darkness through the etched glass panels flanking the door. Vortala placed a placating hand on his sleeve.
“Let him go,” said Vortala. “We can live without his vote tomorrow.”
“I don’t plan to go running down the street after him,” Aral snapped. “Nevertheless … next time, save your wit for those with the brains to appreciate it, eh?”
“Who was that irate fellow?” asked Cordelia lightly, trying to lift the black mood.
“Count Vidal Vordarian.” Aral turned from the glass panel back to her, and managed a smile for her benefit. “Commodore Count Vordarian. I used to work with him from time to time when I was on the General Staff. He is now a leader in what you might call the next-to-most conservative party on Barrayar; not the back-to-the-Time-of- Isolation loonies, but, shall we say, those honestly fearing all change is change for the worse.” He glanced covertly at Count Piotr.
“His name was mentioned frequently, in speculation about the upcoming Regency,” Vortala commented. “I rather fear he may have been counting on it for himself. He’s made great efforts to cultivate Kareen.”
“He should have been cultivating Ezar,” said Aral dryly. “Well … maybe he’ll come down out of the air overnight. Try him again in the morning, Vortala—a little more humbly this time, eh?”
“Coddling Vordarian’s ego could be a full-time task,” grumbled Vortala. “He spends too damn much time studying his family tree.”
Aral grimaced agreement. “He’s not the only one.”
“He is to hear him tell it,” growled Vortala.
Chapter Three
The next day Cordelia had an official escort to the full Joint Council session in the person of Captain Lord Padma Xav Vorpatril. He turned out to be not only a member of her husband’s new staff, but also his first cousin, son of Aral’s long-dead mother’s younger sister. Lord Vorpatril was the first close relative of Aral’s Cordelia had encountered besides Count Piotr. It wasn’t that Aral’s relatives were avoiding her, as she might have feared; he had a real dearth of them. He and Vorpatril were the only surviving children of the previous generation, of whom Count Piotr was himself the last living representative. Vorpatril was a big cheerful man of about thirty-five, clean-cut in his dress greens. He had also, she discovered shortly, been one of her husband’s junior officers during his first captaincy, before Vorkosigan’s military successes of the Komarr campaign and its politically ruinous aftermath.
She sat with Vorpatril on one side and Droushnakovi on the other, in an ornate-railed gallery overlooking the Council chamber. The chamber itself was a surprisingly plain room, though heavy with what still seemed to Cordelia’s Betan eye to be incredibly luxurious wood paneling. Wooden benches and desks ringed the room. Morning light poured through stained-glass windows high in the east wall. The colorful ceremonies were played out below with great punctilio.
The ministers wore archaic-looking black and purple robes set off by gold chains of office. They were outnumbered by the nearly sixty District counts, even more splendid in scarlet and silver. A sprinkling of men young enough to be on active service in the military wore the red and blue parade uniform. Vorkosigan had been right in describing the parade uniform as gaudy, Cordelia reflected, but in the wonderful setting of this ancient room the gaud seemed most appropriate. Vorkosigan looked quite good in his set, she thought.
Prince Gregor and his mother were seated on a dais to one side of the chamber. The princess wore a black gown shot with silver decoration, high-necked and long-sleeved. Her dark-haired son looked rather like an elf in his red and blue uniform. Cordelia thought he fidgeted remarkably little, under the circumstances.
The Emperor too had a ghostly presence, over closed circuit commlink from the Imperial Residence. Ezar was shown in the holovid seated, in full uniform, at what physical cost Cordelia could not guess, the tubes and monitor leads piercing his body concealed at least from the vid pickup. His face was paper—white, his skin almost transparent, as if he were literally fading from the stage he had dominated for so long.
The gallery was crammed with wives, staff, and guards. The women were elegantly dressed and decorated with jewelry, and Cordelia studied them with interest, then turned her attention back to pumping Vorpatril for information.
“Was Aral’s appointment as Regent a surprise to you?” she asked.
