Vorpatril, waking up to his responsibilities as escort, began, “Commander, you don’t know who—”
“Don’t … introduce us, Lord Vorpatril,” Cordelia interrupted him. “We should only embarrass each other further.” She pressed thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes and gathering more conciliating words. And I used to pride myself on keeping my temper. She looked up at their furious faces.
“Commander. My lord.” She correctly deduced the young man’s title from his reference to his father, sitting among the counts. “My words were hasty and rude, and I take them back. I had no right to comment on a private conversation. I apologize. Most humbly.”
“As well you should,” snapped the young lord.
His brother had more self-control, and replied reluctantly, “I accept your apology, madam. I presume the lieutenant is some relative of yours. I apologize for whatever insult you felt was implied.”
“And I accept your apology, Commander. Although Lieutenant Koudelka is not a relation, but only my second-dearest … enemy.” She paused, and they exchanged frowns, hers of irony, his of puzzlement. “I would ask a favor of you, however, sir. Don’t let a comment like that fall in Admiral Vorkosigan’s hearing. Koudelka was one of his officers aboard the
The commander was calming down, although Droushnakovi still looked as if she had a bad taste in her mouth. He smiled a little. “Are you implying I’d find myself doing guard duty on Kyril Island?”
What was Kyril Island? Some distant and unpleasant outpost, apparently. “I … doubt it. He wouldn’t use his office to carry out a personal grudge. But it would cause him unnecessary pain.”
“Madam.” She had puzzled him thoroughly now, this plain-looking woman, so out-of-place in the glittering gallery. He turned back with his brother to watch the show below, and all maintained a sticky silence for another twenty minutes, until the ceremonies stopped for lunch. The crowds in both gallery and floor broke away to meet in the corridors of power.
She found Vorkosigan, Koudelka at his side, speaking with his father Count Piotr and another older man in count’s robes. Vorpatril delivered her and vanished, and Aral greeted her with a tired smile.
“Dear Captain, are you holding up all right? I want you to meet Count Vorhalas. Admiral Rulf Vorhalas was his younger brother. We must go shortly, we’re scheduled for a private lunch with the Princess and Prince Gregor.” Count Vorhalas bowed profoundly over her hand. “Milady. I’m honored.”
“Count. I … only saw your brother briefly. But Admiral Vorhalas struck me as a man of outstanding worth.” And my side blew him away. She felt queasy, with her hand in his, but he seemed to hold no personal animosity.
“Thank you, Milady. We all thought so. Ah, there are the boys. I promised them an introduction. Evon is itching for a place on the Staff, but I told him he’d have to earn it. I wish Carl had as much interest in the Service. My daughter will be mad with jealousy. You’ve stirred up all the girls, you know, Milady.”
The count darted away to round up his sons. Oh, God, thought Cordelia. It would have to be them. The two men who had sat before her in the gallery were presented to her. They both blanched, and bowed nervously over her hand.
“But you’ve met,” said Vorkosigan. “I saw you talking in the gallery. What did you find to discuss so animatedly, Cordelia?”
“Oh … geology. Zoology. Courtesy. Much on courtesy. We had quite a wide-ranging discussion. We each of us taught the other something, I think.” She smiled, and did not flick an eyelid.
Commander Evon Vorhalas, looking rather ill, said, “Yes. I’ve … had a lesson I’ll never forget, Milady.”
Vorkosigan was continuing the introductions. “Commander Vorhalas, Lord Carl; Lieutenant Koudelka.”
Koudelka, loaded with plastic flimsies, disks, the baton of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces that had just been presented to Vorkosigan as Regent-elect, and his own stick, and uncertain whether to shake hands or salute, managed to drop them all and do neither. There was a general scramble to retrieve the load, and Koudelka went red, bending awkwardly after it. Droushnakovi and he put a hand on his stick at the same time.
“I don’t need your help, miss,” Koudelka snarled at her in a low voice, and she recoiled to go stand rigidly behind Cordelia.
Commander Vorhalas handed him back some disks. “Pardon me, sir,” said Koudelka. “Thank you.”
“Not at all, Lieutenant. I was almost hit by disruptor fire myself once. Scared the hell out of me. You are an example to us all.”
“It … didn’t hurt, sir.”
Cordelia, who knew from personal experience that this was a lie, held her peace, satisfied. The group broke up for its separate destinations. Cordelia paused before Evon Vorhalas.
“Nice to meet you, Commander. I predict you will go far, in your future career—and not in the direction of Kyril Island.”
Vorhalas smiled tightly. “I believe you will, too, Milady.” They exchanged wary and respectful nods, and Cordelia turned to take Vorkosigan’s arm, and follow him to his next task, trailed by Koudelka and Droushnakovi.
The Barrayaran Emperor slipped into his final coma a week later, but lingered on another week beyond that. Aral and Cordelia were routed out of bed at Vorkosigan House in the early hours of the morning by a special messenger from the Imperial Residence, with the simple words, “The doctor thinks it’s time, sir.” They dressed hastily, and accompanied the messenger back to the beautiful chamber Ezar had chosen for the last month of his life, its priceless antiques cluttered over with off-worlder medical equipment.
The room was crowded, with the old man’s personal physicians, Vortala, Count Piotr and themselves, the Princess and Prince Gregor, several ministers, and some men from the General Staff. They kept a quiet, standing death-watch for almost an hour before the still, decayed figure on the bed took on, almost imperceptibly, an added stillness. Cordelia thought it a gruesome scene to which to subject the boy, but his presence seemed ceremonially necessary. Very quietly, beginning with Vorkosigan, they turned to kneel and place their hands between Gregor’s, to renew their oaths of fealty.
Cordelia too was guided by Vorkosigan to kneel before the boy. The prince—Emperor—had his mothers hair, but hazel eyes like Ezar and Serg, and Cordelia found herself wondering how much of his father, or his grandfather, was latent in him, its expression waiting on the power that would come with age. Do you bear curses in your chromosomes, child? she wondered as her hands were placed between his. Cursed or blessed, regardless, she gave him her oath. The words seemed to cut her last tie to Beta Colony; it parted with a ping! audible only to her.
I am a Barrayaran now. It had been a long strange journey, that began with a view of a pair of boots in the mud, and ended in these clean child’s hands. Do you know I helped kill your father, boy? Will you ever know? Pray not. She wondered if it was delicacy or oversight, that she had never been required to give oath to Ezar Vorbarra.
Of all present, only Captain Negri wept. Cordelia only knew this because she was standing next to him, in the darkest corner of the room, and saw him twice brush his face with the back of his hand. His face grew suffused, and more lined, for a time; when he stepped forward to take his oath, it had returned to his normal blank hardness.
The five days of funeral ceremonies that followed were grueling for Cordelia, but not, she was led to understand, so grueling as the ones had been for Crown Prince Serg, which had run for two weeks, despite the absence of a body for a centerpiece. The public view was that Prince Serg had died the death of a heroic soldier. By Cordelia’s count, only five human beings knew the whole truth of that subtle assassination. No, four, now that Ezar was no more. Perhaps the grave was the safest repository of Ezar’s secrets. Well, the old man’s torment was over now, his time done, his era passing.
There was no coronation as such for the boy Emperor, but instead a surprisingly business-like, if elegantly garbed, several days spent back in the Council chambers collecting personal oaths from ministers, counts, a host of their relatives, and anybody else who had not already made their vows in Ezar’s death chamber. Vorkosigan too received oaths, seeming to grow burdened with their accumulation as if each had a physical weight.
The boy, closely supported by his mother, held up well. Kareen made sure Gregor’s hourly breaks to rest were respected by the busy, impatient men who had thronged to the capital to discharge their obligation. The strangeness of the Barrayaran government system, with all its unwritten customs, pressed on Cordelia not so much at first glance, but gradually. And yet it seemed to work for them, somehow. They made it work. Pretending a
