Cetaganda

the perfumes, though, there was something else, a faint, oily acridity. . . .

Yenaro picked up a pitcher from the bench and walked toward the pole. 'More zlati ale?' Ivan murmured dryly.

Recognition and memory zinged through Miles, followed by a wave of adrenaline that nearly stopped his heart before it began racing. 'Grab that pitcher, Ivan! Don't let him spill it!'

Ivan did. Yenaro gave up his hold with a surprised snort. 'Really, Lord Ivan!'

Miles dropped prone to the thick carpet, sniffing frantically. Yes.

'What are you doing?' asked Lady Benello, half-laughing. 'The rug isn't part of it!'

Oh, yes it is. 'Ivan,' said Miles urgently, scrambling back to his feet. 'Hand me that—carefully— and tell me what you smell down there.'

Miles took the pitcher much more tenderly than he would have a basket of raw eggs. Ivan, with a look of some bewilderment, did as he was told. He sniffed, then ran his hand through the carpet, and touched his fingers to his lips. And turned white. Miles knew Ivan had reached the same conclusion he had even before he turned his head and hissed, 'Asterzine!'

Miles tiptoed back well away from the carpet, lifted the pitcher's lid, and sniffed again. A faint odor resembling vanilla and oranges, gone slightly wrong, wafted up, which was exactly right.

And Yenaro had been going to dump it all, Miles was sure. At his own feet. With Lady Benello and Lady Arvin looking on. Miles thought of the fate of Lord X's, Prince Slyke's, last tool, the Ba Lura. No. Yenaro doesn't know. He may hate Barrayarans, but he's not that frigging crazy. He was set up right along with us, this time. Third time's a charm, all right.

When Ivan rose, his jaw set and his eyes burning, Miles motioned him over and handed him the pitcher again. Ivan took it gingerly, stepping back another pace. Miles knelt and tore off a few threads from the carpet's edge. The threads parted with a gum-like stretching, confirming his diagnosis. 'Lord Vorkosigan!' Lady Arvin objected, her brows drawn down in amused puzzlement at the Barrayarans' bizarre barbarian behavior.

Miles traded the threads to Ivan for the pitcher again, and jerked his head toward Yenaro. 'Bring him. Excuse us, please, ladies. Um . . . man-talk.'

Rather to his surprise, this appeal actually worked; Lady Arvin only arched her brows, though Lady Benello pouted slightly. Ivan wrapped one hand around Yenaro's upper arm, and guided him out of the display area. Ivan's grip tightened in silent threat when Yenaro tried to shrug him off. Yenaro looked angry and tight-lipped and just a little embarrassed.

They found an empty nook a few spaces down. Ivan stood himself and his captive with their backs to the path, shielding Miles from view. Miles gently set the pitcher down, stood, jerked up his chin, and addressed Yenaro in a low-pitched growl. 'I will demonstrate what you almost did in just a moment. What I want to know now is just what the hell you thought you were doing?'

'I don't know what you're talking about,' snapped Yenaro. 'Let go, you lout!'

Ivan kept his hold, frowning fiercely. 'Demonstrate first, coz.'

'Right.' The paving-stones were some cool artificial marble, and did not look flammable. Miles shook the threads off his finger, and motioned Ivan and Yenaro closer. He waited till there were no passersby in sight and said, 'Yenaro. Take two drops on your fingers of that harmless liquid you were waving around, and sprinkle them on this.'

Ivan forced Yenaro to kneel alongside Miles. Yenaro, with a cold glance at his captors, dipped his hand and sprinkled as ordered. 'If you think—'

He was interrupted by a bright flash and a wave of heat that scorched Miles's eyebrows. The soft report, fortunately, was mostly muffled by their shielding bodies. Yenaro froze, arrested.

'And that was only about a gram of material,' Miles went on relentlessly. 'That whole carpet-bomb massed, what, about five kilos? You should know, I'm certain you carried it in here personally. When the catalyst hit, it would have gone up taking out this whole section of the dome, you, me, the ladies … it would have been quite the high point of the show.'

'This is some sort of trick,' grated Yenaro.

'Oh, it's a trick all right. But this time the joke was on you. You've never had any military training at all, have you? Or with your nose, you'd have recognized it too. Sensitized asterzine. Lovely stuff. Formable, dye-able, you can make it look like practically anything. And totally inert and harmless, till the catalyst hits it. Then …' Miles nodded toward the small scorched patch on the white pavement. 'Let me put the question to you another way, Yenaro. What effect did your good friend the haut-governor tell you this was going to have?'

'He—' Yenaro's breath caught. His hand swept down across the dark and oily residue, then rose to his nose. He inhaled, frowning, then sat back rather weakly on his heels. His wide eyes lifted to meet Miles's gaze. 'Oh.'

'Confession,' said Ivan meaningfully, 'is good for the soul. And body.'

Miles took a breath. 'Once more, from the top, Yenaro. What did you think you were doing?'

Yenaro swallowed. 'It . . . was supposed to release an ester. That would simulate alcohol poisoning. You Barrayarans are famous for that perversion. Nothing that you don't already do to yourselves!'

'Allowing Ivan and me to publicly stagger through the rest of the afternoon blind drunk, or a close approximation.'

'Something like that.'

'And yourself? Did you just ingest the antidote, before we showed up?'

'No, it was harmless! . . . supposed to be. I had made arrangements to go and rest, till it passed off. I thought it might be … an interesting sensation.'

'Pervert,' murmured Ivan.

Yenaro glared at him.

Miles said slowly, 'When I was burned, that first night. All that hand-wringing on your part wasn't totally feigned, was it? You weren't expecting it.'

Yenaro paled. 'I expected … I thought perhaps the Marilacans had done something to the power adjustment. It was only supposed to shock, not injure.'

'Or so you were told.'

'Yes,' Yenaro whispered.

'The zlati ale was your idea, though, wasn't it,' growled Ivan.

'You knew?!'

'I'm not an idiot.'

Some passing ghem glanced in puzzlement at the three men kneeling in a circle on the floor, though fortunately they passed on without comment. Miles nodded to the nearest bench, in the curve of the nook. 'I have something to tell you, Lord Yenaro, and I think you had better be sitting down.' Ivan guided Yenaro to it and firmly pushed him down. After a thoughtful moment, Ivan then poured the rest of the pitcher of liquid into the nearest tree-tub, before settling between Yenaro and the exit.

'This isn't just a series of gratifying tricks played on the doltish envoys of a despised enemy, for you to chuckle at,' Miles went on lowly 'You are being used as a pawn in a treason plot against the Cetagandan Emperor. Used, discarded, and silenced. It's beginning to be a pattern. Your last fellow-pawn was the Ba Lura. I trust you've heard what happened to it.'

Yenaro's pale lips parted, but he breathed no word. After a moment he licked his lips and tried again. 'This can't be. It's too crude. It would have started a blood feud between his clan and those of … all the innocent bystanders.'

'No. It would have started a blood feud between their clans and yours. You were set up to take the fall for this one. Not only as an assassin, but as one so incompetent that he blew himself up with his own bomb. Following in your grandfather's footsteps, so to speak. And who would be left alive to deny it? The confusion would multiply within the capital, as well as between your Empire and Barrayar, while his satrapy made