Memory

Ivan leaned over his shoulder into the vid pickup to add a second to the motion, and Gregor said, 'Oh, good, you're here. You were next.' Going down his list of profoundly relieved heirs in official order of rank? Well … it was the Barrayaran thing to do. Laisa murmured greetings to Ivan too.

'Am I the first to know?' Miles trolled.

'Not quite,' said Gregor. 'We've been taking turns. Lady Alys was first, of course; she's been in on this from the start, or nearly so.'

'I sent the message to my parents yesterday. And I've told Captain Galeni,' added Laisa. 'I owe him so much. He and you both.'

'And, ah, what did he say?'

'He agreed it might be good for planetary accord,' said Gregor, 'which, considering his background, I find most heartening.'

In other words, you asked him point-blank, and he said, Yes, Sire. Poor, excellent Duv. No wonder he called me. It was that or explode. 'Galeni … is a complex man.'

'Yes, I know you like him,' said Gregor. 'And I sent a message to your parents that should arrive tonight. I expect to hear back from them by tomorrow.'

'Oh,' Miles said, reminded. 'Aunt Alys was ahead of you, I think. My father asked me to send on his personal assurance of support. And my mother asked me to tell you the same particularly, Dr. Toscane.'

'I'm looking forward to meeting the legendary Cordelia Vorkosigan,' Laisa said, with evident sincerity. 'I think I could learn a lot from her.'

'I think you could too,' admitted Miles. 'Good God. They'll be coming home for this, won't they.'

'I can think of no one I want more to stand on my wedding circle than them, except you,' said Gregor. 'I trust you will be my Second?'

Just like a duel. 'Certainly. Uh . . . what's the timetable on the public-circus part of this?'

Gregor sagged slightly. 'Lady Alys seems to have some very definite ideas on that score. I wanted the betrothal ceremony immediately, but she's insisting it not even be announced till after her return from Komarr. I'm dispatching her to be my Voice to Laisa's parents, all the proper forms, you know. And the formal betrothal not for two months. And the wedding not for nearly a year! We compromised on one month after her return to the betrothal, and are still arguing about the other. She says if we don't give the Vor ladies time to dress properly, they'll never forgive me. I didn't see why it should take them two months to get dressed.'

'Mm. I'd give her a free rein in this, if I were you. She could have the conservative Old Vor faction eating out of her hand for you without them ever knowing what hit them. Which is half your problem solved. I can't speak for the radical Komarran half, I'm afraid.'

'Alys thinks we should have two weddings, one here, one on Komarr,' said Gregor. 'A double ordeal.' He glanced aside, and squeezed Laisa's hand. 'But worth it.'

Staring down the social gauntlet opening with increasing complexity before them, they both looked like they were thinking of eloping. 'You'll get through it all right,' Miles assured them heartily. 'We'll all help, won't we, Ivan?'

'My mother's already volunteered me,' Ivan admitted glumly.

'Have you, ah, told Illyan?' Miles asked.

'I sent Lady Alys to break the news to him before anyone else,' said Gregor. 'He called on me in person to assure me of his personal and professional support—that phrase about support keeps cropping up. Do I look like I'm about to faint? I couldn't tell if he was pleased or horrified, but then, Illyan can be hard to read sometimes.'

'Not that hard. I'd guess he was personally pleased, and professionally horrified.'

'He did suggest I do all I could to expedite the return of your lady mother before the betrothal, to, as he put it, lend her clout to Lady Alys. I wondered if you'd add your voice to that plea for us, Miles. She's so hard to detach from your father.'

'I'll try. Actually, it would probably take a wormhole blockade to keep her away.'

Gregor grinned. 'Congratulations to you too, Miles. Your father before you needed a whole army to do it, but you've changed Barrayaran history just with a dinner invitation.'

Miles shrugged helplessly. God, is everybody going to blame me for this? And for everything that follows? 'Let's try to avoid making history on this one, eh? I think we should push for unalleviated domestic dullness.'

'With all my heart,' Gregor agreed. With a cheery salute, he cut the com.

Miles laid his head down on the table, and moaned. 'It's not my fault!'

'Yes, it is,' said Ivan. 'It was all your idea. I was there when you came up with it.'

'No, it wasn't. It was yours. You're the one who dragooned me into attending the damned State dinner in the first place.'

'I only invited you. You invited Galeni. And anyway, my mother dragooned me.'

'Oh. So it's all her fault. Good. I can live with that.'

Ivan shrugged agreement. 'Well, should we drink to the happy couple? There are things in your cellars with more dust on them than an old Vor.'

Miles thought it over. 'Yeah. Let's go exploring.'

Over the racks downstairs, just after violently rejecting Miles's diffident suggestion of maple mead as the after-dinner poison of choice, Ivan added reluctantly, 'D'you think Galeni will try to do anything he'd regret? Or that we'd regret?'

Miles hesitated a long time before saying, 'No.'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ivan did not make good his threat to follow up his harassment about Miles's medical treatment, or lack of it, because he was press-ganged into assisting Lady Alys's departure for Komarr. She paused in passing Vorkosigan House to drop off several kilos of historical references about previous Imperial weddings, with orders for Miles to study up. When she returned, she'd doubtless have a lengthy list of chores for everyone from Ivan outward. And the next man outward from Ivan was Miles.

Miles leafed through the old books in some dismay. How many of these dusty ceremonies were they going to drag out of the museum? It had been forty years since the last Imperial wedding, between Prince Serg of glorious/dubious memory and the ill-fated Princess Kareen. That had been a circus of monumental proportions, and Serg had only been the heir, not the reigning Emperor. Still, Miles supposed such a renewal of the forms of the Vor cemented their fraying identity as a class. Perhaps a well-conceived and conducted ceremony would act as a kind of social immuno-suppressant, to keep the Vor from rejecting the transplanted Komarran tissue. Alys certainly seemed to think so, and she ought to know; the Vorpatrils were as old-Vor as they came.

Glumly, he contemplated his future duties. He supposed being the Second to the Emperor at his wedding was politically as well as socially important, given the degree to which the two modes could run together in Vorbarr Sultana, but it still made him feel about as useful as a plaster lawn statue holding up a flambeau. Well . . . duty had brought him much stranger tasks before this. Would he rather be back cleaning freezing drains under Camp Permafrost? Or running around Jackson's Whole one step ahead of some psychotic local baron's goon squads?

Don't answer that, boy.

Lady Alys had found a temporary replacement for herself as Gregor's social chaperone in Drou Koudelka, the Commodore's wife and Delia's mother. Miles discovered this when Madame Koudelka called to issue an invitation/command for him to come be Vorishly ornamental at another of Gregor's courting picnics. Miles arrived a trifle early at the Residence's east portico only to run into a mob of men in parade red and blues just leaving some ultra-formal morning ceremony. He stood aside to let the uniformed officers pass, trying to keep the naked envy out