Memory

gather he felt under some pressure to produce an optimistic forecast for the date.'

'Hello, boy!' In this public arena, they exchanged only a hand-grip, but the Count managed to make it an eloquent one. 'You look well. We must talk.'

'I believe Lady Alys has first claim on you, sir…'

Lady Alys was stepping down the stairs, her heavy blue afternoon-skirt floating about her legs with the speed of her passage. 'Oh, Aral, good, you're here at last. Gregor's waiting in the Glass Hall. Come, come. …'

As distracted as any other artist in the throes of creation, she swept up the three Vorkosigans and herded them before her to their appointment with tradition, a mere hour late off the mark.

Due to the huge mob of witnesses—the betrothal was the foremost, as well as the first, social event of Winterfair—the ceremony took place in the largest ballroom. The bride-to-be and her party were arranged in a line opposite the groom-to-be and his party, like two small armies facing off. Laisa was elegant in Komarran jacket and trousers, though in a fine shade of Barrayaran Winterfair red, a compromise nicely calculated by Lady Alys.

Spearheading the two groups, Laisa was flanked by her parents, and a Komarran woman-friend as her Second; Gregor had his foster parents the Count and Countess Vorkosigan, and Miles as his Second. Laisa clearly had inherited her body-type from her father, a small, round man with an expression of cautious courtesy plastered on his face, and her milk-white skin from her mother, an alert-eyed woman with a worried smile. Lady Alys was of course the go-between. The days were long past when the duties of a Second legally included an obligation to marry the surviving fiancee if some unfortunate fatal accident occurred between the betrothal and the wedding. Nowadays the Seconds were limited to marching a collection of ceremonial gifts back and forth between the two sides.

Some of the gifts were obvious in their symbolism—money in fancy wrappers from the bride's parents, rather a lot of different food items from the groom's, including a bag of colored groats tied up with silver tinsel, and bottles of maple mead and wine. The silver-gilt mounted bridle was a little baffling, since it did not come with a horse. The gift of a small scalpel-like knife with a blunted edge from the bride's mother as pledge of her daughter's genetic cleanliness had been quietly eliminated, Miles was glad to see.

Next came the traditional reading of the Admonishments to the Bride, a task that fell to Miles as Gregor's Second. There were no reciprocal Admonishments to the Groom, a gap that Elli Quinn would have been swift to point out. Rising to the occasion, Miles stepped forward and unrolled the parchment, and read in a good clear voice and with a poker-straight face, as if he were giving a briefing to the Dendarii.

The Admonishments, though traditional in form and content, had been subtly edited too, Miles noted. The comments on the Duty to Bear an Heir had been reworded so as not to imply any particular obligation to do so in ones own body using one's real womb, with all the inherent dangers that entailed. No question whose hand was at work there. As for the rest of them . . . Miles's imagined Quinn's suggestions of how to roll the parchment and in what part of the Admonisher's anatomy he might lodge it for storage thereafter, and how hard. Dr. Toscane, less vigorous in her vocabulary, only cast one or two beseeching looks at Countess Vorkosigan, to be reassured with a few covert palm-down don't-take-it-too-seriously-dear gestures. The rest of the time, fortunately, she was so occupied with smiling at Gregor smiling at her, the Admonishments slithered past without objection.

Miles stepped back, and the fiancees had their hands joined in the last gesture of the ceremony, or rather, each was permitted to grasp one of Lady Alys s hands, and at this well-chaperoned remove exchange their promissory pledges. And if you think this was a circus, just wait till the wedding at Midsummer. Then the ceremony was over, and the party started. Since everyone was feeling more or less snowed-in, the party went on, and on. . . .

Gregor had first claim on Miles's father, so Miles took himself off to one of the buffets. There he encountered Ivan, tall and splendid in his parade red-and-blues, filling a single plate.

'Hello, Lord Auditor Coz,' said Ivan. 'Where's your gold leash?'

'I get it back next week. I take my oath before the last joint session of the Counts and Ministers, before they break for Winterfair.'

'The word is out, you know. All sorts of people have been asking me about your appointment.'

'If it gets too thick, direct 'em to Vorhovis or Vorkalloner. Though not, I think, to Vorparadijs. Did you bring a dance partner I might borrow?'

Ivan grimaced, and looked around, and lowered his voice. 'I tried to do one better. I asked Delia Koudelka to marry me.'

Miles thought he already knew the lay of things, but this was, after all, Ivan. 'I figured this stuff would be contagious. Congratulations!' he said with synthetic heartiness. 'Your mother will be ecstatic.'

'No.'

'No? But she likes the Koudelka girls.'

'Not that. Delia turned me down. The first time I ever proposed to a girl, and— squelch!' Ivan looked quite indignant.

'She didn't take you, Ivan! What a surprise.'

Ivan, awakening to his tone of voice, eyed him suspiciously. 'And all my mother said was, That's too bad, dear. I told you not to wait so long. And wandered away to see Illyan. I saw them a couple of minutes ago, hiding out in an alcove. Illyan was rubbing her neck. The woman's besotted.'

'Well, so she did tell you. Hundreds of times. She knew the demographic odds.'

'I figured there would always be room at the top. Delia says she's marrying Duv Galeni! The damned Komarran . . . um …'

'Competition?' suggested Miles, as Ivan groped for a noun.

'You knew!'

'I had a few clues. You'll enjoy your untroubled single existence, I'm sure. Your next decade will be just like your last, eh? And the next, and the next, and the next . . . happy and carefree.'

'You're not doing any better,' Ivan snapped.

'I … didn't expect to.' Miles smiled grimly. That was perhaps enough Ivan-twitting, on this topic. 'You'll just have to try again. Martya, maybe?'

Ivan growled.

'What, two rejections in—you didn't ask both sisters on the same day, did you, Ivan?'

'I panicked.'

'So . . . who's Martya marrying?'

'Anyone but me, apparently.'

'Really. So, um . . . did you see where the Koudelkas went?'

'The Commodore was here a bit ago. He's probably gone off with your da by now. I expect the girls will be up in the ballroom as soon as the music starts.'

'Ah.' Miles started to turn away, but then added absently, 'Do you want a kitten?'

Ivan stared at him. 'Why in God's name would I want a kitten?'

'It would brighten your bachelor digs, you know. A bit of life and movement, to keep you company on your long, lonely nights.'

'Get stuffed, Lord Auditor Coz.'

Miles grinned, popped an hors d'oeuvre in his mouth, and departed, munching thoughtfully.

He spotted the Koudelka clan in the ballroom, in a cluster on the far side. The three sisters were minus their fourth, Kareen, who was still on Beta Colony but who would, he'd been informed, be returning for the Imperial wedding at Midsummer. So would Lord Mark, presumably. Captain Galeni stood engaged in serious conversation with his prospective father-in-law the Commodore, Delia by his side in her favorite blue. Upon reflection, and some quiet campaigning from his fiancee, Galeni had decided not to resign his commission, to Miles's immense relief. Miles was staying out of ImpSec's internal business this week, but he'd had a whiff through Gregor of just how seriously Galeni was being considered for head of Komarran Affairs, and hoped to congratulate him soon.

Madame Koudelka looked on benignly. It made a nice tableau, and would do much toward repairing whatever damages still lingered to Galeni's reputation from Haroche's calculatedly clumsy arrest of him here a few weeks ago. With four sisters in all, Galeni was on his way to gaining an array of major Barrayaran clan connections by marriage. . . . Miles wondered if anyone had apprised Galeni yet that he stood in some danger of acquiring