Mirror Dance

Chapter Thirty-Two

Miles eyed the old mirror in the antechamber to the library of Vorkosigan House, the one that had been brought into the family by General Count Piotr’s mother as part of her dowry, its frame ornately carved by some Vorrutyer family retainer. He was alone in the room, with no one to observe him. He slipped up to the glass, and stared uneasily at his own reflection.

The scarlet tunic of the Imperial parade red-and-blues did not exactly flatter his too-pale complexion at the best of times. He preferred the more austere elegance of dress greens. The gold-encrusted high collar was not, unfortunately, quite high enough to hide the twin red scars on either side of his neck. The cuts would turn white and recede eventually, but in the meantime they drew the eye. He considered how he was going to explain them. Dueling scars. I lost. Or maybe, Love bites. That was closer. He traced them with a fingertip, turning his head from side to side. Unlike the terrible memory of the needle- grenade, he did not remember acquiring these. That was far more disturbing than the vision of his death, that such important things could happen to him and he didn’t, couldn’t, remember.

Well, he was known to have medical problems, and the scars were almost neat enough to look medical. Maybe people would let them pass without comment. He stepped back from the mirror to take in the general look. His uniform still had a tendency to hang on him, despite his mother’s valiant attempts to make him eat more these last few weeks since they’d arrived home. She’d finally turned the problem over to Mark, as if yielding to superior expertise. Mark had grinned with amusement, and then he had preceded to harass Miles without mercy. Actually, the attentions were working. Miles did feel better. Stronger.

The Winterfair Ball was sufficiently social, without formal governmental or military obligation, that he was able to leave the dual dress sword set at home. Ivan would be wearing his, but Ivan had the altitude to carry it off. At Miles’s height, the long sword of the pair looked damned silly, practically dragging on the ground, not to mention the problem of tripping over it or banging his dance partner in the shins.

Footsteps sounded in the archway; Miles turned quickly, and swung one booted leg up and leaned against a chair-arm, pretending to have been ignoring the narcissistic attractions of his reflection.

“Ah, there you are.” Mark wandered in to join him, pausing to study himself briefly in the mirror, turning to check the fit of his clothing. His clothing fit very well indeed. Mark had acquired the name of Gregor’s tailor, a closely-guarded ImpSec secret, by the simple expedient of calling Gregor and asking him. The boxy loose cut of the jacket and trousers was aggressively civilian, but somehow very sharp. The colors honored Winterfair, sort of; a green so dark as to be almost black was trimmed with a red so dark as to be almost black. The effect was somewhere between festive and sinister, like a small, cheerful bomb.

Miles thought of that very odd moment in Rowan’s lightflyer, when he’d been temporarily convinced he was Mark. How terrifying it had been to be Mark, how utterly isolated. The memory of that desolation made him shiver. Is that how he feels all the time?

Well, no more. Not if I have anything to say about it.

“Looks good,” Miles offered.

“Yeah.” Mark grinned. “You’re not so bad yourself. Not as cadaverous, quite.”

“You’re improving too. Slowly.” Actually, Mark was, Miles thought. The most alarming distortions of whatever horrors Ryoval had inflicted upon Mark, and which he resolutely refused to talk about, had gradually passed off. A solid residue of flesh yet lingered, however. “What weight are you finally going to choose?” Miles asked curiously.

“You’re looking at it. Or I wouldn’t have invested the fortune in the wardrobe.”

“Er. Are you comfortable?” Miles inquired uncomfortably.

Mark’s eyes glinted. “Yes, thank you. The thought that a one-eyed sniper, at a range of two kilometers at midnight in a thunderstorm, could not possibly mistake me for you, is very comfortable indeed.”

“Oh. Well. Yes, there is that, I suppose.”

“Keep exercising,” Mark advised him cordially. “It’s good for you.” Mark sat down and put his feet up.

“Mark?” the Countess’s voice called from the foyer. “Miles?” “In here,” said Miles.

“Ah,” she said, sweeping into the antechamber. “There you both are.” She smiled at them with a greedy maternal gloat, looking most satisfied. Miles could not help feeling warmed, as if some last lingering ice chip inside from the cryo-freezing finally thawed, steaming gently. The Countess wore a new dress, more ornate than her usual style, in green and silver, with ruffs and tucks and a train, a celebration of fabric. It did not make her stiff, though— it wouldn’t dare. The Countess was never intimidated by her clothing. Quite the reverse. Her eyes outshone the silver embroidery.

“Father waiting on us?” Miles inquired.

“He’ll be down momentarily. I’m insisting we leave promptly at midnight. You two can stay longer if you wish, of course. He’ll overdo, I predict, proving to the hyenas he’s too tough for them to jump, even when the hyenas aren’t circling any more. A lifetime of reflex. Try and focus his attention on the District, Miles. It will drive poor Prime Minister Racozy to distraction to feel Aral is looking over his shoulder. We really need to get out of the capital, down to Hassadar, after Winterfair.”

Miles, who had a very clear idea just how much recovery chest surgery took, said, “I think you’ll be able to persuade him.”

“Please throw your vote in. I know he can’t fool you, and he knows it too. Ah—just what can I expect tonight, medically speaking?”

“He’ll dance twice, once to prove he can do it, and the second time to prove the first wasn’t a fluke. After that you’ll have no trouble at all persuading him to sit down,” Miles predicted with confidence. “Go ahead and play mother hen, and he can pretend he’s stopping to please you, and not because he’s about to fall over. Hassadar strikes me as a very good plan.”

“Yes. Barrayar does not quite know what to do with retired strong men. Traditionally, they are decently deceased, and not hanging around to pass comments on their successors. Aral may be something of a first. Though Gregor has had the most horrifying idea.”

“Oh?”

“He’s muttering about the Vice-royalty of Sergyar, as a post for Aral, when he is fully recovered. The present viceroy has been begging to come home, it seems. Whining, actually. A more thankless task than colonial governor I cannot imagine. An honest man gets ground to powder, trying to play interface between two sets of conflicting needs, the home government above and the colonists below. Anything you can do to disabuse Gregor of this notion, I would greatly appreciate.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Miles’s brows rose thoughtfully. “I mean—what a retirement project. A whole planet to play with. Sergyar. And didn’t you discover it yourself, back when you were a Betan Astronomical Survey captain?”

“Indeed. If the Barrayaran military expedition hadn’t been ahead of us, Sergyar would be a Betan daughter-colony right now. And much better managed, believe me. It really needs someone to take it in hand. The ecological issues alone are crying for an injection of intelligence—I mean, take that worm plague. A little Betan- style prudence could have … well. They figured it out eventually, I guess.”

Miles and Mark looked at each other. It wasn’t telepathy. But the thought that perhaps Aral Vorkosigan wasn’t the only over-energetic aging expert Gregor might be glad to export from his capital was surely being shared between them, right this second.

Mark’s brows drew down. “How soon might this be, ma’am?”

“Oh, not for at least a year.”

“Ah.” Mark brightened.

Armsman Pym stuck his head around the archway. “Ready, milady,” he reported.

They all herded into the black-and-white paved hall, to find the Count standing at the foot of the curved