to die in shame, you see. It was the last gift he could give him.'
She sat numbly hugging her knees, memorizing his profile, as the soft airs of the afternoon rustled in the woods and stirred the golden grasses.
He turned his face toward her. 'Was I wrong, Cordelia, to give myself to this thing? If I had not gone, he would simply have had another. I've always tried to walk the path of honor. But what do you do when all choices are evil? Shameful action, shameful inaction, every path leading to a thicket of death.'
'You're asking me to judge you?'
'Someone must.'
'I'm sorry. I can love you. I can grieve for you, or with you. I can share your pain. But I cannot judge you.'
'Ah.' He turned on his stomach, and stared down at the camp. 'I talk too much to you. If my brain would ever grant me release from reality, I believe I would be the babbling sort of madman.'
'You don't talk to anyone else like that, do you?' she asked, alarmed.
'Good God, no. You are—you are—I don't know what you are. But I need it. Will you marry me?'
She sighed, and laid her head upon her knees, twisting a grass stem around her fingers. 'I love you. You know that, I hope. But I can't take Barrayar. Barrayar eats its children.'
'It isn't all these damnable politics. Some people get through their whole lives practically unconscious of them.'
'Yes, but you're not one of them.'
He sat up. 'I don't know if I could get a visa for Beta Colony.'
'Not this year, I suspect. Nor next. All Barrayarans are considered war criminals there at the moment. Politically speaking, we haven't had this much excitement in years. They're all a little drunk on it just now. And then there is Komarr.'
'I see. I should have trouble getting a job as a judo instructor, then. And I could hardly write my memoirs, all things considered.'
'Right now I should think you'd have trouble avoiding lynch mobs.' She looked up at his bleak face. A mistake; it wrenched her heart. 'I've—got to go home for a while, anyway. See my family, and think things through in peace and quiet. Maybe we can come up with some alternate solution. We can write, anyway.'
'Yes, I suppose.' He stood, and helped her up.
'Where will you be, after this?' she asked. 'You have your rank back.'
'Well, I'm going to finish up all this dirty work,' a wave of his arm indicated the prison camp, and by implication the whole Escobaran adventure, '—and then I believe I too shall go home. And get drunk. I cannot serve him anymore. He's used me up on this. The death of his son, and the five thousand men who escorted him to hell, will always hang between us now. Vorhalas, Gottyan …'
'Don't forget the Escobarans. And a few Betans, too.'
'I shall remember them.' He walked beside her down the path. 'Is there anything you need, in camp? I've tried to see that everything was provided generally, within the limits of our supplies, but I may have missed something.'
'Camp seems to be all right, now. I don't need anything special. All we really need is to go home. No— come to think of it, I do want a favor.'
'Name it,' he said eagerly.
'Lieutenant Rosemont's grave. It was never marked. I may never get back here. While it's still possible to find the remains of our camp, could you have your people mark it? I have all his numbers and dates. I handled his personnel forms often enough, I still have them memorized.'
'I'll see to it personally.'
'Wait.' He paused, and she held out a hand to him. His thick fingers engulfed her tapering ones; his skin was warm and dry, and scorched her. 'Before we go pick up poor Lieutenant Illyan again …'
He took her in his arms, and they kissed, for the first time, for a long time.
'Oh,' she muttered after. 'Perhaps that was a mistake. It hurts so much when you stop.'
'Well, let me …' His hand stroked her hair gently, then desperately wrapped itself in a shimmering coil; they kissed again.
'Uh, sir?' Lieutenant Illyan, coming up the path, cleared his throat noisily. 'Had you forgotten the Staff conference?'
Vorkosigan put her from him with a sigh. 'No, Lieutenant. I haven't forgotten.'
'May I congratulate you, sir?' he smiled.
'No, Lieutenant.'
He unsmiled. 'I—don't understand, sir.'
'That's quite all right, Lieutenant.'
They walked on, Cordelia with her hands in her pockets, Vorkosigan with his clasped behind his back.
Most of the Escobaran women had already gone up by shuttle to the ship that had arrived to transport them home, late next afternoon, when a spruce Barrayaran guard appeared at the door of their shelter requesting Captain Naismith.
'Admiral's compliments, ma'am, and he wishes to know if you'd care to check the data on the marker he had made for your officer. It's in his office.'
'Yes, certainly.'
'Cordelia, for God's sake,' hissed Lieutenant Alfredi, 'don't go in there alone.'
'It's all right,' she murmured back impatiently. 'Vorkosigan's all right.'
'Oh? So what did he want yesterday?'
'I told you, to arrange for the marker.'
'That didn't take two solid hours. Do you realize that's how long you were gone? I saw how he looked at you. And you—you came back looking like death warmed over.'
Cordelia irritably waved away her concerned protests, and followed the extremely polite guard to the cache caverns. The planetside administrative offices of the Barrayaran force were set up in one of the side chambers. They had a carefully busy air that suggested the nearby presence of Staff officers, and indeed when they entered Vorkosigan's office, his name and rank emblazoned over the smudge that had been his predecessor's, they found him within.
Illyan, a captain, and a commodore were grouped around a computer interface with him, evidently undergoing some kind of briefing. He broke off to greet her with a careful nod, which she acknowledged in kind. I wonder if my eyes look as hungry as his, she thought. This minuet of manners we go through to conceal our private selves from the mob will be for nothing, if we don't hide our eyes better.
'It's on the clerk's desk, Cor—Captain Naismith he directed her with a wave of his hand. 'Go ahead and look it over.' He returned his attention to his waiting officers.
It was a simple steel tablet, standard Barrayaran military issue, and the spelling, numbers, and dates were all in order. She fingered it briefly. It certainly looked like it ought to last. Vorkosigan finished his business and came to her side.
'Is it all right?'
'Fine.' She gave him a smile. 'Could you find the grave?'
'Yes, your camp's still visible from the air at low altitude, although another rainy season will obliterate it —'
The duty guard's voice floated in over a commotion at the door. 'So you say. For all I know they could be bombs. You can't take that in there,' followed by another voice replying, 'He has to sign it personally. Those are my orders. You guys act like you won the damn war.'
The second speaker, a man in the dark red uniform of an Escobaran medical technician, backed through the door followed by a float-pallet on a control lead, looking like some bizarre balloon. It was loaded with large canisters, each about half a meter high, studded with control modules and access apertures. Cordelia recognized them at once, and stiffened, feeling sick. Vorkosigan looked blank.
The technician stared around. 'I have a receipt for these that requires Admiral Vorkosigan's personal signature. Is he here?'
Vorkosigan stepped forward. 'I'm Vorkosigan. What are these, um …'
