They kept the rest of the visit almost as brief as Miles had hoped. They emptied out the valise onto the living room floor, and Miles counted out piles of Betan dollars to clear his various Betan debts, including his grandmother's original 'investment'. Rather bemusedly, she agreed to be his agent for the task of distribution.
The largest pile was for Elli Quinn's new face. Miles gulped when his grandmother quoted him the approximate price for the best work. When he was finished, he had one meager wad of bills left in his hand.
Ivan snickered. 'By God, Miles, you've made a profit. I think you're the first Vorkosigan to do so in five generations. Must be that bad Betan blood.'
Miles weighed the dollars, wryly. 'It's getting to be a kind of family tradition, isn't it? My father gave away 275,000 marks the day before he left the Regency, just so he would have the exact financial balance as the day he took it up sixteen years earlier.'
Ivan raised his eyebrows. 'I never knew that.'
'Why do you think Vorkosigan House didn't get a new roof last year? I think that was the only thing Mother regretted, the roof. Otherwise, it was kind of fun, figuring out where to bury the stuff. The Imperial Service orphanage picked up a packet.'
For curiosity, Miles stole a moment and punched up the financial exchange on the comconsole. Felician millifenigs were listed once again. The exchange rate was 1,206 millifenigs to the Betan dollar, but at least they were listed. Last week's rate had been 1,459 to the dollar.
Miles's growing sense of urgency propelled them toward the door.
'If we can have a one-day head start in the Felician fast courier,' he told his grandmother, 'that should be enough. Then you can call the Embassy and put them out of their misery.'
'Yes.' She smiled. 'Poor Lieutenant Croye was convinced he was going to spend the rest of his career as a private doing guard duty someplace nasty.'
Miles paused at the door. 'Ah—about Tav Calhoun—'
'Yes?'
'You know that janitor's closet on the second level?'
'Vaguely.' She looked at him in unease.
'Please be sure somebody checks it tomorrow morning. But don't go up there before then.'
'I wouldn't dream of it,' she assured him faintly.
'Come on, Miles,' Ivan urged over his shoulder.
'Just a second.'
Miles darted back inside to Elli Quinn, still seated obediently in the living room. He pressed the wad of leftover bills into her palm, and closed her fingers over it.
'Combat bonus,' he whispered to her. 'For upstairs just now. You earned it.'
He kissed her hand and ran after Ivan.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Miles banked the lightflyer in a gentle, demure turn around Vorhartung Castle, resisting a nervous urge to slam it directly down into the courtyard. The ice had broken on the river winding through the capital city of Vorbarr Sultana, running a chill green now from the snows melting in the Dendarii Mountains far to the south. The ancient building straddled high bluffs; the lightflyer rocked in the updraft puffing from the river.
The modern city spread out for kilometers around was bright and noisy with morning traffic. The parking areas near the castle were jammed with vehicles of all descriptions, and knots of men in half-a-hundred different liveries. Ivan, beside Miles, counted the banners snapping in the cold spring breeze on the battlements.
'It's a full Council session,' said Ivan. 'I don't think there's a banner missing—there's even Count Vortala's, and I don't think he's been to one in years. Must have been carried in. Ye gods, Miles! There's the Emperor's banner—Gregor must be inside.'
'You could figure that from all the fellows on the roof in Imperial livery with the anti-aircraft plasma guns,' observed Miles. He flinched inwardly. One such weapon was swivelling to follow their track even now, like a suspicious eye.
Slowly and carefully, he set the lightflyer down in a painted circle outside the castle walls.
'Y'know,' said Ivan thoughtfully, 'We're going to look a pair of damn fools busting in there if it turns out they're all having a debate on water rights or something.'
'That thought has crossed my mind,' Miles admitted. 'It was a calculated risk, landing in secret. Well, we've both been fools before. There won't be anything new or startling in it.'
He checked the time, and paused a moment in the pilot's seat, bent his head down, and breathed carefully.
'You feeling sick?' asked Ivan, alarmed. 'You don't look so good.'
Miles shook his head, a lie, and begged forgiveness in his heart for all the harsh things he'd once thought about Baz Jesek. So this was the real thing, paralyzing funk. He wasn't braver than Baz after all—he'd just never been as scared. He wished himself back with the Dendarii, doing something simple, like defusing dandelion bombs. 'Pray to God this works,' he muttered.
Ivan looked even more alarmed. 'You've been pushing this surprise-scheme on me for the last two weeks —all right, so you've convinced me. It's too late to change your mind!'
'I haven't changed my mind.' Miles rubbed the silver circles loose from his forehead, and stared up at the great grey wall of the castle.
'The guards are going to notice us, if we just keep sitting here,' Ivan added after a time. 'Not to mention the hell that's probably breaking loose back at the shuttleport right now.'
'Right' said Miles. He dangled now at the end of a long, long chain of reason, swinging in the winds of doubt. Time to drop to solid ground.
'After you,' said Ivan politely.
'Right.'
'Any time now,' added Ivan.
The vertigo of free fall … he popped the doors and clambered to the pavement.
They strode up to quartet of armed guards in Imperial livery at the castle gate. One's fingers twitched into a devil's horns, down by his side; he had a countryman's face. Miles sighed inwardly. Welcome home. He settled on an incisive nod, by way of greeting.
'Good morning, Armsmen. I am Lord Vorkosigan. I understand the Emperor has commanded me to appear here.'
'Damn joker,' began a guard, loosening his truncheon. A second guard grasped his arm, staring shocked at Miles.
'No, Dub—it really is!'
They underwent a second search in the vestibule of the great chamber itself. Ivan kept trying to peek around the door, to the annoyance of the guard charged with being the final check against weapons carried into the presence of the Emperor. Voices wafted from the council chamber to Miles's straining ear. He identified Count Vordrozda's, pitched to a carrying nasality, rhythmic in the cadences of formal debate.
'How long has this been going on?' Miles whispered to a guard.
'A week. This was to be the last day. They're doing the summing up now. You're just in time, my lord.' he gave Miles an encouraging nod; the two guard captains finished a sotto voce argument, '—but he's supposed to be here!'
'You sure you wouldn't rather be in Betan therapy?' muttered Ivan.
Miles grinned blackly. 'Too late now. Won't it be funny if we've arrived just in time for the sentencing?'
'Hysterical. You'll die laughing, no doubt,' growled Ivan.
Ivan, approved by the guard, started for the door. Miles grabbed him. 'Sh, wait! Listen.'
Another identifiable voice; Admiral Hessman.
'What's he doing here?' whispered Ivan. 'I thought this thing was closed and sealed to the Counts
