weapon. Miles stood stock still, transfixed by the needler's tiny dark eye. Fascinating, that the pit of hell should have so narrow an entrance …
Vordrozda was buried in an avalanche of tackling bodies, their scarlet robes flapping. Ivan had the honor of the first hit, taking him in the knees.
Miles stood before his Emperor. The chamber had quieted, his late accusers hustled out under arrest. Now he faced his true tribunal.
Gregor sighed uneasily, and motioned the Lord Guardian of the Circle to his side. They conferred briefly.
'The Emperor requests and requires a recess of one hour, to examine the new testimony. For witness, Count Vorvolk, Count Vorhalas.'
They all filed into the private chamber behind the dais, Gregor, Count Vorkosigan, Miles and Ivan, and Gregor's curious choice of witnesses. Henri Vorvolk was one of Gregor's few age-mates among the Counts, and a personal friend. Nucleus of a new generation of cronies, Miles supposed. No surprise that Gregor should desire his support. Count Vorhalas …
Vorhalas was Miles's father's oldest and most implacable enemy, since the deaths of his two sons on the wrong side of Vordarian's Pretendership eighteen years before. Miles eyed him queasily. The Count's son and heir had been the man who'd fired the soltoxin gas grenade through the window of Vorkosigan House one night, in a tangled attempt at vengeance for the death of his younger brother. He had been executed in turn for his treason. Had Count Vorhalas seen in Vordrozda's conspiracy an opportunity to complete the job, revenge in perfect symmetry, a son for a son?
Yet Vorhalas was known as a just and honest man—Miles could as easily picture him uniting with his father in disdain of Vordrozda's mushroom upstart plot. The two had been enemies so long, and outlived so many friends and foes, their enmity had almost achieved a kind of harmony. Still, no one would dare accuse Vorhalas of favoritism in witness to the former Regent.
Now the two men exchanged nods, like a pair of fencers en garde, and took seats opposite each other.
'So,' said Count Vorkosigan, grown serious and intense, 'What really happened out there, Miles? I've had Illyan's reports—until lately—but somehow they all seemed to raise more questions than they answered.'
Miles was diverted moment. 'Isn't his agent still sending? I promise you, I didn't interfere with his duties —'
'Captain Illyan is in prison.'
'What!'
'Awaiting trial. He was included in your conspiracy charges.'
'That's absurd!'
'Not at all. Most logical. Who, moving against me, would not take the precaution first of taking away my eyes and ears, if they could?'
Count Vorhalas nodded a tactician's approval and agreement, as if to say, Just how I'd have done it myself.
Miles's father's eyes narrowed with dry humor. 'It's a learning experience for him to be on the other end of the process of justice for a time. No harm done. I admit, he is a trifle annoyed with you at the moment.'
'The question,' said Gregor distantly, 'was whether the Captain served me, or my Prime Minister.' Bitter uncertainty still lingered in his eyes.
'All who serve me serve you, through me,' Count Vorkosigan stated. 'It is the Vor system at work. Streams of experience, all flowing together, combining at last in a river of great power. Yours is the final confluence.' It was the closest to flattery Miles had ever heard his father come, a measure of his unease. 'You do Simon Illyan an injustice to suspect him. He has served you all your life, and your grandfather before you.'
Miles wondered what sort of tributary he now constituted—the Dendarii Mercenaries included some very odd headwaters indeed. 'What happened. Well, sir . ..' he paused, groping along the chain of events to some starting point. Truly, it began at a wall not 100 kilometers outside Vorbarr Sultana. But he launched his account at his meeting with Arde Mayhew on Beta Colony. He stumbled in fearful hesitation, took a breath, then went on in an exact and honest description of his meeting with Baz Jesek. His father winced at the name. The blockade, the boarding, the battles—self-forgetfulness overcame him during his enthusiastic description of these; at one point he looked up to realize he had the Emperor playing the part of the Oseran fleet, Henri Vorvolk Captain Tung, and his father the Pelian high command. Bothari's death. His father's face grew drawn and inward at this news. 'Well,' he said after a time, 'he is released from a great burden. May he find his ease at last.'
Miles glanced at the Emperor, and edited out the Escobaran woman's accusations about Prince Serg. From the sharp and grateful look Count Vorkosigan gave him, Miles gathered that was the correct thing to do. Some truths come in too fierce a flood for some structures to withstand; Miles had no wish to witness another devastation like Elena Bothari's.
By the time he reached the account of how he broke the blockade at last, Gregor's lips were parted in fascination, and Count Vorkosigan's eyes glinted with appreciation. Ivan's arrival, and Miles's deductions from it—he was reminded of the hour, and reached for his hip flask.
'What is that?' asked his father, startled.
'Antacid. Uh—want some?' he offered politely.
'Thank you,' said Count Vorkosigan. 'Don't mind if I do.' He took a grave swig, so straight-faced even Miles was not sure if he was laughing.
Miles gave a brief, bald account of the thinking that led him to return in secret, to attempt to surprise Vordrozda and Hessman. Ivan endorsed all he had been eyewitness to, giving Hessman the lie. Gregor looked disturbed at having his assumptions about his new friends turned so bluntly inside-out. Wake up Gregor, thought Miles. You of all men cannot afford the luxury of comfortable illusions. No, indeed, I have no desire to trade places with you.
Gregor was downcast by the time Miles finished. Count Vorkosigan sat at Gregor's right hand, backwards on a plain chair as usual, and gazed at his son with a pensive hunger.
'Why, then?' asked Gregor. 'What did you think to make of yourself, when you raised up such force, if not Emperor—if not of Barrayar, perhaps of someplace else?'
'My leige,' Miles lowered his voice. 'When we played together in the Imperial Residence in the winters, when did I ever demand any part except that of Vorthalia the loyal? You know me—now could you doubt? The Dendarii Mercenaries were an accident. I didn't plan them—they just happened, in the course of scrambling from crisis to crisis. I only wanted to serve Barrayar, as my father before me. When I couldn't serve Barrayar, I wanted —I wanted to serve something. To—' he raised his eyes to his father's, driven to a painful honesty, 'to make my life an offering fit to lay at his feet.' He shrugged. 'Screwed up again.'
'Clay, boy.' Count Vorkosigan's voice was hoarse but clear. 'Only clay. Not fit to receive so golden a sacrifice.' His voice cracked.
For a moment, Miles forgot to care about his coming trial. He lidded his eyes, and stored tranquillity away in his heart's most secret recesses, to pleasure him in some lean and desperate future hour. Fatherless Gregor swallowed, and looked away, as if ashamed. Count Vorhalas stared at the floor discomfited, like a man accidentally intruding onto some private and delicate scene.
Gregor's right hand moved hesitantly to touch the shoulder of his first and most loyal protector. 'I serve Barrayar,' he offered. 'It's justice is my duty. I never meant to dispense injustice.'
'You were ring-led, boy,' Count Vorkosigan muttered, to Gregor's ear alone. 'Never mind. But learn from it.'
Gregor sighed. 'When we played together, Miles, you always beat me at Strat-O. It was because I knew you that I doubted.'
Miles knelt, head bowed, and spread his arms. 'Your will, my leige.'
Gregor shook his head. 'May I always endure such treason as that.' He raised his voice to his witnesses. 'Well, my lords? Are you satisfied that the substance of Vordozda's charge, intent to usurp the Imperium, is false and malicious? And will you so testify to your peers?'
'Absolutely,' said Henri Vorvolk with enthusiasm. Miles gauged that the second-year cadet had fallen in love with him about halfway through his account of his adventures with the Dendarii Mercenaries.
