Ekaterin answered, “We came on the regular commercial passenger ship. For a welcome change, this isn’t for work, only for family, so it didn’t seem right to tap the Imperial Service for a lift.” Her smile at him felt more genuine than her spouse’s. “The children seemed to enjoy it very much more than being cooped up on a courier. They met rather a lot of interesting prospective colonists.”
“Interrogated them to within an inch of their lives,” Miles confirmed. “I should rent the team out to ImpSec, I think.”
“Oh, Da,” said Helen, and rolled her eyes. Alex’s mouth just tightened a fraction.
So, they’d reached the Oh-Da stage. A few years back, both elder twins had clearly thought their Da hung the moons. Puberty must be imminent.
Jole’s slightly malicious smile faded, as he considered what only the family meant to Cordelia, mother to a key Barrayaran count and foster-mother to an emperor. Could, for example, Emperor Gregor have sent Lord Auditor Vorkosigan to find out if the Vicereine of Sergyar had gone insane?
She’s not insane, Jole wanted to protest. Just Betan!
Now, there was a reflection to keep to himself.
“Is Nikki with you also?” he inquired politely of Ekaterin. Son of her first marriage, now almost…what, twenty? No, more.
She shook her head. “Too caught up with school to tag along, he said. I gather things are getting intense, since he graduates soon.”
“Already?” said Jole.
“Yes, I know.” She smiled wryly at him, swaying a little as the toddlers kneecapped her. She bent to hoist one up; the other clung to her trouser leg and stared in suspicion at Jole.
“Well. I would seem to be redundant to need here, this evening,” he excused himself. “Enjoy the family reunion, Cordelia.”
She cast him a strained smile and only a slight eye-widening of anguish. “We’ll have to reschedule our conference. I’ll try to call you later.” She dispatched Armsman Rykov, now hovering unobtrusively, for a car and driver to convey Jole back to the base. No one tried to urge him to stay.
Under the cover of escorting him out, she managed to get the door closed between them and her family.
“You didn’t seem all that surprised by this visitation,” he observed.
“No, only appalled.” She grimaced. “I didn’t think they’d just show up like that. I’m so sorry.”
He read this as a statement of fact rather than an apology; he nodded ruefully.
“I sent them all a vid message the first week you went upside, you see. Told Miles about his sisters. It was time.”
Jole did a quick time-speed-distance calculation in his head, allowing margin for shifting six kids, a wife, and an entourage. A rapid response in force, it would seem. “And, um…about his brothers?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. I did tell Gregor, in strict confidence.”
“Yet not Miles?”
“It’s not wholly my tale the way the girls are. Have I your permission to mention them? Or would you rather wait and tell him yourself, or what?”
He hesitated, sorely tempted to let her do the hard part. “I doubt you’ll have much chance for a private talk tonight with the kids cavorting about. Let’s wait a little.” He added after a moment, “It’s hard to see how one would explain the boys without explaining…more history than Aral saw fit to apprise him of.”
“If we had been open from the beginning,” she said rather fiercely, “this would be a non-problem right now.”
He touched a consoling finger to her lips. “There would doubtless have been other problems.”
Her smile twisted. “Conservation of tribulation?”
“There’s a law of nature for you.” Explaining to Miles how Jole had come to be the father of his three frozen half-brothers had seemed much less daunting when the damned fellow had been a string of wormhole jumps away. “Don’t let them exhaust you. You’ve had a long day.”
“You had a longer one.”
He could only shrug agreement. Yet half an hour ago, he hadn’t been a bit tired. As the Vicereine had so eloquently summed it up, crap.
Then the groundcar arrived, and he’d lost his chance even for a kiss goodnight. He squeezed her hand and retreated.
Chapter Ten
As Cordelia had foreseen, it was quite late by the time six overexcited and overtired children had at last been tied to their beds, or at least kissed goodnight and threatened with dire retribution if they popped up one more time. It took teamwork by four adults—Cordelia, Miles, Ekaterin, and the armsman’s daughter they’d brought along to help wrangle the kids in exchange for a generous stipend and the chance for an exciting trip offworld.
“We could have stunned them,” Cordelia wheezed, as the last door closed. “We have stunners…”
Their fond Da, who had actually been less use in the calming-down part than Cordelia had hoped, said, “Tempting, but Ekaterin would object.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” said Ekaterin faintly.
Indeed, she looked tired. Miles looked…wired, but that was his default mode. Cordelia considered just bagging the smoking remains of the evening and sending them to bed, too.
“Well!” said Miles, with a somewhat rehearsed-sounding cheeriness. “Now the grownups can sit down and talk.”
A mental review of all the times a worrisome Miles had been so remarkably elusive to her in his younger days paraded through Cordelia’s memory; she suppressed it. Forgive, forget. Well, try, anyway. She led them out to her favorite nook in the back garden, instead, pausing in the kitchen to snag a bottle of wine and three glasses, because the day staff had all gone home. In the soft shadows and low, colored lights they dragged the padded chairs around a small table, and she let Miles open and pour. His glass got a splash; hers, he filled nearly to the top before handing to her. Ekaterin’s glass was delivered half-full, or perhaps half-empty; after a wry hesitation, she topped it up herself.
“I use your garden every day,” Cordelia told Ekaterin. “For entertaining, diplomacy, work, and even, occasionally, sitting down and resting. It’s been a superb space.”
Her smile grew genuine. “Thank you. It will be good to get a chance to review it.”
“Actually, now you’re here, there’s another project I might have you look over. With the Gridgrad base project going live, my next goal is to move the planetary capital, while I still can. Which will, among other things, require a new Viceroy’s Palace. With a new garden, in a rather different climatic zone than this semi-desert.”
“That sounds interesting,” Ekaterin allowed. “I’m not sure how long we’ll be staying on this trip, though. And I didn’t plan to burden your staff with the children.”
Meaning, Cordelia decoded easily, that Ekaterin herself was understaffed for working. “I’ll see if I can rustle you up some local help, in that case.” Cordelia kicked off her shoes and wriggled her tired toes. “This was a wonderful surprise and I love you all dearly, Miles, but I’m quite tightly scheduled at present. Usually, I have several weeks’ notice to clear my time before a family visit.” She could see that the few breaks she’d earmarked for private time with Oliver were going to be the first to go on the fire, too. Dammit.
Ekaterin glanced at her husband, who was not-sipping wine and flexing his feet. She was far too loyal to say, I told him this was a bad idea, but Cordelia fancied she could read it in her body language.
Cordelia went on, “While a box of chocolates is a lovely gift, what I really need is a box of plumbers. You don’t happen to have a building-materials manufacturer up your sleeve, do you, Miles?”
“Sorry, no,” replied her son. “Ask Mark?”
“Tried that already. He’s not got back to me in any useful way, yet.”
“Ah.” Miles shifted uncomfortably. Probably looking for an opening to choke out his pitch, whatever it was. Ekaterin sat back and sipped, palpably not helping.
Not having been handed an easy hook, Miles refashioned the one in play. “So, ah…have you told M
ark about this plan to resign the viceroyalty? And the, um, personal scheme?”
That was in reverse order of his chief concern, Cordelia suspected. “Yes, I sent a tightbeam to him and Kareen at the same time I messaged you and Ekaterin. And Gregor and Alys and Simon, for that matter. Don’t you people talk to each other anymore?”
“Mark’s offworld,” he excused this.
Slight, awkward pause, right. Cordelia prodded gently, “And Gregor and Alys and Simon? You didn’t bring me any personal greetings? I would almost trade the plumbers for those.” Almost.
“I talked to Gregor. He said he didn’t know any more than I did, and I should talk to you myself.”
Good boy, Gregor. Cordelia smiled. She wondered when the adult Gregor had been apprised of the complexities in his greatest supporter’s private life. Not during the earlier Vorbarr Sultana days, she would swear. Not later than that period in-between, when Aral had sent Oliver off to build his career, and it was all assumed to have been an anomalous fling—seven years was not just a fling, boys—regretfully, gently, and carefully concluded. So who had conducted that briefing, if not her? Simon? Aral? Some tag team? Aral must have endorsed it, certainly. Simon would have been relieved. Gregor, well, who knew what Gregor thought of it all. But the reunion on Sergyar hadn’t thrown him.
Miles continued, “I was wondering what brought on this extraordinary decision. About the daughters. I mean, now.”
“I thought I explained all that in my tightbeam message.”
“Yes, but…”
Miles, at a loss for words? Cordelia leaned her head back against the cushion and observed, “You know, we’ll likely all get to bed earlier if you try for a little Betan frankness, here.”
“Good idea,” murmured Ekaterin. Yes, if Miles had been venting any Betan frankness heretofore, it had probably been to her. Beleaguered woman. Wasn’t this spring in Vorbarr Sultana, the busiest season for Ekaterin’s garden design business? She could only have been dragged away by a force of nature. Which, Cordelia conceded, Miles on a tear could be.
Miles straightened his shoulders and steeled himself to bluntness. Thankfully. “But you already have six grandchildren. Isn’t that, like, enough?” And in a somewhat smaller voice—getting down to it, she recognized the style, “Don’t you like my work?” And blinked, as if surprised by the words that had fallen out of his own mouth.
Such a raw truth should be handled with care. Cordelia hoped she was up to it. “I adore your work. Consider it my inspiration, if you like.”
“It seems like…double dipping, somehow.”
She grinned over her wineglass. “That, too.” But I can. And I’m going to. “Look on the bright side. I’m not nearly as greedy as your Count Vormuir.”
Vormuir had tried to help his underpopulated district by a scheme involving a bank of uterine replicators, some dubiously acquired eggs, and a single sperm donor—himself—till he’d been shut down by Imperial order. Not quite directly; he’d merely been ordered to supply his progeny with proper Vor dowries. Two hundred of them. Ekaterin, who had originated that solution for the investigating Lord Auditor, made a face, laughing under her breath. Cordelia wondered how the count was doing these days. The first girls must be teenagers by now…
“Then why not when Da was still alive?” Miles’s voice, in the shadows, was smaller still.
That was harder. “We talked about it, a few times. He seemed to think he was too old to start such a long-term project.” Maybe he’d been shrewd. “If he’d lived to make it home, I might have persuaded him to it as, I don’t know, a retirement hobby.” Or not. Cordelia had been eleven years younger than Aral even without the Betan lifespan. Or maybe he had just been reluctant to give more hostages to fortune. From life came death, inevitably, and then grief. Possibly not something she ought to say to Miles, who had died once already. He might take it personally. He might be right to.
“Are you coming home, then? To retire?”
Hadn’t she mentioned that part of her plans? She really needed to review those tightbeam messages. She was losing track of what she’d said to whom. “No, I’m staying on Sergyar. I like everything about it except the name.” She wondered if she could fix that, as even the edited version of the late Crown Prince Serg was slowly fading from Barrayaran memory. And good riddance. “Barrayar was home while Aral was there. Now…” She didn’t want to say I’m freer, although it was true.
Miles’s voice grew nearly microscopic. “He still is, sort of.”
There was a place reserved for her beside that grave above the long lake at Vorkosigan Surleau. Was she planning to abandon that bed as well? The chill thought came to her that given his health issues, she might well outlive Miles. Thus no later change in her destination could dismay him, and there was no point in troubling him with such now. She settled on, “Of all of Barrayar, which he loved with all the passion, dispassion and anguish of his heart, Aral loved the lake place best. It’s so right that he be there.” And, experimentally, “But I prefer to build a more living monument to his memory.”
“Mm.” Miles seemed to take this in as a reconciling thought, suitably Barrayaran-romantic. Making this All About Aral would probably work on him rather well. She hid a grimace in a sip of wine.
“You really think you’ll be all right out here? So far away?”
Losing one parent could make a child—of any age—more anxious about the remaining one, true. She’d learned that when she was a lot younger than Miles. Aral had, too, having witnessed his mother’s political murder when he was eleven, though survivor Piotr had certainly been in a parental class by himself. So she perfectly understood why her son might suddenly want to put her in a safe box. The safe part she was fine with. The box, less so. “Have you somehow lost track of where I’ve been for the last thirteen years?”
That got through, a little. “Sorry,” he said gruffly, and drank more wine.
“So,” she said, changing, or at least spinning, the subject with ruthless cheer, “If I can pry open my schedule tomorrow, shall we take the kids to visit their new Aunt Aurelia down at the rep center? It’s actually just a short walk from here. I’ll bet I can get them a good behind-the-scenes tour. It could be very educational.”
Pitching Kayross as a sort of science museum worked better on Ekaterin than Miles, who was wearing a nonplussed expression. Ekaterin immediately responded, “Yes, really, you never know what experiences will spark a child’s interests. I’d love it.”
After which Miles, of course, could not refuse.
The wine bottle was empty. Deciding this was the best note she was going to find to stop and get three physically and emotionally exhausted people to bed, Cordelia stood up and firmly led the way.
And she still hadn’t got to Oliver, dammit. Well, one wormhole jump at a time.
* * *
As Jole escorted Freddie Haines purposefully down the street between the Viceroy’s Palace, where they had failed to find Cordelia and company, and Kayross, where he hoped to run his quarry to earth, she made one last attempt at escape.
“Really, sir, just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I know anything about babies. I was the youngest.”
“Freddie,” he said affably, “do you remember how much trouble you got into with the Kayburg guard for filching your da’s sidearm?”
She looked confused. “No…?”
“Precisely.”
Her face twisted up as she took the point.
“Think of this as the community service that you didn’t win from the night court. And I’m sure the Countess will recompense you generously for your services, unlike the night court. So, if you think it through—a good habit to get into, I might note—you see you are coming out ahead.” He added as he opened the clinic door for her, “It might even prove to be fun. The Vicereine’s grandchildren are a lively bunch.”
This was demonstrated as they found their way back to where the Vorkosigan family was being given a suitably modified VIP tour. Even just f
our of the six offspring managed to give an impression of an explosion of short humanity in the formerly quiet clinic. Their reactions to this excursion were interestingly varied. Helen seemed to be practicing a somewhat precocious studied teen indifference. Alex looked wary. Lizzie was plainly fascinated by the banks of replicators, pelting a tech with questions that sounded, from the snatches Jole caught, startlingly beyond her years. Taurie was busy being five, and had turned the drab tiles into an impromptu hopscotch grid in a complex pattern visible only to her.
Ekaterin’s eyes lit with joy when Jole presented her with his prize, and she shook Freddie’s hand in a very friendly way when he introduced them. Freddie managed one last gasp of resistance, despite looking considerably more daunted by a countess than by a mere admiral.
“I really don’t know much about babies, ma’am…”
“Oh, the two youngest will be looked after by their regular nanny. Alex and Helen”—Jole could sense her edit on the fly as the two drifted over to inspect the newcomer—“are too old for a babysitter as such. They’re really more in need of a native guide.”
Oh, good job, Ekaterin.
Freddie’s spine straightened considerably at this news. Ekaterin made the further introductions all round.
Jole put in, straight-faced, “Now, there will be no going out into the backcountry to blow up vampire balloons unless the Vicereine escorts you.”
Freddie winced. The twins both perked up, apparently not having realized that this healthy outdoor activity was among their options. After a thoughtful pause, Jole added, “Be sure she brings her laser pointer.”
This won him three extremely blank stares. Jole grinned and moved off in search of the Count. He found Miles standing with his mother by the bank that held, among other pre-persons, his sister Aurelia.
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