Renewed wariness closed down the expression on Ekaterin's face. She looked away from him. Her hand touched her bolero, over her heart; Mark detected a faint crackle of expensive paper beneath the soft fabric. He wondered if it would have a salutary humbling effect on Miles to learn where his literary effort was being stored, or whether it would just make him annoyingly elated.
"Tell him," she said at last, and no need to specify which him, "I accept his apology. But I can't answer his question."
Mark felt he had a brotherly duty to put in a good word for Miles, but the woman's painful reserve unnerved him. He finally mumbled diffidently, "He cares a lot, you know."
This wrenched a short little nod from her, and a brief, bleak smile. "Yes. I know. Thank you, Mark." That seemed to close the subject.
Kareen turned right at the sidewalk, while the rest of them turned left to head back to where the borrowed Armsman waited with the borrowed groundcar. Mark walked backwards a moment, watching her retreat. She strode on, head down, and didn't look back.
* * *
Miles, who had left the door of his suite open for the purpose, heard Mark returning in the late afternoon. He nipped out into the hall, and leaned over the balcony with a predatory stare down into the black-and-white paved entry foyer. All he could tell at a glance was that Mark looked overheated, an inescapable result of wearing that much black and fat in this weather.
Miles said urgently, "Did you see her?"
Mark stared up at him, his brows rising in unwelcome irony. He clearly sorted through a couple of tempting responses before deciding on a simple and prudent, "Yes."
Miles's hands gripped the woodwork. "What did she say? Could you tell if she'd read my letter?"
"As you may recall, you explicitly threatened me with death if I dared ask her if she'd read your letter, or otherwise broached the subject in any way."
Impatiently, Miles waved this off. "Directly. You know I meant not to ask directly. I just wondered if you could tell . . . anything."
"If I could tell what a woman was thinking just by looking at her, would I look like this?" Mark made a sweeping gesture at his face, and glowered.
"How the hell would I know? I can't tell what you're thinking just because you look surly. You usually look surly." Last time, it was indigestion. Although in Mark's case, stomach upset tended to be disturbingly connected with his other difficult emotional states. Belatedly, Miles remembered to ask, "So . . . how is Kareen? Is she all right?"
Mark grimaced. "Sort of. Yes. No. Maybe."
"Oh." After a moment Miles added, "Ouch. Sorry."
Mark shrugged. He stared up at Miles, now pressed to the uprights, and shook his head in exasperated pity. "In fact, Ekaterin did give me a message for you."
Miles almost lurched over the balcony. "What, what?"
"She said to tell you she accepts your apology. Congratulations, dear brother; you appear to have won the thousand-meter crawl. She must have awarded you extra points for style, is all I can say."
"Yes! Yes!" Miles pounded his fist on the rail. "What else? Did she say anything else?"
"What else d'you expect?"
"I don't know. Anything. Yes, you may call on me, or No, never darken my doorstep again, or something. A clue, Mark!"
"Search me. You're going to have to go fish for your own clues."
"Can I? I mean, she didn't actually say I was not to bother her again?"
"She said, she couldn't answer your question. Chew on it, crypto-man. I have my own troubles." Shaking his head, Mark passed out of sight, heading for the back of the house and the lift tube.
Miles withdrew into his chambers, and flung himself down in the big chair in the bay window overlooking the back garden. So, hope staggered upright again, like a newly revived cryo-corpse dizzied and squinting in the light. But not, Miles decided firmly, cryo-amnesiac. Not this time. He lived, therefore he learned.
I can't answer your question did not sound like No to him. It didn't sound like Yes either, of course. It sounded like . . . one more last chance. Through a miracle of grace, it seemed he was to be permitted to begin again. Scrape it all back to Square One and start over, right.
So, how to approach her? No more poetry, methinks. I was not born under a rhyming planet. Judging from yesterday's effort, which he had prudently removed from his wastebasket and burned this morning along with all the other awkward drafts, any verse flowing from his pen was likely to be ghastly. Worse: if by some chance he managed something good, she'd likely want more, and then where would he be? He pictured Ekaterin, in some future incarnation, crying angrily You're not the poet I married! No more false pretences. Scam just wouldn't do for the long haul.
Voices drifted up from the entry hall. Pym was admitting a visitor. It wasn't anyone Miles recognized at this muffled distance; male, so it was likely a caller upon his father. Miles dismissed it from his attention, and settled back down.
She accepts your apology. She accepts your apology. Life, hope, and all good things opened up before him.
The unacknowledged panic which had gripped his throat for weeks seemed to ease, as he stared out into the sunny scene below. Now that the secret urgency driving him was gone, maybe he could even slow down enough to make of himself something so plain and quiet as her friend. What would she like . . . ?
Maybe he would ask her to go for a walk with him, somewhere pleasant. Possibly not in a garden, quite yet, all things considered. A wood, a beach . . . when talk lagged, there would be diversions for the eye. Not that he expected to run short of words. When he could speak truth, and was no longer constrained to concealment and lies, the possibilities opened up startlingly. There was so much more to say . . . Pym cleared his throat from the doorway. Miles swiveled his head.
"Lord Richars Vorrutyer is here to see you, Lord Vorkosigan," Pym announced.
"That's Lord Vorrutyer, if you please, Pym," Richars corrected him.
"Your cousin, m'lord." Pym, with a bland nod, ushered Richars into Miles's sitting room. Richars, perfectly alive to the nuance, shot a suspicious look at the Armsman as he entered.
Miles hadn't seen Richars for a year or so, but he hadn't altered much; he was looking maybe a little older, what with the advance of his waistline and the retreat of his hairline. He was wearing a piped and epauletted suit in blue and gray, reminiscent of the Vorrutyer House colors. More appropriate for day-wear than the imposing formality of the actual uniform, it nonetheless managed to suggest, without overtly claiming a right to, the garb of a Count's heir. Richars still looked permanently peeved: no change there.
Richars stared around General Piotr's old chambers, frowning.
"You have a sudden need of an Imperial Auditor, Richars?" Miles prodded gently, not best pleased with the intrusion. He wanted to be composing his next note to Ekaterin, not dealing with a Vorrutyer. Any Vorrutyer.
"What? No, certainly not!" Richars looked indignant, then blinked at Miles as though just now reminded of his new status. "I didn't come to see you at all. I came to see your father about his upcoming vote in Council on that lunatic suit of Lady Donna's." Richars shook his head. "He refused to see me. Sent me on to you."
Miles raised his brows at Pym. Pym intoned, "The Count and Countess, having heavy social obligations tonight, are resting this afternoon, m'lord."
He'd seen his parents at lunch; they hadn't seemed a bit tired. But his father had told him last night that he meant to take Gregor's wedding as a vacation from his duties as Viceroy, not a renewal of his duties as Count, carry on boy, you're doing fine. His mother had endorsed this plan emphatically. "I am still my father's voting deputy, yes, Richars."
"I had thought, because he was back in town, he'd take over again. Ah, well." Richars studied Miles dubiously, shrugged, and advanced toward the bay window.
All mine, eh? "Um, do sit down." Miles gestured to the chair opposite him, across the low table. "Thank you, Pym, that will be all."
Pym nodded, and withdrew. Miles did not suggest
refreshments, or any other impediment to speeding Richars through his pitch, whatever it was going to be. Richars certainly hadn't dropped in for the pleasure of his company, not that his company was worth much just now. Ekaterin, Ekaterin, Ekaterin . . .
Richars settled himself, and offered in what was evidently meant as sympathy, "I passed your fat clone in the hallway. He must be a great trial to you all. Can't you do anything about him?"
It was hard to tell from this if Richars found Mark's obesity or his existence more offensive; on the other hand, Richars too was presently struggling with a relative in an embarrassing choice of body. But Miles was also reminded why, if he did not exactly go out of his way to avoid his Vorrutyer cousin-not-removed-far-enough, he did not seek his company. "Yes, well, he's our trial. What do you want, Richars?"
Richars sat back, shaking the distraction of Mark from his head. "I came to speak to Count Vorkosigan about . . . although come to think of it—I understand you've actually met Lady Donna since she returned from Beta Colony?"
"Do you mean Lord Dono? Yes. Ivan . . . introduced us. Haven't you seen, ah, your cousin yet?"
"Not yet." Richars smiled thinly. "I don't know who she imagines she's fooling. Just not the real thing, our Donna."
Inspired to a touch of malice, Miles let his brows climb. "Well, now, that depends entirely on what you define as the real thing, doesn't it? They do good work on Beta Colony. She went to a reputable clinic. I'm not as familiar with the details as, perhaps, Ivan, but I don't doubt the transformation was complete and real, biologically speaking. And no one can deny Dono is true Vor, and a Count's legitimate eldest surviving child. Two out of three, and for the rest, well, times change."
"Good God, Vorkosigan, you're not serious." Richars sat upright, and compressed his lips in disgust. "Nine generations of Vorrutyer service to the Imperium, to come to this? This tasteless joke?"
Miles shrugged. "That's for the Council of Counts to decide, evidently."
"It's absurd. Donna cannot inherit. Look at the consequences. One of the first duties of a Count is to sire his heir. What woman in her right mind would ever marry her?"
"There's someone for everyone, they say." A hopeful thought. Yes, and if even Richars had managed matrimony, how hard could it be? "And heir-production isn't exactly the only job requirement. Many Counts have failed to spawn their own replacements, for one reason or another. Look at poor Pierre, for example."
Richars shot him an annoyed, wary look, which Miles elected not to notice. Miles went on, "Dono seemed to be making a pretty good impression on the ladies when I saw him."
"That's just the damned women sticking together, Vorkosigan." Richars hesitated, looking struck. "You say Ivan brought her?"
"Yes." Just exactly how Dono had strong-armed Ivan into this was still unclear to Miles, but he felt no impulse to share his speculations with Richars.
"He used to screw her, you know. So did half the men in Vorbarr Sultana."
"I'd heard . . . something." Go away, Richars. I don't want to deal with your smarmy notion of wit right now.
"I wonder if he still . . . well! I'd never have thought Ivan Vorpatril climbed into that side of the bunk, but live and learn!"
"Um, Richars . . . you have a consistency problem, here," Miles felt compelled to point out. "You cannot logically imply my cousin Ivan is a homosexual for screwing Dono, not that I think he is doing so, unless you simultaneously grant Dono is actually male. In which case, his suit for the Vorrutyer Countship holds."
"I think," said Richars primly after a moment, "your cousin Ivan may be a very confused young man."
"Not about that, he's not," Miles sighed.
"This is irrelevant." Richars impatiently brushed away the question of Ivan's sexuality, of whatever mode.
"I must agree."
"Look, Miles." Richars tented his hands in a gesture of reason. "I know you Vorkosigans have backed the Progressives since Piotr's days ended, just as we Vorrutyers have always been staunch Conservatives. But this prank of Donna's attacks the basis of Vor power itself. If we Vor do not stand together on certain core issues, the time will come when all Vor will find ourselves with nothing left to stand upon. I assume I can count on your vote."
"I hadn't really given the suit much thought yet."
"Well, think about it now. It's coming up very soon."
All right, all right, granted, the fact that Dono amused Miles considerably more than Richars did was not, in and of itself, qualification for a Countship. He was going to have to step back and evaluate this. Miles sighed, and tried to force himself to attend more seriously to Richars's presentation.
Richars probed, "Are there any matters you are pursuing in Council at the moment, especially?"
Richars was angling for a vote-trade, or more properly, a trade in vote-futures, since, unlike Miles's, his vote was vapor right now. Miles thought it over. "Not at present. I have a personal interest in the Komarran solar mirror repair, since I think it will be a good investment for the Imperium, but Gregor seems to have his majority well in hand on that one." In other words, you don't have anything I need, Richars. Not even in theory. But he added after a moment's further reflection, "By-the-by, what do you think of René Vorbretten's dilemma?"
Richars shrugged. "Unfortunate. Not René's fault, I suppose, the poor sod, but what's to be done?"
"Reconfirm René in his own right?" Miles suggested mildly.
"Impossible," said Richars with conviction. "He's Cetagandan."
"I am trying to think by what possible criteria anyone could sanely describe René Vorbretten as a Cetagandan," said Miles.
"Blood," said Richars without hesitation. "Fortunately, there is an untainted Vorbretten line of descent to draw on to take his place. I imagine Sigur will grow into René's Countship well enough in time."
"Have you promised Sigur your vote?"
Richars cleared his throat. "Since you mention it, yes."
Therefore, Richars now possessed the promise of Count Vormoncrief's support. Nothing to be done for René with that tight little circle. Miles merely smiled.
"This delay in my confirmation has been maddening," Richars went on after a moment. "Three months wasted, while the Vorrutyer's District drifts without a hand on the controls, and Donna prances around having her sick little joke."
"Mm, that sort of surgery is neither trivial nor painless." If there was one techno-torture on which Miles was an expert, it was modern medicine. "In a strange sense, Dono killed Donna for this chance. I think he's deathly serious. And having sacrificed so much for it, I imagine he's likely to value the prize."
"You're not—" Richars looked taken aback. "You're surely not thinking of voting for her, are you? You can't imagine your father endorsing that!"
"Plainly, if I do, he does. I am his Voice."
"Your grandfather," Richars looked around the sitting room, "would spin in his grave!"
Miles's lips drew back on a humorless smile. "I don't know, Richars. Lord Dono makes an excellent first impression. He may be received everywhere the first time for curiosity, but I can well imagine him being invited back on his own merits."
"Is that why you received her at Vorkosigan House, for curiosity? I must say, you didn't help the Vorrutyers with that. Pierre was strange—did he ever show you his collection of hats lined with gold foil?—and his sister's no improvement. The woman should be clapped in an attic for this whole appalling escapade."
"You should get over your prejudices and meet Lord Dono." You can leave any time now, in fact. "He quite charmed Lady Alys."
"Lady Alys holds no vote in Council." Richars gave Miles a sharp frown. "Did he—she—charm you?"
Miles shrugged, compelled to honesty. "I wouldn't go that far. He wasn't my chief concern that night."
"Yes," said Richars grumpily, "I heard all about your problem."
What? Abruptly, Miles found that Richars had finally riveted his full, undivided attention. "And what problem would that be?" he inquired s
oftly.
Richar's lip turned up in a sour smile. "Sometimes, you remind me of my cousin By. He's very practiced at the suave pose, but he's not nearly as slick as he pretends to be. I'd have thought you'd have had the tactical wits to seal the exits before springing a trap like that." He conceded after a moment, "Though I do think the better of Alexi's widow for standing up to you."
"Alexi's widow?" breathed Miles. "I didn't know Alexi was married, let alone deceased. Who's the lucky lady?"
Richars gave him a don't-be-stupid look. His smile grew odder, as it penetrated that he'd drawn Miles out of his irritating indifference at last. "It was just a leetle obvious, don't you think, My Lord Auditor? Just a leetle obvious?" He leaned back in his chair, squinting through narrowed eyes.
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