Lois Bujold - Barrayar

Her eyes flew open. There he was, safe and sound beside her. “Oh, I’m fine.” She attached herself to his arm, lightly, not a panicked limpet-like clamp. “Just thinking.”

“They’re seating us for dinner.”

“Good. It will be nice to sit down, my feet are swelling.”

He looked as if he wanted to pick her up and carry her, but they paraded in normally, joining the other formal pairs. They sat at a raised table set a little apart from the others, with Gregor, Kareen, Piotr, the Lord Guardian of the Speaker’s Circle and his wife, and Prime Minister Vortala. At Gregor’s insistence, Droushnakovi was seated with them; the boy seemed painfully glad to see his old bodyguard. Did I take away your playmate, child? Cordelia wondered apologetically. It seemed so; Gregor engaged in a negotiation with Kareen for Drou’s weekly return “for judo lessons.” Drou, used to the Residence atmosphere, was not so overawed as Koudelka, who was stiff with exaggerated care against betrayal by his own clumsiness.

Cordelia found herself seated between Vortala and the Speaker, and carried on conversations with reasonable ease; Vortala was charming, in his blunt way. Cordelia managed nibbles of all the elegantly served food except a slice off the carcass of a roast bovine, carried in whole. Usually she was able to put out of her mind the fact that Barrayaran protein was not grown in vats, but taken from the bodies of real dead animals. She’d known about their primitive culinary practices before she’d chosen to come here, after all, and had tasted animal muscle before on Survey missions, in the interests of science, survival, or potential new product development for the homeworld. The Barrayarans applauded the fruit-and-flower-decked beast, seeming to actually find it attractive and not horrific, and the cook, who’d followed it anxiously out, took a bow. The primitive olfactory circuits of her brain had to agree, it smelled great. Vorkosigan had his portion bloody-rare. Cordelia sipped water.

After dessert, and some brief formal toasts offered by Vortala and Vorkosigan, the boy Gregor was at last taken off to bed by his mother. Kareen motioned Cordelia and Droushnakovi to join her. The tension eased in Cordelia’s shoulders as they left the big public assembly and climbed to the Emperor’s quiet, private quarters.

Gregor was peeled out of his little uniform and dove into pajamas, becoming boy and not icon once again. Drou supervised his teeth-brushing, and was inveigled into “just one round” of some game they’d used to play with a board and pieces, as a bedtime treat. This Kareen indulgently permitted, and after a kiss for and from her son, she and Cordelia withdrew to a softly lit sitting room nearby. A night breeze from the open windows cooled the upper chamber. Both women sat with a sigh, unwinding; Cordelia kicked off her shoes immediately after Kareen did so. Distance-muffled voices and laughter drifted through the windows from the gardens below.

“How long does this party go on?” Cordelia asked.

“Dawn, for those with more endurance than myself. I shall retire at midnight, after which the serious drinkers will take over.”

“Some of them looked pretty serious already.”

“Unfortunately.” Kareen smiled. “You will be able to see the Vor class at both its best and its worst, before the night is over.”

“I can imagine. I’m surprised you don’t import less lethal mood-altering drugs.”

Kareen’s smile sharpened. “But drunken brawls are traditional.” She allowed the cutting edge of her voice to soften. “In fact, such things are coming in, at least in the shuttleport cities. As usual, we seem to be adding to rather than replacing our own customs.”

“Perhaps that’s the best way.” Cordelia frowned. How best to probe delicately … ? “Is Count Vidal Vordarian one of those in the habit of getting publicly potted?”

“No.” Kareen glanced up, narrowing her eyes. “Why do you ask?”

“I had a peculiar conversation with him. I thought an overdose of ethanol might account for it.” She remembered Vordarian’s hand resting lightly upon the Princess’s knee, just short of an intimate caress. “Do you know him well? How would you estimate him?”

Kareen said judiciously, “He’s rich … proud … He was loyal to Ezar during Serg’s late machinations against his father. Loyal to the Imperium, to the Vor class. There are four major manufacturing cities in Vordarian’s District, plus military bases, supply depots, the biggest military shuttleport… . Vidal’s is certainly the most economically important area on Barrayar today. The war barely touched the Vordarians’ District; it’s one of the few the Cetagandans pulled out of by treaty. We sited our first space bases there because we took over facilities the Cetagandans had built and abandoned, and a good deal of economic development followed from that.”

“That’s … interesting,” said Cordelia, “but I was wondering about the man personally. His, ah, likes and dislikes, for example. Do you like him?”

“At one time,” said Kareen slowly, “I wondered if Vidal might be powerful enough to protect me from Serg. After Ezar died. As Ezar grew more ill, I was thinking, I had better look to my own defense. Nothing appeared to be happening, and no one told me anything.”

“If Serg had become emperor, how could a mere count have protected you?” asked Cordelia.

“He would have had to become … more. Vidal had ambition, if it were properly encouraged—and patriotism, God knows if Serg had lived he might have destroyed Barrayar—Vidal might have saved us all. But Ezar promised I’d have nothing to fear, and Ezar delivered. Serg died before Ezar and … and I have been trying to let things cool, with Vidal, since.”

Cordelia abstractedly rubbed her lower lip. “Oh. But do you, personally—I mean, do you like him? Would becoming Countess Vordarian be a nice retirement from the dowager-princess business, someday?”

“Oh! Not now. The Emperor’s stepfather would be too powerful a man, to set up opposite the Regent. A dangerous polarity, if they were not allied or exactly balanced. Or were not combined in one person.”

“Like being the Emperor’s father-in-law?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“I’m having trouble understanding this … venereal transmission of power. Do you have some claim to the Imperium in your own right, or not?”

“That would be for the military to decide,” she shrugged. Her voice lowered. “It is like a disease, isn’t it? I’m too close, I’m touched, infected… . Gregor is my hope of survival. And my prison.”

“Don’t you want a life of your own?”

“No. I just want to live.”

Cordelia sat back, disturbed. Did Serg teach you not to give offense? “Does Vordarian see it that way? I mean, power isn’t the only thing you have to offer. I think you underestimate your personal attractiveness.”

“On Barrayar … power is the only thing.” Her expression grew distant. “I admit… I did once ask Captain Negri to get me a report on Vidal. He uses his courtesans normally.”

This wistful approval was not exactly Cordelia’s idea of a declaration of boundless love. Yet that hadn’t been just desire for power she’d seen in Vordarian’s eyes at the ceremony, she would swear. Had Aral’s appointment as Regent accidentally messed up the man’s courtship? Might that very well account for the sex-tinged animosity in his speech to her … ?

Droushnakovi returned on tiptoe. “He fell asleep,” she whispered fondly. Kareen nodded, and tilted her head back in an unguarded moment of rest, until a Vorbarra-liveried messenger arrived and addressed her: “Will you open the dancing with my lord Regent, Milady? They’re waiting.”