Lois Bujold - Barrayar

Request, or order? It sounded more sinister-mandatory than fun, in the servant’s flat voice.

“Last duty for the night,” Kareen assured Cordelia, as they both shoved their shoes back on. Cordelia’s footgear seemed to have shrunk two sizes since the start of the evening. She hobbled after Kareen, Drou trailing.

A large downstairs room was floored in multi-toned wood marquetry in patterns of flowers, vines, and animals. The polished surface would have been put on a museum wall on Beta Colony; these incredible people danced across it. A live orchestra—selected by cutthroat competition from the Imperial Service Band, Cordelia was informed—provided music, in the Barrayaran style. Even the waltzes sounded faintly like marches. Aral and the princess were presented to each other, and he led her off for a couple of good-natured turns around the room, a formal dance that involved each mirroring the other’s steps and slides, hands raised but never quite touching. Cordelia was fascinated. She’d never guessed that Aral could dance. This seemed to complete the social requirements, and other couples filtered out onto the floor. Aral returned to her side, looking stimulated. “Dance, Milady?”

After that dinner, more like a nap. How did he keep up that alarming hyperactivity? Secret terror, probably. She shook her head, smiling. “I don’t know how.”

“Ah.” They strolled, instead. “I could show you how,” he offered as they exited the room onto a bank of terraces that wound off into the gardens, pleasantly cool and dark but for a few colored lights to prevent stumbles on the pathways.

“Mm,” she said doubtfully. “If you can find a private spot.” If they could find a private spot, she could think of better things to do than dance, though.

“Well, here we—shh.” His scimitar grin winked in the dark, and his grip tightened warningly on her hand. They both stood still, at the entrance to a little open space screened from eyes above by yews and some pink feathery non-Earth plant. The music floated clearly down.

“Try, Kou,” urged Droushnakovi’s voice. Drou and Kou stood facing each other on the far side of the terrace-nook. Doubtfully, Koudelka set his stick down on the stone balustrade, and held up his hands to hers. They began to step, slide, and dip, Drou counting earnestly, “One-two-three, one-two-three …”

Koudelka tripped, and she caught him; his grip found her waist. “It’s no damned good, Drou.” He shook his head in frustration.

“Sh …” Her hand touched his lips. “Try again. I’m for it. You said you had to practice that hand-coordination thing, how long, before you got it? More than once, I bet.”

“The old man wouldn’t let me give up.”

“Well, maybe I won’t let you give up either.”

“I’m tired,” complained Koudelka.

So, switch to kissing, Cordelia urged silently, muffling a laugh. That you can do sitting down. Droushnakovi was determined, however, and they began again. “One-two-three, one-two-three …” Once again the effort ended in what seemed to Cordelia a very good start on a clinch, if only one party or the other would gather the wit and nerve to follow through.

Aral shook his head, and they backed silently away around the shrubbery. Apparently a little inspired, his lips found hers to muffle his own chuckle. Alas, their delicacy was futile; an anonymous Vor lord wandered blindly past them, stumbled across the terrace nook, freezing Kou and Drou in mid-step, and hung over the stone balustrade to be very traditionally sick into the defenseless bushes below. Sudden swearing, in new voices, one male, one female, rose up from the dark and shaded target zone. Koudelka retrieved his stick, and the two would-be dancers hastily retreated. The Vor lord was sick again, and his male victim started climbing up after him, slipping on the beslimed stonework and promising violent retribution. Vorkosigan guided Cordelia prudently away.

Later, while waiting by one of the Residence’s entrances for the groundcars to be brought round, Cordelia found herself standing next to the lieutenant. Koudelka gazed pensively back over his shoulder at the Residence, from which music and party-noises wafted almost unabated.

“Good party, Kou?” she inquired genially.

“What? Oh, yes, astonishing. When I joined the Service, I never dreamed I’d end up here.” He blinked. “Time was, I never thought I’d end up anywhere.” And then he added, giving Cordelia a slight case of mental whiplash, “I sure wish women came with operating manuals.”

Cordelia laughed aloud. “I could say the same for men.

“But you and Admiral Vorkosigan—you’re different.”

“Not … really. We’ve learned from experience, maybe. A lot of people fail to.”

“Do you think I have a chance at a normal life?” He gazed, not at her, but into the dark.

“You make your own chances, Kou. And your own dances.”

“You sound just like the Admiral.”

Cordelia cornered Illyan the next morning, when he stopped in to Vorkosigan House for the daily report from his guard commander.

“Tell me, Simon. Is Vidal Vordarian on your short list, or your long list?”

“Everybody’s on my long list,” Illyan sighed.

“I want you to move him to your short list.”

His head cocked. “Why?”

She hesitated. She wasn’t about to reply, Intuition, though that was exactly what those subliminal cues added up to. “He seems to me to have an assassin’s mind. The sort that fires from cover into the back of his enemy.”

Illyan smiled quizzically. “Beg pardon, Milady, but that doesn’t sound like the Vordarian I know. I’ve always found him more the openly bullheaded type.”

How badly must he hurt, how ardently desire, for a bullheaded man to turn subtle? She was unsure. Perhaps, not knowing how deeply Aral’s happiness with her ran, Vordarian did not recognize how vicious his attack upon it was? And did personal and political animosity necessarily run together? No. The man’s hatred had been profound, his blow precisely, if mistakenly, aimed.

“Move him to your short list,” she said.

Illyan opened his hand; not mere placation, by his expression some chain of thought was engaged. “Very well, Milady.”

Cordelia watched the shadow of the lightflyer flow over the ground below, a slim blot arrowing south. The arrow wavered across farm fields, creeks, rivers, and dusty roads—the road net was rudimentary, stunted, its development leapfrogged by the personal air transport that had arrived in the blast of galactic technology at the end of the Time of Isolation. Coils of tension unwound in her neck with each kilometer they put between themselves and the hectic hothouse atmosphere of the capital. A day in the country was an excellent idea, overdue. She only wished Aral could have shared it with her.

Sergeant Bothari, cued by some landmark below, banked the lightflyer gently to its new course. Droushnakovi, sharing the back seat with Cordelia, stiffened, trying not to lean into her. Dr. Henri, in front with the Sergeant, stared out the canopy with an interest almost equal to Cordelia’s.

Dr. Henri turned half around, to speak over his shoulder to Cordelia. “I do thank you for the luncheon invitation, Lady Vorkosigan. It’s a rare privilege to visit the Vorkosigans’ private estate.”

“Is it?” said Cordelia. “I know they don’t have crowds, but Count Piotr’s horse friends drop in fairly often. Fascinating animals.”

Cordelia thought that over a second, then decided Dr. Henri would realize without being told that the “fascinating animals” applied to the horses, and not Count Piotr’s friends. “Drop the least little hint that you’re interested, and Count Piotr will probably show you personally around the stable.”