Lois Bujold - Barrayar

“Let’s sit over there.” She nodded toward a stone bench set round with small orange flowers, and shaded by an Earth-import oak at least a century old. “These people are all good listeners, now. And they don’t pass on gossip.”

Cordelia sat on the warm stone, and studied Bothari. He sat as far from her as the bench permitted. The lines on his face were deep-cut today, harsh despite the muting of the afternoon light by the warm autumn haze. One hand, wrapped around the rough stone edge of the bench, flexed arrhythmically. His breathing was too careful.

Cordelia softened her voice. “So, what’s the trouble, Sergeant? You seem a little … stretched, today. Is it something about Elena?”

He breathed a humorless laugh. “Stretched. Yes. I guess so. It’s not about the baby … it’s … well, not directly.” His eyes met hers squarely for almost the first time today. “You remember Escobar, milady. You were there. Right?”

“Right.” This man is in pain, Cordelia realized. What sort of pain?

“I can’t remember Escobar.”

“So I understand. I believe your military therapists went to a great deal of trouble to make sure you did not remember Escobar.”

“Oh yes.”

“I don’t approve of Barrayaran notions of therapy. Particularly when colored by political expediency.”

“I’ve come to realize that, Milady.” Cautious hope flickered in his eyes.

“How did they work it? Burn out selected neurons? Chemical erasure?”

“No … they used drugs, but nothing was destroyed. They tell me. The doctors called it suppression-therapy. We just called it hell. Every day we went to hell, till we didn’t want to go there anymore.” Bothari shifted in his seat, his brow wrinkling. “Trying to remember—to talk about Escobar at all—gives me these headaches. Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? Big man like me whining about headaches like some old woman. Certain special parts, memories, they give me these really bad headaches that make red rings around everything I see, and I start vomiting. When I stop trying to think about it, the pain goes away. Simple.”

Cordelia swallowed. “I see. I’m sorry. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was … that bad.”

“The worst part is the dreams. I dream of … it … and if I wake up too slowly, I remember the dream. I remember too much, all at once, and my head—all I can do is roll over and cry, until I can start thinking about something else. Count Piotr’s other armsmen—they think I’m crazy, they think I’m stupid, they don’t know what I’m doing in there with them. I don’t know what I’m doing in there with them.” He rubbed his big hands over his burr-scalp in a harried swipe. “To be a count’s sworn Armsman—it’s an honor. Only twenty places to fill. They take the best, they take the bloody heroes, the men with medals, the twenty-year men with perfect records. If what I did—at Escobar—was so bad, why did the Admiral make Count Piotr make a place for me? And if I was such a bloody hero, why did they take away my memory of it?” His breath was coming faster, whistling through his long yellow teeth.

“How much pain are you in now? Trying to talk about this?”

“Some. More to come.” He stared at her, frowning deeply. “I’ve got to talk about this. To you. It’s driving me …”

She took a calming breath, trying to listen with her whole mind, body, and soul. And carefully. So carefully. “Go on.”

“I have … four pictures … in my head, from Escobar. Four pictures, and I cannot explain them. To myself. A few minutes, out of—three months? Four? They all of them bother me, but one bothers me the most. You’re in it,” he added abruptly, and stared at the ground. Both hands clenched the bench now, white-knuckled.

“I see. Go on.”

“One—the least-bad one—it was an argument. Prince Serg was there, and Admiral Vorrutyer, Lord Vorkosigan, and Admiral Rulf Vorhalas. And I was there. Except I didn’t have any clothes on.”

“Are you sure this isn’t a dream?”

“No. I’m not sure. Admiral Vorrutyer said … something very insulting, to Lord Vorkosigan. He had Lord Vorkosigan backed up against the wall. Prince Serg laughed. Then Vorrutyer kissed him, full on the mouth, and Vorhalas tried to knock Vorrutyer’s head off, but Lord Vorkosigan wouldn’t let him. And I don’t remember after that.”

“Um … yeah,” said Cordelia. “I wasn’t there for that part, but I know there was some really weird stuff going on in the high command at that point, as Vorrutyer and Serg pushed their limits. So it’s probably a true memory. I could ask Aral, if you wish.”

“No! No. That one doesn’t feel as important, anyway. As the others.”

“Tell me about the others, then.”

His voice fell to a whisper. “I remember Elena. So pretty. I only have two pictures in my head, of Elena. One, I remember Vorrutyer making me … no, I don’t want to talk about that one.” He stopped for a full minute, rocking gently, forward and back. “The other … we were in my cabin. She and I. She was my wife… .” His voice faltered. “She wasn’t my wife, was she.” It wasn’t even a question.

“No. But you know that.”

“But I remember believing she was.” His hands pressed his forehead, and rubbed his neck, hard and futilely.

“She was a prisoner of war,” said Cordelia. “Her beauty drew Vorrutyer’s and Serg’s attention, and they made a project of tormenting her, for no reason—not for her military intelligence, not even for political terrorism—just for their gratification. She was raped. But you know that, too. On some level.” “Yes,” he whispered.

“Taking away her contraceptive implant and allowing—or compelling—you to impregnate her was part of their idea of sadism. The first part. They did not, thank God, live long enough to get to the second part.”

His legs had drawn up, his long arms wrapped around them in a tight, tight ball. His breathing was fast and shallow, panting. His face was freezer-burn white, sheened with cold sweat.

“Do I have red rings around me now?” Cordelia asked curiously.

“It’s all … kind of pink.”

“And the last picture?”

“Oh, Milady.” He swallowed. “Whatever it was … I know it must be very close to whatever it is they most don’t want me to remember.” He swallowed again. Cordelia began to understand why he hadn’t touched his lunch.

“Do you want to go on? Can you go on?”

“I must go on. Milady. Captain Naismith. Because I remember you. Remember seeing you. Stretched out on Vorrutyer’s bed, all your clothes cut away, naked. You were bleeding. I was looking up your … What I want to know. Must know.” His arms were wrapped around his head, now, tilted toward her on his knees, his face hollow, haunted, hungry.

His blood pressure must be fantastically high, to drive that monstrous migraine. If they went too far, pressed this through to the last truth, might he be in danger of a stroke? An incredible piece of psychoengineering, to program his own body to punish him for his forbidden thoughts …

“Did I rape you, Milady?”

“Huh? No!” She sat bolt upright, fiercely indignant. They had taken that knowledge away from him? They’d dared take that away from him?

He began to cry, if that’s what that ragged breathing, tight—screwed face, and tears leaking from his eyes meant. Equal parts agony and joy. “Oh. Thank God.” And, “Are you sure … ?”

“Vorrutyer ordered you to. You refused. Out of your own will, without hope of rescue or reward. It got you in a hell of a lot of trouble, for a little while.” She longed to tell him the rest, but the state he was in now was so terrifying, it was impossible to guess the consequences. “How long have you been remembering this? Wondering this?”