Lois Bujold - Barrayar

“She was downstairs, sir, at the time the attack took place, with Lieutenant Koudelka. They both went out the back door.”

“Dammit,” Vorkosigan muttered, “not his job either.” His effort was punished by another coughing jag. “They catch anybody?”

“I think so, sir. There was some kind of uproar at the back of the garden, by the wall.”

They stood under the water for a few more minutes, until the guard reported back. “The doctor from the Residence is here, sir.”

The maid wrapped Cordelia in a robe, and Vorkosigan put on a towel, growling to the guard, “Go find me some clothes, boy.” His voice rattled like gravel.

A middle-aged man, his hair standing up stiffly, wearing trousers, pajama tops, and bedroom slippers, was offloading equipment in the guest bedroom when they came out. He took a pressurized canister from his bag and fitted a breathing mask to it, glancing at Cordelia’s rounding abdomen and then at Vorkosigan.

“My lord. Are you certain of the identification of the poison?”

“Unfortunately, yes. It was soltoxin.”

The doctor bowed his head. “I am sorry, Milady.”

“Is it going to hurt my …” She choked on the mucus.

“Just shut up and give it to her,” snarled Vorkosigan.

The doctor fitted the mask over her nose and mouth. “Breathe deeply. Inhale … exhale. Keep exhaling. Now draw in. Hold it… .”

The antidote gas had a greenish taste, cooler, but nearly as nauseating as the original poison. Her stomach heaved, but had nothing left in it to reject. She watched Vorkosigan over the mask, watching her, and tried to smile reassuringly. It must be reaction catching up with him; he seemed greyer, more distressed, with each breath she took. She was certain he had taken in a larger dose than she, and pushed the mask away to say, “Isn’t it about your turn?”

The doctor pressed it back, saying, “One more breath, Milady, to be sure.” She inhaled deeply, and the doctor transferred the mask to Vorkosigan. He seemed to need no instruction in the procedure.

“How many minutes since the exposure?” asked the doctor anxiously.

“I’m not sure. Did anyone note the time? You, uh …” She had forgotten the young guard’s name.

“About fifteen or twenty minutes, Milady, I think.”

The doctor relaxed measurably. “It should be all right, then. You’ll both be in hospital for a few days. I’ll arrange for medical transport. Was anyone else exposed?” he asked the guard.

“Doctor, wait.” He had repossessed canister and mask, and was making for the door. “What will that … soltoxin do to my baby?”

He did not meet her eyes. “No one knows. No one has ever survived exposure without an immediate antidote treatment.”

Cordelia could feel her heart beating. “But given the treatment …” She did not like his look of pity, and turned to Vorkosigan. “Is that—” but was stopped cold by his expression, a leaden greyness lit from beneath by pain and growing anger, a stranger’s face with a lover’s eyes, meeting her eyes at last.

“Tell her about it,” he whispered to the doctor. “I can’t.”

“Need we distress—”

“Now. Get it over with.” His voice cracked and croaked.

“The problem is the antidote, Milady,” said the doctor reluctantly. “It’s a violent teratogen. Destroys bone development in the growing fetus. Your bones are grown, so it won’t affect you, except for an increased tendency to arthritic-type breakdowns, which can be treated … if and when they arise… .” He trailed off as she closed her eyes, shutting him out.

“I must see that hall guard,” he added.

“Go, go,” replied Vorkosigan, releasing him. He maneuvered out the door past the guard arriving with Vorkosigan’s clothes.

She opened her eyes to Vorkosigan, and they stared at each other.

“The look on your face …” he whispered. “It’s not … Weep. Rage! Do something!” His voice rose to hoarseness. “Hate me at least!”

“I can’t,” she whispered back, “feel anything yet. Tomorrow, maybe.” Every breath was fire.

With a muttered curse, he flung on the clothes, a set of undress greens. “I can do something.”

It was the stranger’s face, possessing his. Words echoed hollowly in her memory, If Death wore a dress uniform He would look just like that.

“Where are you going?”

“Going to see what Koudelka caught.” She followed him through the door. “You stay here,” he ordered.

“No.”

He glared back at her, and she brushed the glare away with an equally savage gesture, as if striking down a sword thrust. “I’m going with you.”

“Come on, then.” He turned jerkily, and made for the stairs to the first floor, rage rigid in his backbone.

“You will not,” she murmured fiercely, for his ear alone, “murder anyone in front of me.”

“Will I not?” he whispered back. “Will—I—not?” His steps were hard, bare feet jarring on the stone stairs.

The large entry hall was in chaos, filled with their guards, men in the Counts livery, medics. A man, or a body, Cordelia could not tell which, in the black fatigue uniform of the night guards, was laid out on the tessalated pavement, a medic at his head. Both were soaked from the rain, and smeared with mud. Bloodstained water pooled beneath them, and the medic’s bootsoles squeaked in it.

Commander Illyan, beads of water gleaming in his hair from the foggy drizzle, was just coming in the front door with an aide, saying, “Let me know as soon as the techs get here with the kirilian detector. Meantime keep everyone off that wall and out of the alley. My lord!” he cried when he saw Vorkosigan. “Thank God you’re all right!”

Vorkosigan growled in his throat, wordlessly. A knot of men surrounded the prisoner, who was leaning face to the wall, one hand over his head and the other held stiffly to his side at an odd angle. Droushnakovi stood near, wearing a wet shift. A wicked-looking metal crossbow dangled gleaming from her hand, evidently the weapon that had been used to fire the gas grenade through their window. She bore a livid mark on her face, and stanched a nosebleed with her other hand. Blood stained her nightgown here and there. Koudelka was there, too, leaning on his sword, one leg dragging. He wore a wet and muddy uniform and bedroom slippers, and a sour look on his face.

“I’d have had him,” he was snapping, evidently continuing an ongoing argument, “if you hadn’t come running up and shouting at me—”

“Oh, really!” Droushnakovi snapped back. “Well, pardon me, but I don’t see it that way. Seems to me he had you, laid out flat on the ground. If I hadn’t seen his legs going up the wall—”

“Stuff it! It’s Lord Vorkosigan!” hissed another guard. The knot of men turned, to step back before his face.

“How did he get in?” began Vorkosigan, and stopped. The man was wearing the black fatigues of the Service. “Surely not one of your men, Illyan!” His voice grated, metal on stone.

“My lord, we’ve got to have him alive, to question him,” said Illyan uneasily at Vorkosigan’s shoulder, half-hypnotized by the same look that had made the guards recoil. “There may be more to the conspiracy. You can’t …”

The prisoner turned, then, to face his captors. A guard started forward to shove him back into position against the wall, but Vorkosigan motioned him away. Cordelia could not see Vorkosigan’s face, standing behind him in that moment, but his shoulders lost their murderous tension, and the rage drained out of his backbone, leaving only a gutter-smear of pain. Above the insignialess black collar was the ravaged face of Evon Vorhalas.

“Oh, not both of them,” breathed Cordelia.