Lois Bujold - Barrayar

His lips twitched, half frown, half smile. “I mean Vordarian inadvertently offers House Vorkosigan a service. I’m sure he doesn’t realize it.”

You wouldn’t say that if Aral were standing here, old man. Did you set this up? God, she couldn’t say that to him—”Did you set this up?” Cordelia demanded tightly.

Piotr’s head jerked back. “I don’t deal with traitors!”

“He’s of your Old Vor party. Your true allegiance. You always said Aral was too damned progressive.”

“You dare accuse me—!” His outrage edged into plain rage.

Her rage was shadowing her vision with red. “I know you are an attempted murderer, why not an attempted traitor, too? I can only hope your incompetence holds good.”

His voice was breathy with fury. “Too far!”

“No, old man. Not nearly far enough.”

Drou looked absolutely terrorized. Bothari’s face was a stony blank. Piotr’s hand twitched, as if he wanted to strike her. Bothari watched that hand, his eyes glittering oddly, shifting.

“While dumping that mutant out of its can is the best favor Vidal Vordarian could do me, I am hardly likely to let him know it,” Piotr bit out. “It will be far more amusing to watch him try to play a joker as if it were an ace, and then wonder what went wrong. Aral knows—I imagine he’s relieved as hell, to have Vordarian do his job for him. Or have you bewitched him into planning something spectacularly stupid?”

“Aral’s doing nothing.”

“Oh, good boy. I was wondering if you’d stolen his spine permanently. He is Barrayaran after all.”

“So it seems,” she said woodenly. She was shaking. Piotr was not in much better case.

“This is a side-issue,” he said, as much to himself as her, trying to regain his self-control. “I have major issues to pursue with the Lord Regent. Farewell, Milady.” He tilted his head in ironic effort, and turned away.

“Have a nice day,” she snarled to his back, and flung herself through the door into Aral’s quarters.

She paced for twenty minutes, back and forth, before she trusted herself enough to speak even to Drou, who had squeezed into a corner seat as if trying to make herself small.

“You don’t really think Count Piotr is a traitor, do you, Milady?” Droushnakovi asked, when Cordelia’s steps finally slowed.

Cordelia shook her head. “No … no. I just wanted to hurt him back. This place is getting to me. Has gotten to me.” Wearily, she sank into a seat and leaned her head back against the padding. After a silence she added, “Aral’s right. I have no right to risk. No, that’s not quite correct. I have no right to failure. And I don’t trust myself anymore. I don’t know what’s happened to my edge. Lost it in a strange land.” I can’t remember. Can’t remember how I did it. She and Bothari were twins, right enough, two personalities separately but equally crippled by an overdose of Barrayar.

“Milady …” Droushnakovi plucked at her skirts, looking down into her lap. “I was in Imperial Residence Security for three years.”

“Yes …” Her heart lurched, gulped. As an exercise in self—discipline, Cordelia closed her eyes and did not open them again. “Tell me about that, Drou.”

“Negri trained me himself. Because I was Kareen’s body servant, he always said I would be the last barrier between Kareen and Gregor and—and anything that was bad enough to get that far. He showed me everything about the Residence. He used to drill me about it. He showed me things I don’t think he showed anybody else. We had five emergency escape routes worked out, in our disaster drills. Two of them were common Security procedure. One of them he showed only to a few top staffers like Illyan. The other two—I don’t know that anybody knew about them but Negri and Emperor Ezar. And I’m thinking …” she moistened her lips, “a secret route out of something ought to be an equally secret route in. Don’t you think?”

“Your reasoning interests me extremely, Drou. As Aral might say. Go on.” Cordelia still did not open her eyes.

“That’s about it. If I could somehow get to the Residence, I bet I could get in. If Vordarian’s just taken over all the standard Security arrangements and beefed them up.”

“And get back out?”

“Why not?” Cordelia found she had to remember to breathe. “Who do you work for, Drou?”

“Captain—” she started to answer, but slowed selfconsciously. “Negri. But he’s dead. Commander—Captain Illyan, now, I suppose.”

“Let me rephrase that.” Cordelia opened her eyes at last. “Who did you put your life on the line for?”

“Kareen. And Gregor, of course. They were kind of the same thing.”

“Still are. This mother bets.” She caught Drou’s blue gaze. “And Kareen gave you to me.”

“To be my mentor. We thought you were a soldier.”

“Never. But that doesn’t mean I never fought.” Cordelia paused. “What do you want to trade for, Drou? Your life in my hand—I shall not say oath-sworn, that’s for those other idiots—for what?”

“Kareen,” Droushnakovi answered steadily. “I’ve watched them, here, gradually reclassifying her as expendable. Every day for three years, I put my life on the line because I believed that her life was important. You watch someone that closely for that long, you don’t have too many illusions about her. Now they seem to think I should just switch off my loyalty, like some guard-machine. There’s something wrong with that. I want to—to at least try for Kareen. In exchange for that—whatever you will, Milady.”

“Ah.” Cordelia rubbed her lips. “That seems … equitable. One expendable life for another. Kareen for Miles.” She sank down in the chair in deep meditation.

First you see it. Then you do it. “It’s not enough.” Cordelia shook her head at last. “We need … someone who knows the city. Someone with muscle, for backup. A weapons-man, a sleepless eye. I need a friend.” The comers of her lips turned up in a very small smile. “Closer than a brother.” She rose and walked to the comconsole.

“You asked to see me, Milady?” said Sergeant Bothari.

“Yes. Please come in.”

Senior officers’ quarters did not intimidate Bothari, but his brow furrowed nonetheless as Cordelia gestured him to a seat. She took Aral’s usual spot across the low table from him. Drou sat again in the corner, watching in reserved silence.

Cordelia regarded Bothari, who regarded her in return. He looked all right physically, though his face was grooved with tension. She sensed, as with a third eye, frustrated energies coursing through his body; arcs of rage, nets of control, a tangled electric knot of dangerous sexuality under it all. Reverberating energies, building up and up without release, in desperate need of ordered action lest they break out wildly on their own. She blinked, and refocused on his less terrifying surface; a tired-looking ugly man in an elegant brown uniform.

To her surprise, Bothari began. “Milady. Have you heard anything new about Elena?”

Wondering why I called you here? To her shame, she had almost forgotten Elena. “Nothing new, I’m afraid. She is reported being kept along with Mistress Hysopi in that downtown hotel that Vordarian’s Security commandeered when they ran out of cells, with a lot of other second– and third-tier hostages. She hasn’t been moved to the Residence or anything.” Elena was not, unlike Kareen, in the direct line of Cordelia’s secret mission. If he asked, how much dare she promise?

“I was sorry to hear about your son, Milady.”

“My mutant, as Piotr would say.” She watched him; she could read his shoulders and spine and gut better than that blank beaky face.

“About Count Piotr,” he said, and stopped. His hands hooked each other, between his knees, and flexed. “I had thought to speak to the admiral. I hadn’t thought to speak to you. I should have thought of you.”