Lois Bujold - Barrayar

They all huddled in to a narrow hallway featuring stairs, a desk, and an archway leading back to a darkened chamber. Their host grew even grumpier when he learned they desired only one room among the four of them. Yet he did not question it; apparently their real desperation lent their pose of poverty a genuine edge. With the two women and especially Koudelka in the party, no one seemed to leap to identify them as secret agents.

They settled into a cramped, cheap upstairs room, giving Kou and Drou first shot at the beds. As dawn seeped through the window, Cordelia followed Bothari back downstairs to forage.

“I should have realized we’d need to bring rations, to a city under siege,” Cordelia muttered.

“It’s not that bad yet,” said Bothari. “Ah—best you don’t talk, Milady. Your accent.”

“Right. In that case, strike up a conversation with this fellow, if you can. I want to hear the local view of things.”

They found the innkeeper, or whatever he was, in the little room beyond the archway, which, judging from a counter and a couple of battered tables with chairs, doubled as a bar and a dining room. The man reluctantly sold them some seal-packed food and bottled drinks at inflated prices, while complaining about the rationing and angling for information about them.

“I been planning this trip for months,” said Bothari, leaning on the bar, “and the damned war’s bitched it.”

The innkeep made an encouraging noise, one entrepreneur to another. “Oh? What’s your strat?”

Bothari licked his lips, eyes narrowing in thought. “You saw that blonde?”

“Yo?”

“Virgin.”

“No way. Too old.”

“Oh, yeah. She can pass for class, that one. We were gonna sell it to some Vor lord at Winterfair. Get us a grubstake. But they’ve all skipped town. Could try for a rich merchant, I guess. But she won’t like it. I promised her a real lord.”

Cordelia hid her mouth behind her hand, and tried not to emit any attention-drawing noises. It was an excellent thing Drou was not there to learn Bothari’s idea of a cover story. Good God. Did Barrayaran men actually pay for the privilege of committing that bit of sexual torture upon uninitiated women?

The ’keep glanced at Cordelia. “You leave her alone with your partner without her duenna, you could lose what you came to sell.”

“Naw,” said Bothari. “He would if he could, but he took a nerve-disruptor bolt, once. Below the belt, like. He’s out on medical discharge.”

“What’re you out on?”

“Discharged without prejudice.”

This was a code-phrase for, Quit or be housed in the stockade, as Cordelia understood it, the ultimate fate of chronic troublemakers who fell just, but only just, short of felony.

“You put up with a spastic?” The ’keep jerked his head, indicating their upstairs room and its inhabitants.

“He’s the brains of the outfit.”

“Not too many brains, to come up here and try to do that bit of business now.”

“Yeah. I think I could’ve had a better price for that same piece of meat here if I’d had her butchered and dressed.”

“You got that right,” snorted the ’keep glumly, eyeing the food piled on the counter before Cordelia.

“She’s too good to waste, though. Guess I’ll have to find something else, till this mess blows over. Kill some time. Somebody may be hiring muscle…” Bothari let this trail off. Was he running out of inspiration?

The ’keep studied him with interest. “Yo? I’ve had something in my eye I could use a, like, agent for. Been afraid for a week somebody else’d go after it first. You could be just what I need.”

“Yo?”

The ’keep leaned forward across the bar, confidentially. “Count Vordarian’s boys are giving out some fat rewards, down at ImpSec, for information-leading-to. Now, I wouldn’t normally mess with ImpSec whoever was running it this week, but there’s a strange fellow down the street who’s taken a room. And he keeps to it, ’cept when he goes out for food, more food than one man might eat … he’s got someone in there with him no one ever sees. And he sure isn’t one of us. I can’t help thinking he might be … worth something to somebody, eh?”

Bothari frowned judiciously. “Could be dangerous. Admiral Vorkosigan blows back into town, they’ll be looking real hard for that little list of informers. And you have an address.”

“But you don’t, seems. If you’d front it, I could give you a ten percent split. I think he’s big, that fellow. He’s sure scared.”

Bothari shook his head. “I been out-country, and I came up here—can’t you smell it, here in the city? Defeat, man. Vordarian’s people look downright morbid to me. I’d think real carefully ’bout that list, if I was you.”

The ’keep’s lips tightened in frustration. “One way or another, opportunity’s not going to last.”

Cordelia grabbed for Bothari’s ear to whisper, “Play along. Find out who it is. Could be an ally.” After a moment’s thought she added, “Ask for fifty percent.”

Bothari straightened, nodded. “Fifty-fifty,” he said to the ’keep. “For the risk.”

The ’keep frowned at Cordelia, but respectfully. He said reluctantly, “Fifty percent of something’s better than a hundred percent of nothing, I suppose.”

“Can you get me a look at this fellow?” asked Bothari.

“Maybe.”

“Here, woman.” Bothari piled the packages in Cordelias arms. “Take these back to the room.”

Cordelia cleared her throat, and tried for an imitation mountain accent. “You be careful belike. City man’ll take you.”

Bothari favored the ’keep with an alarming grin. “Ah, he wouldn’t try and cheat an old vet. More than once.”

The ’keep smiled back nervously.

Cordelia dozed uneasily, and jerked awake as Bothari returned to their little room. He checked the hallway carefully before closing the door behind him. He looked grim.

“Well, Sergeant? What did you find out?” What if their fellow-hider turned out to be someone as strategically important as, say, Admiral Kanzian? The thought frightened her. How could she resist being turned aside from her personal mission if some greater good were too crystal-clear … Kou on a pallet on the floor, and Drou on the other cot, both blinking sleep, sat up on their elbows to listen.

“It’s Lord Vorpatril. Lady Vorpatril, too.”

“Oh, no.” She sat upright. “Are you certain?”

“Oh, yes.”

Kou scrubbed at his scalp, hair bent with sleep. “Did you make contact with them?”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“It’s Lady Vorkosigan’s call. Whether to divert from our primary mission.”

And to think she’d wished for command: “Do they seem all right?”

“Alive, lying low. But—that git downstairs can’t have been the only one to spot them. I’ve spiked him for now, but somebody else could get greedy any time.”

“Any sign of the baby?”

He shook his head. “She hasn’t had it yet.”

“It’s late! She was due over two weeks ago. How hellish.” She paused. “Do you think we could escape the city together?”

“The more people in a party, the more conspicuous,” Bothari said slowly. “And I caught a glimpse of Lady Vorpatril. She’s real conspicuous. People’d notice her.”

“I don’t see how joining us now would improve their position. Their cover’s worked for several weeks. If we succeed at the Residence, maybe we can try for them on the way back. Certainly have Illyan send loyalist agents to help them, if we get back …” Damn. If she were an official raid, she’d have just the contacts the Vorpatrils needed. But then, if she were an offical raid, she doubtless would not have come this way. She sat thinking. “No. No contact yet. But we’d better do something to discourage your friend downstairs.”