Lois Bujold: Barrayar

“I don’t plan to go running down the street after him,” Aral snapped. “Nevertheless … next time, save your wit for those with the brains to appreciate it, eh?”

“Who was that irate fellow?” asked Cordelia lightly, trying to lift the black mood.

“Count Vidal Vordarian.” Aral turned from the glass panel back to her, and managed a smile for her benefit. “Commodore Count Vordarian. I used to work with him from time to time when I was on the General Staff. He is now a leader in what you might call the next-to-most conservative party on Barrayar; not the back-to-the-Time-of-Isolation loonies, but, shall we say, those honestly fearing all change is change for the worse.” He glanced covertly at Count Piotr.

“His name was mentioned frequently, in speculation about the upcoming Regency,” Vortala commented. “I rather fear he may have been counting on it for himself. He’s made great efforts to cultivate Kareen.”

“He should have been cultivating Ezar,” said Aral dryly. “Well … maybe he’ll come down out of the air overnight. Try him again in the morning, Vortala—a little more humbly this time, eh?”

“Coddling Vordarian’s ego could be a full-time task,” grumbled Vortala. “He spends too damn much time studying his family tree.”

Aral grimaced agreement. “He’s not the only one.”

“He is to hear him tell it,” growled Vortala.

The next day Cordelia had an official escort to the full Joint Council session in the person of Captain Lord Padma Xav Vorpatril. He turned out to be not only a member of her husband’s new staff, but also his first cousin, son of Aral’s long-dead mother’s younger sister. Lord Vorpatril was the first close relative of Aral’s Cordelia had encountered besides Count Piotr. It wasn’t that Aral’s relatives were avoiding her, as she might have feared; he had a real dearth of them. He and Vorpatril were the only surviving children of the previous generation, of whom Count Piotr was himself the last living representative. Vorpatril was a big cheerful man of about thirty-five, clean-cut in his dress greens. He had also, she discovered shortly, been one of her husband’s junior officers during his first captaincy, before Vorkosigan’s military successes of the Komarr campaign and its politically ruinous aftermath.

She sat with Vorpatril on one side and Droushnakovi on the other, in an ornate-railed gallery overlooking the Council chamber. The chamber itself was a surprisingly plain room, though heavy with what still seemed to Cordelia’s Betan eye to be incredibly luxurious wood paneling. Wooden benches and desks ringed the room. Morning light poured through stained-glass windows high in the east wall. The colorful ceremonies were played out below with great punctilio.

The ministers wore archaic-looking black and purple robes set off by gold chains of office. They were outnumbered by the nearly sixty District counts, even more splendid in scarlet and silver. A sprinkling of men young enough to be on active service in the military wore the red and blue parade uniform. Vorkosigan had been right in describing the parade uniform as gaudy, Cordelia reflected, but in the wonderful setting of this ancient room the gaud seemed most appropriate. Vorkosigan looked quite good in his set, she thought.

Prince Gregor and his mother were seated on a dais to one side of the chamber. The princess wore a black gown shot with silver decoration, high-necked and long-sleeved. Her dark-haired son looked rather like an elf in his red and blue uniform. Cordelia thought he fidgeted remarkably little, under the circumstances.

The Emperor too had a ghostly presence, over closed circuit commlink from the Imperial Residence. Ezar was shown in the holovid seated, in full uniform, at what physical cost Cordelia could not guess, the tubes and monitor leads piercing his body concealed at least from the vid pickup. His face was paper—white, his skin almost transparent, as if he were literally fading from the stage he had dominated for so long.

The gallery was crammed with wives, staff, and guards. The women were elegantly dressed and decorated with jewelry, and Cordelia studied them with interest, then turned her attention back to pumping Vorpatril for information.

“Was Aral’s appointment as Regent a surprise to you?” she asked.

“Not really. A few people took that resignation-and-retirement business after the Escobar mess seriously, but I never did.”

“He meant it seriously, I thought.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. The first person Aral fools with that prosey-stone-soldier routine is himself. It’s the sort of man he always wanted to be, I think. Like his father.”

“Hm. Yes, I had noticed a certain political bent to his conversations. In the middle of the most extraordinary circumstances, too. Marriage proposals, for instance.”

Vorpatril laughed. “I can just picture it. When he was young he was a real conservative-if you wanted to know what Aral thought about anything, all you had to do was ask Count Piotr, and multiply by two. But by the time we served together, he was getting … um … strange. If you could get him going …” There was a certain wicked reminiscence in his eye, which Cordelia promptly encouraged.

“How did you get him going? I thought political discussion was forbidden to officers.”

He snorted. “I suppose they could forbid breathing with about as much chance of success. The dictum is, shall we say, sporadically enforced. Aral stuck to it, though, unless Rulf Vorhalas and I took him out and got him really relaxed.”

“Aral? Relaxed?”

“Oh, yes. Now, Aral’s drinking was notable—”

“I thought he was a terrible drinker. No stomach for it.”

“Oh, that’s what was notable. He seldom drank. Although he went through a bad period after his first wife died, when he used to run around with Ges Vorrutyer a lot … um …” He glanced sideways, and took another tack. “Anyway, it was dangerous to get him too relaxed, because then he’d go all depressed and serious, and then it didn’t take a thing to get him on to whatever current injustice or incompetence or insanity was rousing his ire. God, the man could talk. By the time he’d had his fifth drink-just before he slid under the table for the night-he’d be declaiming revolution in iambic pentameter. I always thought he’d end up on the political side someday.” He chuckled, and looked rather lovingly at the stocky red-and-blue-clad figure seated with the Counts on the far side of the chamber.

The Joint Council vote of confirmation for Vorkosigan’s Imperial appointment was a curious affair, to Cordelia’s mind. She hadn’t imagined it possible to get seventy-five Barrayarans to agree on which direction their sun rose in the morning, but the tally was nearly unanimous in favor of Emperor Ezar’s choice. The exceptions were five set-jawed men who abstained, four loudly, one so weakly the Lord Guardian of the Speaker’s Circle had to ask him to repeat himself. Even Count Vordarian voted yea, Cordelia noticed—perhaps Vortala had managed to repair last night’s breach in some early-morning meeting after all. It all seemed a very auspicious and encouraging start to Vorkosigan’s new job, anyway, and she said as much to Lord Vorpatril.

“Uh … yes, Milady,” said Lord Vorpatril after a sideways smile at her. “Emperor Ezar made it clear he wanted united approval.”

His tone made it clear she was missing cues, again. “Are you trying to tell me some of those men would rather have voted no?”

“That would be imprudent of them, at this juncture.”

“Then the men who abstained … must have some courage of conscience.” She studied the little group with new interest.

“Oh, they’re all right,” said Vorpatril.