Lois Bujold - Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen

He made a quick initial assay of her. She looked a trifle jump-lagged, but nothing like the frightening dead-gray bleakness that had haunted her features when she’d returned alone almost three years ago from her husband’s state funeral. Not that Jole himself had been in much better form, at the time. The colonists of Sergyar had been entirely uncertain if they were going to get their Vicereine back at all, that trip, or if some stranger-lord would be appointed in her place. But she was wearing colors again now, if subdued ones, Komarran-style trousers and jacket, and her unmistakable smile had warmed to something better than room temperature. She was still keeping her tousled red-gray hair cut short; the fine bones of her face held out, like a rampart that had never fallen.

Her left hand, down at her side, gripped what appeared to be a small cryofreezer case. Lieutenant Vorinnis, like any good admiral’s assistant, advanced upon it. “May I take your luggage, Your Excellency?”

Cordelia cried, sharply and unexpectedly, “No!” twitching the case away. At Jole’s eyebrow-lift, she seemed to catch herself up, and continued more smoothly, “No, thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll carry this one. And my armsman will see to the rest.” She cast a quick head-tilt toward the girl, and a plea of a look Jole’s way.

He took the hint. “Vicereine, may I introduce my new aide, Lieutenant Kaya Vorinnis. Just assigned—she arrived a few weeks after you left.” Cordelia had departed six weeks ago to present the Sergyaran Viceroy’s Annual Report to Emperor Gregor in person, and incidentally catch a little of Winterfair Season with her family back on Barrayar. Jole hoped that had been refreshing rather than exhausting, although having met the Vorkosigan offspring, he suspected it had been both.

“How do you do, Lieutenant? I hope you will find Sergyar an interesting rotation. Ah—any relation to the young count?”

“Not close, ma’am,” Vorinnis replied, an answer Jole suspected she was tired of offering, but she did it without grimacing here.

The Vicereine turned and delivered a few well-practiced words of thanks to the honor guard. Their sergeant returned the traditional, “Ma’am, yes, ma’am!” proudly on their behalf, and marched them out again. Cordelia watched them go, then turned with a sigh to take Jole’s arm proffered in escort.

She shook her head. “Really, Oliver, do you have to do this every time I transit? All I’m going to do is walk from the docking bay to the shuttle hatch. Those poor boys could have slept in.”

“We never did less for the Viceroy. It’s an honor for them as well as for you, you know.”

“Aral was your war hero. Several times over.”

The corners of Jole’s mouth twitched up. “And you’re not?” He added in curiosity, “What’s in the box? Not a severed head—again—I trust?” It seemed too small for that, fortunately.

Cordelia’s gray eyes glinted. “Now, now, Oliver. Bring home one dismembered body part, once , mind you, once , and people get twitchy about checking your luggage ever after.” Her smile grew wry. “But that we can joke about that now…ah, well.”

Lieutenant Vorinnis, trailing, looked vaguely appalled, though whether at the famous historical incident that had ended the Pretender’s War, a disturbing number of years before her birth, or her superiors’ attitude to it, Jole was not sure.

Jole said, “Do you want to take a break, Cordelia, before catching your downside leg? I don’t know what meal schedule you’re on, but we can provide.” The entire Barrayaran Imperial fleet, and by extension this station, kept Vorbarr Sultana time, which unfortunately did not mesh with that of the colonial capital below, as the two planets had, among other things, different day lengths. Not that the same time on two different sides of a wormhole jump, let alone a string of them, had any but an arbitrary congruence. “Your shuttle will await your convenience, I promise you.”

Cordelia shook her head in regret. “I switched to Kareenburg time when we made Sergyaran space a day ago. I think my next meal is lunch, though I’ll find out when we land. But no, thank you, Oliver, not this round. I’m eager to get home.” Her grip on the freezer case tightened.

“I hope we’ll be able to catch up more thoroughly soon.”

“Oh, count on it. When do you next cycle down to base?”

“End of the week.”

Her eyes narrowed in some unconfided calculation. “Ye-es. That might just about do. My secretary will be in touch, then.”

“Right-oh.” Jole accepted this affably, hiding his disappointment. News from Barrayar arrived hourly by tightbeam. Stories from home arrived with returning visitors, more erratically. Could a man be homesick for a voice ? A light, particular voice, still laced with a broad Betan accent forty-plus years after pledging and proving allegiance to an alien Imperium?

All too soon, they arrived at the shuttle hatch. Jole had inspected the vessel personally not an hour ago. The pilot reported at the ready. Jole stood aside with Cordelia, stealing a few more minutes together as her luggage was trundled aboard.

“You’re traveling lighter, these days.”

She smiled. “Aral was used to moving an army. I prefer simpler logistics.” She glanced toward the shuttle hatch, as if anxious to be boarding. “Any forest fires downside that I haven’t heard about by tightbeam?”

“None that have penetrated the stratosphere.” Their traditional dividing line for their respective responsibilities. Cordelia rode herd on some two million colonists on behalf of Emperor Gregor; Jole suspected that a good half of them would be at her for attention the moment her foot touched the soil. At least he could make sure that no new troubles dropped on her from above. “Take care of yourself down there. Or at least let your staff do so.” Jole exchanged a conspiratorial glance with Armsman Rykov, who acted more-or-less as the Vicereine’s household seneschal, and who nodded endorsement of this notion.

Cordelia just smiled. “See you soon, Oliver.”

And off she goes. And goes and goes, like any Vorkosigan . Jole shook his head.

He waited till he heard the docking clamps release, then turned away.

Vorinnis, pacing him, inquired, “Were you there, sir, when she brought back the Pretender’s head?”

“I was eight , Lieutenant.” He tried to rub the amusement off his mouth, and recover his expected admiral’s gravity. “I grew up in one of the westernmost districts—it had no military shuttleport, so we weren’t a high-value target for either side. I mainly remember the war as everyone trying to carry on normally, but all the adults being awash in fear and fantastic rumors. The Lord Regent had made away with the boy emperor, he was brainwashed by Betan spies, worse slanders…Everyone believed that Lady Vorkosigan had been sent on that commando raid by her husband, but the truth, I later learned, was a deal more complicated.” And not all his to tell, Jole was reminded. “We meet fairly frequently in the course of business here on Sergyar—you may get a chance to try to get her to decant some of her war stories.” Although upon reflection, Jole wasn’t sure of the advisability of introducing a keen young officer to Vorkosigan notions of initiative. Metaphors about fighting fire with gasoline rose to his mind.

He grinned and returned to Command-and-Control, there to keep the Vicereine’s shuttle in view till its safe touchdown was confirmed.

The Sergyaran afternoon was luminous, on the restaurant terrace overlooking what Cordelia could no longer call the encampment, nor even the village, but surely the city even by galactic standards. The terrace’s perch above a sharp drop-off on the hillside lent a pleasant illusion of looking out into a gulf of light. When the server, seating her at her reserved corner table, inquired if ma’am wanted the polarizing awning raised, Cordelia answered simply, “Not yet,” and waved him off. She sat back and lifted her face to the warmth, closing her eyes and letting its caress soothe her. And tried not to think how long it had been since any more palpable caress had done so. Three years next month , the too-busy part of her brain that she could not shut off supplied.