Lois Bujold - The Warrior's Apprentice

"Did Father succeed?"

"Apparently. At least as of two weeks ago, when the fast courier that arrived yesterday left Barrayar."

"Ah." Miles began to pace. "Ah. Clever, clever—maybe. .."

"I don't understand it either," complained Ivan. "Usurpation is a much worse charge!"

"But it happens to be one I'm innocent of. And furthermore, it's a charge of intent. About all I'd have to do is show up to disprove it. Violating Vorloupulous's law is a charge of fact—and in fact, although not in intent, I'm guilty of it. Given that I showed up for my trial, and spoke the truth as I'm sworn to, it'd be a lot harder to wriggle out of."

Ivan finished his second thumbnail. "What makes you think your innocence or guilt is going to have anything to do with the outcome?"

"I beg your pardon?" said Mrs. Naismith.

"That's why I said, maybe," explained Miles. "This thing is so damned political—how many votes d'you suppose Vordrozda will have sewn up in advance, before any evidence or testimony is even presented? He's got to have some, or he'd never have dared to float this in the first place."

"You're asking me?" said Ivan plaintively.

"You …" Miles eye fell on his cousin. "You … I am absolutely convinced you are the key to this thing, if only I can figure out how to fit you into the lock."

Ivan looked as if he were trying, and failing, to picture himself as a key to anything. "Why?"

"For one thing, until we report in somewhere, Hessman and Vordrozda will think you're dead."

"What?" said Mrs. Naismith.

Miles explained about the disappearance of Captain Dimir's mission. He touched his forehead, and added to

Ivan, "And that's the real reason for this, besides Calhoun, of course."

"Speaking of Calhoun," said his grandmother, "he's been coming around here regularly, looking for you. You'd best be on the lookout for him, if you really mean to stay covert."

"Uh," said Miles, "thanks. Anyway, Ivan, if Dimir's ship was sabotaged, it would have to have taken somebody on the inside to do it. What's to keep whoever doesn't want me to show up for my trial from trying again, if we so-conveniently place ourselves in his hands by popping up at the Embassy?"

"Miles, your mind is crookeder than your bac—I mean—anyway, are you sure you're not catching Bothari's disease?" said Ivan. "You're making me feel like I've got a bulls-eye painted on my back."

Miles grinned, feeling bizarrely exhilarated. "Wakes you up, doesn't it?" It seemed to him he could hear the gates of reason clicking over in his own brain, cascading faster and faster. His voice took on a faraway tone. "You know, if you're trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it's a lot easier to hit your targets if you don't yell going through the door."

They kept the rest of the visit almost as brief as Miles had hoped. They emptied out the valise onto the living room floor, and Miles counted out piles of Betan dollars to clear his various Betan debts, including his grandmother's original "investment". Rather bemusedly, she agreed to be his agent for the task of distribution.

The largest pile was for Elli Quinn's new face. Miles gulped when his grandmother quoted him the approximate price for the best work. When he was finished, he had one meager wad of bills left in his hand.

Ivan snickered. "By God, Miles, you've made a profit. I think you're the first Vorkosigan to do so in five generations. Must be that bad Betan blood."

Miles weighed the dollars, wryly. "It's getting to be a kind of family tradition, isn't it? My father gave away 275,000 marks the day before he left the Regency, just so he would have the exact financial balance as the day he took it up sixteen years earlier."

Ivan raised his eyebrows. "I never knew that."

"Why do you think Vorkosigan House didn't get a new roof last year? I think that was the only thing Mother regretted, the roof. Otherwise, it was kind of fun, figuring out where to bury the stuff. The Imperial Service orphanage picked up a packet."

For curiosity, Miles stole a moment and punched up the financial exchange on the comconsole. Felician millifenigs were listed once again. The exchange rate was 1,206 millifenigs to the Betan dollar, but at least they were listed. Last week's rate had been 1,459 to the dollar.

Miles's growing sense of urgency propelled them toward the door.

"If we can have a one-day head start in the Felician fast courier," he told his grandmother, "that should be enough. Then you can call the Embassy and put them out of their misery."

"Yes." She smiled. "Poor Lieutenant Croye was convinced he was going to spend the rest of his career as a private doing guard duty someplace nasty."

Miles paused at the door. "Ah—about Tav Calhoun—"

"Yes?"

"You know that janitor's closet on the second level?"

"Vaguely." She looked at him in unease.

"Please be sure somebody checks it tomorrow morning. But don't go up there before then."

"I wouldn't dream of it," she assured him faintly.

"Come on, Miles," Ivan urged over his shoulder.

"Just a second."

Miles darted back inside to Elli Quinn, still seated obediently in the living room. He pressed the wad of leftover bills into her palm, and closed her fingers over it.

"Combat bonus," he whispered to her. "For upstairs just now. You earned it."

He kissed her hand and ran after Ivan.

Miles banked the lightflyer in a gentle, demure turn around Vorhartung Castle, resisting a nervous urge to slam it directly down into the courtyard. The ice had broken on the river winding through the capital city of Vorbarr Sultana, running a chill green now from the snows melting in the Dendarii Mountains far to the south. The ancient building straddled high bluffs; the lightflyer rocked in the updraft puffing from the river.

The modern city spread out for kilometers around was bright and noisy with morning traffic. The parking areas near the castle were jammed with vehicles of all descriptions, and knots of men in half-a-hundred different liveries. Ivan, beside Miles, counted the banners snapping in the cold spring breeze on the battlements.

"It's a full Council session," said Ivan. "I don't think there's a banner missing—there's even Count Vortala's, and I don't think he's been to one in years. Must have been carried in. Ye gods, Miles! There's the Emperor's banner—Gregor must be inside."

"You could figure that from all the fellows on the roof in Imperial livery with the anti-aircraft plasma guns," observed Miles. He flinched inwardly. One such weapon was swivelling to follow their track even now, like a suspicious eye.

Slowly and carefully, he set the lightflyer down in a painted circle outside the castle walls.

"Y'know," said Ivan thoughtfully, "We're going to look a pair of damn fools busting in there if it turns out they're all having a debate on water rights or something."

"That thought has crossed my mind," Miles admitted. "It was a calculated risk, landing in secret. Well, we've both been fools before. There won't be anything new or startling in it."

He checked the time, and paused a moment in the pilot's seat, bent his head down, and breathed carefully.

"You feeling sick?" asked Ivan, alarmed. "You don't look so good."

Miles shook his head, a lie, and begged forgiveness in his heart for all the harsh things he'd once thought about Baz Jesek. So this was the real thing, paralyzing funk. He wasn't braver than Baz after all—he'd just never been as scared. He wished himself back with the Dendarii, doing something simple, like defusing dandelion bombs. "Pray to God this works," he muttered.

Ivan looked even more alarmed. "You've been pushing this surprise-scheme on me for the last two weeks—all right, so you've convinced me. It's too late to change your mind!"