Lois Bujold - The Warrior's Apprentice

"I haven't changed my mind." Miles rubbed the silver circles loose from his forehead, and stared up at the great grey wall of the castle.

"The guards are going to notice us, if we just keep sitting here," Ivan added after a time. "Not to mention the hell that's probably breaking loose back at the shuttleport right now."

"Right" said Miles. He dangled now at the end of a long, long chain of reason, swinging in the winds of doubt. Time to drop to solid ground.

"After you," said Ivan politely.

"Right."

"Any time now," added Ivan.

The vertigo of free fall … he popped the doors and clambered to the pavement.

They strode up to quartet of armed guards in Imperial livery at the castle gate. One's fingers twitched into a devil's horns, down by his side; he had a countryman's face. Miles sighed inwardly. Welcome home. He settled on an incisive nod, by way of greeting.

"Good morning, Armsmen. I am Lord Vorkosigan. I understand the Emperor has commanded me to appear here."

"Damn joker," began a guard, loosening his truncheon. A second guard grasped his arm, staring shocked at Miles.

"No, Dub—it really is!"

They underwent a second search in the vestibule of the great chamber itself. Ivan kept trying to peek around the door, to the annoyance of the guard charged with being the final check against weapons carried into the presence of the Emperor. Voices wafted from the council chamber to Miles's straining ear. He identified Count Vordrozda's, pitched to a carrying nasality, rhythmic in the cadences of formal debate.

"How long has this been going on?" Miles whispered to a guard.

"A week. This was to be the last day. They're doing the summing up now. You're just in time, my lord." he gave Miles an encouraging nod; the two guard captains finished a sotto voce argument, "—but he's supposed to be here!"

"You sure you wouldn't rather be in Betan therapy?" muttered Ivan.

Miles grinned blackly. "Too late now. Won't it be funny if we've arrived just in time for the sentencing?"

"Hysterical. You'll die laughing, no doubt," growled Ivan.

Ivan, approved by the guard, started for the door. Miles grabbed him. "Sh, wait! Listen."

Another identifiable voice; Admiral Hessman.

"What's he doing here?" whispered Ivan. "I thought this thing was closed and sealed to the Counts alone."

"Witness, I'll bet, just like you. Sh!"

"… If our illustrious Prime Minister knew nothing of this plot, then let him produce this 'missing' nephew," Vordrozda's voice was heavy with sarcasm. "He says he cannot. And why not? I submit it is because Lord Vorpatril was dispatched with a secret message. What message? Obviously, some variation of 'Fly for your life—all is revealed!' I ask you—is it reasonable that a plot of this magnitude could have been advanced so far by a son with no knowledge by his father? Where did those missing 275,000 marks, whose fate he so adamantly refuses to disclose, go but to secretly finance the operation? These repeated requests for delays are simply smokescreen. If Lord Vorkosigan is so innocent, why is he not here?" Vordrozda paused dramatically.

Ivan tugged Miles's sleeve. "Come on. You'll never get a better straight line than that if you wait all day."

"You're right. Let's go."

Stained glass windows high in the east wall splashed the heavy oak flooring of the chamber with colored light. Vordrozda stood in the speaker's circle. Upon the witness bench, behind it, sat Admiral Hessman. The gallery above, with its ornately carved railings, was indeed empty, but the rows of plain wooden benches and desks that ringed the room below were jammed with men.

Formal liveries in a wild assortment of hues peeked out beneath their scarlet and silver robes of office, but for a sprinkling of robeless men who wore the red and blue parade uniform of active Imperial service. Emperor Gregor, on his raised dais to the left of the room, also wore Imperial service uniform. Miles gulped down a sharp spasm of stage fright. He wished he'd stopped at Vorkosigan House to change; he still wore the plain dark shirt, trousers, and boots he'd stood in when leaving Tau Verde. He estimated the distance to the center of the chamber as about a light-year.

His father sat, looking entirely at home in his red-and-blues, behind his desk in the first row not far from Vordrozda. Count Vorkosigan leaned back, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, arms draped along the backrest, yet looking no more casual than a tiger stalking his prey. His face was sour, murderous, concentrated on Vordrozda; Miles wondered briefly if the old slanderous sobriquet, 'the Butcher of Komarr', that had once attached to his father might have some basis in fact after all.

Vordrozda, in the speaker's circle, was the only one directly facing the darkened entrance arch. He was the first to see Miles and Ivan. He had just opened his mouth to continue; it hung there, slack.

"That's just the question I propose to make you answer, Count Vordrozda—and you, Admiral Hessman," Miles called. Two light-years, he thought, and limped forward.

The chamber stirred to murmurs and cries of astonishment. Of all the men's reactions, Miles searched for only one.

Count Vorkosigan snapped his head around, saw Miles. He inhaled, and his arms and legs drew in. He sat for a moment with his elbows on his desk, face buried in his hands. He rubbed his face, hard; when he raised it again, it was flushed and furrowed, blinking.

When did he grow to look so old? Miles grieved. Was his hair always that grey? Has he changed so much, or is it I? Or both?

Count Vorkosigan's eye fell on Ivan, and his face cleared to stunned exasperation. "Ivan, you idiot! Where have you been?"

Ivan glanced at Miles and rose to the occasion, bowing toward the witness bench. "Admiral Hessman sent me to find Miles, sir."

"I did. Somehow, I don't think that was what he really had in mind."

Vordrozda turned in the circle to glare furiously at Hessman, who was goggling at Ivan. "You—" Vordrozda hissed at the Admiral, voice venomous with rage. He caught himself up almost instantly, straightening his crouch, relaxing his hands from clawed rakes to elegant curves once again.

Miles swept a bow to the encircling assemblage, ending it on one knee in the direction of the dais. "My leige and my lords. I would have been here sooner, but my invitation was lost in the mail. To attest this I wish to call Lord Ivan Vorpatril as my witness."

Gregor's young face stared down at him, stiff, dark eyes troubled and distant. The Emperor's gaze turned in bewilderment to his new advisor, standing in the speaker's circle. His old advisor, Count Vorkosigan, looked wonderfully enlightened; his lips drew back in a tigerish smile.

Miles too glanced at Vordrozda from the corner of his eye. Now, he thought, instantly, is the time to push. By the time the Lord Guardian of the Circle admits Ivan with all due ceremony, they will have recovered. Give them sixty seconds to confer on the bench, and they will concoct new lies of utmost reasonableness, leaving it their word against ours in the hideous gamble of a stacked Council vote. Hessman, yes, it was Hessman he must put the wind up. Vordrozda was too supple to stampede. Strike now, and cleave the conspiracy in half.

He swallowed, cleared his locked throat, and swung to his feet. "I challenge Admiral Hessman, here before you, lords, on charges of sabotage, murder, and attempted murder. I can prove he ordered the sabotage of Captain Dimir's Imperial fast courier, resulting in the horrible deaths of all aboard her; I can prove his intent that my cousin Ivan have been among them."

"You are out of order," cried Vordrozda. "These insane charges do not belong in the Council of Counts. You must make them in a military court, if you make them at all, traitor."