"That's . . . generally best, when one is going to talk," Ekaterin responded. She glanced in query at Hugo.
"Vassily came to me . . ." Hugo began, and trailed off. "Well, you explain it, Vassily."
Vassily leaned forward with his hands clasped between his knees and said heavily, "You see, it's this. I received a most disturbing communication from an informant here in Vorbarr Sultana about what has been happening—what has recently come to light—some very disturbing information about you, my late cousin, and Lord Auditor Vorkosigan."
"Oh," she said flatly. So, the circuit of the Old Walls, what remained of them, did not limit the slander to the capital; the slime-trail even stretched to provincial District towns. She had somehow thought this vicious game an exclusively High Vor pastime. She sat back and frowned.
"Because it seemed to concern both our families very nearly—and, of course, because something of this peculiar nature must be cross-checked—I brought it to Hugo, for his advice, hoping that he could allay my fears. The corroborations your sister-in-law Rosalie supplied served to increase them instead."
Corroborations of what? She could probably make a few shrewd guesses, but she declined to lead the witnesses. "I don't understand."
"I was told," Vassily stopped to lick his lips nervously, "it's become common knowledge among his high Vor set that Lord Auditor Vorkosigan was responsible for sabotaging Tien's breath mask, the night he died on Komarr."
She could demolish this quickly enough. "You are told lies. That story was made up by a nasty little cabal of Lord Vorkosigan's political enemies, who wished to embarrass him during some District inheritance in-fighting presently going on here in the Council of Counts. Tien sabotaged himself; he was always careless about cleaning and checking his equipment. It's just whispering. No such actual charge has been made."
"Well, how could it be?" said Vassily reasonably. But her confidence that she'd brought him swiftly to his senses died as he went on, "As it was explained to me, any charge would have to be laid in the Council, before and by his peers. His father may be retired to Sergyar, but you may be sure his Centrist coalition remains powerful enough to suppress any such move."
"I would hope so." It might be suppressed, oh yes, but not for the reason Vassily thought. Lips thinning, she stared coldly at him.
Hugo put in anxiously, "But you see, Ekaterin, the same person informed Vassily that Lord Vorkosigan attempted to force you to accept a proposal of marriage from him."
She sighed in exasperation. "Force? No, certainly not."
"Ah." Hugo brightened.
"He did ask me to marry him. Very . . . awkwardly."
"My God, that was really true?" Hugo looked momentarily stunned. He sounded a deal more appalled at this than at the murder charge—doubly unflattering, Ekaterin decided. "You refused, of course!"
She touched the left side of her bolero, tracing the now not-so-stiff shape of the paper she kept folded there. Miles's letter was not the sort of thing she cared to leave lying around for anyone to pick up and read, and besides . . . she wanted to reread it herself now and then. From time to time. Six or twelve times a day . . . "Not exactly."
Hugo's brow wrinkled. "What do you mean by not exactly? I thought that was a yes-or-no sort of question."
"It's . . . difficult to explain." She hesitated. Detailing in front of Tien's closest cousin how a decade of Tien's private chaos had worn out her soul was just not on her list, she decided. "And rather personal."
Vassily offered helpfully, "The letter said that you seemed confused and distraught."
Ekaterin's eyes narrowed. "Just what busybody did you have this—communication—from, anyway?"
Vassily replied, "A friend of yours—he claimed—who is gravely concerned for your safety."
A friend? The Professora was her friend. Kareen, Mark . . . Miles, but he would hardly traduce himself, now . . . Enrique? Tsipis? "I cannot imagine any friend of mine doing or saying any such thing."
Hugo's frown of worry deepened. "The letter also said Lord Vorkosigan has been putting all sorts of pressure on you. That he has some strange hold on your mind."
No. Only on my heart, I think. Her mind was perfectly clear. It was the rest of her that seemed to be in rebellion. "He's a very attractive man," she admitted.
Hugo exchanged a baffled look with Vassily. Both men had met Miles at Tien's funeral; of course, Miles had been very closed and formal there, and still grayly fatigued from his case. They'd had no opportunity to see what he was like when he opened up—the elusive smile, the bright, particular eyes, the wit and the words and the passion . . . the confounded look on his face when confronted by Vorkosigan liveried butter bugs . . . she smiled helplessly in memory.
"Kat," said Hugo in a disconcerted tone, "the man's a mutie. He barely comes up to your shoulder. He's distinctly hunched—I don't know why that wasn't surgically corrected. He's just odd."
"Oh, he's had dozens of surgeries. His original damage was far, far more severe. You can still see these faint old scars running all over his body from the corrections."
Hugo stared at her. "All over his body?"
"Um. I assume so. As much of it as I've seen, anyway." She stopped her tongue barely short of adding, The top half. A perfectly unnecessary vision of Miles entirely naked, gift-wrapped in sheets and blankets in bed, and her with him, slowly exploring his intricacies all the way down, distracted her imagination momentarily. She blinked it away, hoping her eyes weren't crossing. "You have to concede, he has a good face. His eyes are . . . very alive."
"His head's too big."
"No, his body's just a little undersized for it." How had she ended up arguing Miles's anatomy with Hugo, anyway? He wasn't some spavined horse she was considering purchasing against veterinary advice, drat it. "Anyway, this is none of it our business."
"It is if he—if you—" Hugo sucked his lip. "Kat . . . if you're under some kind of threat, or blackmail or some strange thing, you don't stand alone. I know we can get help. You may have abandoned your family, but we haven't abandoned you."
More's the pity. "Thank you for that estimate of my character," she said tartly. "And do you imagine our Uncle Lord Auditor Vorthys is incapable of protecting me, if it should come to that? And Aunt Vorthys, too?"
Vassily said uneasily, "I'm sure your uncle and aunt are very kind—after all, they took you and Nikki in—but I'm given to understand they are both rather unworldly intellectuals. Possibly they do not understand the dangers. My informant says they haven't been guarding you at all. They've permitted you to go where you will, when you will, in a completely unregulated fashion, and come in contact with all sorts of dubious persons."
Their unworldly aunt was one of Barrayar's foremost experts on every gory detail of the political history of the Time of Isolation, spoke and read four languages flawlessly, could sift through documentation with an eye worthy of an ImpSec analyst—a line of work several of her former graduate students were now in—and had thirty years of experience dealing with young people and their self-inflicted troubles. And as for Uncle Vorthys—"Engineering failure analysis does not strike me as an especially unworldly discipline. Not when it includes expertise on sabotage." She inhaled, preparing to enlarge on this.
Vassily's lips tightened. "The capital has a reputation as an unsavory milieu. Too many wealthy, powerful men—and their women—with too few restraints on their appetites and vices. That's a dangerous world for a young boy to be exposed to, especially through his mother's . . . love affairs." Ekaterin was still mentally sputtering over this one when Vassily's voice dropped to a tone of hushed horror, and he added, "I've even heard—they say—that there's a high Vor lord here in Vorbarr Sultana who used to be a woman, who had her brain transplanted to a man's body."
Ekaterin blinked. "Oh. Yes, that would be Lord Dono Vorrutyer. I've met him. It wasn't a brain transplant—ick! what a horrid misrepresentation—it was just a perfectly ordinary Betan body mod."
Both men boggled at
her. "You encountered this creature?" said Hugo. "Where?"
"Um . . . Vorkosigan House. Actually. Dono seemed a very bright fellow. I think he'll do very well for Vorrutyer's District, if the Council grants him his late brother's Countship." She added after a moment of bitter consideration, "All things considered, I quite hope he gets it. That would give Richars and his slandering cronies one in the eye!"
Hugo, who had absorbed this exchange with growing dismay, put in, "I have to agree with Vassily, I'm a little uneasy myself about having you down here in the capital. The family so wishes to see you safe, Kat. I grant you're no girl anymore. You should have your own household, watched over by a steady husband who can be trusted to guard your welfare and Nikki's."
You could get your wish. Yet . . . she had stood up to armed terrorists, and survived. And won. Her definition of safe was . . . not so very narrow as that, anymore.
"A man of your own class," Hugo went on persuasively. "Someone who's right for you."
I think I've found him. He comes with a house where I don't hit the walls each time I stretch, either. Not even if I stretched out forever. She cocked her head. "Just what do you think my class is, Hugo?"
He looked nonplused. "Our class. Solid, honest, loyal Vor. On the women's side, modest, proper, upright. . . ."
She was suddenly on fire with a desire to be immodest, improper, and above all . . . not upright. Quite gloriously horizontal, in fact. It occurred to her that a certain disparity of height would be immaterial, when one—or two—were lying down . . . "You think I should have a house?"
"Yes, certainly."
"Not a planet?"
Hugo looked taken aback. "What? Of course not!"
"You know, Hugo, I never realized it before, but your vision lacks . . . scope." Miles thought she should have a planet. She paused, and a slow smile stole over her lips. After all, his mother had one. It was all in what you were used to, she supposed. No point in saying this aloud; they wouldn't get the joke.
And how had her big brother, admired and generous if more than a little distant due to their disparity of age, grown so small-minded of late? No . . . Hugo hadn't changed. The logical conclusion shook her.
Hugo said, "Damn, Kat. I thought that part of the letter was twaddle at first, but this mutie lord has turned your head around in some strange way."
"And if it's true . . . he has frightening allies," said Vassily. "The letter claimed that Vorkosigan had Simon Illyan himself riding point for him, herding you into his trap." His lips twisted dubiously. "That was the part that most made me wonder if I was being made a game of, to tell you the truth."
"I've met Simon," Ekaterin conceded. "I found him rather . . . sweet."
A dazed silence greeted this declaration.
She added a little awkwardly, "Of course, I understand he's relaxed quite a lot since his medical retirement from ImpSec. One can see that would be a great burden off his mind." Belatedly, the internal evidence slotted into place. "Wait a minute—who did you say sent you this hash of hearsay and lies?"
"It was in the strictest confidence," said Vassily warily.
"It was that blithering idiot Alexi Vormoncrief, wasn't it? Ah!" The light dawned, furiously, like the glare from an atomic fireball. But screaming, swearing, and throwing things would be counterproductive. She gripped the chair arms, so that the men could not see her hands shake. "Vassily, Hugo should have told you—I turned down a proposal of marriage from Alexi. It seems he's found a way to revenge his outraged vanity." Vile twit!
"Kat," said Hugo slowly, "I did consider that interpretation. I grant you the fellow's a trifle, um, idealistic, and if you've taken against him I won't try to argue his suit—though he seemed perfectly unobjectionable to me—but I saw his letter. I judged it quite sincerely concerned for you. A little over the top, yes, but what do you expect from a man in love?"
"Alexi Vormoncrief is not in love with me. He can't see far enough past the end of his own Vor nose to even know who or what I am. If you stuffed my clothes with straw and put a wig on top, he'd scarcely notice the change. He's just going through the motions supplied by his cultural programming." Well, all right, and his more fundamental biological programming, and he wasn't the only one suffering from that, now was he? She would concede Alexi a ration of sincere sex drive, but she was certain its object was arbitrary. Her hand strayed to her bolero, over her heart, and Miles's memorized words echoed, cutting through the uproar between her ears: I wanted to possess the power of your eyes . . .
Vassily waved an impatient hand. "All this is beside the point, for me if not for your brother. You're not a dowered maiden anymore, for your father to hoard up with his other treasures. I, however, have a clear family duty to see to Nikki's safety, if I have reason to believe it is threatened."
Ekaterin froze.
Vassily had granted her custody of Nikki with his word. He could take it back again as easily. It was she who'd have to take suit to court—his District court—not only to prove herself worthy, but also to prove him unworthy and unfit to have charge of the child. Vassily was no convicted criminal, nor habitual drunkard, nor spendthrift nor berserker; he was just a bachelor officer, a conscientious, duty-minded orbital traffic controller, an ordinary honest man. She hadn't a prayer of winning against him. If only Nikki had been her daughter, those rights would be reversed. . . .
"You would find a nine-year-old boy an awkward burden on a military base, I should think," she said neutrally at last.
Vassily looked startled. "Well, I hope it won't come to that. In the worst scenario, I'd planned to leave him with his Grandmother Vorsoisson, until things were straightened out."
Ekaterin held her teeth together for a moment, then said, "Nikki is of course welcome to visit Tien's mother any time she invites him. At the funeral she gave me to understand she was too unwell to receive visitors this summer." She moistened her lips. "Please define the term worst scenario for me. And just what exactly do you mean by straightened out?"
"Well," Vassily shrugged apologetically, "coming down here and finding you actually betrothed to the man who murdered Nikki's father would have been pretty bad, don't you agree?"
Had he been prepared to take Nikki away this very day, in that case? "I told you. Tien's death was accidental, and that accusation is pure slander." His disregard of her words reminded her horribly of Tien, for a moment; was obliviousness a Vorsoisson family trait? Despite the danger of offending him, she glowered. "Do you think I'm lying, or do you think I'm just stupid?" She fought for control of her breathing. She had faced far more frightening men than the earnest, misguided, Vassily Vorsoisson. But never one who could cost me Nikki with a word. She stood on the edge of a deep, dark pit. If she fell now, the struggle to get out again would be as filthy and painful as anything she could imagine. Vassily must not be pushed into taking Nikki. Trying to take Nikki. And she could stop him—how? She was legally overmatched before she even began. So don't begin.
She chose her words with utmost caution. "So what do you mean by straightened out?"
Hugo and Vassily looked at each other uncertainly. Vassily ventured, "I beg your pardon?"
"I cannot know if I have toed your line unless you show me where you've drawn it."
Hugo protested, "That's not very kindly put, Kat. We have your interests at heart."
"You don't even know what my interests are." Not true, Vassily had his thumb right down on the most mortal one. Nikki. Eat rage, woman. She had used to be expert at swallowing herself, during her marriage. Somehow she'd lost the taste for it.
Vassily groped, "Well . . . I'd certainly wish to be assured Nikki was not being exposed to persons of undesirable character."
She granted him a thin smile. "No problem. I shall be more than happy to entirely avoid Alexi Vormoncrief in the future."
He gave her a pained look. "I was referring to Lord Vorkosigan. And his political and personal set. At least—at least until this very dark cloud is cleared from his reputation. After al
l, the man is accused of murdering my cousin."
Vassily's outrage was dutiful clan loyalty, not personal grief, Ekaterin reminded herself. If he and Tien had met more than three times in their lives it was news to her. "Excuse me," she said steadily. "If Miles is not to be charged—and I can't think he will be, on this—how may he be cleared, in your view? What has to happen?"
Vassily appeared momentarily baffled.
Hugo put in tentatively, "I don't want you exposed to corruption, either, Kat."
"You know, Hugo, it's the strangest thing," Ekaterin said genially to him, "but somehow Lord Vorkosigan has overlooked sending me invitations to any of his orgies. I'm quite put out. Do you suppose it's not the orgy season in Vorbarr Sultana yet?" She bit back further words. Sarcasm was not a luxury she—or Nikki—could afford.
Hugo rewarded this sally with a flat-lipped frown. He and Vassily gave one another a long look, each so obviously trying to divest the dirty work onto his companion that Ekaterin would have laughed, if it hadn't been so painful. Vassily finally muttered weakly, "She's your sister . . ."