Barrayar

  Esterhazy left the horses to Bothari and accompanied Piotr into the woods, scrabbling up the slope. Gregor busied himself in an attempt to gather vegetation and hand-feed it to the animals. They lipped at the native Barrayaran plants and let them fall messily from their mouths, unpalatable. Gregor kept picking the wads up and offering them again, trying to shove them in around the horses' bits.

  "What's the Count up to, do you know?" Cordelia asked Bothari.

  He shrugged. "Gone to make contact with somebody. This won't do." A jerk of his head in no particular direction indicated their night of beating around in the brush.

  Cordelia could only agree. She lay back and listened for lightflyers, but heard only the babble of water in the little stream, echoed by the gurgles of her empty stomach. She was galvanized into motion once, to keep the hungry Gregor from sampling some of the possibly-toxic plants himself.

  "But the horses ate these ones," he protested.

  "No!" Cordelia shuddered, detailed visions of unfavorable biochemical and histamine reactions dancing in a molecular crack-the-whip through her head. "It's one of the first habits you have to learn for Betan Astronomical Survey, you know. Never put strange things in your mouth till they've been cleared by the lab. In fact, avoid touching your eyes, mouth, and mucous membranes."

  Gregor, unconsciously compelled, promptly rubbed his nose and eyes. Cordelia sighed, and sat back down. She sucked on her tongue, thinking about that stream water and hoping Gregor wouldn't point out her inconsistency. Gregor threw pebbles into the pools.

  Fully an hour later, Esterhazy returned. "Come on." They merely led the horses this time, sure sign of a steep climb to come. Cordelia scrambled, and scraped her hands. The horses' haunches heaved. Over the crest, down, up again, and they came out on a muddy double trail carved through the forest.

  "Where are we?" asked Cordelia.

  "Aime Pass Road, Milady," supplied Esterhazy.

  "This is a road?" Cordelia muttered in dismay, staring up and down it. Piotr stood a little way off, with another old man holding the reins of a sturdy little black-and-white horse.

  The horse was considerably better groomed than the old man. Its white coat was bright and its black coat shiny. Its mane and tail were brushed to feather-softness. Its feet and fetlocks were wet and dark, though, and its belly flecked with fresh mud. In addition to an old cavalry saddle like Piotr's horse's, the pinto bore four large saddlebags, a pair in front and a pair behind, and a bedroll.

  The old man, as unshaven as Piotr, wore an Imperial Postal Service jacket so weatherworn its blue had turned grey. This was supplemented by odd bits of other old uniforms: a black fatigue shirt, an ancient pair of trousers from a set of dress greens, worn but well-oiled officer's knee-high riding boots on his bent bowlegs. He also wore a non-regulation felt hat with a few dried flowers stuck in its faded print headband. He smacked his black-stained lips and stared at Cordelia. He was missing several teeth; the rest were long and yellow-brown.

  The old man's gaze fell on Gregor, holding Cordelia's hand. "So that's him, eh? Huh. Not much." He spat reflectively into the weeds by the side of the path.

  "Might do in time," asserted Piotr. "If he gets time."

  "I'll see what I can do, Gen'ral."

  Piotr grinned, as if at some private joke. "You have any rations on you?"

  " 'Course." The old man smirked, and turned to rummage in one of his saddlebags. He came up with a package of raisins in a discarded plastic flimsy, some little cakes of brownish crystals wrapped in leaves, and what looked like a handful of strips of leather, again in a twist made of a used plastic flimsy. Cordelia caught a heading, Update of Postal Regluations C6.77a, modified 6/17. File Immediately In Permanent Files.

  Piotr looked the stores over judiciously. "Dried goat?" He nodded toward the leathery mess.

  "Mostly," said the old man.

  "We'll take half. And the raisins. Save the maple sugar for the children." Piotr popped one cube in his mouth, though. "I'll find you in maybe three days, maybe a week. You remember the drill from Yuri's War, eh?"

  "Oh, yes," drawled the old man.

  "Sergeant." Piotr waved Bothari to him. "You go with the Major, here. Take her, and the boy. He'll take you to ground. Lie low till I come get you."

  "Yes, m'lord," Bothari intoned flatly. Only his flickering eyes betrayed his uneasiness.

  "What we got here, Gen'ral?" inquired the old man, looking up at Bothari. "New one?"

  "A city boy," said Piotr. "Belongs to my son. Doesn't talk much. He's good at throats, though. He'll do."

  "Aye? Good."

  Piotr was moving a lot more slowly. He waited for Esterhazy to give him a leg up on his horse. He settled into his saddle with a sigh, his back temporarily curved in an uncharacteristic slump. "Damn, but I'm getting old for this sort of thing."

  Thoughtfully, the man Piotr had called the Major reached into a side pocket and pulled out a leather pouch. "Want my gum-leaf, Gen'ral? A better chew than goat, if not as long-lasting."

  Piotr brightened. "Ah. I would be most grateful. But not your whole pouch, man." Piotr dug among the pressed dried leaves that filled the container, and crumbled himself off a generous half, which he stuffed in his breast pocket. He put a wad in his cheek, and returned the pouch with a sincere salute. Gum-leaf was a mild stimulant; Cordelia had never seen Piotr chew it in Vorbarr Sultana.

  "Take care of m'lord's horses," called Esterhazy rather desperately to Bothari. "They're not machines, remember. "

  Bothari grunted something noncommittal, as the Count and Esterhazy headed their animals back down the trail. They were out of sight in a few moments. A profound quiet descended.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Major put Gregor, comfortably padded by the bedroll and saddlebags, up behind him. Cordelia faced one more climb onto that torture-device for humans and horses called a saddle. She would never have made it without Bothari. The Major took her reins this time, and Rose and his horse walked side by side with a lot less jerking of the bridle. Bothari dropped back, trailing watchfully.

  "So," said the old man after a time, with a sideways look at her, "you're the new Lady Vorkosigan."

  Cordelia, rumpled and filthy, smiled back desperately. "Yes. Ah, Count Piotr didn't mention your name, Major . . . ?"

  "Amor Klyeuvi, Milady. But folks up here just call me Kly."

  "And, uh . . . what are you?" Besides some mountain kobold Piotr had conjured out of the ground.

  He smiled, an expression more repellent than attractive given the state of his teeth. "I'm the Imperial Mail, Milady. I ride the circuit through these hills, out of Vorkosigan Surleau, every ten days. Been at it for eighteen years. There are grown kids up here with kids of their own who never knew me as anything but Kly the Mail."

  "I thought mail went to these parts by lightflyer."

  "They're phasing them in. But the flyers don't go to every house, just to these central drop-points. No courtesy to it, anymore." He spat disgust and gum-leaf. "But if the General'll hold 'em off another two years here, I'll make my last twenty, and be a triple-twenty-years Service man. I retired with my double-twenty, see."

  "From what branch, Major Klyuevi?"

  "Imperial Rangers." He watched slyly for her reaction; she rewarded him with impressed raised brows. "I was a throat-cutter, not a tech. 'S why I could never go higher than major. Got my start at age fourteen, in these mountains, running rings around the Cetagandans with the General and Ezar. Never did get back to school after that. Just training courses. The Service passed me by, in time."

  "Not entirely, it seems," said Cordelia, staring around the apparently unpeopled wilderness.

  "No . . ." His breath became a purse-lipped sigh, as he glanced back over his shoulder at Gregor in meditative unease.

  "Did Piotr tell you what happened yesterday afternoon?"

  "Yo. I left the lake day-before-yesterday morning. Missed all the excitement. I expect the news will catch up with me before noon."

>   "Is . . . anything else likely to catch up with us by then?"

  "We'll just have to see." He added more hesitantly, "You'll have to get out of those clothes, Milady. The name VORKOSIGAN, A., in big block letters over your jacket-pocket isn't any too anonymous."

  Cordelia glanced down at Aral's black fatigue shirt, quelled.

  "My lord's livery sticks out like a flag, too," Kly added, looking back at Bothari. "But you'll pass well enough, in the right clothes. I'll see what I can do, in a bit here."

  Cordelia sagged, her belly aching in anticipation of rest. Refuge. But at what price to those who gave her refuge? "Will helping us put you in danger?"

  His tufted grey brow rose. "Belike." His tone did not invite further comment on the topic.

  She had to bring her tired mind back on-line somehow, if she was to be asset and not hazard to everyone around her. "That gum-leaf of yours. Does it work anything like coffee?"

  "Oh, better than coffee, Milady."

  "Can I try some?" Shyness lowered her voice; it might be too intimate a request.

  His cheeks creased in a dry grin. "Only backcountry sticks like me chew gum-leaf, Milady. Pretty Vor ladies from the capital wouldn't be caught dead with it in their pearly teeth."

  "I'm not pretty, I'm not a lady, and I'm not from the capital. And I'd kill for coffee right now. I'll try it."

  He let his reins drop to his steadily plodding horse's neck, rummaged in his blue-grey jacket pocket, and pulled out his pouch. He broke off a chunk, in none-too-clean fingers, and leaned across.

  She regarded it a doubtful moment, dark and leafy in her palm. Never put strange organics in your mouth till they've been cleared by the lab. She lapped it up. The wad was made self-sticking by a bit of maple syrup, but after her saliva washed away the first startling sweetness, the flavor was pleasantly bitter and astringent. It seemed to peel away the night's film coating her teeth, a real improvement. She straightened.

  Kly regarded her with bemusement. "So what are you, off-worlder not-a-lady?"

  "I was an astrocartographer. Then a Survey captain. Then a soldier, then a POW, then a refugee. And then I was a wife, and then I was a mother. I don't know what I'm going to be next," she answered honestly, around the gum-leaf. Pray not widow.

  "Mother? I'd heard you were pregnant, but . . . didn't you lose your baby to the soltoxin?" He eyed her waist in confusion.

  "Not yet. He still has a fighting chance. Though it seems a little uneven, to match him against all of Barrayar just yet. . . . He was born prematurely. By surgical section." (She decided not to try to explain the uterine replicator.) "He's at the Imperial Military Hospital. In Vorbarr Sultana. Which for all I know has just been captured by Vordarian's rebel forces . . ." She shivered. Vaagen's lab was classified, nothing to draw anyone's attention. Miles was all right, all right, all right, and one crack in that thin shell of conviction would hatch out hysteria. . . . Aral, now, Aral could take care of himself if anyone could. So how had he been so caught-out, eh, eh? No question, ImpSec was riddled with treason. They couldn't trust anyone around here, and where was Illyan? Trapped in Vorbarr Sultana? Or was he Vordarian's quisling? No . . . Cut off, more likely. Like Kareen. Like Padma and Alys Vorpatril. Life racing death . . .

  "No one will bother the hospital," said Kly, watching her face.

  "I—yes. Right."

  "Why did you come to Barrayar, off-worlder?"

  "I wanted to have children." A humorless laugh puffed from her lips. "Do you have any children, Kly the Mail?"

  "Not so far as I know."

  "You were very wise."

  "Oh . . ." His face grew distant. "I don't know. Since my old woman died, 's been pretty quiet. Some men I know, their children have been a great trouble to them. Ezar. Piotr. Don't know who will burn the offerings on my grave. M' niece, maybe."

  Cordelia glanced at Gregor, riding along atop the saddlebags and listening. Gregor had lit the taper to Ezar's great funeral offering-pyre, his hand guided by Aral's.

  They rode on up the road, climbing. Four times Kly ducked up side-trails, while Cordelia, Bothari, and Gregor waited out of sight. On the third of these delivery-runs Kly returned with a bundle including an old skirt, a pair of worn trousers, and some grain for the tired horses. Cordelia, still chilled, put the skirt on over her old Survey trousers. Bothari exchanged his conspicuous brown uniform pants with the silver stripe down the side for the hillman's castoffs. The pants were too short, riding ankle-high, giving him the look of a sinister scarecrow. Bothari's uniform and Cordelia's black fatigue shirt were bundled out of sight in an empty mailbag. Kly solved the problem of Gregor's missing shoe by simply stripping off the remaining one and letting the boy go barefoot, and concealing his too-nice blue suit beneath a man's oversize shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Man, woman, child, they looked a haggard, ragged little hill family.

  They made the top of Amie Pass and started back down. Occasionally folk waited by the roadside for Kly; he passed on verbal messages, rattling them off in what sounded to Cordelia to be verbatim style. He distributed letters on paper and cheap vocodisks, their self-playbacks tinny and thin. Twice he paused to read letters to apparently illiterate recipients, and once to a blind man guided by a small girl. Cordelia grew twitchier with each mild encounter, drained by nervous exhaustion. Will that fellow betray us? What do we look like to that woman? At least the blind man can't describe us. . . .

  Toward dusk, Kly returned from one of his side-loops to gaze up and down the silent shadowed wilderness trail and declare, "This place is just too crowded." It was a measure of Cordelia's overstrain that she found herself mentally agreeing with him.

  He looked her over, worry in his eyes. "Think you can go on for another four hours, Milady?"

  What's the alternative? Sit by this mud puddle and weep till we're captured? She struggled to her feet, pushing up from the log she'd been perched on waiting their guide's return. "That depends on what's at the end of four more hours of this."

  "My place. I usually spend this night at my niece's, near here. My route ends about another ten hours farther on, when I'm making my deliveries, but if we go straight up we can do it in four. I can double back to this point by tomorrow morning and keep my schedule as usual. Real quiet-like. Nothing to remark on."

  What does "straight up" mean? But Kly was clearly right; their whole safety lay in their anonymity, their invisibility. The sooner they were out of sight, the better. "Lead on, Major."

  It took six hours. Bothari's horse went lame, short of their goal. He dismounted and towed it. It limped and tossed its head. Cordelia walked, too, to ease her raw legs and to keep herself warm and awake in the chilling darkness. Gregor fell asleep and fell off, cried for his mother, then fell asleep again when Kly moved him around to his front to keep a better grip. The last climb stole Cordelia's breath and made her heart race, even though she hung on to Rose's stirrup for help. Both horses moved like old women with arthritis, stumping along jerkily; only the animals' innate gregariousness kept them following Kly's hardy pinto.

  The climb became a drop, suddenly, over a ridge and into a great vale. The woods grew thin and ragged, interspersed with mountain meadows. Cordelia could feel the spaces stretching out around her, true mountain scale at last, vast gulfs of shadow, huge bulks of stone, silent as eternity. Three snowflakes melted on her staring, upturned face. At the edge of a vague patch of trees, Kly halted. "End of the line, folks."

  Cordelia sleepwalked Gregor into the tiny shack, felt her way to a cot, and rolled him onto it. He whimpered in his sleep as she dragged the blankets over him. She stood swaying, numb-brained, then in a last burst of lucidity kicked off her slippers and climbed in with him. His feet were cold as a cryo-corpse's. As she warmed them against her body his shivering gradually relaxed into deeper sleep. Dimly, she was aware that Kly—Bothari—somebody, had started a fire in the fireplace. Poor Bothari, he'd been awake every bit as long as she had. In a quite military sense, he was her man; she should see that
he ate, cared for his feet, slept . . . she should, she should. . . .

  * * *

  Cordelia snapped awake, to discover that the movement that had roused her was Gregor, sitting up beside her and rubbing his eyes in bleary disorientation. Light streamed in through two dirty windows on either side of the wooden front door. The shack, or cabin—two of the walls were made of whole logs stacked up—was only a single room. In the grey stone fireplace at one end a kettle and a covered pot sat on a grating over a bed of glowing coals. Cordelia reminded herself again that wood represented poverty, not wealth, here. They must have passed ten million trees yesterday.

  She sat up, and gasped from the pain in her muscles. She straightened her legs. The bed was a rope net strung on a frame and supporting first a straw-stuffed mattress, then a feather-stuffed one. She and Gregor were warm, at least, in their nest. The air of the room was dusty-smelling, tinged with a pleasant edge of wood smoke.

  Booted footsteps sounded on the boards of the porch outside, and Cordelia grasped Gregor's arm in sudden panic. She couldn't run—that black iron fireplace poker would make a pretty poor weapon against a stunner or nerve disruptor—but the steps were Bothari's. He slipped through the door along with a puff of outside air. His crudely sewn tan cloth jacket must be a borrowing from Kly, judging from the way his bony wrists stuck out beyond the turned-down sleeve cuffs. He'd pass for a hillman easily, as long as he kept his urban-accented mouth shut.

  He nodded at them. "Milady. Sire." He knelt by the fireplace, glanced under the pot lid, and tested the kettle's temperature by cupping a big hand a few centimeters above it. "There's groats, and syrup," he said. "Hot water. Herb tea. Dried fruit. No butter."

  "What's happening?" Cordelia rubbed her face awake, and swung her legs overboard, planning a stumble toward that herb tea.

  "Not much. The Major rested his horse a while, and left before light, to keep his schedule. It's been real quiet, since."

  "Did you get any sleep yet?"

  "Couple of hours, I think."