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father-in-law, helping him get stiffly out of his jacket in the stone-paved
foyer.
"Ha. He's lucky to get it. He's picked up some damned peculiar radical notions
in the last few years. If he wasn't my son, he could whistle for it."
But Piotr's seamed face looked proud.
Cordelia blinked at this description of Aral Vorkosigan's political views.
"I confess, I've never thought of him as a revolutionary. Radical must be a
more elastic term than I thought."
"Oh, he doesn't see himself that way. He thinks he can go halfway, and then
stop. I think he'll find himself riding a tiger, a few years down the road."
The count shook his head grimly. "But come, my girl, and sit down and tell me
that you're well. You look well-is everything all right?"
The old count was passionately interested in the development of his
grandson-to-be. Cordelia sensed her pregnancy had raised her status with him
enormously, from a tolerated caprice of Aral's to something bordering
perilously on the semi-divine. He fairly blasted her with approval. It was
nearly irresistible, and she never laughed at him, although she had no
illusions about it. Cordelia had found Aral's earlier sketch of his father's
reaction to her pregnancy, the day she'd brought home the confirming news, to
be right on target. She'd returned to the estate at Vorkosigan Surleau that
summer day to search Aral out down by the boat dock. He was puttering around
with his sailboat, and had the sails laid out, drying in the sun, as he
squished around them in wet shoes.
He looked up to meet her smile, unsuccessful at concealing the eagerness in
his eyes. "Well?" He bounced a little, on his heels.
"Well." She attempted a sad and disappointed look, to tease him, but the grin
escaped and took over her whole face. "Your doctor says it's a boy."
"Ah." A long and eloquent sigh escaped him, and he scooped her up and twirled
her around.
"Aral! Awk! Don't drop me." He was no taller than herself, if, um, thicker.
"Never." He let her slide down against him, and they shared a long kiss,
ending in laughter.
"My father will be ecstatic."
"You look pretty ecstatic yourself."
"Yes, but you haven't seen anything until you've seen an old-fashioned
Barrayaran paterfamilias in a trance over the growth of his family tree. I've
had the poor old man convinced for years that his line was ending with me."
"Will he forgive me for being an offworlder plebe?"
"No insult intended, but by this time I don't think he'd have cared what
species of wife I dragged home, as long as she was fertile. You think I'm
exaggerating?" he added at her trill of laughter. "You'll see."
"Is it too early to think of names?" she asked, slightly wistful.
"No thinking to it. Firstborn son. It's a strict custom here. He gets named
after his two grandfathers. Paternal for the first, maternal for the second."
"Ah, that's why your history is so confusing to read. I was always having to
put dates next to those duplicate names, to try and keep track. Piotr
Miles. Hm. Well, I guess I can get used to it. I'd been thinking of...
something else."
"Another time, perhaps."
"Ooh, ambitious."
A short wrestling match ensued, Cordelia having previously made the useful
discovery that in certain moods he was more ticklish than she. She extracted a
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reasonable amount of revenge, and they ended laughing on the grass in the sun.
"This is very undignified," Aral complained as she let him up.
"Afraid I'll shock Negri's fisher of men out there?"
"They're beyond shock, I guarantee."
Cordelia waved at the distant hoverboat, whose occupant steadfastly ignored
the gesture. She had been at first angered, then resigned to learn that Aral
was being kept under continuous observation by Imperial Security.
The price, she'd supposed, of his involvement in the secret and lethal
politics of the Escobar War, and the penalty for some of his less welcome
outspoken opinions.
"I can see why you took up baiting them for a hobby. Maybe we ought to unbend
and invite them to lunch or something. I feel they must know me so well by
now, I'd like to know them." Had Negri's man recorded the domestic
conversation she'd just had? Were there bugs in their bedroom? Their bathroom?
Aral grinned, but replied, "They wouldn't be permitted to accept. They don't
eat or drink anything but what they bring themselves."
"Heavens, how paranoid. Is that really necessary?"
"Sometimes. Theirs is a dangerous trade. I don't envy them."
"I'd think sitting around down here watching you would constitute a nice
little vacation. He's got to have a great suntan."
"The sitting around is the hardest part. They may sit for a year, and then be
called to five minutes of all-out action of deadly importance. But they have
to be instantly ready for that five minutes the whole year. Quite a strain. I
much prefer attack to defense."
"I still don't understand why anybody would want to bother you. I mean, you're
just a retired officer, living in obscurity. There must be hundreds like you,
even of high Vor blood."
"Hm." He'd rested his gaze on the distant boat, avoiding answer, then jumped
to his feet. "Come on. Let's go spring the good news on Father."
Well, she understood it now. Count Piotr drew her hand through his arm, and
carried her off to the dining room, where he ate a late supper between demands
for the latest obstetrical report, and pressed fresh garden dainties upon her
that he'd brought with him from the country. She ate grapes obediently.
After the Count's supper, walking arm in arm with him into the foyer,
Cordelia's ear was caught by the sound of raised voices coming from the
library. The words were muffled but the tones were sharp, chop-cadenced.
Cordelia paused, disturbed.
After a moment the-argument?-stopped, the library door swung open, and a man
stalked out. Cordelia could see Aral and Count Vortala through the aperture.
Aral's face was set, his eyes burning. Vortala, an age-shrunken man with a
balding liver-spotted head fringed with white, was brick-pink to the top of
his naked scalp. With a curt gesture the man collected his waiting liveried
retainer, who followed smartly, blank-faced.
The curt man was about forty years old, Cordelia guessed, dressed expensively [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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