Barrayar Part 5

Beyond Vorhartung Castle lay the oldest parts of the capital. She'd not yet seen that area, its kinked one-horse-wide streets impa.s.sable to groundcars, though she'd flown over the strange, low, dark blots in the heart of the city. The newer parts, glittering out toward the horizon, were more like galactic standard, patterned around the modern transportation systems.

None of it was like Beta Colony. Vorbarr Sultana was all spread out on the surface, or climbed skyward, strangely two-dimensional and exposed. Beta Colony's cities plunged down into shafts and tunnels, many-layered and complex, cozy and safe. Indeed, Beta Colony did not have architecture so much as it had interior design. It was amazing, the variety of schemes people came up with to vary dwellings that had outsides.

The guards twitched and sighed, as she leaned on the stonework, gazing out. They really didn't like it when she strayed nearer than three meters to the edge, though the s.p.a.ce was only six meters wide. But she should be able to spot Vorkosigan's groundcar turning into the street soon. Sunsets were all very well, but her eyes turned downward.

She inhaled the complex odors, from vegetation, water vapor, industrial waste gases. Barrayar permitted an amazing amount of air dumping, as if... well, air was free, here. n.o.body measured it, there were no air processing and filtration fees... . Did these people even realize how rich they were? All the air they could breathe, just by stepping outdoors, taken for granted as casually us they took frozen water falling from the sky. She took an extra breath, as if she could somehow greedily h.o.a.rd it, and smiled-- A distant, crackling, hard-edged boom shattered her thoughts and stopped her breath. Both guards jumped. So, you heard a bang. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Aral. And, icily, It sounded like a sonic grenade. Not a little one. Dear G.o.d. There was a column of smoke and dust rising from a street-canyon several blocks over, she couldn't see the source--she craned outward-- "Milady." The younger guard grasped her upper arm. "Please go inside." His face was tense, eyes wide. The senior man had his hand clamped to his ear, sucking info off his comm channel--she had no comm link.

"What's coming on?" she asked.

"Milady, please go below!" He hustled her toward the trapdoor to the attic, from which stairs led down to the fourth floor. "I'm sure it was nothing," he soothed as he pushed.

"It was a Cla.s.s Four sonic grenade, probably air-tube launched," she informed his appalling ignorance. '"Unless the thrower was suicidal. Haven't you ever heard one go off?"

Droushnakovi shot out the trapdoor, a b.u.t.tered roll squashed in one hand and her stunner clutched in the other. "Milady?" The guard, looking relieved, shoved Cordelia at her and returned to his senior. Cordelia, screaming inside, grinned through clenched teeth and allowed herself to be guarded, climbing dutifully down the trap.

"What happened?" she hissed to Droushnakovi.

"Don't know yet. The red alert went off in the bas.e.m.e.nt refectory, and everybody ran for their posts," panted Drou. She must have practically teleported up the six flights.

"Ngh." Cordelia galloped down the stairs, wis.h.i.+ng for a drop tube. The comconsole in the library would surely be manned--somebody must have a comm link--she spun down the circular staircase and pelted across the black and white stones.

The house guard commander was indeed at the post, channeling orders. Count Piotr's senior liveried man jittered at his shoulder. "They're coming straight here," the ImpSec man said over his shoulder. "You fetch that doctor." The brown-uniformed man dashed out.

"What happened?" Cordelia demanded. Her heart was hammering now, and not just from the dash downstairs.

He glanced up at her, started to say something calming and meaningless, and changed his mind in mid-breath. "Somebody took a potshot at the Regent's groundcar. They missed. They're continuing on here."

"How near a miss?"

"I don't know, Milady."

He probably didn't. But if the groundcar still functioned... Helplessly, she gestured him back to his work, and wheeled to return to the foyer, now manned by a couple of Count Piotr's men, who discouraged her from standing too near the door. She hung on the stair railing three steps up and bit her lip.

"Was Lieutenant Koudelka with him, do you think?" asked Droushnakovi faintly.

"Probably. He usually is," Cordelia answered absently, her eyes on the door, waiting, waiting... .

She heard the car pull up. One of Count Piotr's men opened the house door. Security men swarmed over the silver shape of the vehicle in the portico--G.o.d, where did they all come from? The car's s.h.i.+ny finish was scored and smoked, but not deeply dented; the rear canopy was not cracked, though the front was scarred. The rear doors swung up, and Cordelia stretched for a view of Vorkosigan, maddeningly obstructed by the green backs of the ImpSec men. They parted. Lieutenant Koudelka sat in the aperture, blinking dizzily, blood dripping down his chin, then was levered to his feet by a guard. Vorkosigan emerged at last, refusing to be hustled, waving back help. Even the most worried guards did not dare to touch him without an invitation. Vorkosigan strode inside, grim-faced and pale. Koudelka, propped by his stick and an ImpSec corporal, followed, looking wilder. The blood issued from his nose. Piotr's man swung closed the front door of Vorkosigan House, shutting out three-fourths of the chaos.

Aral met her eyes, above the heads of the men, and the saturnine look fixed on his face slipped just a little. He offered her a fractional nod, I'm all right. Her lips tightened in return, You'd by-G.o.d better be...

Kou was saying in a shaken voice, "--b.l.o.o.d.y great hole in the street! Could've swallowed a freight shuttle. That driver has amazing reflexes--what?" He shook his head at a questioner. "Sorry, my ears are ringing--come again?" He stood openmouthed, as if he could drink in sound orally, touched his face and stared in surprise at his crimson--smeared hand.

"Your ears are only stunned, Kou," said Vorkosigan. His voice was calm, but much too loud. "They'll be back to normal by tomorrow morning." Only Cordelia realized the raised tone wasn't for Koudelka's benefit--Vorkosigan couldn't hear himself, either. His eyes s.h.i.+fted too quickly, the only hint that he was trying to read lips.

Simon Illyan and a physician arrived at almost the same moment. Vorkosigan and Koudelka were taken to a quiet back parlor, shedding all the--to Cordelia's mind--rather useless guards. Cordelia and Droushnakovi followed. The physician began an immediate examination, starting, at Vorkosigan's command, with the gory Koudelka.

"One shot?" asked Illyan.

"Only one," confirmed Vorkosigan, watching his face. "If they'd lingered for a second try, they could have bracketed me."

"If he'd lingered, we could have bracketed him. A forensic team's on the firing site now. The a.s.sa.s.sin's long gone, of course. A clever spot, he had a dozen escape routes."

"We vary our route daily," Lieutenant Koudelka, following this with difficulty, said around the cloth he pressed to his face. "How did he know where to set up his ambush?"

"Inside information?" Illyan shrugged, his teeth clenching at the thought.

"Not necessarily," said Vorkosigan. "There are only so many routes, this close to home. He could have been set up waiting for days."

"Precisely at the limit of our close-search perimeter?" said Illyan. "I don't like it."

"It bothers me more that he missed," said Vorkosigan. "Why? Could it have been some sort of warning shot? An attempt, not on my life, but on my balance of mind?"

"It was old ordnance," said Illyan. "There could have been something wrong with its tracker--n.o.body detected a laser rangefinder pulse." He paused, taking in Cordelia's white face. "I'm sure it was a lone lunatic, Milady. At least, it was certainly only one man."

"How does a lone maniac get hold of military-grade weaponry?" she inquired tartly.

Illyan looked uncomfortable. "We will be investigating that. It was definitely old issue."

"Don't you destroy obsolete stockpiles?"

"There's so much of it...."

Cordelia glared at this wit-scattered utterance. "He only needed one shot. If he'd managed a direct hit on that sealed car, Aral'd have been emulsified. Your forensic team would be trying right now to sort out which molecules were his and which were Kou's."

Droushnakovi turned faintly green; Vorkosigan's saturnine look was now firmly back in place.

"You want me to give you a precise resonance reflection amplitude calculation for that sealed pa.s.senger cabin, Simon?" Cordelia went on hotly. "Whoever chose that weapon was a competent military tech--if, fortunately, a poorish shot." She bit back further words, recognizing, even if no one else did, the suppressed hysteria driving the speed of her speech.

"My apologies. Captain Naismith." Illyan's tone grew more clipped. "You are quite correct." His nod was a shade more respectful.

Aral tracked this interplay, his face lightening, for the first time, with some hidden amus.e.m.e.nt.

Illyan took himself off, conspiracy theories no doubt dancing in his head. The doctor confirmed Aral's combat-experienced diagnosis of aural stun, issued powerful anti-headache pills--Aral hung on to his firmly--and made an appointment to re-check both men in the morning.

When Illyan stopped back by Vorkosigan House in the late evening to confer with his guard commander, it was all Cordelia could do not to grab him by the jacket and pin him to the nearest wall to shake out his information. She confined herself to simply asking, "Who tried to kill Aral? Who wants to kill Aral? Whatever benefit do they imagine they'll gain?"

Illyan sighed. "Do you want the short list, or the long one, Milady?"

"How long is the short list?" she asked in morbid fascination.

"Too long. But I can name you the top layer, if you like." He ticked them off on his fingers. "The Cetagandans, always. They had counted on political chaos here, following Ezar's death. They're not above prodding it along. An a.s.sa.s.sination is cheap interference, compared to an invasion fleet. The Komarrans, for old revenge or new revolt. Some there still call the Admiral the Butcher of Komarr--"

Cordelia, knowing the whole story behind that loathed sobriquet, winced.

"The anti-Vor, because my lord Regent is too conservative for their tastes. The military right, who fear he is too progressive for theirs. Leftover members of Prince Serg and Vorrutyer's old war party. Former operatives of the now-suppressed Ministry of Political Education, though I doubt one of them would have missed. Negri's department used to train them. Some disgruntled Vor who thinks he came out short in the recent power-s.h.i.+ft. Any lunatic with access to weapons and a desire for instant fame as a big-game hunter--shall I go on?"

"Please don't. But what about today? If motive yields too broad a field of suspects, what about method and opportunity?"

"We have a little to work with there, though too much of it is negative. As I noted, it was a very clean attempt. Whoever set it up had to have access to certain kinds of knowledge. We'll work those angles first."

It was the anonymity of the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt that bothered her most, Cordelia decided. When the killer could be anyone, the impulse to suspect everyone became overwhelming. Paranoia was a contagious disease here, it seemed; Barrayarans gave it to each other. Well, Negri and Illyan's combined forces must winkle out some concrete facts soon. She packed all her fears down hard into a little tiny compartment in the pit of her stomach, and locked them there. Next to her child.

Vorkosigan held her tight that night, curled into the curve of his stocky body, though he made no s.e.xual advances. He just held her. He didn't fall asleep for hours, despite the painkillers that glazed his eyes. She didn't fall asleep till he did. His snores lulled her at last. There wasn't that much to say. They missed; we go on. Till the next try.

CHAPTER FIVE.

The Emperors Birthday was a traditional Barrayaran holiday, celebrated with feasting, dancing, drinking, veterans' parades, and an incredible amount of apparently totally unregulated fireworks. It would make a great day for a surprise attack on the capital, Cordelia decided; an artillery barrage could be well under way before anybody noticed it in the general din. The uproar began at dawn.

The duty guards, who had a natural tendency to jump at sudden noises anyway, were twitchy and miserable, except for a couple more youthful types who attempted to celebrate with a few crackers let off inside the walls. They were taken aside by the guard commander, and emerged much later, pale and shrunken, to slink off. Cordelia later saw them hauling rubbish under the command of a sardonic housemaid, while a scullery girl and the second cook galloped happily out of the house for a surprise day off. The Emperor's Birthday was a moveable feast. The Barrayarans' enthusiasm for the holiday seemed undaunted by the fact that, due to Ezar's death and Gregor's ascension, this was the second time they would celebrate it this year.

Cordelia pa.s.sed up an invitation to attend a major military review that gobbled Aral's morning in favor of staying fresh for the event of the evening--the event of the year, she was given to understand--personal attendence upon the Emperor's birthday dinner at the Imperial Residence. She looked forward to seeing Kareen and Gregor again, however briefly. At least she was certain that her clothing was all right. Lady Vorpatril, who had both excellent taste and an advance line on Barrayaran- style maternity wear, had taken pity on Cordelia's cultural bafflement and offered herself as an expert native guide.

As a result, Cordelia confidently wore an impeccably cut forest green silk dress that swirled from shoulder to floor, with an open overvest of thick ivory velvet. Live flowers in matching colors were arranged in her copper hair by the live human hairdresser Alys also sent on. Like their public events, the Barrayarans made of their clothes a sort of folk-art, as elaborate as Betan body paint. Cordelia couldn't be sure from Aral--his face always lit when he saw her--but judging from the delighted "Oohs" of Count Piotr's female staff, Cordelia's sartorial art team had outdone themselves.

Waiting at the foot of the spiral stairs in the front hall, she smoothed the panel of green silk surrept.i.tiously down over her belly. A little over three months of metabolic overdrive, and all she had to show for it was this grapefruit-sized lump--so much had happened since midsummer, it seemed like her pregnancy ought to be progressing faster to keep up. She purred an encouraging mental mantra bellywards, Grow, grow, grow.... At least she was actually beginning to look pregnant, instead of just feel exhausted. Aral shared her nightly fascination with their progress, gently feeling with spread fingers, so far without success, for the b.u.t.terfly-wing flutters of movement through her skin.

Aral himself now appeared, with Lieutenant Koudelka. They were both thoroughly scrubbed, shaved, cut, combed, and chromatically blinding in their formal red-and-blue Imperial parade uniforms. Count Piotr joined them wearing the uniform Cordelia had seen him in at the Joint Council sessions, brown and silver, a more glittery version of his armsmen's livery. All twenty of Piotr's armsmen had some sort of formal function tonight, and had been driven to meticulous preparation all week by their frenzied commander. Droushnakovi, accompanying Cordelia, wore a simplified garment in Cordelia's colors, carefully cut to facilitate rapid movement and conceal weaponry and comm links.

After a moment for everyone to admire each other, they herded through the front doors to the waiting groundcars. Aral handed Cordelia into her vehicle personally, then stepped back. "See you there, love."

"What?" Her head swiveled. "Oh. Then that second car... isn't just for the size of the group?"

Aral's mouth tightened fractionally. "No. It seems... prudent, to me, that we should travel in separate vehicles from now on."

"Yes," she said faintly. "Quite."

He nodded, and turned away. d.a.m.n this place. Taking yet another bite out of their lives, out of her heart. They had so little time together anymore, losing even a little more hurt.

Count Piotr, apparently, was to be Aral's stand-in, at least for tonight; he slid in beside her. Droushnakovi sat across from them, and the canopy was sealed. The car turned smoothly into the street. Cordelia craned over her shoulder, trying to see Aral's car, but it followed too far back for her even to catch a glimpse. She straightened, sighing.

The sun was sinking yellowly in a grey bank of clouds, and lights were beginning to glow in the cool damp autumn evening, giving the city a somber, melancholy atmosphere. Maybe a raucous street party--they drove around several--wasn't such a bad idea. The celebrators reminded Cordelia of primitive Earth men banging pots and firing guns to drive off the dragon that was eating the eclipsing moon. This strange autumn sadness could consume an unwary soul. Gregor's birthday was well timed.

Piotr's k.n.o.bby hands fiddled with a brown silk bag embroidered with the Vorkosigan crest in silver. Cordelia eyed it with interest. "What's that?"

Piotr smiled slightly, and handed it to her. "Gold coins."

More folk-art; the bag and its contents were a tactile treat. She caressed the silk, admired the needlework, and shook a few gleaming sculptured disks out into her hand. "Pretty." Prior to the end of the Time of Isolation, gold had had great value on Barrayar, Cordelia recalled reading. Gold to her Betan mind called up something like, Sometimes-useful metal to the electronics industry, but ancient peoples had waxed mystical about it. "Does this mean something?"

"Ha! Indeed. It's the Emperors birthday present."

Cordelia pictured five-year old Gregor playing with a bag of gold. Besides building towers and maybe practicing counting, it was hard to figure what the boy could do with it. She hoped he was past the age of putting everything in his mouth; those disks were just the right size for a child to swallow or choke on. "I'm sure he'll like it," she said a little doubtfully.

Piotr chuckled. "You don't know what's going on, do you?"

Cordelia sighed. "I almost never do. Cue me." She settled back, smiling. Piotr had gradually become an enthusiast in explaining Barrayar to her, always seeming pleased to discover some new pocket of her ignorance and fill it with information and opinion. She had the feeling he could be lecturing her for the next twenty years and not run out of baffling topics.

"The Emperor's birthday is the traditional end of the fiscal year, for each count's district in relation to the Imperial government. In other words, it's tax day, except--the Vor are not taxed. That would imply too subordinate a relations.h.i.+p to the Imperium. Instead, we give the Emperor a present."

"Ah..." said Cordelia. "You don't run this place for a year on sixty little bags of gold, sir."

"Of course not. The real funds went from Ha.s.sadar to Vorbarr Sultana by comm link transfer earlier today. The gold is merely symbolic."

Cordelia frowned. "Wait. Haven't you done this once this year?"

"In the spring for Ezar, yes. So we've just changed the date of our fiscal year."

"Isn't that disruptive to your banking system?"

He shrugged. "We manage." He grinned suddenly. "Where do you think the term 'Count' came from, anyway?"

"Earth, I thought. A pre-atomic-late Roman, actually-term for a n.o.bleman who ran a county. Or maybe the district was named after the rank."

"On Barrayar, it is in fact a contraction of the term 'accountant.' The first counts were Varadar Tau's--an amazing bandit, you should read up on him sometime--Varadar Tau's tax collectors."

"All this time I thought it was a military rank! Aping medieval history."

"Oh, the military part came immediately thereafter, the first time the old goons tried to shake down somebody who didn't want to contribute. The rank acquired more glamour later."

"I never knew." She regarded him with sudden suspicion. "You're not pulling my leg, sir, are you?"

He spread his hands in denial.

Check your a.s.sumptions, Cordelia thought to herself in amus.e.m.e.nt. In fact, check your a.s.sumptions at the door.

They arrived at the Imperial Residence's great gate. The ambiance was much changed tonight from some of Cordelia's earlier, more morbid visits to the dying Ezar and to the funeral ceremonies. Colored lights picked out architectural details on the stone pile. The gardens glowed, fountains glittered. Beautifully dressed people warmed the landscape, spilling out from the formal rooms of the north wing onto the terraces. The guard checks, however, were no less meticulous, and the guards' numbers were vastly multiplied. Cordelia had the feeling this was going to be a much less rowdy party than some they'd pa.s.sed in the city streets.

Aral's car pulled up behind theirs as they disembarked at a western portico, and Cordelia reattached herself gratefully to his arm. He smiled proudly at her, and in a relatively un.o.bserved moment sneaked a kiss onto the back of her neck while stealing a whiff of the flowers perfuming her hair. She squeezed his hand secretly in return. They pa.s.sed through the doors, and a corridor. A majordomo in Vorbarra House livery loudly announced them, and then they were pinned by the gaze of what to Cordelia for a moment seemed several thousand pairs of critical Barrayaran Vor-cla.s.s eyes. Actually there were only a couple hundred people in the room. Better than, say, looking down the throat of a fully charged nerve disruptor any day. Really.

They circulated, exchanging greetings, making courtesies. Why can't these people wear nametags? Cordelia thought hopelessly. As usual, everyone but her seemed to know everyone else. She pictured herself opening a conversation, Hey you, Vor-guy--. She clutched Aral more firmly, and tried to look mysterious and exotic rather than tongue-tied and mislaid.

They found the little ceremony with the bags of coins going on in another chamber, the counts or their representatives lining up to discharge their obligation with a few formal words each. Emperor Gregor, whom Cordelia suspected was up past his bedtime, sat on a raised bench with his mother, looking small and trapped, manfully trying to suppress his yawns. It occurred to Cordelia to wonder if he even got to keep the bags of coins, or if they were simply re-circulated to present again next year. h.e.l.l of a birthday party. There wasn't another child in sight. But they were running the counts through pretty efficiently, maybe the kid could escape soon.

An offerer in red-and-blues knelt before Gregor and Kareen, and presented his bag of maroon and gold silk. Cordelia recognized Count Vidal Vordarian, the dish-faced man whom Aral had politely described as of the "next-most-conservative party," i.e., of roughly the same political views as Count Piotr, in a tone of voice that had made Cordelia wonder if it was a code-phrase for "Isolationist fanatic." He did not look a fanatic. Freed of its distorting anger, his face was much more attractive; he turned it now to Princess Kareen, and said something which made her lift her chin and laugh. His hand rested a moment familiarly upon her robed knee, and her hand briefly covered his, before he clambered back to his feet and bowed, and made way for the next man. Kareen's smile faded as Vordarian turned his back.

Gregor's sad glance crossed Aral, Cordelia, and Droushnakovi; he spoke earnestly up to his mother. Kareen motioned a guard over, and a few minutes later a guard commander approached them, for permission to carry off Drou. She was replaced by an un.o.btrusive young man who trailed them out of earshot, a mere flicker at the corner of the eye, a neat trick for a fellow that large.

Happily, Cordelia and Aral soon ran across Lord and Lady Vorpatril, someone Cordelia dared talk to without a politico-social pre-briefing. Captain Lord Vorpatril's parade red-and- blues set off his dark-haired good looks to perfection. Lady Vorpatril barely outshone him in a carnelian dress with matching roses woven into her cloud of black hair, stunning against her velvety white skin. They made, Cordelia thought, an archetypal Vor couple, sophisticated and serene, the effect only slightly spoiled by the gradual awareness from his disjointed conversation that Captain Vorpatril was drunk. He was a cheerful drunk, though, his personality merely stretched a bit, not unpleasantly transformed.

Vorkosigan, drawn away by some men who bore down on him with Purpose in their eyes, handed Cordelia off to Lady Vorpatril. The two women cruised the elegant hors d'oeuvre trays being offered around by yet more human servants, and compared obstetrical reports. Lord Vorpatril hastily excused himself to pursue a tray bearing wine. Alys plotted the colors and cut of Cordelia's next gown. "Black and white, for you, for Winterfair," she a.s.serted with authority. Cordelia nodded meekly, wondering if they were actually going to sit down for a meal soon, or if they were expected to keep grazing off the pa.s.sing trays.

Alys guided her to the ladies' lavatory, an object of hourly interest to their pregnancy-crowded bladders, and introduced her on the return journey to several more women of her rarified social circle. Alys then fell into an animated discussion with a longstanding crony regarding an upcoming party for the woman's daughter, and Cordelia drifted to the edge of the group.