The Two Ivans - I

[bracketyjack]

I

His Excellency Ivan Boulanger, Ambassador from His Imperial Majesty Gregor Vorbarra to the Court of the Celestial Garden, looked carefully at the man standing at rigid attention in front of his desk.

He found after a while that both his hands were clutching what little remained of his hair, unclenched them with an effort, and slowly lowered them to rest on gleaming wood. His ambassadorial desk, a gift on presenting his credentials from no less a personage than the haut Pel Navarr (and thereafter exhaustively scanned by ImpSec for bugs, without result), was both beautiful and pleasingly large. He took a deep breath and counted to ten, contemplating the early morning sunlight on the delicate grains and inlay of the wood, then two more while he counted to fifteen.

“I think you had better sit down, Lord Ivan.”

“Thank you, sir, but I prefer to stand.”

“I imagine you do. Sit down anyway, please. Now.”

Colonel Lord Ivan Vorpatril, his Deputy Ambassador and Celestial Garden liaison, looked momently mulish beneath his grimness, but complied. Even sitting, however, he remained visibly rigid, and Boulanger sighed to himself. Lord Ivan had actually been remarkably helpful and efficient over the last two years, relieving him of almost all the regular contact with the Celestial Garden the Alliance required to allow him to get on with his real job of developing inter-imperial trade and finance. And however notorious a Vor playboy, here as much as in Vorbarr Sultana, Lord Ivan had once or twice come out with very timely and well-informed remarks about the haut, and had also proven an invaluable guide to the sheer weirdness of ghem culture (a shock to encounter as a daily reality rather than the background data Boulanger had drawn on as a trade negotiator for Lord Vorsmythe). He had also saved his ambassador from an early gaffe with a perfectly stunning young ghem-lordling who had made a private proposition Boulanger still couldn’t quite believe, and would certainly have fallen for had Lord Ivan not hauled him bodily away to attend to an urgent message that proved wholly fictitious. Explaining why he’d done so had left Boulanger’s head reeling, in which unhappy state he had made promises in gratitude that were now very obviously about to bite him. Sadly he remembered the warnings he had received before leaving Barrayar, from (in rapid succession) Lord Auditor Vorkosigan, Lady Vorpatril, and His Majesty Himself, that he had slowly come to believe exaggerated. Ivan, you idiot.

“Let me see if I have this correctly, Lord Ivan. You are informing me of your engagement?”

Lord Ivan shied slightly at the word, then grimly collected himself and nodded.

“Which is not to Lady Arvin, who has now proposed to you twice, nor to Lady Benello, who has matched her friend, but to someone else altogether.”

Visibly gritting his teeth, Lord Ivan nodded again.

“A Lady Cahearn. Do you intend to work through the alphabet?”

He received a glare.

“No matter. Lady Cahearn. I suppose congratulations are in order. When is the happy day? Oh, but you told me that too. You are getting married this evening.”

He observed a wince but Lord Ivan was sticking the course. “Yes, sir. I am.”

“And this ceremony is to be held, very privately, at the house of Lady Cahearn’s father, whom I presume to be ghem-Lord Cahearn.”

Another nod.

“About whom you know … not a lot.”

“He is retired from the military, sir, despite his age, for reasons that are clearly a secret of some kind. I haven’t pried because it isn’t wise.” Boulanger shook his head despairingly. What did Lord Ivan think diplomats were for? “And because given the timing I infer, I believe he may have been disgraced after the ghem defeat in the War of the Hegen Hub, so it might be insulting to ask.” That actually made sense, in a Lord-Ivanish way, but added considerably to Boulanger’s worries ; such a connection was potentially very hot water indeed, politically speaking. “And in any case we have his delighted consent.”

“So you said. And so I imagine, if he was thus disgraced.” Boulanger paused, thinking. “You also said Lord Cahearn was presently away from the city. Do I take it, therefore, that he does not expect his consent to be quite so … swiftly exploited?”

“I couldn’t say, sir. Lady Cahearn has made the arrangements with her family.”

“Ah yes. And of course no celebrant is required here, any more than on Barrayar. Merely the declarations. And prior registry of the intended match with a properly deputed official of the Star Crèche, who must issue their license if any children are to result. Tell me, are children on your and Lady Cahearn’s agendas?”

Ivan looked as if he wanted to spit but only nodded again, stiffly. “Eventually, sir. My mother has no other heirs, and whatever you think I am sufficiently Vor to know my duty. Which is why Lady Cahearn is also securing the attendance of such an official. A friend of her mother’s.”

“A friend. Of her mother’s.” There was a long pause. “A haut friend?”

“Obviously, sir. No ghem could be properly deputed in that role.”

“So Lady …dh’Cahearn’s mother is also haut?” Lord Ivan had somehow omiitted the proper prefix in his initial account.

“She is, sir. The haut Eleta. But as you will be aware, the privileges of haut trophy-wives are often very limited, from a haut point-of-view.”

“Limited. Haut.” There was another pause. “But you have the haut Eleta’s consent also?”

“We do, sir.”

“So besides your … unseemly haste, everything is in fact in order.”

“It is, sir.”

“Except that the reason you are doing this in such a … hugger-mugger fashion is that you are unwilling to inform either Lady Arvin or Lady Benello of anything less than a fait accompli. Or your mother. Or your cousin. Or your emperor. Or any of the several thousand ghem and Barrayarans you have over the last three years encouraged to bet on your eventual choice in matrimony.” Several million, quite possibly, if all he heard from Vorbarr Sultana was to be believed.

For the first time the rigid face relaxed enough to smile at him, very tightly. His heart sank. “I rest my case.”

Privately, Boulanger thought Lord Ivan actually had a point, though he also had only himself to blame. Since his original appointment to Eta Ceta as His Majesty’s special liaison with the haut Pel’s office before the jaw-dropping announcement of the Alliance-and Boulanger had thought long and often about that before-Lord Ivan had by all accounts been more or less besieged by ghem-women. It had, apparently, initially been merely an intense curiosity as to what a handsome young outlander aristocrat might be doing swanning in and out of the Celestial Garden and the offices of some very high ranking ghem, but after the announcement (and the days of profound shock that had by all accounts followed it) that ghem-curiosity had become a convulsive assault on a perceived source of power, much as those disgusting spined jellyfish in that strange Tau Cetan sea were said to mob anything that might be food. And even before the invasion broadcast had so stupendously shown the Alliance to be a genuine, working proposition and not merely a paper peace, Lord Ivan had received his first proposals of marriage from Ladies Arvin and Benello, whom he had apparently met during his still highly classified visit to Eta Ceta back in ’95 (about which all manner of rumours still abounded among the ghem, though no haut ever said anything of the sort). After being seen by the entire Nexus aboard Emperor Gregor’s battle-yacht (named, Boulanger recalled with an inward shudder, for Lord Ivan’s utterly formidable mother) he had been … swamped. So much was clear, and might win anyone’s sympathy-but his chosen tactic had then been to use Ladies Arvin and Benello as (very effective) shields while declining any answer to their proposals. While also from time to time manipulating the odds in the running embassy sweepstake for unknown but undoubtedly nefarious purposes of his own. Boulanger’s sympathy had declined quite sharply as he watched all this play out, but he could see that no polite or easy way now remained for Lord Ivan to Do the Right Thing. And if the idiot really has fallen for this Lady dh’Cahearn …

“Mmm. I do see that it would be a very awkward interview. Or two.”

“Exactly, sir.” The relief was palpable.

“Almost as awkward as this one.” Lord Ivan glared at him. There was a further silence. “In any case, you have decided so to act. And yet you feel it necessary to inform me ahead of time.”

“I thought you might notice my absence, sir. Eventually.”

“No doubt. When Count and Countess Vorbretten arrive next week, perhaps, expecting you to chaperone their meeting with their ghem-cousins.” That went home, but Lord Ivan’s wince could not undo his mulishness. and his voice was as unyielding as it was stiff.

“I have left Count Vorbretten a letter, sir, and briefed Major Khourakis fully. Lord Thaliar has also been briefed personally by General Coram, and will in any case be charmed silly by the Countess, so it’ll all be alright, I expect.”

Boulanger glared in turn, noting that Lord Ivan had his fingers crossed. “How good to know, Lord Ivan. And yet despite your expectations of universal wellbeing you also see fit to demand my name’s Oath that I will tell no-one in the Nexus about your plans for happiness before you send a general message and immediately depart on honeymoon, incommunicado, for … where was it?”

“Xi Ceta.”

“Ah yes. Where Lady dh’Cahearn’s family has ‘a place’ they have offered you.”

“Yes.”

“A ‘place’ which is not on the comnet.”

“I understand it is deliberately remote, sir. A hunting-lodge.”

Remote? Try ‘well-hidden’, Lord Ivan, you idiot. “And I should agree to this ludicrous insanity, despite my oath to His Majesty, because … ?

“You owe me, sir. And I’m calling it in.”

Very unhappily Boulanger steepled his fingers and contemplated the result. “I do, yes. Because you saved me from what would have been a severe private embarrassment. As opposed to a severe public embarrassment, which is what will happen if I agree to be silent. Or perhaps worse. I seriously doubt that His Majesty will understand such underhandedness and dereliction of duty.”

There was a mutter of some kind.

“I didn’t catch that, Lord Ivan.”

The look he received might have drawn blood.

“I said, sir, that Gregor is not the problem. And in any case you are far too valuable to him here for any actions of mine to … endanger your position.”

“Ah. How flattering.” Boulanger pondered for a moment that bare Gregor, but whatever the childhood intimacy and blood-relation between his deputy and his Emperor he knew that riding herd on Lord Ivan was most certainly one part of his job. “And yet I am strangely unmoved by your assurances.”

“You owe me.”

“So you said. And so I do. But this?”

It was Lord Ivan’s turn to be unmoved. “It’s not as if I’m asking you to tell Gregor.” He shuddered in his chair, looking faintly sick. “Or my mother.”

“Indeed. You propose to do that yourself. By prerecorded ‘vid.” Lady Vorpatril was going to be beside herself when that little gem popped onto her comconsole. Not to mention those little ghem Lord Ivan eventually proposed to get around to. Boulanger shuddered all over again himself, and a possible escape-route suggested itself. “Tell me, do you really believe that the interviews with Ladies Arvin and Benello you so dearly seek to avoid would be less difficult than the interview with your mother that you and … your ghem-bride will eventually have to undertake?”

To his dismay Lord Ivan smiled again.

“Oh yes. Infinitely. My honoured mother may single-handedly define the geezer in geezer-class Vor but she will already have what she wants. And she has never in her life, even as an infant-in-arms, made the slightest scene in public.” Except giving birth to you in a warehouse during the Pretender’s War, if that story is to be believed. “Whereas Jennea Arvin and Lactai Benello believe in … more direct action. And can, believe me, screech the ceiling down.”

That also made sense, and not only Lord-Ivanishly. Damn. Boulanger could feel the box closing around him and wondered if he really could lose his job over this. It would be a bitter disappointment, and a waste, for he knew he was doing good work-but His Majesty might not feel He had any choice, especially if the Vorkosigans as well as the Vorpatrils took real offence. And who knew how far the ripples of ghem-offence might spread? Or haut. It was a disaster, ridiculous but appalling, and like a man sliding on ice head-first towards a plascrete wall he could do nothing to stop the inevitable smash. Because he had promised, dammit, though he would certainly never do anything so ridiculously open-ended again. Which was also a thought.

“Hmmm. Well, that is, I suppose, your call. And you are correct that I owe you, however immoral and idiotic as well as cowardly the use you propose to make of the fact.” Lord Ivan’s glare became quite impressively stony. “But I simply cannot make an unbounded commitment to be silent, whatever your reasons or demands.”

Fine white teeth were audibly unclenched. “Not unbounded, sir. One day. Twenty-six hours. Or twenty-five, here.”

Boulanger gritted his own teeth. “Very well. But you must also specify exactly whom I cannot tell, all others being permitted. And agree that if anyone with the proper authority to do so asks me what is happening, or where you are, or even what time of day it is, all bets and oaths are off. I will not lie for you. Nor even prevaricate.”

Lord Ivan’s eyes narrowed. “You want a list.”

“Yes.”

“Why? No-one on Eta Ceta IV and no Barrayarans covers it.”

“Because apart from anything else, Lord Ivan, this being Saturday, I intend as always to talk by frame to my son at his boarding-school. I do not propose to tell Josef of your jaunts and jollities, nor of my own impending disgrace, but it is bad enough that I cannot be there for him, and that he was obliged by ImpSec to change schools when I left, so I cannot and will not promise you that I am not going to be calling Barrayar today.”

Ivan smiled tightly again and reached into his inner pocket. “I thought you’d say that, sir, so I have already made a list.”

He passed over a folded flimsy and sat back. Damn. Gingerly and with renewed dismay at how well Lord Ivan seemed to know him Boulanger spread it on his desk and examined it. At the top, underlined, was the single name “Captain Miles Vorkosigan”, followed parenthetically by “(and Ekaterin, Mark, Kareen, Uncle Aral, Aunt Cordelia)”. Captain? Then, similarly laid out, came “Mother (and Simon, Falco, and all Vorpatrils whatever)”. Boulanger grimly considered the missing ‘Chief’, ‘Illyan’, and ‘Count’. An equally bare “Gregor and Laisa” were in third place, followed by “(and anyone who is or has ever been a member of ImpSec)”. Then the list became rather more haphazard and crowded. “All Koudelkas. Anyone who has married a Koudelka, and all their relations. Any serving officer in any uniformed service. Any sworn Armsman of any Count. Any Count. Anyone married to or descended from a Count. Any Lord Auditor. Anyone married to or descended from a Lord Auditor. Any Residence or District official. Anyone in Vorkosigan, Vorbarra, Vorpatril, or Toscane employment. Jack Chandler. The Lord Guardian of the Speaker’s Circle and his deputies. Anyone ever employed at Vorhartung Castle.” A double line scored the flimsy, below which a second list began. “Haut Pel. H.I.M. t.h. Fletchir Giaja. H.I.M. t.h. Rian Degtiar. Haut Palma. Governor t.h. Raniton Degtiar.” It was interesting-though not remotely reassuring-that Cetagandans retained honorifics Barrayarans were denied. “Haut anyone connected with any of them. Any Ba. General Benin. General Coram. Lady Arvin. Lady Arvin senior. Lord Arvin. Admiral Arvin. Lady Benello. Lady Benello senior. Lord Benello. Any other Benins, Corams, Arvins, and Benellos there are, or may be. General Kariam. Any other ghem-general. Anyone working in the Celestial Garden. Anyone who has ever worked at the Celestial Garden. Anyone called Naru, Kety, Yenaro, or Lhosh. Anyone related to anyone of those names. Anyone I’ve forgotten.”

Boulanger’s fingers tapped on his desk while he thought. The Barrayaran listing, however informal, seemed pretty comprehensive, the Cetagandan one less so but more than enough to rule out any contact he could think of who might do the slightest good. And why Lord Ivan even thought it was possible the Barrayaran ambassador might talk to the haut Emperor (let alone Empress) or one of those intensely disturbing Ba servitors about something like this was a puzzle, reminding him uncomfortably of the very discreet visits to the Celestial Garden Lord Ivan had been making over the last eighteen months-about which, after receiving a highly confidential ambassadorial despatch, His Majesty (suppressing a smile) had personally told Boulanger not to worry. But that last entry on the list was unconscionable.

“Lord Ivan, I cannot agree not to talk to ‘anyone you have forgotten’.”

The list was plucked from his desk and carefully scrutinised for some minutes. Then Lord Ivan produced a stylus, struck through his last entry, and returned the list to where Boulanger could see it.

“Fair enough, sir. But everyone else stays. Now, your Word?”

* * * * *

After the door had closed behind a triumphant (if still generally grim) Lord Ivan, Boulanger spent a good hour sitting quite still at his gleaming desk, watching sunlight track slowly across its surface and trying to think of anyone with whom he might try to communicate about this bombshell before it went off. At least three times he almost rose to call His Majesty directly, foreswear himself, avert disaster, and resign, but on each occasion remembered that, as he had once heard Lord Auditor Vorkosigan strikingly remark, honour mattered rather more than reputation, and was besides a great deal harder to repair. Eventually he decided he had little choice but to trust to Lord Ivan’s notorious luck and console himself with the thought of the Vor lord having to deal in future with both ghem and haut relatives as well as Captain Illyan and his mother. Who would be furious.

Eventually the thought also occurred to him that his son had risen early today, in anticipation of a school-tournament that should by now be complete (and he had to hand it to the school-exclusive Vorbarr Sultana institution or no, it was fiercely up with the times). Boo! was the latest fighting-game to obsess Barrayaran youth (and many of their elders), featuring the sensational new bubble- and wormhole-technologies rather accurately ; surprise was all, and you actually lost points, heavily, for killing or physically injuring rather than bloodlessly capturing your opponents, while you could earn true victory, and its very generous prizes, only if your actions (preferably in unexpected co-operation with an erstwhile opponent) saved everyone and were sufficiently aesthetic as well as successful. It seemed to be the massive menus of music, colour, dance-styles, couture, coiffure, footwear, and accessories that had fascinated everyone, along with the highly improbable range of combatants available, and the game was due to be launched quite soon on Eta Ceta, where there was already a feverish buzz of anticipation. The game was manufactured by a division of the explosively growing MPVK Enterprises-which extremely interesting conglomerate had also become very heavily involved with ghem-genetic work on troublesome Barrayaran flora and fauna ; especially since its owner’s utterly discombobulating admission a year ago (with his wife, brother, and sister-in-law, at that extraordinary ballet) to the Grand Warrant of the Inner Garden. Quite what that had been about neither Boulanger nor any of the ghem and haut he had spoken to had the least idea, and asking about it tended-even now the Quaddie company had finally ended their sixteen-planet Cetagandan tour and headed for Sergyar-to induce either baffled silence or baffled complaint. It was never­theless very clear to him that the Vorkosigan brothers operated far more closely in tandem than anyone had ever supposed possible when Lord Mark so astoundingly materialised in Vorbarr Sultana back in ’01. The game (and its rather brilliant ‘vid advertisements by the Chance Brothers) had amused and impressed him as much as his fifteen-year-old son’s enthusiasm for it warmed him, and he rose to cross to his frameconsole determined to be a cheerful Da in conversation. Josef deserved no less, and Boulanger deeply regretted that duty had now taken him from the lad almost as surely as the aircar crash all those years ago had deprived them both of his mother. If it hadn’t been for frames he didn’t know what he would have done when he received His Majesty’s utterly unexpected invitation to represent Him on Eta Ceta.Thank you, Dr Chandler, from the bottom of my heart.

Josef was indeed back and freshly showered, wrapped in the shirr-silk haut dressing-gown Boulanger had sent him last Winterfair and obviously playing what looked like a rather advanced round of Boo! involving Vor cavalry, Marilacan guerrillas, face-painted ghem-warriors (clan design chosen by the player), Athosian missionaries, improbably large quaddies with peculiar instruments who could, he remembered, use percussive music to paralyse their opponents, a peacenik sect of Betan hermaphrodites who favoured slightly leering seduction, and one of the strange, powerfully interfering cats (most of them a strange grey-and-tabby mix) that could show up at any time to tip events into new courses. The boy grinned as he saw his Da, finger still resting on the ‘accept’ button of his frame.

“Hi, Da.”

“Hi Jo. How did you do?”

Jo grimaced. “Equal fourth. A partial victory. But it was a good tournament-some great moves and alliances.” He peered at his frame and Boulanger’s determined control must not have been good enough for Jo looked his concern. “Are you OK, Da? You look … worried? Work stuff?”

Honesty with his son (so far as security allowed) had always been Boulanger’s firm policy, and he made an instant decision that he hadn’t won this poor concession from Lord Ivan for nothing, whatever his good intentions might have been.

“Yes and no, Jo. I might be home sooner than you expect. Lord Vorpatril has just informed me that he is getting married.” Jo’s mouth made a big O. “This evening. And he used an IOU he held on me to make me swear not to tell anyone who could stop him. It’s going to be a disaster.”

“Wow. Lady Arvin or Lady Benello?”

“Neither. A wholly unknown Lady Cahearn.”

“What? The bookies will be livid.”

“You’re telling me. And I should say dh’Cahearn : she’s a ghaut.”

Jo stared. “He’s got the license and everything?”

“So he says. Some haut friend of his bride’s haut Ma. He also thinks the ‘retired’ officer ghem-Da was disgraced after the Hegen Hub.”

“Yib!” Jo’s face was sober beneath his surprise. “That is not good. Or … well. It might not be good. If it could be spun properly …”

That was actually a very good point, and Boulanger’s pride in his son was sharp. But … “This evening.”

“Why the heck is he doing it like that?”

“To avoid interviews with Ladies Arvin and Benello before being able to present them with a fait accompli.”

“I thought he liked them. Everybody did.”

“Me too. And I don’t know that he doesn’t, Jo. In fact I rather suspect that whoever this Lady dh’Cahearn is she represents for Lord Ivan a way of not having to decide.”

“But that’s idiotic! Give up both women you love because you can’t pick one? And when you could have both?”

“It’s Lord Ivan.”

“Yeah. I suppose.” Jo frowned. “Da, you said he made you swear not to tell anyone who could do anything, but you can’t have sworn to that.”

“No. I told him I couldn’t do anything so daft. But he had made a list.”

“May I see it?”

“Sure.”

Boulanger went back to his desk where Lord Ivan’s list still lay in lonely, reproving splendour. He considered reading it out but then just held it so Jo could see, peering through his frame.

“Captain Vorkosigan?”

“I believe it was the Lord Auditor’s retiring ImpSec rank, but otherwise don’t ask me. Some kind of cousinly thing, I suppose.”

“Huh.” Jo’s eyes worked carefully down the list, then returned to the Barrayaran contingent. After a moment his eyes brightened and he smiled. “You know, Da, I just might be able to help you on this one. I haven’t sworn anything to anybody. And you’ve still got, what? seven or eight hours daylight there. Can you hang on a minute while I make a parallel call?”

Boulanger was completely nonplussed. What Jo could be thinking of or whom he might be intending to call he couldn’t imagine.

“Sure, Jo.”

It was one of the peculiarities of frame-calling that when multiple calls were held on a single frame visuals were easily blanked but fragments of sound tended to come through, and over the next few minutes Boulanger heard snatches of what was obviously a quick-fire summary of Lord Ivan’s mad doings, Jo’s voice low and urgent. He didn’t hear any replies, though. How quickly his son had grasped the possible ramifications of a clandestine Vorpatril-ghaut marriage was a source of renewed pride, but his good feeling was over­balanced by contemplating the consequences in question. Then his son’s face popped back into view.

“Da, I’m going to transfer you to someone. Don’t ask who, but I swear he’s not on your list. Tell him everything. And I guess you’ll need to keep your frame open after, so I’ll sign off. Call me later, if you can. Love you.”

Before a startled Boulanger could do or say anything Jo vanished to be replaced by another lad of his age, dressed in unassuming but beautifully tailored slacks and shirt. Who he was Boulanger had not the faintest idea. His voice was a pleasant light baritone with what sounded weirdly to Boulanger’s well-tuned ear like haut rhetorical nuances. High haut at that.

“Good morning, your Excellency. I understand you have a problem with Lord Vorpatril, and a list. May I please see the list?”

Silently Boulanger held it up as before.

“Thank you, sir.” The boy’s eyes scanned the page carefully, twice. Boulanger had the impression that he suppressed a grin. “That’s … comprehensive. But as Jo said, I am not on it. So do please tell me what has happened.”

Boulanger did, leaving out only the hold Lord Ivan had on him. The boy listened in silence, then drummed his fingers once on his thigh.

“Forgive me, sir, but how did Lord Vorpatril manage to make you swear this oath of silence?”

Boulanger flushed, and struggled to formulate a version that might leave him some dignity with this formidable young man, whoever he was. Suddenly the boy grinned.

“I believe I see.” The grin faded. “Can you give me your Name’s Word, sir, that the … lever involved was, ah, a private matter? One that had and has no bearing whatever on the security of either Imperium?”

Boulanger stared, feeling a rising appreciation. Someone had taught this young man a great deal of hard-headed sense. “I believe I can, and I do, on my name as Boulanger.” He paused, then forced himself on. “But plainly, sir, I am no Vor, and in code-law have little honour to swear by.” The honorific slid easily from his mouth and after a second’s mental doubletake he felt a wash of returning self-respect ; calling this boy ‘lad’ or some such dismissive tag would be no way of showing the admiration he was beginning to feel. And the boy smiled dazzlingly at him.

“My Da says possession of that syllable is much overrated, and your Word, sir, is good enough for me.” Fingers drummed again. “But we do have a problem, if all this is true. Forgive me again, sir, but are you certain that Lord Vorpatril was ... being entirely serious? He has been known to, um, perpetrate jokes. And I would not care to make the calls I shall have to if it is true only to discover that it isn’t.” He paused, thoughtfully. “Neither would Lord Vorpatril, I imagine.”

Boulanger still couldn’t imagine to whom those calls might go, but the boy plainly had access to someone, and as he thought it through he found he agreed wholly with the reasoning. Lord Ivan did have that reputation, though it had been notably in abeyance on Eta Ceta, saving his prolonged and teasing matrimonial indecision. Which just went west. And anyone who might actually be in a position to act on information received would certainly not care in the least to do so only to discover an infantile Vorish jape. He thought back to Lord Ivan’s manner and shook his head firmly.

“I do not believe it was any kind of a jest, sir. When Lord Ivan was speaking of engagement and matrimony he was grimly determined yet juddering. Rather white, also.” He reflected for a second. “And if it is a hoax, I shall be demanding his immediate recall to Vorbarr Sultana in the blackest disgrace, or tendering my own resignation as ambassador. Continuing to serve with him after being so gulled in the matter of my name’s Word would not be tenable.”

The boy nodded. “Fair enough, sir. Lord Vorpatril is never malicious.” He frowned in a shockingly adult manner. “And Uncle Ivan is nothing like idiotic enough to get himself sent back to the Residence in real disgrace, whatever Da says.”

Uncle-?

“Now, I shall be making two parallel calls. I am sorry, but you will see and hear nothing of the recipients, nor of me, but they will be able both to see and to hear you, and when both are online I will ask you to repeat your story once more, and to read out the list. They … are on it, but you will not be talking to them. You will be talking to me.” He grimaced slightly, then shrugged. “A touch of hairsplitting, I know, but better that than the other. And if it helps I can say that knowing what I already know I am obliged to make the calls anyway, which will certainly result in calls to you sooner rather than later. Which you will, believe me, be very obliged to take.”

Boulanger seemed to have spent the entire morning staring. His mind whirred, balked, and went on whirring anyway. “I see. I think. Though I am also completely confused about almost everything. Perhaps I should say that I made it a condition of my name’s Oath that if I were asked by anyone with the proper authority what Lord Ivan was doing I should be free to reply as my duty demands. And … forgive me, but you do realise that as you or the other callers speak there may be some sound-spill?”

The boy grinned. “Not on my frame, sir. Uncle Jack made sure of that.”

Uncle-?

“As to the other, very right of you, as Gran’da would say, and it may come to that. But if this works out you will already have done your duty. We’ll see. Excuse me.”

Boulanger’s frame blanked, showing that faint shimmer that indicated the very highest grades of internal security. An interminable time passed while he thought very carefully about a number of things, including uncles and gran’das, though the chrono-display on the frame suggested it was only about fifteen minutes before light flared and the boy was back, his posture somehow stiffer and more focused, though his voice was easy. Absurdly, there was now an oddly familiar-looking grey-and-tabby cat perched in front of his frame, peering at Boulanger with evident interest.

“Your Excellency, please begin.”

Boulanger did, and this time added a frank though decorously worded admission of how Lord Ivan had come to hold his IOU, naming the ghem-lordling but (with fingers crossed) failing to specify the precise offer he had made. As he spoke he saw the boy’s gaze was not on him at all but flickering right and left, watching his unseen, silent listeners. It occurred to Boulanger that he could not configure his own frame in quite this way. When he came to the end of the list he held it up, quirking an eyebrow at the boy, who smiled slightly as he nodded. There was a long silence until the boy nodded respectfully twice, neither time at him.

“Uncles?”

Uncles-?

But there was no time to puzzle it out, because the boy was nodding again, and suppressing a smile that might have been purely gleeful if it had been allowed to be.

“You bet. May I come? … Thank you. Who’ll call His Excellency? … Oh, OK.”

Then suddenly the boy flushed a little. Boulanger’s pulse raced.

“Thank you, Uncle … and Uncle.” He smiled a little shyly, suddenly looking younger. “That means a lot to me. Will you tell”-his eyes flicked to Boulanger and away again-“your son? While I tell Da? … OK.” Drawing himself up he tipped a crisp salute and then made a perfect Cetagandan bow in one of the new modes, and very stylishly. No, two of the new modes, extraordinarily combined. With an odd floating sensation Boulanger recognised them as Vor lord to Celestial authority, and adopted friend to parental guide. Coming out of the bow the boy fluently punched at a complex keypad and looked up at Boulanger.

“Someone will call you shortly, your Excellency. Please relax. Quite what the outcome will be I am uncertain, but I assure you no disaster will now be permitted to befall the … strong hopes of the Alliance, at its highest levels, that the marriage of Lord Vorpatril to Lady Arvin, or to Lady Benello, or”-he grinned, charmingly, with pure wickedness-“preferably both, will”-and his voice deepened into the sonorous reassurance of good propaganda-“set a most positive trend well-received on both home planets, and throughout the imperia.” There was another grin as his voice reverted to its pleasant baritone. “Nor should you fear for Lady dh’Cahearn. But I’m afraid I must go, as I have been assigned my own duties.” The cat jumped down, vanishing. “Stand by your frame, your Excellency. And buckle up tight!”

The framesole blanked. In the ensuing silence, very carefully rising, crossing to his favourite thinking-chair now touched with sunlight, sitting, extending his legs to cross them at the ankle, leaning back, and letting out his breath with an explosive Oooof!, Boulanger let his thoughts tumble and jump. The subjects included, in no particular order, the capacities of children, and of frames, and of emperors ; Vorpatrils ; the nature of Vor training and education ; just how much nobody understood about Lord Auditor Vorkosigan’s role in somehow creating the Alliance ; the astonishing grasp of aesthetics exhibited on numerous occasions by his formidable wife ; the very strange stories about both of them and their influence with the Celestial Garden ; Vorpatrils ; the genetic thinking of the ghem, profoundly genetic thinking of the haut, especially the high haut, and utterly genetic thinking of the Star Crèche, in so far as he had any real understanding of that remote guardianship of all that was haut ; the most remarkable fact, very differently understood by the high Vor, Vorgeoisie, and non-Vor, that His Imperial-oh yes, imperial to his finger-tips-Majesty had married as utterly non-Vor a bride as he could find in His entire imperium ; Vorpatrils ; the hair-raising essay by Madame Professora Vorthys called with misleading mildness The Vorkosigan Report ; and among them all a certain trepidation about in exactly whose hearing he had just implicitly confessed to certain desires that might well be thought unbecoming in an ambassador. The identity of the boy no longer troubled him, for there could be only one answer-though he remained profoundly astonished at more implications than he could begin to count.

After a while the incoming light on his frame began to blink, and he hauled himself upright, shook out the creases, and went to accept the call. To his very mild surprise ghem-General Benin of the Imperial Guard looked pleasantly out at him, face-paint gleaming. To his infinitely greater surprise the haut Pel was visible behind the security chief, quite unembubbled and poorly stifling a laugh he did not want to hear. Benin smiled gently.

“Your Excellency. I am given to understand there is something-indeed. several somethings-that you cannot in all honour tell me. In consequence, a ‘car will collect you during the late afternoon or early evening. I’m sorry not to be able to be more precise, but you have in any case ample time to dress in … appropriate finery. There will, I believe, be sufficient ceremony, of some kind, to warrant the effort. And perhaps you will be kind enough now to excuse me? I seem to have a busier day ahead than I had quite anticipated when I rose this morning. As I imagine you have already found.”

Boulanger smiled beatifically at the single most powerful and well-connected ghem there was on Eta Ceta IV. Or pretty much anywhere, come to that. Others ruled clans, guilds, conglomerates, and in the satrapies even some frontier provinces, but for all he was no lord himself-yet-General Benin alone among ghem could always speak in his Imperial Master’s Voice. He was also a friend of Lord Auditor and Lady Vorkosigan and of Boulanger’s own Imperial Master, by all accounts-peculiar and otherwise contradictory as they might be.

“You are a gentleman, sir, and a scholar of rare understanding. Be my guest, please, with my humble gratitude.”

Benin suddenly grinned, charmingly, shifting the zebra-stripes and red highlights of his Imperial Array. The haut Pel … hooted. Or perhaps the hoot Pel hauted. And Boulanger’s frame winked into empty stillness. Alright! And let’s hear it for Jo. I owe him large-and ImpSec for insisting on that school. Leaning back in his chair he found, for the first time in-he glanced at the chrono-almost three hours, that he was once again looking forward to his Saturday evening, and to what he rather thought was going to be a highest-level round of Boo! played out right here in the heart of Cetaganda.