Forward Momentum -- Chapter 15 (b)

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Ekaterin approached graduation determined to enjoy it. Her problems with fellow students had, as Miles thought, settled. She had also learned to distinguish self-seeking opportunists from those pushed by parents or friends to cultivate her acquaintance, and both from the fair number of classmates who genuinely admired her Memorial design for its beauty and power, and wanted to understand how she shaped space in her head.


        On the night before the ceremony, when nerves might have caught up with her, she was nicely distracted by the arrival first of the Viceroy and Vicereine, this time with proper entourage, then of Taura. The first order of business was Estelle’s, to adjust a dress made to measurements on file from her memorable champagne-velvet wedding outfit. Aunt Alys, to Ekaterin’s relief delighted by the invitation to Estelle, met them with the stylist who had previously done Taura’s hair. Sitting and talking to Taura while she was looked after Ekaterin saw she no longer dyed her hair, allowing thick streaks of cruelly premature grey to show-but that was the only sign that at twenty-four she was already almost a decade beyond the life-span expected by her designer.

After dinner Miles and Ekaterin took Taura to his study, and he explained to her what the Star Crèche believed it could and could not do, and the choice she faced. To Miles it was a poor second to the life Taura deserved and he was, Ekaterin knew, possessed by senses of failure and impotence, but after a while it was clear Taura, uncertain what she should do, did not see it that way. They had both been unnerved to see tears flooding her tawny eyes and streaming down her cheeks, some running on to the huge canines that had been wished on her and dripping onto her lap. But her voice was wondering.

“That’s twice now, Miles, you’ve given me the chance and choice of life when I had none. And most of me hungers for it, for the time I didn’t think I could have. But what will I do if I can’t fight? I don’t think I could bear for weakness to make me a burden.”

Miles took a deep breath. “It never will. And you can do whatever you want. You can retire with a full pension and a house wherever you like, at ImpSec’s expense. Or I have Gregor’s permission to swear you as liege-woman in any capacity we decide. There will be a place opening soon in the Vorkosigan Score of Armsmen, and if you become a Barrayaran my father is happy it be yours. So in principle is Pym, though I named him no names.” He hesitated. Taura’s eyes were huge. “And I’ve said nothing to him, of course, save that you’d be here, but I believe Armsman Roic would be delighted. Permanently so, if I understand him aright.”

Her reply was painfully uncertain. “He said nice things, and I liked him a lot. But Miles, how could I be a … wife, when I couldn’t …”

Ekaterin spoke firmly. “Taura, if you had children they would not carry your modifications. They would be big and strong, but their metabolisms and life-expectancies would be human normal.”

“And these?” Taura touched gleaming fangs with clawed fingers.

“No. Your makers altered you, but Palma was clear your gametes carry the underlying phenotype, not the modifications they imposed.”

“I …”

“Sleep on it,” Miles advised. “The graduation ceremony is tomorrow afternoon, but you’re free until then, as is Roic.” He rarely interfered with Pym’s organisation of Armsmens’ schedules, but he had not left this fall of the duty roster to chance; not that Pym needed much persuading when he realised what his lordship was about.

“Oh. You are so kind.” Taura’s smile was huge. “Can I, Ekaterin?” And before Miles could work out what permission had been asked and whether it had been granted he found himself engulfed in a hug that made him grateful synthetic bones were unbreakable and left him very short of the air he had been lifted into.

“You are the biggest man I’ve ever known.”

Then she charged out in search of Roic. Now, from her place among seated graduands Ekaterin heard murmurs of shocked surprise and turned to see Taura gliding tall in a stunning deep red dress, towering over Miles, Nikki, Aunt Helen, her frozen-faced Da and pale Stepma; a head taller even than Roic, so smart in a civilian suit he gleamed. Behind them she could see Aunt Alys and Simon with Ma Kosti, Estelle, Master Tsipis, and Lady Vorob’yev, followed by a wide-eyed gaggle of her brothers and sisters-in-law with Vassily Vorsoisson, surprised and grate­ful to be invited. Massed Koudelkas followed, led by Drou and Kou; Duv Galeni in dress greens with Delia, Count Dono in house uniform with Countess Olivia, Enrique Borgos with Martya, and bringing up the rear Lord Mark with Kareen, come directly from the shuttleport, pausing only to change. Her former mother-in-law had declared herself too busy to travel so close to Winterfair, and for all she was Nikki’s biological grandma Ekaterin found herself happy to let connection lapse with anyone so sourly uninterested in their own grandchild.

Seats at the front were reserved for the whole vast party, thirty-one strong, and the signs, like thorough security checks of all entering, had drawn querulous comment as people settled in around the block of empty chairs. Now there were less resentful noises of surprise as Lord Auditor Vorkosigan, Lady Vorpatril, Captain Illyan, the notorious new Count Vorrutyer, and even Aunt Helen, made famous by the treaty signing, were identified. The noise intensified as the party settled in, carefully not looking around for her, and it became clear six seats in the centre of the front row remained empty and uniformed, lethally armed ImpSec guards as well as liveried Vorbarra, Vorkosigan, and Vorrutyer Armsmen with stunners were now visible around the room. She saw Pym, Banharov, and Captain Khourakis among them but did not try to catch professionally scanning eyes. When the advance guard of the Vice-Chancellorial procession could be seen waiting at the rear door of the dais the main doors were thrown back by Armsman Gerard.

“Their Imperial Majesties Emperor Gregor and Empress Laisa Vorbarra.” Pause. “The Viceroy and Vicereine of Sergyar, Count Aral and Countess Cordelia Vorkosigan.” Pause. “Ambassador the haut Paramel Volusor. Ghem-General Dag Benin.”

Gregor’s name brought everyone to their feet with gasps from more provincial attendees, to whom Vorbarr Sultana was already an imperial treat and this unexpected nearness to their Emperor and new Empress icing on the cake. As the Viceroy and Vicereine were announced and became visible behind Gregor and Laisa, general murmuring broke out, quite against protocol and not so much, Ekaterin thought, at the fact of their being here, unexpected though it was, as at the renewed vigour rolling from Aral, reinforcing the impact of his physical presence and the impression of power in his every movement. Beside him Cordelia was also in blooming health and a spectacular green dress, roan hair piled high. But when Gerard announced the Cetagandans, and the elegant form of Volusor and stocky shape of Benin, wearing full blood-red Guard uniform and Imperial Array, came into view, protocol went abruptly west in an outburst of clapping and cheering.

At first Ekaterin thought it a reaction to post-treaty popularity of all things Cetagandan among pretty much the entire Barrayaran public. But as she saw and felt glances flicker between the imperial procession and herself she realised many in the audience had made the connection, realising the galactics as much as her parents-in-law and the Emperor and Empress were here for her. Next to her Sylvie Labrun, fortunately a classmate she liked who genuinely admired her work at the Memorial, was grinning fit to burst and giving her a thumbs-up, though she would have the unenviable task of going up to the platform immediately after Ekaterin, and for the first time outside Vorkosigan Surleau she felt a wash of concentrated public support and approval, appreciation and gratitude. Unable to stop herself smiling she kept still, drawing goodwill into herself and trusting Gregor to control his crowd, though she had long ago realised with resignation he felt obligated to do something during the ceremony and no-one could stop him-especially as he was the Chancellor. The conviction had at least made one choice easy, and under her plain black graduation-robe she wore not only a new dress by Estelle in the great material, but her Gold Imperial Star, again set-off by the colours and cut of the bodice. It was the first time she had worn the Star in public and startled looks from those who recognised it had been a pleasure she was slowly learning to savour. Medals, it turned out, were not such useless things as she had once thought.

Reaching the little row of empty chairs the Emperor saw Laisa and his guests seated, and turned to the audience behind him. He smiled briefly, nodded thanks, and raised one hand six inches. In the abrupt silence he nodded again cordially, and wheeled to sit beside Laisa, collapsing the audience back into their seats as surely as he had drawn them to their feet in the first place.

Finally the rear doors opened and brightly robed academics began filing in to their seats of honour and formal witness. Behind the Vice-Chancellor and his functionaries a solemn-faced Uncle Georg had a leading place, not on her account but thanks to the Lord Auditor’s golden chain-and-seal glittering strangely against his scarlet-and-green robes. As the platform filled the weighty hand of tradition regained authority, and the ceremony began in proper silence, each graduand proceeding to the platform to receive the scroll of their achievement and hear formal words conferring degrees upon them. Each had a brief moment to face the audience and find their own guests to smile at, but while most had difficulty not gawping at Gregor and Laisa, whose faces must be tired with the warm smiles they gave all who met their eyes, the procession was kept rapid, as it had to be given the numbers.

When her own name was called in all its strange, titled and triple-Vor glory the audience’s silence prickled with excitement. The familiar examination-feel of a knotting stomach while your legs carried you remorselessly forward to your fate came as she walked down the aisle and climbed to the dais. Then a scroll was in her hand, words in her ears. Turning to the packed hall she had eyes only for Miles and Nikki, smiling with shining looks, until she heard movement and the Vice-Chancellor come from his podium to stand at her side. He bowed to Gregor.

“My Lord Chancellor.”

Gregor stood, gesturing with a down-turned palm slicing sideways. The audience who had started to surge to their feet dropped into their chairs again, hamstrung. To Ekaterin’s consternation Dag Benin and Ambassador Volusor also stood and walked respectfully behind Gregor up to the platform to join her and the Vice-Chancellor. Benin’s elaborate face-paint gleamed; the red highlights caught her eye-because they were a new shade, she saw, closer to goatbane than the usual scarlet and clashing with his dress uniform. It was a bizarrely personal compliment.

Approaching her Gregor saluted with wicked eyes, reached for a hand she involuntarily extended in response, and bent to kiss it. There was utter stillness but as he straightened the hall erupted in a pandemonium of cheers and whistles, including a rising banshee from Taura that made Simon Illyan beside her flinch and brought admiring looks from younger people. Gregor let it happen, holding Ekaterin’s hand and looking through her to the back of her skull in that way of his, with warmest therapeutic reassurance flowing from touch and gaze. You can do this. Then he turned and again conjured silence by raising one hand a few inches. Ekaterin could hear her own breathing and the breath Gregor drew.

“Vice-Chancellor, Professors and Professoras, my Counts and Lords Auditor, your Excellency, General, guests. Barrayar is strong on protocol and tradition, for good reasons, but also strong on precedent, for better reasons, and today we make many precedents to honour. We salute all graduands here, respecting hard work and achievements, as is right. But with Lady Vorkosigan, who in my heart is my sister, I cannot pass in silence over achievements greater still than learning.”

That was not what she had expected at all. Ekaterin didn’t know where to look, and felt her legs trembling beneath her long skirts. Her Da, Stepma, and brothers were gawping, offering only continuing, shocked surprise at her recognition by judge­ments and authoritities so superior to their own. Her eyes sought Miles again and his strength flowed into her-not just his, she realised, daring to look, but Nikki’s, Aral’s and Cordelia’s, Taura’s, Aunts Alys’s, Helen’s, and Illyan’s, all her friends’ and marriage-kin’s regarding her with happy pride, sympathetic understanding of nerves, and desire to communicate confidence and share love.

“As some of you will have seen in the recent Imperial List, Lady Vorkosigan wears a Gold Star in her own right, not only surviving as a hostage of criminals but utterly defeating their vileness.” Calming as she gazed at Miles, Ekaterin found her sense of irony restored. Allegre and Vorlynkin had not exactly publicised the necessary announcement of her and Aunt Helen’s Stars, and from the burr of surprise in the hall she though Gregor’s ‘some of you’ covered very few. Her brother Hugo’s mouth was a round O, and even the Vice-Chancellor was giving her the oddest look. “And all know of her magnificent, most important work this summer at the Occupation Memorial, on which account Ambassador the haut Paramel Volusor requested permission to accompany me today with ghem-General Benin, who commands my Celestial Cousin’s Imperial Guard. General Benin.”

Gregor’s hand on her arm gently drew her round, and Benin stepped forward, with grave dignity and a twinkle in his deep brown eyes. Before speaking he touched his lips in that odd ceremonial gesture she had seen him make once before, speaking to Miles at Gregor’s and Laisa’s wedding.

“Lady Vorkosigan, my Imperial Master, the Emperor the haut Fletchir Giaja, charges me to convey to you in His Own Breath and Voice His deep respect and thanks for the honour and grace you did the ghem-nation. In recognition of your great contribution to the peace treaty, and with the permission of your Imperial Master, He charges me also to invest you with His Order of Virtue.”

What that was Ekaterin was unsure, but presumably it ranked below the military Order of Merit, or was a civilian equivalent. The ribbon Volusor ceremoniously held for Benin to take seemed to be blue with a white stripe, the medallion a golden oval. More to the point how was she to receive it? Benin was inches shorter than she even without her low-heeled shoes, and while she was used to stooping elegantly to kiss Miles she could rest a hand on his shoulder when she did so. But as she braced herself to bend only at her knees, hoping their trembling would not betray her, Gregor smoothly offered an arm on which she could grate­fully rest a hand for balance as she bent. Benin carefully placed the ribbon around her neck and stepped back, repeating his cermonial gesture. Golden oval and golden star lay side by side on her breast.

“In my Imperial Master’s Own Breath and Voice, Lady Vorkosigan, be welcome to your Order, honoured among the ghem and the haut.”

Both he and Volusor bowed and straightened. Gregor eased from her side to leave her standing alone. Attention in the hall was a growing weight. She knew she must speak and for a second thought she could not. Then simple words came, and less simple ones with them.

“Thank you, General Benin. Please convey my own respect and thanks to your Imperial Master.” He nodded formally. “And thank you, Sire, for your permission, and the honours you insist on doing me.” Had she really said that? From the laugh in Gregor’s eyes and rustle in the audience she must have done and her mouth was still moving. “But I am a mother and a gardener, and to have helped plant this peace is its own reward. Nor will I usurp honour in the presence of true movers and architects.” As she had seen and heard Miles do she allowed fractional movement and shift of voice to broaden her audience from those on the platform to all. “Gardeners must be defiant, for the order we seek defies natural chaos. My Golden Imperial Star I claim, for the actions it honours were for good or ill of my own body and mind, but in receiving this Order of Virtue I know myself as my garden is, a symbol of others.”

For the third time in her life Ekaterin found herself commanding a large audience. In that memorable session of the Council of Counts she had been too angry with Lord Richars to worry until all was done. In the square at Vorkosigan Surleau the palpable goodwill of village loyalists had borne her up. Now it seemed easy and she knew exactly what she wanted to say and do.

“I do not mean only the family who nurtured me, though I love and acknowledge them now.” She smiled at her Da and Stepma and brothers, still presenting a row of astonished faces. “There is also the family that has received me. If you would take this honour as it is truly meant, you will not applaud me, but my Lord Vorkosigan, my Lord Viceroy and Lady Vicereine, and His Imperial Majesty, without all of whose lifelong efforts there would be neither peace nor treaty.” She felt emotions surge in the hall and swiftly held up a hand, tautening silence. “Nor in his presence can I ignore ghem-General Benin, whom I know to have acted for the Celestial Garden as my husband did for the Imperial Residence, and to whose wisdom and friendship I believe us all indebted. And now as then, he stands both for himself and his Imperial Master, the Emperor the haut Fletchir Giaja, who in His grace honours me and whom I honour as a most Celestial Gardener, as defiant as any has ever been, and as truly rewarded as I am and all are with the peace of this new order.”

Words ran out with her grammar and there was only one thing left to do. Gesturing with both arms, to Miles, Aral, and Cordelia in the front row, and to Gregor and Benin on the platform beside her, she brought her hands together to begin the applause herself, deflecting pent-up emotions the sound released towards those who not only deserved but could endure their weight. Fascinatingly, Volusor read her intent, hands meeting only a fraction after hers, and before either could part them again the storm erupted, past and over her, hitting Benin and Gregor, who grinned with eyes alone, and knocking the Vice-Chancellor back­wards. Benin’s eyes gleamed as Gregor crooked a finger at the Vorkosig­ans to join them. Their looks, even Miles’s, identically mingled deep amusement and interested respect for her performance. Even after all reached the platform the thunder of claps and cheers went on absurdly long, deafening conversation, and at its first ebb she wondered if her command would still work and raised a hand as she had seen Gregor do. The noise didn’t quite cut off as abruptly as for him, but fell away with satisfying rapidity all the same, and she turned to Gregor.

“My Lord Chancellor, will you return the stage to your deputy?”

“I will, Lady Vorkosigan.” His eyes danced. “Carry on, my Lords, Vice-Chancellor. Allow me to escort you to your place, my Lady.” Emperors, she thought, as she and Gregor led the file down from the platform, were not easily bested in matters of protocol, but he earned her renewed devotion after delivering her back to her seat by turning to the woman who had to follow her.

“Miss Labrun, I apologise for delaying your moment so long. Would you do me the honour of permitting me to escort you to the platform?”

With a look of terrified excitement Miss Labrun indicated she would, and their progress down the aisle restored a formality Gregor sustained by returning silently to his seat and bestowing approving attention on a resumed flow of graduands. It all took another hour but eventually the last name was called, the last scroll given, and ritual completed by all processing down on to the stage to receive collectively what should have been the only applause of the afternoon. There was again a distinctly raucous element, but everyone was beaming, even the Vice-Chancellor; Uncle Georg came to embrace her. The problem of her exit when Gregor and Laisa began to move towards the door was solved by Taura, who simply picked her off the platform in a delicate grasp and deposited her beside a grinning Miles. Then to his utter surprise she did the same to Uncle Georg, putting him down in a billow of scarlet and green beside a startled Aunt Helen, and they all made their way out through yet more cheering and applause. Beyond the outer doors of the lobby a cordon of ImpSec guards and Armsmen surrounded a small fleet of aircars, that with everyone aboard rose to spin away after Gregor’s vehicle towards Vorkosigan House at the low altitude reserved for emergency and imperial traffic.

To Ekaterin it was far more surprising that Gregor had cleared the rest of his day than that he wanted to attend the ceremony, but Miles had laughed and said once Gregor saw her guest-list he wouldn’t have missed the party for anything. It was her own version, apparently, of Drou’s and Kou’s wedding thirty-something years before, conjoining two Counts, officers from Commodores Koudelka and Galeni to Lieutenant Vorsoisson (besides Admiral Count Vorkosigan and Sergeant Taura), and representatives of many classes beyond the metropolitan high Vor, from the provincial Vorgeoisie of her Da and brothers to the raznochintsy artisans Ma Kosti, Estelle, and Master Tsipis, and Armsman Roic, whose da was a construction hand in Hassadar. Besides mingled Russian, Greek, and French contingents, Miles added with a sly grin, there would be Cetagandans to observe-not only Dag Benin as house-guest but haut Paramel, if he could be persuaded, and ghem-Colonel Alanor Epallo, father of Nikki’s friend, with his wife and son. Would they leave their paint off? Or would Paramel’s presence make it impossible? There had never yet, Miles concluded, been a party like it, on Barrayar or Eta Ceta, so of course Gregor and Laisa were coming, and by that stage Ekaterin had become morbidly fascinated by conjunctions-not least of her Da and Stepma, tongue-tied when presented at her wedding-reception, meeting Gregor in a way that might actually force them to talk.

The aircars settled in a row in the drive of Vorkosigan House, and everyone emerged to fill first hall and, as tea with cakes appeared, the public reception rooms, library, and ground-floor study with cheerful groups. Gregor and Laisa settled in a corner of the library with Aral and Cordelia, while Roic and Taura slid away somewhere and Ma Kosti made a break for her kitchens; she could not be dissuaded from cooking, not that anyone tried, but had stern instructions to arrange a menu she could abandon to others to serve when eating started. Haut Paramel, much to Ekaterin’s surprise, needed only a hint to stay, promptly relaxed from stillness into a mode that seemed only ordinary diplomatic alert­ness, and soon seemed at ease talking to Mia Maz Vorob’yev, Simon, Aunt Alys, and Estelle in another corner of the library. Ekaterin tried to relax her spooked parents and brothers in the study, with help from Aunt Helen, Master Tsipis, and the Koudelka commando (nervously canvassed beforehand), until she found herself steered by Miles to the hall to stand before a relaxed, smiling man in an elegant bodysuit whom she didn’t recognise until she saw his brown eyes. Without his Imperial Array Dag’s face was thinner than it had seemed, careworn, perhaps, but also younger; he was still in his forties, she thought, very young for his post-as his Imperial Master had once been; as Miles was. His skin was olive, matching dark hair and lips sensuous with a curve zebra-stripes had distorted. He took her hand and kissed it with great propriety.

“Properly, you know, I should have kept the Array on to tell you I shall report your kind and clever words exactly to my Imperial Master, but for once I believe He would not mind my shocking lapse of protocol. The haut Paramel, who knows of that interesting conversation you both had with Vanos Kariam, has consented with a most intrigued look to be unstill, as I am unpainted. Colonel Epallo is apprised. Precedents to honour indeed. Though I am still trying to work out how I came to be applauded by the recipient of a medal, which seems the wrong way round. It is a great pleasure to meet you properly, and Miles tells me I must call you Ekaterin.”

“Yes, Dag, you must.” Miles was grinning up at them with real happiness in his eyes as she spoke. “And it was entirely the right way round. I meant every word-you too are a gardener.”

He looked at her steadily. Ironies glinting in his eyes were amplified by the bare, infinitely more communicative face. “I do some weeding, certainly.”

“Heh. I’ll bet.” Miles frowned. “But there hasn’`t been any special need for that lately, though?”

“Oh no, Miles. Much astonishment and exclamation, but nothing of concern. Though before we go in I will take the opportunity to say, as I think you know, that you managed with fascinating finesse to promote Admiral Lhosh sideways. Whether you intended this is a matter of hot debate in a few quarters, amused debate in many. His clan will not be happy when they realise his coming invasive triumph will cap rather than fuel his career, but they have already been out-manoeuvred.”

Miles quirked an eyebrow. “I would imagine so, given those doing the manoeuvring. Do we know whose career will be, ah, fuelled?”

“We do not, though my Imperial Master might. I would note Lhosh’s junior, Admiral Arvin, will gain interesting experience and kudos.”

Miles’s memory whirred. “Would he perhaps be a relative of the Lady Arvin my cousin Ivan met ten years ago, and who now seems to have attracted the patronage of haut Pel?”

“He is her most senior uncle.”

“Ah. Or perhaps I mean oh-ho. And should he, um, prosper with his kudos, we should be … cautiously pleased?”

Benin smiled. “You should be thoroughly delighted, Miles, and get your esteemed father to join with Arvin in establishing the regulatory code of conduct for the officers and other ranks of the joint fleet.”

Ekaterin felt her eyes widen with surprise as Miles went very still for a second. “Now that is a message I will surely pass on.” He hesitated. “You can of course tell him yourself anytime in the next few days.”

“I think I have said all I … should, for the present.”

“Ah, which I do mean this time. Let us then go in.”

When they did Benin was captured by Aral and Cordelia, friends after their long Eta Cetan stay in his security charge. Ekaterin’s afternoon remained very Cetagandan with the arrival of Colonel Epallo, bare-faced in Barrayaran mufti, with eleven-year-old Felari, or Fel, and wife Sheralza. The boy had been to Vorkosigan House before, visiting Nikki, who came galloping to say hello, but the Colonel’s embassy work­load had for months been redlined and his wife urgently seconded to haut Palma’s mission and its aftermath, so though the four parents had met briefly at the school to eye one another curiously, shake hands, and clear mutual visiting rights for the two boys, it was the adults’ first social meeting. Gazing around both Cetagandans seemed on edge as well as socially nervous and for all his mufti the Colonel was on parade.

“Thank you, Lady Vorkosigan, we are honoured by your invitation. I brought my family to Barrayar because I wanted them to experience and understand another world than our own. Before the remarkable events of this summer it was proving harder than I had hoped to … fit in here, but now it is wonderful. So you have our greater thanks for that, also.”

“Yes, very much so.” Sheralza echoed her husband’s genuine pleasure, but her body was tense, gaze linger­ing on Ekaterin’s Order of Virtue. “The haut Palma was very clear the peace treaty was of your joint making but did not … encourage questions. And Alanor tells me General Benin himself is here.”

Belatedly Ekaterin realised that the effect of Dag’s presence on the Epallos was exactly what Allegre’s, or better, Illyan’s, would be on a middle-ranking Barrayaran diplomat. Miles made the same calculation and grinned disarm­ingly at both ghem.

“Searching your minds for something to be worried about? Don’t-Dag Benin’s an old friend. His only formal duty today was investing Ekaterin with this.” Miles gestured to the golden oval on her breast. “Otherwise he really is here for a private visit. And, please, out of the public eye we are Miles and Ekaterin, as he will be Dag.” He looked around. “Nikki and your Fel have vanished already, and I’ll bet you they’ve gone to find Gregor and Laisa, who are also here, ah, privately.”

Despite the multiple ImpSec guards and Armsmen they had passed to gain entrance this was clearly news to Alanor and Sheralza, who looked panic-stricken. Ekaterin tried her new powers of instilling confidence, smiling warmly at them.

“Please don’t worry. They are good people, you know, and this is now a very informal gathering.”

Sheralza swallowed. “How should we address them?”

“One ‘Your Majesty’ each, then ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ will be fine. Come on.”

Miles was proven right as they entered the library to find an amused Uncle Gregor and bemused Aunt Laisa, already introduced themselves, watching Nikki present a wide-eyed Fel to Grandpa Aral and Grandma Cordelia. Seeing the boy’s parents all rose in easy greeting, finessing the couple’s nervousness, and after a moment handing them off to Dag Benin, attentively observing Nikki’s cool handling of Fel and the four most senior Barrayarans there were. For Ekaterin the contrast of that social grace with her own family’s inability to rise to an occasion was as bittersweet as it had been in the great hall during the ceremony, and over the next hours her emotional mandala became more fractally refined than she would have believed possible as she watched her rulers and in-laws exert themselves to charm ease in her parents, brothers, even a subdued Vassily Vorsoisson. Despite complexities of feeling she still felt the secure balance that had come to her on the daïs, and moved easily between groups to support nervy blood-kin or allow a moment’s personal converse with one or other of the great among whom they so strangely found them­selves. Gradually it worked. Her Stepma Violie had a nephew on Sergyar and was gentled into conversation by Cordelia, while Gregor (who had a lapful of ImpSec, to Miles’s amusement) made the sacrifice of eliciting her Da Shasha’s opinions on the Southern District adminis­tration that had been his life’s work. As he spoke of a minor reform he favoured she heard enthusiasm and fluency enter his voice, warming her; she suppressed a thought that it would have warmed her still more had he ever shown as much interest in her or Nikki.

When tea began to be succeeded by wine Pym drifted up to her mur­muring a request that at her earliest convenience she see Lord Mark and Miss Kareen privately in her study, and vanished before anyone could ask him more. As she slipped out a minute later Vorkosigan eyes tracked thoughtfully before meeting Koudelka eyes in sparking surmise. Smiling to herself Ekaterin climbed the stairs to find Pym showing Mark and Kareen into the study.

“How are you both? I’ve hardly had a chance to say hello properly. And thank you for being so patient with my poor Da, Kareen-he’s a bit overwhelmed.”

Both smiled and reassured her they well understood getting Vorkos­iganitis, but like the Epallos seemed tense, and when she sat and asked them how she could help glanced at one another before Kareen spoke. “We were going to wait, because we didn’t want to steal your evening, but it’s not easy these days to get my family together, nor Mark’s, and everyone’s here now. So we wondered if you’d mind us using it to announce our engagement but we’ll quite understand if you’d-.”

“Nonsense, of course you must. And congratulations to you both.” She rose to kiss and hug them, surprising Mark, she fancied, by the ease with which she could do so in his case, though she found his bulky unlike­ness to Miles disconcerting. Then several things struck her. “But let me warn you before you make any honeymoon plans for next year that you’ll be needed for something, oh, late in the year. Between Gregor’s birthday and Winterfair, say. I’m sorry, I can’t tell you any more”-she saw them understand her stress-“but I assure you, Mark, it will be something you would not wish to miss for the world.” She hesitated, then added “Please don’t ask Miles about it, though I understand the temptation. There are aspects that are what he would call slit-your-throat-before-reading stuff, and he is no more at liberty than I to speak of it. It’s just I’d hate for you to set your hearts on anything that, ah, clashed with this thing. Once you’ve told everyone I’ll murmur a word to him and Gregor that I’ve warned you in general terms.”

Unconsciously her voice was infused with the power she in fact wielded; Mark and Kareen had respectful startlement on their faces that shifted to acknowledgement of a different kind with her mention of Gregor. Mark had eyes blurred in wariness but nodded carefully.

“Thank you, Ekaterin, on all counts. I shall contain myself, the more so as despite a distinctive style you sounded uncommonly like my mother just then.”

“Didn’t she just.” Kareen was looking very thoughtful. “Ekaterin, if I may, I shall beg lessons from you in becoming Vorkosigan.”

“Oh.” She laughed at them. “It just happens, if you let it. I’m sure Mark’s told you. The only trick is to make sure you remain yourself. You won’t just be Lady Vorkosigan, but Kareen Koudelka Vorkosigan, and you’ll find you’re … amplified, not constrained or altered as you would not be. Now come on. Your poor parents were eyeing one another into a state when I left them.”

Mark’s brows drew down. “I asked Pym to be discreet.”

“He was, Mark, very. But he’d have to have been invisible and inaudible to escape notice on that errand. This is your Ma and Da, remember, not to mention Miles and Kou and Drou.”

She laughed again and urged them downstairs, but they didn’t have to make it the whole way for all four parents, with Miles, the other Koudelka sisters and partners, and Gregor and Laisa had managed to string themselves about the hall and the expectant silence that fell when Mark and Kareen came to a slightly glowering stop a few steps up drew everyone else from study and library, including Taura and Roic. After a moment Mark cleared his throat and made the announcement, after which it was again absurd, enjoyable noise and hearty congratulations all round. Even Duv Galeni and Kou seemed pleased, perhaps relieved now the engage­ment had actually happened, and Kou was certainly more concerned with giving a mild fish-eye to Enrique Borgos, grinning beside Martya, than to Mark. From her vantage behind Mark and Kareen Ekaterin could see calculation enter Miles’s eyes as he did the same calendrical sums that had struck her, so she slid past the couple to stand beside him, and as the cheering began to ebb twisted to murmur in his ear.

“Ah. Thank you, love. That was very smart of you.”

She squeezed his shoulder and turned to pass the datum to Gregor, who nodded fractionally as their eyes met and himself murmured it to Cordelia and Aral. Then Pym and others were passing glasses of champagne and after that they headed into the dining-room for a Ma Kosti special with the cook beaming among them and enjoying compliments. The champagne was succeeded by more ancient bottles from Vorkosigan cellars, and as these emptied and many, small courses flowed rapidly onto and slowly away from the table the party developed its own swirling style, people shifting places as it pleased them and conversations evolved. Yet despite her measured consumption of wine and multiple movements the evening did not blur in Ekaterin’s mind, as Gregor’s birthday had done around its four memorable moments, but became instead a sharp-focus kaleidoscope of scenes she could recall and consider at will.

A crisp Dono and amused Olivia told her brother Hugo their tale of the attack on Dono last year, whose consequences Hugo partly witnessed at Vorhartung Castle; Hugo’s wife Rosalie listened with him, wearing an expression of scandalised fascination. Nikki and Fel dragged her younger bothers, each with a similarly dubious look plastered on their faces, to meet Taura and found themselves in the middle of an amiable argument between her, Roic, and Drou Koudelka about how best to disarm people under assorted conditions. Sheralza Epallo made a beeline to Ma Kosti’s side, and respectfully offered a ghem recipe or two before circling round to earnest questions about one of the sauces they had enjoyed with tiny medallions of vat-grown beef fillet. Kareen and Mark moved constantly, sharing pleasure with family and old friends, taking care to spend time with those they did not know. Cordelia and Laisa listened with intent interest to Estelle’s cogent professional analysis of the new material and its ilk, Alys and Mia Maz Vorob’yev making occasional interjections from experience of Barrayaran, Vervani, and Cetagandan aesthetics. Enrique explained the armoured, radiation-eating butter-bug project to her pop-eyed Stepma, mostly managing to avoid rhyme but leaving Violie not much wiser until a laughing Martya spun polysyllables into clarity. Centrally in her mind, her Da captured her as she passed to project through incomprehension and inarticulacy his pleasure at her evident happiness and Vor pride in what had become of her. Centrally at the table, and least changingly, Gregor, Miles, Duv Galeni, Kou, Simon Illyan, and Aral conducted with equal friendliness and intensity probing exchanges with Dag Benin, haut Paramel, and Alanor Epallo, weaving round older histories all were glad to see pass but by which all remained constrained, sometimes darting sideways into current concerns and contrasting aspects of imperial cultures. Aunt Helen and Uncle Georg, with Master Tsipis and a wide-eyed Vassily Vorsoisson, were a consistent audience, sometimes joined by Nikki and Fel or others as they circulated.

As repletion was achieved and digested into comfort music began to be heard, and all adjourned to the ballroom where Gregor’s military orchestra from the Residence seemed to have been installed. The Colonel-conductor had been well briefed by someone, and knew her favourites were slower mirror-dances. They began in the established pairings of couples, she leading with Miles above Gregor and Laisa and Aral and Cordelia, but as dances succeeded one another and speed varied, the circulating pattern of dinner reasserted itself and the mirror-line shifted as partner­ships evolved. With such varied backgrounds represented many knew moves unfamiliar to others-Master Tsipis and Ma Kosti shared Greek ones, Roic had several no-one had seen that looked to derive from the construction work his father did, and Shasha and Violie had a moment of glory with a series of languid gestures reflecting the slower tempo of life during hot Southern summers. To her surprised pleasure Nikki and Fel joined in once or twice, making faces and shaking legs, but were also playing some game of their own and shot in and out of the ballroom so often and rapidly even Sheralza Epallo gave up trying to keep an eye on Fel and settled instead to enjoying herself opposite her husband, Duv Galeni, and to her consternation but swift pleasure at his skill, Gregor.