Winterfair Gifts Read online

  The two women turned as Taura ducked her head under the lintel behind Roic and straightened up again. Roic nodded a polite greeting. He couldn't imagine what m'lord had said to his aunt, but her eyes widened only slightly, looking up at Taura. The second woman didn't quail at the fangs, claws, or height either, but when her glance swept down the pink trouser outfit, she winced.

  There was a brief pause; Lady Alys shot Roic an inquiring look, and he realized it must be his job to do the announcing, as when he brought a visitor into Vorkosigan House. "Sergeant Taura, my lady," he said loudly, and stopped, hoping for more cues.

  After another moment, Lady Alys abandoned further hope of him and came forward, smiling, her hands held out. "Sergeant Taura. I am Miles Vorkosigan's aunt, Alys Vorpatril. Permit me to welcome you to Barrayar. My nephew has told me something about you."

  Uncertainly, Taura stuck out one huge hand, engulfing Lady Alys's slender fingers, and shook with care. "I'm afraid he hasn't told me too much about you," she said. Shyness made her voice a gruff rumble. "I don't know many aunts. I somehow thought you would be older. And ... and not so beautiful."

  Lady Vorpatril smiled, not without approval. Only a few streaks of silver in her dark coiffure and a slight softening of her skin betrayed her age to Roic's eyes; she was trim and elegant and utterly self-possessed, as always. She introduced the other woman, Madame Somebody—not Estelle, though Roic promptly dubbed her that in his mind—apparently the senior modiste.

  "I'm very happy to have a chance to visit Miles's—Lord Vorkosigan's homeworld," Taura told them. "Although when he invited me to come for the Winterfair Season, I wasn't sure if it was hunting or social, and whether I should pack weapons or dresses."

  Lady Vorpatril's smile sharpened. "Dresses are weapons, my dear, in sufficiently skilled hands. Permit us to introduce you to the rest of our ordnance team." She gestured toward a door at the far end of the room, through which presumably lay more utilitarian work rooms, full of laser scanners and design consoles and bolts of exotic fabrics and expert seamstresses. Or magic wands, for all Roic knew.

  The other woman nodded. "Do please come this way, Sergeant Taura—we have a great deal to accomplish today, Lady Alys tells me..."

  "My lady?" Roic called in faint panic to their disappearing forms. "What should I do?"

  "Wait here a few moments, Armsman," Lady Alys murmured over her shoulder to him. "I'll be back."

  Taura too glanced back at him, just before the door eased silently closed behind her, the expression flitting over her odd features seeming for a moment almost beseeching—Don't abandon me.

  Did he dare sit on one of the chairs? He decided not. He stood for a few moments, walked around the chamber, and finally took up a guardsman's stance, which by dint of much recent practice he could hold for an hour at a stretch, his back to one delicately decorated wall.

  In a while Lady Vorpatril returned, a pile of bright pink cloth folded over her arm. She shoved it at Roic.

  "Take these back to my nephew and tell him to hide them. Or better, burn them. Or anything, but do not under any circumstances allow them to fall into that young woman's hands again. Come back in about, oh, four hours. You are by far the most ornamental of Miles's armsmen, but there's no need to have you lurking about cluttering up Estelle's reception room till then. Run along."

  He looked down on the top of her perfectly groomed head and wondered how she could always make him feel four years old, or as though he wanted to hide in a large bag. For his consolation, Roic reflected as he made his way out, she seemed to have the same effect on her nephew, who was thirty-one and ought to be immune by now.

  He reported again for duty at the appointed time, only to cool his heels for another twenty minutes or so. A sub-modiste of some sort offered him a choice of tea or wines while he waited, which he politely declined. At last, the door opened; voices drifted through.

  Taura's vibrant baritone was unmistakable. "I'm not so sure, Lady Alys. I've never worn a skirt like this in my life."

  "We'll have you practice for a few minutes, sitting and standing and walking. Oh, here's Roic back, good."

  Lady Alys stepped through first, folded her arms, and looked, oddly enough, at Roic.

  A stunning vision in hunter green stepped through behind her.

  Oh, it was still Taura, certainly, but ... the skin that had been sallow and dull against the pink was now revealed as a glowing ivory. The green jacket fit very trimly about the waist. Above, her pale shoulders and long neck seemed to bloom from a white linen collar; below, the jacket skirt skimmed out briefly around the upper hips. A narrow skirt continued the long green fall to her firm calves. Wide linen cuffs decorated with subtle white braid made her hands look, if not small, well-proportioned. The pink nail polish was gone, replaced by a dark mahogany shade. The heavy braid hanging down her back had been transformed into a mysteriously knotted arrangement, clinging close to her head and set off with a green ... hat? feather? anyway, a neat little accent tilted to the other side. The odd shape of her face seemed suddenly artistic and sophisticated rather than distorted.

  "Ye-es," said Lady Vorpatril. "That will do."

  Roic closed his mouth.

  With a lopsided smile, Taura stepped carefully forward. "I am a bodyguard by trade," she said, evidently continuing a conversation with Lady Vorpatril. "How can I kick someone's teeth in wearing this?"

  "A woman wearing that suit, my dear, will have volunteers to kick in annoying persons' teeth for her," said Lady Alys. "Is that not so, Roic?"

  "If they don't trample each other in the rush," gulped Roic, and turned red.

  One corner of that wide mouth lifted; the golden eyes seemed to sparkle like champagne. She caught sight of a long mirror on a carved stand in one corner, and walked over to it to stare somewhat uncertainly at the portion of her it reflected. "It's effective, then?"

  "Downright terrifying," Roic averred.

  Roic intercepted a furious glower from Lady Alys, behind Taura's back. Her lips formed the words, No, you idiot! He shrank into cowed silence.

  "Oh." Taura's fanged smile fled. "But I already terrify people. Human beings are so fragile. If you get a good grip, you can pull their heads right off. I want to attract... somebody. For a change. Maybe I should have that pink dress with the bows after all."

  Lady Alys said smoothly, "We agreed that the ingenue look is for much younger girls."

  "Smaller ones, you mean."

  "There is more than one kind of beauty. Yours needs dignity. I would never deck myself in pink bows," she threw in, a little desperately it seemed to Roic.

  Taura eyed her, seeming struck by this. "No ... I suppose not."

  "You will simply attract braver men."

  "Oh, I know that." Taura shrugged. "I was just ... hoping for a larger selection, for once." She added under her breath, "Anyway, he's taken now."

  What he? Roic couldn't help wondering. She sounded rather sad about it, anyway. Some very tall admirer, now out of the picture? Larger than Roic? There weren't too many men of that description around.

  Lady Alys rounded out the afternoon by guiding her new protégé to an exclusive tea room, much frequented by high Vor matrons. This proved to be partly for the purposes of tutorial, party to refuel Taura's ferocious metabolism. While the server brought dish after dish, Lady Alys offered a brisk stream of advice on everything from gracefully exiting a groundcar in restrictive clothing to posture to table manners to the intricacies of Vor social rank. Despite her outsized scale, Taura was naturally athletic and coordinated, and seemed to improve almost as Roic watched.

  Drafted as practice gentleman, Roic found himself coming in for a few sharp corrections himself. He felt very conspicuous and clumsy at first, until he realized that, next to Taura, he might as well be invisible. If they drew sidelong looks from other diners, at least the comments were low-voiced or far enough away that he was not compelled to take notice; anyway, Taura's attention was entirely upon her mentor. Unlike Roic, sh
e never needed the same instruction twice.

  When Lady Vorpatril removed herself to consult with the head server about some fine point, Taura leaned over to whisper, "She's very good at this, isn't she?"

  "Yes. The best."

  She sat back with a smile of satisfaction. "Miles's people generally are." She regarded Roic appraisingly.

  A server guided a well-dressed Vor matron shepherding a girl-child about Nikki's age past their table toward their own seating. The girl stopped short and stared at Taura. Her hand lifted, pointing in astonishment. "Mama, look at that gigantic—"

  The mother captured the hand, shot an alarmed glance at them, and began some hushed admonishment about it not being polite to point. Taura essayed a big friendly smile at the girl. A mistake...

  The girl screamed and buried her face in her mother's skirts, hands frantically clutching. The woman shot Taura a furious, frightened glower, and hustled the little girl away, not toward their table, but to the exit. Across the tea room, Lady Alys's head swiveled around.

  Roic looked back at Taura, then wished he hadn't. Her face froze, appalled, then crumpled in distress; she seemed about to burst into tears, but caught herself with a long indrawn breath, held for a moment.

  Tensed to spring—where?—Roic instead eased back helplessly in his chair. Hadn't m'lord specifically detailed him to prevent this sort of thing?

  With a gulp, Taura brought her breathing back under control. She looked as wan as though wounded by a knife thrust. Yet what could he have done? He couldn't very well draw his stunner and pot some Vor lady's terrified kid...

  Lady Alys, taking in the incident, returned quickly. With a special frown at Roic, she slid back into her seat. She smoothed over the moment with some light comment, but the outing did not recover its cheerful tone; Taura kept trying to shrink down and sit smaller, a futile exercise, and whenever she began to smile, stopped and tried to hold her hand over her mouth.

  Roic wished he were back patrolling Hassadar alleys.

  * * *

  He arrived with his charges back at Vorkosigan House feeling as though he'd been run through a wringer. Backwards. Several times. He peered around the tower of garment boxes he carried—the rest, Madame Estelle had assured Taura, would be delivered—and managed not to drop them getting through the carved doors. Under Lady Vorpatril's direction, he handed off the boxes to a pair of maidservants, who whisked them away.

  M'lord's voice wafted from the antechamber to the library. "Is that you, Aunt Alys? We're in here."

  Roic trod belatedly after the two disparate women just in time to see m'lord introduce Sergeant Taura to his fiancée, Madame Ekaterin Vorsoisson. Like, it seemed, everyone but Roic, she had apparently been warned in advance; she didn't even blink, holding out one hand to the huge galactic woman and offering her an impeccably polite welcome. M'lady-to-be looked fatigued this evening, although that might be partially the effect of the drab gray half-mourning she still wore, her dark hair drawn back in a severe knot. The garb went with the gray civilian suits m'lord favored, though, giving the effect of two players on the same team.

  M'lord regarded the new green outfit with unfeigned enthusiasm. "Splendid work, Aunt Alys! I knew I could rely on you. That's a stunning look with the hair, Taura." He peered upward. "Are the fleet medicos making some new headway with the extension treatments? I don't see any gray at all. Great!"

  She hesitated, then replied, "No, I just got some customized dye to match it."

  "Ah." He made an apologetic motion, as if brushing away his last words. "Well, it looks lovely."

  New voices sounded from the entry hall, Armsman Pym admitting a visitor.

  "No need to announce me, Pym."

  "He's right in there, then, sir. Lady Alys just arrived."

  "Better still."

  Simon Illyan (ImpSec, retired), entered upon these words, and bent to kiss Lady Alys's hand and tuck it though one arm. She smiled fondly at him, and he snugged her in close to his side. He, too, absorbed his introduction to the towering Sergeant Taura with unruffled calm, bowing over her hand also and saying, "I am so pleased to have a chance to meet you at last, Sergeant. I hope your visit to Barrayar has been pleasant so far?"

  "Yes, sir," she rumbled back, apparently controlling an impulse to salute the man only because he still held her hand. Roic didn't blame her; he was taller than Illyan, too, but the formidable former Chief of Imperial Security made him want to salute and he'd never even been in the military. "Lady Alys has been wonderful." No one, it seemed, was going to mention the unfortunate incident in the tea room.

  "I'm not surprised. Oh, Miles," Illyan continued. "I've just come from the Imperial Residence. Some good news came in when I was saying good-bye to Gregor. Lord Vorbataille was arrested this afternoon at the Vorbarr Sultana shuttleport, trying to leave the planet in disguise."

  M'lord blew out his breath. "That's going to put that ugly little case to bed, then. Good. I was afraid it was going to drag on over Winterfair."

  Illyan smiled. "I wondered if that might have had something to do with the energy with which you tackled it."

  "Heh. I shall give dear Gregor the benefit of the doubt and assume he did not have my personal deadline in mind when he assigned me to it. The mess did proliferate unexpectedly."

  "Case?" Sergeant Taura inquired.

  "My new job as an Imperial Auditor for Emperor Gregor took an odd and unexpected turn into criminal investigation a month or so back," m'lord explained. "We found that Lord Vorbataille, who is a count's heir—like me—from one of our southern districts, had involved himself with a Jacksonian smuggling ring. Or, possibly, been suborned by it. Anyway, by the time his sins caught up with him he was up to his eyebrows in illicit traffic, hijacking, and murder. Very bad company, now wholly out of business, I'm pleased to report. Gregor is considering sending the Jacksonians home in a box, suitably frozen; let their backers decide if they are worth the expense of reviving. If everything is finally proved on Vorbataille that I think will be ... for his father's sake, he may be allowed to suicide in his cell." M'lord grimaced. "If not, the Council of Counts will have to be persuaded to endorse a more direct redemption of the honor of the Vor. Corruption on this level can't be allowed to slop over and give us all a bad name."

  "Gregor is very pleased with your work on this one," Illyan remarked.

  "I'll bet. He was livid about the Princess Olivia hijacking, in his own understated way. An unarmed ship, all those poor dead passengers—God, what a nightmare."

  Roic listened a bit wistfully to all this. He thought he might have done more, this past month when m'lord was buzzing in and out on the high profile case, but Pym hadn't assigned him to the duty. Granted, someone had to stand night guard for Vorkosigan House. Week after week...

  "But enough of this nasty business"—m'lord caught Madame Vorsoisson's grateful glance—"let's turn to more cheerful affairs. Why don't you finish opening that next package, love?"

  Madame Vorsoisson turned back to the crowded table and the task everyone's arrival had interrupted. "Here's the card. Oh. Admiral Quinn, again?"

  M'lord took it, brows rising. "What, no limerick this time? How disappointing."

  "Perhaps this one is to make up for ... oh, my. I imagine so. And all the way from Earth!" From a small box, she drew a short, triple strand of matched pearls, and held them up to her throat. "Choker style, oh, how pretty." Momentarily, she let the iridescent spheres line up upon her neck, touching the two ends of the clasp in back.

  "Would you like me to fasten it?" her bridegroom offered.

  "Just for a moment..." She bent her head, and m'lord reached up and fiddled with the catch at her nape. She walked to the mirror over the room's unlit fireplace, turning to watch the exquisite ornament catch the light, and gave m'lord a quizzical smile. "I believe they would go perfectly with what I'm wearing the day after tomorrow. Don't you think, Lady Alys?"

  Lady Alys tilted her head in sartorial judgment. "Why, yes indeed."

>   M'lord bowed at this endorsement by the highest authority. The look he exchanged with his bride was less decipherable to Roic, but he seemed very pleased, even relieved. Sergeant Taura, watching the by-play, frowned in unease.

  Madame Vorsoisson removed the strands and laid them back in their velvet-lined box, where they glowed softly. "I believe we should let your guests freshen up before dinner, Miles."

  "Oh, yes. Except I need to borrow Simon for a moment. Will you excuse us? There will be drinks in the library again when you are all ready. Someone let Arde know. Where is Arde?"

  "Nikki captured him and carried him off," said Madame Vorsoisson. "I should probably go rescue the poor man."

  M'lord and Illyan withdrew to the library. Lady Alys escorted Taura away, presumably for one last tutorial on Barrayaran etiquette before the impending formal dinner with Count and Countess Vorkosigan. Taura glanced back at the bride, still frowning. Roic watched the giant woman out with some regret, distracted by the sudden speculation of what it would be like to patrol a Hassadar alley with her.

  "M'lady—Madame Vorsoisson, that is," Roic began as she started to turn away.

  "Not for much longer." She smiled, turning back.

  "What's with t'—that is, how old is Sergeant Taura? Do you know?"

  "Around twenty-six standard, I believe."

  A little younger than Roic, actually. It felt unfair that the galactic woman should seem so much more ... complicated. "Then why is her hair turning gray? If she's bioengineered, I wouldn't have thought they'd muff up such details."