Winterfair Gifts Read online

  Madame Vorsoisson made a little gesture of apology. "I believe that is a private matter for her, not mine to discuss."

  "Oh." Roic's brow wrinkled in bafflement. "Where'd she come from? Where did m'lord meet her?"

  "On one of his old covert ops missions, he tells me. He rescued her from a particularly vile bioengineering facility on the planet of Jackson's Whole. They were trying to develop a super-soldier. Having escaped enslavement, she became an especially valued colleague in his ops team." She added after a contemplative moment, "And sometime-lover. Also especially valued, I understand."

  Roic felt suddenly very ... rural. Backcountry. Not up to speed on the sophisticated, galactic-tinged Vor life of the capital. "Er ... he told you? And ... and you're all right with that?" He wondered if meeting Sergeant Taura had rattled her more than she'd let on.

  "It was before my time, Roic." Her smile crimped a little. "I actually wasn't sure if he was confessing or bragging, but now that I've seen her, I rather think he was bragging."

  "But ... but how would ... I mean, she's so tall, and he's, um..."

  Now her eyes narrowed with laughter at him, although her lips remained demure. "He didn't supply me with that much detail, Roic. It wouldn't have been gentlemanly."

  "To you? No, I guess not."

  "To her."

  "Oh. Oh. Um, yeah."

  "For what it's worth, I have heard him remark that a height differential matters much less when two people are lying down. I find I must agree." With a smile he really didn't dare try to interpret, she moved off in search of Nikki.

  * * *

  A scant hour later, Roic was surprised when Pym gave him a heads-up on his wrist com to bring m'lord's ground car around. He parked it under the porte-cochère and entered the black and white paved hall to find m'lord assisting Madame Vorsoisson on with her wraps.

  "Are you sure you don't want me to go with you?" m'lord asked her anxiously. "I'd like to go with you, see you get home and in all right."

  Madame Vorsoisson pressed a hand to her forehead. Her face was pale and damp, almost greenish. "No. No. Roic will get me there. Go back to your guests. They've come so far, and you'll only be getting to see them for such a short time. I'm sorry to be such a drip. Give my abject apologies to the Count and Countess."

  "If you don't feel well, you don't feel well. Don't apologize. Do you think you're coming down with something? I could send our personal physician round."

  "I don't know. I hope not, not now! It mostly seems to be a headache." She bit her lip. "I don't think I have a fever."

  He reached up to touch her brow; she winced. "No, you're not hot. But you're all clammy." He hesitated, then asked more quietly, "Nerves, d'you think?"

  She hesitated too. "I don't know."

  "I have all the wedding logistics under control, you know. All you have to do is show up."

  Her smile was pained. "And not fall over."

  He was silent a little longer, this time. "You know, if you decide that you really can't go through with it, you can call a halt. Any time. Right up to the last. Hope you won't, of course. But I need you to know you could."

  "What, with everyone from the Emperor and the Empress on down coming? I think not."

  "I'd cover it, if I had to." He swallowed. "I know you said you wanted a small wedding, but I didn't realize you meant tiny. I'm sorry."

  She blew out her breath in something like exasperation. "Miles, I love you dearly, but if I'm going to start throwing up, I'd really prefer to be home first."

  "Oh. Yes. Roic, if you please?" He motioned to his armsman.

  Roic took Madame Vorsoisson's arm, which was trembling.

  "I'll send Nikki home safely with one of the armsmen after dessert, or anyway, after he wears Arde out. I'll call your house and let them know you're coming," m'lord called after her.

  She waved in acknowledgement; Roic helped her into the rear compartment and closed the canopy. Her shadowed form sat bent, head clutched in her hands.

  M'lord chewed on his knuckle and stared in distress as the house doors swung shut upon him.

  * * *

  Roic's night shift was cut short at dawn the next morning when the Count's guard commander called him on his wrist com and told him to report to the front hall in running gear; one of m'lord's guests wanted to go out to take some exercise.

  He arrived, shrugging on his jacket, to find Taura bending and stretching in a vigorous series of warm-ups under Pym's bemused eye. Lady Alys's modiste hadn't gotten around to providing active wear, it appeared, because the huge woman wore a plain set of well-worn ship knits, although in neutral gray rather than blinding pink. The fabric hugged the smooth curves of a lean musculature that, without being bulky, gave an unmistakable impression of coiled power. The braid down her back looked cheery and sporting in this comfortable context.

  "Oh, Armsman Roic, good morning," she said, started to smile, then lifted her hand to her mouth.

  "You don't," Roic motioned inarticulately. "You don't have to do that for me. I like your smile." It wasn't, he realized, altogether a polite lie. Now that I'm getting used to it.

  Her fangs glinted. "I hope they didn't drag you out of bed. Miles said his people just used the sidewalk around this block for their running track, since it was about a kilometer. I don't think I can go astray."

  Roic intercepted a Look from Pym. Roic hadn't been called out to keep m'lord's galactic guest from getting lost; he was there to deal with any altercations that might result from startled Vorbarr Sultana drivers crashing their vehicles onto the sidewalk or each other at the sight of her.

  "No problem," said Roic promptly. "We usually use the ballroom for a sort of gymnasium, in weather like this, but it's being all decorated for the reception. So I'm behind on my fitness training for the month. It'll be a nice change to do my laps with someone who's not so much older, um, that is, so much shorter than me." He sneaked a glance at Pym.

  Pym's wintry smile promised retribution for that dig as he coded open the doors for them. "Enjoy yourselves, children."

  The biting air blew away Roic's night's fatigue. He guided Taura out past the guard at the main gate and turned right along the high gray wall. After a few steps, she extended herself and began an easy lope. Within a very few minutes, Roic was regretting his cheap shot at the middle-aged Pym; Taura's long legs ate the distance. Roic kept half an eye on the early morning traffic, fortunately still light, and concentrated the rest of his attention on not disgracing House Vorkosigan by collapsing in a gasping heap. Taura's eyes grew brilliant with exhilaration as she ran, as if her spirit expanded into her body as her body stretched out to make room.

  Half a dozen laps barely winded her, but she slowed at last to a walk perhaps out of pity for her guide. "Let's circle through the garden to cool down," Roic wheezed. Madame Vorsoisson's garden, which occupied a third of the block and was her bride-gift to m'lord, was among other things sheltered from view of the cross streets by walls and banks. They dodged around the barricades temporarily barring public access till after the wedding.

  "Oh, my," said Taura as they turned down the winding walk descending between curving snow hillocks. The chilly brook, its water running black and silky between feathery fingers of ice, snaked gracefully from one corner to the other. The peach-colored dawn light glimmered off the ice on the young trees and shrubs in the blue shadows. "Why, it's beautiful. I didn't expect a garden to be so pretty in winter. What are those men doing?"

  A crew was unloading some float pallets piled high with boxes of all sizes, marked fragile. Another pair was going around with water hoses, misting selected branches marked with yellow tags, to create yet more delicate, shimmering icicles. The shapes of the native Barrayaran vegetation grew luminous and exotic with this silver-gilding.

  "They're putting out all the ice sculptures. M'lord ordered ice flowers and sculptured creatures and things to fill up the garden, since all the real plants are under the snow, pretty much. And fresh snow to be added, to
o, if there isn't enough. They can't put out t' real live flowers for the ceremony till the very last gasp, late tomorrow morning."

  "Good grief, he's having an outdoor garden wedding in this weather? Is that—a Barrayaran thing, is it?"

  "Um, no. Not exactly. I believe m'lord originally was shooting for fall, but Madame Vorsoisson wasn't ready yet. But he'd got his heart set on getting married in the garden, because it was hers, y'see. So he is, by damn, going to have the wedding in the garden. The idea is, people will assemble in Vorkosigan House, then troop out here for the vows, then scurry back into the ballroom for the reception and the food and dancing and all." And the frostbite and hypothermia treatment... "It'll be all right if the weather stays clear, I guess." The backstairs commentary on all the potential disasters inherent in this scenario, Roic decided to keep to himself. Vorkosigan House's staff seemed united in their determination to make the eccentric scheme work for m'lord, anyway.

  Taura's eyes glinted in the level dawn light now filtering between the buildings of the surrounding cityscape. "I can hardly wait to try out the dress Lady Alys got up for me to wear to the ceremony. Barrayaran ladies' clothes are so interesting. But complicated. In a way, I suppose they're another kind of uniform, but I don't know whether I feel like a recruit or an enemy spy in them. Well, I don't suppose the real ladies will shoot me in any case. So much to learn about how to go on—though I suppose it all seems ridiculously easy to you. You grew up with it."

  "I didn't grow up with this." Roic waved a hand toward the imposing stone pile of Vorkosigan House rising above the high, bare trees on its grounds. "My father is just a construction hand in Hassadar—that's the Vorkosigan's District capital city, just this side of the Dendarii Mountains, a few hundred kilometers south of here. Lots of building going on there. He offered to apprentice me to the trade, but I got the chance to become a street guard, and I took it—sort of an impulse, truth to tell. I was eighteen, didn't know up from down. Sure learned a lot after that."

  "What does a street guard guard? Streets?"

  "Among other things. The whole city, really. You do what needs done. Sort out traffic, before or after it's a big bent pile. Deal with upset people's problems, try to keep ‘em from murdering their relatives, or clean up the mess after if you can't. Trace stolen property, if you get lucky. I did a lot of night foot patrol. You learn a lot about a place on foot, up close. I learned how to handle stunners and shocksticks and big, hostile drunks. I was getting pretty good at it, I thought, after a few years."

  "How did you end up here?"

  "Oh ... there was a little incident..." He gave an embarrassed shrug. "Some crazed loon tried to shoot up Hassadar Square at rush hour with an auto-needler. I, um, took it away from him."

  Her brows went up. "With a stunner?"

  "No, unfortunately, I was off-duty at the time. Had to do it by hand."

  "A little hard to get up close and personal with someone firing a needler."

  "That was a problem, yeah."

  Her lips curved up, or at least, the ivory hooks lengthened.

  "It seemed to make perfect sense at the moment, though later I wondered what t' hell I'd been thinking. I don't think I was thinking. At any rate, he only killed five and not fifty-five. People seemed to think it was a big deal, but I'm sure it's nothing compared to what you've seen out there." His glance upward was meant to indicate the distant stars, though the sky was now a paling blue.

  "Hey, I may be big, but I'm not needler-proof. I hate the shrieky sound when the razor-strands unwind and whiz around, even though I know in my head that those are the ones that missed."

  "Yeah," Roic said in heartfelt agreement. "Anyways, after that there was a stupid fuss, and someone recommended me to m'lord's own armsman-commander, Pym, and here I am." He glanced around the sparkling fairy-garden. "I think I was a better fit in the Hassadar alleys."

  "Naw, Miles always did like having big back-up. Saves a lot of small-scale grief. Though the large-scale grief we still had to take as it came."

  He asked after a moment, "How did you bodyguard, um, m'lord?"

  "Such a funny way of thinking of him. To me, he'll always be the little admiral. Mostly, I just loomed at people. If I had to, I smiled."

  "But your smile's really kind of nice," he protested, and managed not to add the, Once you get used to it out loud. He'd get the hang of this savoir faire thing yet.

  "Oh, no. The other smile." She demonstrated, her lips wrinkling back, her jaw thrusting out. Roic had to admit, it was a much wider smile. And, um, sharper. They were just treading past a workman on the rising path; he gasped and fell backwards into a snow bank. With lightning reflexes, Taura reached past Roic and caught the heavy, life-sized ice sculpture of a crouching fox before it hit the pavement and shattered into shards. Roic lifted the gibbering man to his feet and dusted snow off his parka, and Taura handed back the elegant ornament with a compliment upon its artistry.

  Roic managed not to choke with muffled laughter till they both had their backs to the fellow, heading away. "See what you mean. Did it ever not work?"

  "Occasionally. Next step was to pick up the recalcitrant one by the neck. Since my arms were invariably longer than theirs, they'd swing like mad but couldn't connect. Very frustrating for them."

  "And after that?"

  She grinned. "Stunner, by preference."

  "Heh. Yep."

  They'd fallen unconsciously into an easy side-by-side pace, tracing loops around the garden paths. Talking shop, Roic thought. "What mass d'you lift?"

  "With or without adrenaline?"

  "Oh, without, say."

  "Two-hundred-fifty kilos, with a good grip and a good angle."

  He emitted a respectful whistle. "If you ever want to give up mercenary-ing, I can think of a fire fighting cadre might could welcome you. M'brother's in one, down Hassadar way. Though come to think of it, m'lord ‘d be a more powerful reference."

  "Now, there's an idea I'd never thought of." She pursed her long lips, and her brows bent in a quizzical curve. "But no. I expect I'll be, as you say, mercenary-ing till ... for the rest of my life. I like seeing new planets. I like seeing this one. I could never have imagined it."

  "How many have you seen?"

  "I think I've lost count. I used to know. Dozens. How many have you seen?"

  "Just t' one," he admitted. "Though hanging around m'lord, this one keeps getting wider till I'm almost dizzy. More complicated. Does that make sense?"

  She threw back her head and laughed. "That's our Miles. Admiral Quinn always said she'd follow him halfway to hell just to find out what happened next."

  "Wait—this Quinn you all keep talking about is a lady admiral?"

  "She was a lady commander when I first met her. Second-sharpest tactical brain it's ever been my privilege to know. Things may get tight, following Elli Quinn, but you know they won't get stupid. She didn't sleep her way to the top by a long shot, and they're half-wits who say so." She grinned briefly. "That was just a perq. Some might say his, but I'd say hers."

  Roic's eyes crossed, trying to unravel this. "Y'mean m'lord was lovers with her, t'" he cut off the too not quite in time, and flushed. It seemed m'lord's covert ops career was even more... complicated than he'd ever imagined.

  She cocked her head and regarded him with crinkling eyes. "That's my favorite shade of pink, Roic. You are a country boy, aren't you? Life's uncertain out there. Things can go down bad, fast, anytime. People learn to grab what they can, when they can. For a time. We all just get a time, in our different ways." She sighed. "Their ways diverged when he took those horrible injuries that bounced him out of ImpSec. He couldn't go back up, and she wouldn't come down here. Elli Quinn's got no one but herself to blame for any chances she threw away. Though some people are born with more chances to waste than others, I'll admit. I say, grab the ones you're issued, run with them, and don't look back."

  "Something might be gaining on you?"

  "I know perfectly well what's gaini
ng on me." Her grin flashed, oddly tilted this time. "Anyway ... Quinn might be more beautiful, but I was always taller." She gave a satisfied nod. Glancing at him, she added, "I guarantee Miles likes your height. It's sort of an issue with him. I know recruiting officers in three genders who would swoon for your shoulders, as well."

  He hadn't the least idea how to respond to that. He hoped she was enjoying the pink. "M'lord thinks I'm a fool," he said glumly.

  Her brows shot up. "Surely not."

  "Oh, yeah. You have no idea how I screwed up."

  "I've seen him forgive screw-ups that put his guts on the bloody ceiling. Literally. You'd have to go some to top that. How many people died?"

  If you put it in that perspective... "No one," he admitted. "I just wished I could have."

  She grinned in sympathy. "Ah, one of those kinds of screw ups. Oh, c'mon, tell."

  He hesitated. "Y'know those nightmares where you find yourself walking around naked in the town square, or in front of your school teachers, or something?"

  "My nightmares tend to be a bit more exotic, but yeah...?"

  "So ... no lie, there I was ... Last summer, m'lord's brother Mark brought home this damned Escobaran biologist, Dr. Borgos, that he'd picked up somewheres, and put him up in the basement of Vorkosigan House. An investment scheme. The biologist made bugs. And the bugs made bug butter. Tons of it. Slimy white stuff, edible, sort of. We found out the biologist had jumped bail back on Escobar—for fraud, no surprise—when t' skip tracers they'd sent to arrest him showed up and talked their way into Vorkosigan House. Naturally, they picked a time when almost everyone had gone out. Lord Mark and the Koudelka sisters, who were in on the bug butter scheme, got in a fight with them when they tried to carry off Borgos, and the house staff waked me up to go sort it out. All in a tearing panic—wouldn't even let me grab my uniform trousers. I'd just got to sleep ... Martya Koudelka claims it was friendly fire, but I dunno. I'd just about pushed the whole mess of ‘em out the front door when in walks m'lord, with Madame Vorsoisson and all her relatives. He'd just got engaged, and wanted to make a good impression on ‘em all ... It was an unforgettable one, I guarantee. I was wearing briefs, boots, and about five kilos of bug butter, trying to deal wit' all these screaming sticky maniacs..."