Winterfair Gifts a Novella Read online

  Taura, her chin in her hand as she drooped over her plate, scowled after him. "Jacksonian neurotoxin, eh? That doesn't prove much. The Jacksonians will sell anything to anyone. Miles made enough enemies there in some of our old sorties- if they knew it was intended for him, they'd probably offer a deep discount."

  "Yeah, I imagine tracing the source is going to take a little longer. Even for ImpSec." He hesitated. "Although, wouldn't they know him on Jackson's Whole only under his old covert ops identity? Your little admiral?"

  "That cover's been well-blown for a couple of years, he tells me. Partly as a result of the mess his last mission there produced, partly from some other things. Over my head." She yawned, hugely. It was... impressive. She'd been up since dawn, Roic was reminded, and hadn't slept through the afternoon as he had. Stranded in what must seem to her an alien place and wrestling terrible fears. All by herself. For the first time, he wondered if she was lonely. One of a kind, the last of her kind if he understood correctly, without home or kin except for that chancy wandering mercenary fleet. And then he wondered why he hadn't noticed her essential aloneness sooner. Armsmen were supposed to be observant. Yeah?

  "If I promise to come by and tell you if I get any news, d'you suppose you could try to sleep?"

  She rubbed the back of her neck. "Would you? Then I think I could. Try, that is."

  He escorted her to her door, past m'lord's dark and empty suite. When he clasped her hand briefly, she clasped back. He swallowed, for courage.

  "Dirty pearls, eh?" he said, still holding her hand. "Y'know... I can't speak for any other Barrayarans... but I think your genetic modifications are beautiful."

  Her lips curved up, he hoped not altogether bleakly. "You are getting better."

  When she let go and turned in, a claw trailing lightly over the skin of his palm made his body shudder in involuntary, sensual surprise. He stared at the closing door and swallowed a perfectly foolish urge to call her back. Or follow her inside... He was still on duty, he reminded himself. The next monitors check was overdue. He forced himself to turn away.

  ***

  The sky outside was shifting from the amber night of the city to a chill blue dawn when the gate guard called Roic to code down the house shields for m'lord's return. As the armsman who'd been called out to chauffeur drove the big car off to put away, Roic opened one door to admit the hunched, frowning figure. M'lord looked up to recognize Roic, and a rather ghastly smile lightened his furrowed features.

  Roic had seen m'lord looking strung-out before, but never so alarmingly as this, not even after one of his bad seizures or when he'd had that spectacular hangover after the disastrous butter bug banquet. His eyes stared out from gray circles like feral animals from their dens. His skin was pale, and lines of tension mapped the anxiety across his face. His movements were simultaneously tired and stiff, and jerky and nervous, a spinning exhaustion that could find no place of rest.

  "Roic. Thank you. Bless you," m'lord began in a voice that sounded as though it were coming from the bottom of a well.

  "Is m'lady-to-be all right?" Roic asked in some apprehension.

  M'lord nodded. "Yes, now. She fell asleep in my arms, finally, after the ImpSec doctor left. God, Roic! I can't believe I missed the signs. Poisoning! And I fastened that death around her neck with my own hands! It's a damned metaphor for this whole thing, that's what it is. She thought it was just her. I thought it was just her. How little faith in herself, or me in her, to misidentify dying of poison for dying of self-doubt?"

  "She's not dying, is she?" Roic asked again, to be sure. In this spate of dramatic angst, it was a little hard to tell. "T' bit of exposure she got isn't going to have any permanent effects, is it?"

  M'lord began to pace in circles around the entry hall, while Roic followed vainly trying to take his coat. "The doctor said not, not once the headaches pass off, which they seem to have done now. She was so relieved to find out what it really was she burst into tears. Go figure that one out, eh?"

  "Yeah, except that- " Roic began, then bit his tongue. Except that the crying jag he'd inadvertently witnessed had occurred well before the poisoning.

  "What?"

  "Nothing, m'lord."

  Lord Vorkosigan paused at the archway to the antechamber. "ImpSec. We must call ImpSec to take away all those gifts and recheck them for- "

  "They already came and collected them, m'lord," Roic soothed him, or tried to. "An hour ago. They say they'll try t' get as many as possible cleared and back before the wedding guests start arriving come midafternoon."

  "Oh. Good." M'lord stood still a moment, staring into nothing, and Roic finally managed to get his coat away from him.

  "M'lord... you don't think your Admiral Quinn sent that necklace, do you?"

  "Oh, good heavens, no. Of course not." M'lord dismissed this fear with a startlingly casual wave of his hand. "Not her style at all. If she were ever that mad at me, she'd kick me downstairs personally. Great woman, Quinn."

  "Sergeant Taura was worried. I think she thought this Quinn might a' been, um, jealous."

  M'lord blinked. "Why? I mean, yes, it's almost exactly a year since Elli and I parted company, but Ekaterin had nothing to do with that. Didn't even meet her till a couple of months later. The timing's pure coincidence, you can assure her. Yeah, so Elli turned down the wedding invitation- she has responsibilities. She got the fleet, after all." A small sigh escaped him. His lips screwed up in further thought. "I'd sure like to know who knew enough to steal Quinn's name to smuggle that hellish package in here, though. That's the real puzzle. Quinn's connected to Admiral Naismith, not to Lord Vorkosigan. Which was the sticking point in the first place, but never mind now. I want ImpSec to put every available resource on to tearing that one apart."

  "I believe they already are, m'lord."

  "Oh. Good." He looked up, and his face grew, if possible, more serious. "You saved my House last night, you know. Eleven generations of Vorkosigans have narrowed down to the choke point of me, this generation, this marriage. I'd have been the last, but for that chance- no, not chance- that moment of shrewd observation."

  Roic waved an embarrassed hand. "Wasn't me who spotted it, m'lord. It was Sergeant Taura. She'd have reported it herself earlier, if she hadn't been half-taken in by t' bad guy's nasty camouflage with your, um, friend Admiral Quinn's name."

  M'lord took up his taut orbit of the hall again. "Bless Taura, then. A woman beyond price. Which I already knew, but anyway. I could kiss her feet, by God. I could kiss her all over!"

  Roic was beginning to think that line about the barbed-wire choke chain wasn't such a joke after all. All this frenetic tension was, if not precisely infectious, starting to get on what was left of his nerves. He remarked dryly, in Pym-like periods, "I was given to understand you already had, m'lord."

  M'lord jerked to a halt again. "Who told you that?"

  Under the circumstances, Roic decided not to mention Madame Vorsoisson. "Taura."

  "Eh, maybe it's the women's secret code. I don't have the key, though. You're on your own there, boy." He snorted a trifle hysterically. "But if you ever do win an invitation from her, beware- it's like being mugged in a dark alley by a goddess. You're not the same man after. Not to mention critical feminine body parts on a scale you can actually find, and as for the fangs, there's no thrill quite like- "

  "Miles," a bemused voice interrupted from overhead. Roic glanced up to see the countess, wrapped in a robe, leaning over the balcony railing and observing her son. How long had she been standing there? She was Betan; maybe m'lord's last remarks wouldn't discombobulate her as much as they did Roic. In fact, he reflected, he was certain they couldn't.

  "Good morning, Mother," m'lord managed. "Some bastard tried to poison Ekaterin, did you hear? When I catch up with him, I swear I'm going to make the Dismemberment of Mad Emperor Yuri look like a house party- "

  "Yes, ImpSec has kept your father and me fully apprised during the night, and I just spoke with Helen. Everyth
ing seems under control for the moment, except for persuading Pym not to throw himself off the Star Bridge in expiation. He's pretty distraught over this slipup. For pity's sake, come up and take a sleeptimer and lie down for a while."

  "I don't want a pill. I have to check the garden. I have to check everything- "

  "The garden is fine. Everything is fine. As you have just discovered in Armsman Roic here, your staff is more than competent." She started down the stairs, a distinctly steely look in her eye. "It's either a sleeptimer or a sledgehammer for you, son. I am not handing you off to your blameless bride in the state you're in, or the worse one it'll be if you don't get some real sleep before this afternoon. It's not fair to her."

  "Nothing about this marriage is fair to her," m'lord muttered, bleak. "She was afraid it would be the nightmare of her old marriage all over again. No! It's going to be a completely different nightmare- much worse. How can I ask her to step into my line of fire if- "

  "As I recall, she asked you. I was there, remember? Stop gibbering." The countess took his arm, and began more or less frog-marching him upstairs. Roic made a mental note of her technique for future reference. She glanced over her shoulder and gave Roic a reassuring, if rather unexpected, wink.

  The brief remainder of the most memorable night shift of his career passed, to Roic's relief, without further incident of note. He dodged excited maidservants hurrying to the big day's tasks and mounted the stairs to his tiny fourth-floor bedroom thinking that m'lord wasn't the only one who should get some sleep before the afternoon's more public duties. M'lord's last, decidedly free-floating comments kept him awake for some time, though, beguiling him with visions of somewhat shocking charm. Such as he'd never dreamed of back in Hassadar. He fell asleep with his lips curling up.

  ***

  A few minutes before his alarm was set to go off, Roic was awakened by Armsman Jankowski tapping at his bedroom door.

  "Pym says you're to report to m'lord's suite right away. Some kind of briefing- you don't have to be in your uniform yet."

  "Right."

  Dress uniform, Jankowski meant, although Jankowski was already sharp in his own. Roic slipped on last night's wear and ran a comb through his hair, frowned in frustration at his beard shadow- right away presumably meant just that- and hurried downstairs.

  Roic found m'lord in his suite's sitting room, halfway dressed in a silk shirt, the brown trousers with silver side-piping and the silver-embroidered suspenders that went with and slippers. He was attended by his cousin Ivan Vorpatril, resplendent in his own House's blue-and-gold uniform. As m'lord's Second and chief witness in the imminent ceremony, Lord Ivan was also playing groom's batman as well as general supporter.

  One of Roic's fonder secret memories from the past weeks was of witnessing, in his role as disregarded coatrack, the great Viceroy Count Vorkosigan himself taking his handsome nephew aside and promising, in a voice so low as to be almost a whisper, to have Ivan's hide for a drumskin if he allowed his misplaced sense of fun to do anything at all to screw up the impending ceremony for m'lord. Ivan had been humorless as a judge all week; side bets were being taken belowstairs for how long it would last. Remembering that deeply ominous voice, Roic had selected the longest shot in the pool- and thought himself likely to win.

  Taura, also in last night's gear of skirt and lacy blouse, lounged on one of the small sofas in the bay window, apparently offering bracing advice. M'lord had evidently taken the sleeptimer, for he looked vastly better: clean, shaved, clear-eyed, and very nearly calm.

  "Ekaterin's here," he told Roic, in the awed tone of a besieged garrison commander describing the unexpected relieving force. "The bride's party is using my mother's suite for their staging area. Mother's going to bring her down in a moment. She needs to be in on this."

  In on what? was answered before Roic could voice the question by the entry of ImpSec chief General Allegre himself, in dress greens, escorted by the count, also already in his best House uniform. Allegre was a wedding guest in his own right, but it clearly wasn't for social reasons that he'd arrived an hour early.

  The countess and Ekaterin followed on their heels, the countess graceful in something sparkling and green, m'lady-to-be still in her drab dress but with her hair already braided up and thickly entwined with tiny roses and other exquisite little scented flowers that Roic could not name. Both women looked grave, but a smile like a fugitive gleam from paradise lit Ekaterin's eyes as they met m'lord's. Roic found he had to look away from that brief intensity, feeling a clumsy intruder. He thus surprised Taura's expression: shrewdly approving, but more than a little wistful.

  Ivan drew up extra chairs, and all disposed themselves around the small table near the window. Madame Vorsoisson took a seat beside m'lord, decorously but with no wasted centimeters between. He gripped her hand. Roic managed to slip in next to Taura; she smiled down at him. These chambers had once belonged to the late great General Piotr Vorkosigan, before they'd been claimed by his grandson, the rising young Lord Auditor. This spot, not the grand public rooms downstairs, was the site of more military, political, and secret conferences of historic import to Barrayar than Roic could readily imagine.

  "I dropped by early to give you ImpSec's latest report in person, Miles, Madame Vorsoisson, Count, Countess." Allegre, half-leaning on a sofa arm, nodded around. He reached into his tunic and withdrew a plastic bag in which something white glimmered and gleamed. "And to return these. I had my forensics people clean them after collecting and recording the evidence. They're safe now."

  Gingerly, m'lord took the pearls from his hand and set them down on the table. "And do you know yet who gets the thank-you note for this gift? I'm rather hoping to deliver it in person." Ill-concealed menace vibrated beneath his light tone.

  "That has actually broken open much faster than I was expecting," said Allegre. "It was a very nice forgery job on the date stamps from Escobar on the outer packaging, but the inner decorative wrapping checked out under analysis as of Barrayaran origin. Once we knew which planet to look on, the item was sufficiently unique- the necklace is of Earth origin, by the way- we were able to trace it by jeweler's import records almost at once. It was purchased two weeks ago in Vorbarr Sultana for a large sum of cash, and the store security vids for the month hadn't been erased yet. My agent positively identified Lord Vorbataille."

  M'lord hissed through his teeth. "He was on my short list, yes. No wonder he was trying so hard to get off planet."

  "He was up to his eyebrows in the plan, but he wasn't its originator. Do you remember how you said to me three weeks ago that while there had to be brains behind this operation, you'd swear they weren't in Vorbataille's head?"

  "Yes," said m'lord. "I had him pegged for a front man, suborned for his connections. And his yacht, of course."

  "You were right. We picked up his Jacksonian crime consultant about three hours ago."

  "You have him!"

  "We have him. He'll keep, now." Allegre gave m'lord a grim nod. "Although he had the wit to not bring attention to himself by trying to get off planet, one of my analysts, who came in last night to look over the new evidence that came in with the necklace, was able to run a back-trace and cross-connect, and so identify him. Well, actually he fingered three suspects, but fast-penta cleared two of them. The source for the toxin was a fellow by the name of Luca Tarpan."

  M'lord mouthed the syllables; his face screwed up. "Damn. Are you sure? I've never heard of him."

  "Quite sure. He appears to have ties with the Bharaputra syndicate on Jackson's Whole."

  "Well, that would give him access to quite a lot of somewhat scrambled two-year-old information about me and Quinn, yes. Both mes, in fact. And it accounts for the superior forgery. But why such a heinous attack? It's almost more disturbing to think that some total stranger would- Have we crossed paths before?"

  Allegre shrugged. "It seems not. The preliminary interrogation suggests it was a purely professional ploy- although he clearly had no love left for
you by the time you were about half done ripping open this case. Your talent for making interesting new enemies has evidently not deserted you. The plan was to create distracting chaos in your investigation just after the group made its getaway- Vorbataille was preselected to be thrown to us for a goat, it turns out- but we shut them down about eight days early. The necklace had only just been slipped into the delivery service's records and dispatched at that point."

  M'lord's teeth set. "You've had Vorbataille in your hands for two days. And fast-penta didn't turn this up?"

  Allegre grimaced. "I just reviewed the transcripts before I drove over here. It came very close to surfacing. But to get an answer, even- especially- under fast-penta, as useful a truth drug as it is, you must first know enough to ask the question. My interrogators were concentrating on the Princess Olivia. It was Vorbataille's yacht that was used to insert the hijacking team, by the way."

  "Knew it had to be," grunted m'lord.

  "We'd have caught up with this necklace scheme in a few more days on our own, I think," said Allegre.

  M'lord glanced at his chrono and said rather thickly, "You'd have caught up with it in about one more hour, actually. On your own."

  Allegre tilted his head in frank acknowledgment. "Yes, unfortunately. Madame Vorsoisson"- he touched his brow in a considerably more formal gesture than the usual ImpSec salute- "on behalf of myself and my organization, I wish to offer you my most abject apologies. My Lord Auditor. Count. Countess." He looked up at Roic and Taura, sitting side by side on the sofa opposite. "Fortunately, ImpSec was not your last line of defense."

  "Indeed," rumbled the count, who had seated himself on a straight chair turned backward, arms comfortably crossed over its back, listening intently but without comment till now. Countess Vorkosigan stood by his side; her hand touched his shoulder, and he caught it under his own thicker one.