Winterfair Gifts a Novella Read online

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  The party wound down. Sleepy, protesting children were carried past Roic to their cars or to their beds. The emperor and empress were seen out fondly by the count and countess; soon after their departure, a score of unobtrusive, efficient servants, on loan from ImpSec, vanished quietly and without fanfare. The remaining energetic young people hijacked the ballroom to dance to music more to their taste. Their tired elders sought quieter corners in the succession of public rooms in which to converse and sample more of the count's very best wines.

  Roic found Taura sitting alone in one of the small side rooms on a sturdy-looking sofa of the style she favored, reflectively working her way through a platter of Ma Kosti's dainties on a low table before her. She looked drowsy and contented, yet a little apart from it all. As if she were a guest in her own life...

  Roic gave her a smile, a nod, a semi-salute. He wished he'd thought to provide himself with roses or something. What could a fellow give to a woman like this? The finest chocolate, maybe, yeah, although that was redundant at the moment. Tomorrow for sure. "Um... have you had a good time?"

  "Oh, yes. Wonderful."

  She sat back and smiled almost up at him- an unusual angle of view. She looked good from this direction, too. M'lord's comment about horizontal height differentials drifted through his memory. She patted the sofa beside her; Roic glanced around, overcame his guard-stance habits, and sat down. His feet hurt, he realized.

  The silence that fell was companionable, not strained, but after a time he broke it. "You like Barrayar, then?"

  "It's been a great visit. Better than my best dreams."

  Ten more days. Ten days was an eyeblink. Ten days was just not enough for all he had to say, to give, to do. Ten years might be a start. "You, uh, have you ever thought of staying? Here? It could be done, y'know. Find a place you could fit. Or make one." M'lord would figure out how, if anyone could. With great daring, he let his hand curl over hers on the seat between them.

  Her brows rose. "I already have a place I fit."

  "Yeah, but... forever? Your mercs seem like a chancy sort of thing to me. No solid ground under them. And nothing lasts forever, not even organizations."

  "Nobody lives long enough to have all their choices." She was silent for a moment, then added, "The people who bioengineered me to be a super-soldier didn't consider a long life span to be a necessity. Miles has a few biting remarks about that, but oh well. The fleet medics give me about a year yet."

  "Oh." It took him a minute to work through this; his stomach felt suddenly tight and cold. A dozen obscure remarks from the past few days fell into place. He wished they hadn't. No, oh, no... I

  "Hey, don't look so bludgeoned." Her hand curled around to clasp his in return. "The bastards have been giving me a year yet for the past four years running. I've seen other soldiers have their whole careers and die in the time the medics have been screwing around with me. I've stopped worrying about it."

  He had no idea what to say to this. Screaming was right out. He shifted a bit closer to her instead.

  She eyed him thoughtfully. "Some fellows, when I tell them this, get spooked and veer off. It's not contagious."

  Roic swallowed hard. "I'm not running away."

  "I see that." She rubbed her neck with her free hand; an orchid petal parted from her hair and caught upon her velvet-clad shoulder. "Part of me wishes the medics would get it settled. Part of me says, the hell with it. Every day is a gift. Me, I rip open the package and wolf it down on the spot."

  He looked up at her in wonder. His grip tightened, as though she might be pulled from him as they sat, right now, if he didn't hold hard enough. He leaned over, reached across and picked off the fragile petal, touched it to his lips. He took a deep, scared breath. "Can you teach me how to do that?"

  Her fantastic gold eyes widened. "Why, Roic! I think that's the most delicately worded proposition I've ever received. S' beautiful." An uncertain pause. "Um, that was a proposition, wasn't it? I'm not always sure I parlay Barrayaran."

  Desperately terrified now, he blurted in what he imagined to be merc-speak, "Ma'am, yes, ma'am!"

  This won an immense fanged smile- not in a version he'd ever seen before. It made him, too, want to fall over backward, though preferably not into a snowbank. He glanced around. The softly lit room was littered with abandoned plates and wineglasses, detritus of pleasure and good company. Low voices chatted idly in the next chamber. Somewhere in another room, softened by the distance, a clock was chiming the hour. Roic declined to count the beats.

  They floated in a bubble of fleeting time, live heat in the heart of a bitter winter. He leaned forward, raised his face, slid his hand around her warm neck, drew her face down to his. It wasn't hard. Their lips brushed, locked.

  Several minutes later, in a shaken, hushed voice, he breathed, "Wow."

  Several minutes after that, they went upstairs, hand in hand.

  The End

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  About the Author

  [Lois McMaster Bujold]

  Lois McMaster Bujold was born in Ohio in 1949. She developed a passion for science fiction at the age of nine and having identified the techniques of the genre, started developing her own style.

  After a spell as a biologist she turned to writing full time. The author of over twenty works of fiction and non-fiction, her first three novels, Shards of Honour, The Warrior's Apprentice and Ethan of Athos were all published in 1986.

  Lois has remarked that her plots are often predicated on the worst possible thing you could do to a character. She writes with an apparently effortless fluidity of both style and story. Her work repeatedly shifts focus from the successes, exploits and glory of war to their human cost. For Bujold, characterization is the paramount concern and her plots depend both on character and the novums of technology.

  She humanizes but does not idealize her casts of characters and accomplishes a feat rare in any form of fiction in developing that of her central protagonist, Miles Vorkosigan, throughout the series. We witness him progressively changing and maturing in each successive story.

  On one hand Lois McMaster Bujold has been compared to Ursula Le Guin by female critics for her strong feminist stance, which she deftly subsumes, rather than overtly preaches in her work; on the other she has been praised by male critics for writing like a man. ( "writing like a man" = "dumbing down". ;-)) Bujold herself, though acknowledging both viewpoints, says she would rather call herself a human beingist.

  Lois won the Nebula Award for Falling Free and The Mountains of Mourning and the Hugo Award for The Vor Game, Barrayar, Mirror Dance and The Mountains of Mourning. She was nominated for the John W Campbell Award in 1987. She lives in Minneapolis and has two children.

  Lois M. Bujold's home page, a web site devoted to her work, The Bujold Nexus, may be found at www.dendarii.com.

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