Captain Vorpatril's alliance

Ivan still hadn’t had a chance to talk alone with Tej when the party broke up an hour later. Simon and Shiv had at last emerged from Simon’s lair. Byerly was fidgety from having been excluded from a long, all‑female confabulation amongst Lady Vorpatril, Lady ghem Estif, and Baronne Cordonah, from which they’d emerged as Alys, Moira, and Udine. Wraps were produced in the hallway, even its generous proportions elbow‑jostling for this crowd. Christos reappeared to guide everyone back to their respective groundcars.

Simon and Shiv parted with another of those disquieting handshakes. As the mob thinned, Simon gazed thoughtfully at the broad departing back, but turned with a slight smile to take Tej’s hand.

“Intriguing fellow, your Dada, Tej. The man could sell elephants to circus masters.”

She gave him a puzzled, gratified, and alarmed smile back. “I’d think circus masters would want to buy elephants, sir.”

Illyan’s smile stretched. “Quite so.”

Tej had successfully avoided Ivan Xav all evening, while the party swirled around her spinning head. A bass beat of Cetagandan gold, Cetagandan gold, Cetagandan gold! had thumped in her brain, with an occasional descant of Buried treasure! and discord wail of But ImpSec…! Dada, despite the lack of stepfather‑in‑law intel for which he had shot her that pointed look‑and it wasn’t her fault that no one had let her explain earlier‑seemed to have made a swift recovery and hit it off just fine with Simon. That had to be good. Didn’t it?

Normally, she looked forward to pillow talk with Ivan Xav, and what followed, for sheer aesthetic reasons if nothing else. It had become a very comfortable time of the day, something to anticipate with pleasure. Not this day. As they dodged around each other and Rish in and out of the bathroom, the conversation was utilitarian. Tej made it under the covers first. She didn’t have to pretend to be exhausted‑if she just rolled over and closed her eyes…

“Tej…” The other side of the bed creaked and dipped as Ivan Xav sat down, but then he sighed, got up again, padded to the bedroom door, opened it, and called through, “Hey, Rish!”

“What?” Rish’s tired, irritated voice called back.

“Have you outed Byerly yet? About what he does for a living, I mean?”

“Of course not! That was the deal. Tacitly. I assumed.”

Ivan Xav’s tense shoulders relaxed. “Ah.”

“‑just to my family, of course.”

The shoulders went from relaxed to slumped. “Of course,” Ivan Xav mumbled. He raised his voice again: “That would be, like, nine more people, yeah?”

“Great, the natural‑boy can count.”

Ivan Xav growled, and let the door slide shut.

He returned to the bed and sat up against the headboard, looking down in the soft lamplight at Tej, who, under the press of the stare between her shoulder blades, rolled over onto her back.

“Tej,” he began again, hesitantly, “could your Dada possibly imagine that he could suborn Simon?”

How to deal with this…“Suborn, what a word, suborn. You’d only need to suborn someone for something, like, treasonous, or evil. Something political or military, bad for Barrayar.” Financial wasn’t political or military, right? “Of course Dada wouldn’t do something like that.”

“ Couldn’t, I’d say. You do realize‑Shiv must realize‑Simon’s had thirty, forty years for his probity and loyalty to be tested by, by more pressure than anything your Dada could possibly bring to bear‑maybe more than you or I can even imagine.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So…”

“Look, Dada’s not stupid.”

“Neither is Simon.” Ivan Xav’s face managed peeved, not his best expression. “They’re up to something, aren’t they. You‑the Arquas.”

“They came to Barrayar to get Rish and me.”

“Yes, and that’s something else we need to talk about‑I mean, that’s the conversation I’ve been rehearsing all bloody day, before all this came‑Tej, what do you know?”

She scowled up at him, looming on her left. Ivan Xav wasn’t stupid, either, of course. “Then are you in or out?” And was it even worth probing? He was Barrayaran to the bone, seven‑eighths, anyway. He’d be bound to want to grab everything for his empire, his own gang‑that was what the uniform he wore every day meant.

“Of what? I can’t say till I know what I’m in or out of. Though it’s got to be trouble, or you’d just be telling me. There’s some kind of Jacksonian deal going on under the table. Yeah?”

“I can’t tell you unless you’re in. Or you decide you’re out, and then I really can’t tell you.”

“Married people,” said Ivan Xav austerely after a moment, “shouldn’t keep secrets from each other.”

Tej rolled up on her elbow, annoyed. For once, this move failed to distract him. “What, you keep secrets from me all the time. All that classified stuff at your work.”

“That’s different. That’s…it’s assumed, no, it’s not just assumed, they make it quite explicit that fellows don’t babble about Ops business at home. Or anywhere else. It’s not like I keep those secrets from you preferentially.”

“It would probably be really boring anyway.”

“Most of it,” admitted Ivan Xav, almost diverted.