Captain Vorpatril's alliance

Lady Alys finished her drink. “I should have to think about that.”

Ivan Xav scratched his nose, frowned at Illyan. “Could you assist me, sir?”

Illyan replied airily, “Oh, I think that’s a problem you can solve on your own, Ivan. You know the same go‑to men as I do.”

Ivan Xav’s brow wrinkled. He turned to Tej and said, rather plaintively, “But you just got here. Don’t you want to look around a little before running off again‑forever?”

“I hardly know,” said Tej, wishing she had a net to catch her spinning wits.

Lady Alys touched her brooch again. “Indeed. Ivan’s aunt has often remarked on the inadvisability of making decisions on an empty stomach. Shall we dine?”

As she rose, and everyone else followed suit, the smiling woman servant spread wide another pair of marquetry doors at the end of the room, revealing a dining chamber with places for five ready and waiting. Lady Alys ushered them all through.

Ivan Xav had not lied; his mother set a first‑rate table. The conversation became general as the discreet server brought course after course, with wines to complement. Rish made no signals regarding subtle poisons in the soup or salad, fish or vat‑meat; instead, she bore the blissful smile of a trained aesthete given, for a change, no penance to endure in the name of good manners. It was all as well‑choreographed as a dance. If Ivan’s mother fed her lover like this all the time, it was no wonder he never left.

“Have you lived here long, sir?” Tej asked Illyan, when a lull in the talk presented an opportunity.

“Say rather, I visit here frequently. I keep my old apartment as my official address, and stay there often enough to make it plausible. And for my mail‑letter bombs and such‑although I am officially retired, ImpSec still provides a courtesy squad to open it.” He smiled quite as if this were not a disconcerting remark. He added a little regretfully, “Just because I have forgotten so many old enemies does not mean they have forgotten me. We set it about that I am more addled than I am, to appease them. Please feel free to add to that public impression, should the subject come up.”

“I don’t find you addled at all, sir,” said Tej, quite sincerely.

“Ah, but you should have met me before the‑no, perhaps you should not have. It’s far better this way, I assure you.”

Both Ivan and his mother shared an unreadable look at this, but it was gone from their faces before Illyan glanced up again from his plate. For all his silences, the man was about as self‑effacing as a neutron star; light itself seemed to bend around him.

After dinner, Lady Alys kindly showed Tej and Rish around her more‑than‑flat, or at least the top floor. Ivan Xav slouched after, his hands in his pockets. The floor below was given over to personal apartments allotted to her servants, of whom she kept four: a cook, a scullion‑and‑housemaid, who was also the server they’d seen, a dresser‑cum‑personal secretary, and the driver, Christos. Two rooms she passed over in the tour; Ivan explained in a behind‑the‑hand whisper that they were Illyan’s bedroom and study. They stepped out briefly to a chilly roof garden, designed, Lady Alys told them proudly, by Lady Ekaterin Vorkosigan, who appeared to be famous for such things. It was past the season for lingering there, though a few late‑blooming fall plants still gave up delicate scents, but Tej could see how one might want to, on warmer days or nights. The view was even better than the one from the living room below.

“I do appreciate your welcome,” said Tej to Lady Alys, as they paused at the parapet to take in one last look at the light‑draped river valley. “I feel so much better about it all now. I wasn’t sure what to expect or what to do about‑well, anything. I’d never planned to visit Barrayar.”

Lady Alys smiled into the dark. “I considered leaving the time and place of your presentation up to Ivan, as a sort of test. Then I considered all the many ways that scenario could go so wrong, and changed my mind.”

“Hey,” said Ivan Xav, but not very loudly.

“There were two principal possibilities on the table.” Lady Alys turned to face Tej. Laying out her cards at last? “First, was that you were an adventuress who had somehow succeeded in entrapping Ivan, and he should be rescued from you as expeditiously as possible. Maybe. After I’d found out how you did it, for future reference. Or possibly he should be allowed to extricate himself from the consequences of his own folly, for a life lesson. I was having trouble deciding which‑”

Another inarticulate noise of protest from her son.