Captain Vorpatril's alliance

Ignoring it, she went on, “But in any case, both Morozov’s and Simon’s evaluations put that as a low probability. The second main hypothesis was that you were exactly as you appeared to be, the unwitting victim of one of Ivan’s less‑well‑thought‑out inspirations, and needed to be rescued from him. My ImpSec consultants were both united in setting that as a high probability.” She added after a contemplative moment, “ImpSec men never fail to hedge their bets, I’m afraid. It’s most annoying, when one must make decisions based on their reports.”

“If anyone needs any rescuing around here, Mamere, I’m perfectly capable of doing it,” said Ivan Xav, sounding annoyed.

“So I hope, love. So I hope.”

When, at length, they took their departure in the mirrored hallway, where Christos again waited to convey them to the groundcar, Ivan Xav bent and gave his Mamere a rather formal peck on the cheek, which seemed to make her smile despite herself. He really was much taller than her, Tej realized.

Lady Alys turned to Tej with a thoughtful look. “As he may or may not have told you, Ivan’s birthday is coming up next week. We always begin it with a little private ceremony, very early in the morning. I hope that he will decide to invite you.”

The startled and bemused glances Lady Alys won from both the men for this were the most mystifying yet.

“Uh…sure,” said Ivan, sounding oddly unsure. “G’night, Mamere. Simon, sir.”

He nodded to Illyan, and ushered Tej and Rish out to the foyer. The natural wood inlay on the wide doors that closed behind them made not an abstract jumble, but a mosaic picture, Tej realized in a last look back. It portrayed a dense woodland, with horses and riders half‑hidden, crossing through the trees. Her eye had not parsed it at all, her first time through.

In the back of the groundcar, Ivan ran his fingers through his scalp in a harried swipe and moaned, “She makes me crazy.” Still, Tej and Rish seemed to have survived the daunting visit, as had he. That it was better to have behind them…he was not yet sure.

“You mean Lady Vorpatril?” said Tej. She gave Ivan a peeved poke in the arm. “She was not at all like what you led me to believe. From the way you talked, I thought there would be screaming and weeping and carrying on, at the very least. But she’s very practical.” She added after a moment, “And kind. I didn’t expect kind.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Ivan. “After thirty years of high Vor diplomacy and a few wars, of course she has the chops. This is a woman who knows how to get her way.”

Tej cast him a funny look. “Not always, it seems like.”

Rish turned her head from a long, thoughtful stare out the canopy to observe, “She reminds me of the Baronne.”

“A little, yes,” said Tej, with an introspective frown. “Not as tightly focused.”

“She’s mellowed a lot since Simon arrived in her life,” Ivan admitted. “And vice versa, though his was rather imposed upon him by his, um, brain injury.” Ivan was put uncomfortably in mind of Tej’s alarming response to his mother’s first greeting. Tej seemed such a sunny personality, much of the time‑these flashes of dark were like a crack in the sky, shocking and wrong. Reminding him that the daylight was the illusion, the scattering of light by the atmosphere, and the endless night was the permanent default behind it all. And God that was a weird and morbid thought, but his mother did make him crazy. “Did you, um, love your mother? The Baronne?”

Tej hesitated, her brows lowering. When she spoke, it was slowly, as if she had to grope for truth in a thicket of thorny memories. “I admired her very much. We didn’t always get along. Actually, we clashed a lot. She said I wasn’t working up to my full potential. Not like my sisters.”

“Ah,” said Ivan, wisely. “That does sound all too familiar.”

Tej looked across at him in surprise. “But you were an only child!”

“Not…exactly. I always had my cousin Miles. And Gregor for an elder brother, but of course it was understood he was in a class by himself.” He added after a reflective moment, “All by himself, poor sod.”

“So your cousin Miles was like a brother to you?” asked Rish. Glints from her gold earrings flickered in the shadowy compartment as her head tilted.

“Miles…is really hard to explain. He was‑is‑smart.”

“ You’re smart,” said Tej, in a tone of indignant protest.

Ivan’s heart nearly melted, but he sighed. “Yeah, but Miles was…the thing is, he was afflicted with a severe birth injury. He grew up pretty much crippled, so he poured all his frustrated energy into his intellect. Since the Vorkosigan family motto might as well be, Anything worth achieving is worth overachieving, the effect was pretty frightening. And it worked for him, so he did it some more.”

“Very like the Baronne,” murmured Rish.