Captain Vorpatril's alliance

Rish returned to the flat very late that night; to Tej’s secret bemusement, Ivan Xav stayed up to let her in‑but not Byerly, who had escorted her to the door, whom he sent to the right‑about with complaints about keeping people awake past their bedtimes. By’s ribald return remarks merely made him grumpier. The next night, Rish had Ivan Xav issue her a door remote. Byerly took her out again, although not to a party, but to a dance performance put on by some touring folk group from the western part of the continent, his former and apparently forsaken home. On the third night, Rish called on Byerly’s wristcom to tell Tej not to wait up; she’d probably be back around noon the next day. Ivan Xav grumbled disjointedly.

The next morning, however, was his birthday, an event Tej had been anticipating with growing curiosity. They arose in the dark before dawn and dressed rather formally, he donning his green captain’s uniform for the first time on his week’s leave. They ate no breakfast, merely drank tea, and then he bundled her into his sporty groundcar and they threaded the dark, quiet streets, although to no great distance away. His driving was, thankfully, subdued, though whether because of the bleary hour of the day or the solemn task they were to undertake, she wasn’t sure.

He hadn’t been very forthcoming about the ceremony, some traditional Barrayaran memorial for his dead father that apparently involved burning a small sacrifice of hair‑after it had been clipped from one’s head, Tej was relieved to learn. They pulled up in a street lined by older, grubbier, lower buildings, where a municipal guard vehicle was parked, its lights blinking. Two guardsmen were setting up a pair of lighted traffic deflectors on either side of a bronze plaque set in the pavement. The guard sergeant hurried over and started to wave Ivan out of the parking spot into which they eased, but then reversed his gesture into a beckoning upon recognizing the car and its driver.

“Captain Vorpatril, sir.” The man saluted as Ivan Xav helped Tej out. “We’re just about ready for you, here.”

Ivan nodded. “Thank you, sergeant, as always.”

Tej stood on the sidewalk in the damp autumn chill and stared around. “This is where your father died, then?”

Ivan Xav pointed to the plaque, glinting among the amber‑and‑shadow patterns woven by the street lights. “Right over there, according to Mamere. Shot down by the Pretender’s security forces, while they were trying to make their escape.”

“Wait, she was there? I mean, here? At the time?”

“Oh, yes.” He yawned and stared sleepily down the street, then perked up slightly as a long, sleek, familiar groundcar turned onto the block. The municipal guardsman waved it into its reserved parking space with studied officiousness, and saluted its occupants as they disembarked. Lady Vorpatril was accompanied, or escorted, by Simon Illyan, with the driver Christos bringing up the rear and holding a large cloth bag that clanked.

The guardsmen took up parade‑rest poses at a respectful distance away, and Christos knelt in the street to withdraw a bronze tripod and bowl from the bag, setting them up next to the plaque. He nodded to his mistress and went to join the guardsmen; they greeted each other and conversed in low tones, then one of the guardsmen went out into the street to direct the growing trickle of traffic safely around the site.

“Good morning, Ivan,” Lady Alys greeted her son. “Happy birthday, dear.” She hugged him, and he returned her what seemed to be the regulation peck on the cheek. He nodded thanks to Illyan’s echoed, “Happy birthday, Ivan. Thirty‑fifth, isn’t it?

“Yes, sir.”

“Halfway through your Old Earth three‑score‑and‑ten, eh? Incredible that we’ve all survived so long.” He shook his head, as if in wonder. Ivan grimaced.

The War of Vordarian’s Pretendership had been more in the nature of an abortive palace coup, as Tej understood it from her recent reading. Shortly after the ascension of the five‑year‑old Emperor Gregor under the regency of Aral Vorkosigan, the rival Count Vidal Vordarian and his party had made a grab for power. In the first strike, they’d secured the capital city, the military and ImpSec headquarters, and the young emperor’s mother, but the boy himself had slipped through their fingers, to be hidden in the countryside by Vorkosigan’s gathering forces. It had proved an ultimately fatal fumble.

There had followed a months‑long standoff, minor skirmishes while each side frantically maneuvered for allies among the other counts, the military, and the people. Captain Lord Padma Vorpatril and his wife, Lady Alys, relatives and known allies of Regent Vorkosigan, had been cut off in the capital during the coup and gone into hiding. Padma’s death rated barely a footnote, less even than the skirmishes. Had it been a chill and foggy night like this?