Captain Vorpatril's alliance

How much more, not less, surreal the tale all seemed, now that Tej had been in the same room‑and shared cream cakes‑with the grown‑up, forty‑year‑old Gregor. Not to mention…

The present Lady Alys, composed and commanding, turned to take Tej by the hands. “Good morning, Tej. I’m pleased you came.”

Tej considered the significant difference between husband shot and husband shot in front of your eyes. She ducked her head, suddenly shy before this woman in a whole new way. “Thank you,” she managed, unsure what else to say.

“This is the first such memorial service you will have seen, I understand?”

“Yes. I’d never even heard of them before.”

“It’s nothing at all difficult. Especially not after thirty‑five repetitions. Sometimes people perform it on the anniversary of their loved one’s death, sometimes on their birthday, sometimes other occasions. As need arises. Keeping the memory alive, or getting in the last word, depending.” A dry smile turned her lips. The amber light leached the color from her face, and turned Ivan Xav’s uniform drab olive.

Lady Alys and Ivan Xav knelt by the brazier. With a brisk efficiency, Lady Alys pulled a plastic sack of scented bark and wood shavings from the cloth bag and upended it into the metal bowl. She pulled a smaller packet from her purse and shook out a mat of black and silver hair clippings atop. Ivan rummaged in his trouser pocket and unearthed a similar packet, adding a fuzzy black blot to the pile. Parsimoniously saved from their most recent haircuts, maybe? They both stood up.

Lady Alys nodded to the plaque. “This is where my husband was shot down by Vordarian’s security forces. Nerve disruptors‑poor Padma never had a chance. I’ll never forget the smell…burning hair, among other things. This ceremony always brings that back.” She grimaced. “Ivan was born not an hour later.”

“Where was his uterine replicator?” Tej asked.

Three faces turned toward hers; Lady Alys’s twisted in a wry humor. She touched her stomach. “Here, dear.”

Tej gasped in new and unexpected horror. “You mean Ivan Xav was a body birth?”

“Everyone was, in those days. Replicator technology had barely reached Barrayar, and didn’t become widespread for another generation.” Lady Alys stared at her uneasy son in reminded ire. “Two weeks late, he was. Nine pounds!”

“Not my fault,” muttered Ivan Xav, very much under his breath. He added to Tej, not much louder: “She mentions that every year.”

Lady Alys went on more serenely, “The friends who rescued us…me, almost in time, hustled me away to an abandoned building in the old Caravanserai district‑very run‑down and dangerous, back then‑not too far from here. Sergeant Bothari, rest to his troubled soul, played midwife, for lack of any other with the least experience in the task, including me. I was so terrified, but I couldn’t scream, you know, because Vordarian’s men were still out there looking for us. Bothari gave me a rag to bite…I can still remember the horrid taste, when I think of it. Nauseating. And we got through it somehow, dear heavens, but I still don’t know how. We were all so young. Ivan is older now than Padma was then.” She regarded Tej in sudden wonder. “I was just twenty‑five. Your age, my dear. Now, there’s a strange chance.”

Half past strange and aiming for very unsettling, Tej thought. But a new, or newly‑revealed, reason for this aging woman’s unexpected sympathy to another young refugee mourning her dead grew very clear, like ice, or crystal, or broken glass, or something else with sharp and dangerous edges. Oh.

She knows. She knows it all, and more, probably. Maybe Lady Alys’s glossy surface had to be so thick and smooth because it hid so much…?

Simon Illyan’s brow furrowed. “Where was I, during all of this? I do wish I could have been there for you, Alys…”

She touched his supporting arm in reassurance. “You were smuggling Admiral Kanzian out, to Aral’s great tactical benefit.”

His face cleared. “Ah, yes, now I recall.” He frowned again. “Fragments, at least.”

“Trust me, love, after thirty‑five years, fragments are all anyone recalls.” She turned again to Tej. “As Ivan’s bride, you are now a part of this‑however temporarily. Would you care to lay some hair on the fire as well? Since you’re here.”