Barrayar

Chapter Seventeen

“For God’s sake, Bothari, we can’t take her in there,” hissed Koudelka.

They stood in an alley deep in the maze of the caravanserai. A thick-walled building bulked an unusual three stories high in the cold, wet darkness. High on its stuccoed face, scabrous with peeling paint, yellow light glinted through carved shutters. An oil lamp burned dimly above a wooden door, the only entrance Cordelia could see.

“Can’t leave her out here. She needs heat,” replied the sergeant. He carried Lady Vorpatril in his arms; she clung to him, wan and shivering. “It’s a slow night anyway. Late. They’re closing down.”

“What is this place?” asked Droushnakovi. Koudelka cleared his throat. “Back in the Time of Isolation, when this was the center of Vorbarr Sultana, it was a lord’s Residence. One of the minor Vorbarra princes, I think. That’s why it’s built like a fortress. Now it’s a … sort of inn.”

Oh, so this is your whorehouse, Kou, Cordelia managed not to blurt out. Instead she addressed Bothari, “Is it safe? Or is it likely to be stocked with informers like that last place?”

“Safe for a few hours,” Bothari judged. “A few hours is all we have anyway.” He set Lady Vorpatril down, handing her off to Droushnakovi, and slipped inside after a muffled conversation through the door with some guardian. Cordelia tucked little Ivan more firmly to her, tugging her jacket over him for all the warmth she could share. Fortunately, he had slept quietly through their several-minutes hike from the abandoned building to this place. In a few moments Bothari returned, and motioned them to follow.

They passed through an entryway, almost like a stone tunnel, with narrow slits in the walls and holes every half-meter above. “For defense, in the old days,” whispered Koudelka, and Droushnakovi nodded understanding. No arrows or boiling oil awaited them tonight, though. A man as tall as Bothari, but wider, locked the door again behind them.

They came out in a large, dim room that had been converted into some sort of bar/dining room. It was occupied only by two dispirited-looking women in robes and a man snoring with his head on the table. As usual, an extravagant fireplace glowed with coals of wood.

They had a guide, or hostess. A rangy woman beckoned them silently toward the stairs. Fifteen years ago, or even ten years ago, she might have achieved a leggy aquiline look; now she was bony and faded, misclad in a gaudy magenta robe with drooping ruffles that seemed to echo her inherent sadness. Bothari swept up Lady Vorpatril and carried her up the steep stairs. Koudelka stared around uneasily, and seemed to brighten slightly upon not finding someone.

The woman led them to a room off an upstairs hallway. “Change the sheets,” muttered Bothari, and the woman nodded and vanished. Bothari did not set the exhausted Lady Vorpatril down. The woman returned in a few minutes, and whisked off the bed’s rumpled coverings and replaced them with fresh linens. Bothari laid Lady Vorpatril in the bed and backed up. Cordelia tucked the sleeping infant in her arm, and Lady Vorpatril managed a grateful nod.

The—housewoman, Cordelia decided she would think of her—stared with a spark of interest at the baby. “That’s a new one. Big boy, eh?” her voice swung to a tentative coo.

“Two weeks old,” stated Bothari in a repelling tone.

The woman snorted, hands on hips. “I do my bit of midwifery, Bothari. Two hours, more like.”

Bothari shot Cordelia an odd look, almost a flash of fear. The housewoman held up a hand to ward off his frown. “Whatever you say.”

“We should let her sleep,” said Bothari, “till we’re sure she isn’t going to bleed.”

“Yes, but not alone,” said Cordelia. “In case she wakes up disoriented in a strange place.” In the range of strange, Cordelia suspected, this place qualified as downright alien for the Vor woman.

“I’ll sit with her a while,” volunteered Droushnakovi. She glowered suspiciously at the housewoman, who was apparently leaning too near the baby for her taste. Cordelia didn’t think Drou was at all fooled by Koudelka’s pretense that they had stumbled into some sort of museum. Nor would Lady Vorpatril be, once she’d rested enough to regain her wits.

Droushnakovi plunked down in a shabby padded armchair, wrinkling her nose at its musty smell. The others withdrew from the room. Koudelka went off to find whatever this old building used for a lavatory, and to try and buy them some food. An underlying tang to the air suggested to Cordelia that nothing in the caravanserai was hooked up to the municipal sewerage. No central heating, either. At Bothari’s frown, the housewoman made herself scarce.

A sofa, a couple of chairs, and a low table occupied a space at the end of the hall, lit by a red-shaded battery-driven lamp. Wearily, Bothari and Cordelia sat there. With the pressure off for a moment, not fighting the strain, Bothari looked ragged. Cordelia had no idea what she looked like, but she was certain it wasn’t her best.

“Do they have whores on Beta Colony?” Bothari asked suddenly.

Cordelia fought mental whiplash. His voice was so tired the question sounded almost casual, except that Bothari never made casual conversation. How much had tonight’s violent events disturbed his precarious balance, stressed his peculiar fault lines? “Well … we have the L.P.S.T.s,” she answered cautiously. “I guess they fill some of the same social functions.”

“Ellpee Estees?”

“Licensed Practical Sexuality Therapists. You have to pass the government boards, and get a license. You’re required to have at least an associate degree in psychotherapy. Except that all three sexes take up the profession. The hermaphrodites make the most money, they’re very popular with the tourists. It’s not … not a high social status job, but neither are they dregs. I don’t think we have dregs on Beta Colony, we sort of stop at the lower middle class. It’s like …” she paused, struggling for a cultural translation, “sort of like being a hairdresser, on Barrayar. Delivering a personal service to professional standards, with a bit of art and craft.”

She’d actually managed to boggle Bothari, surely a first. His brow wrinkled. “Only Betans would think you needed a bleeding university degree… . Do women hire them?”

“Sure. Couples, too. The … the teaching element is rather more emphasized, there.”

He shook his head, and hesitated. He shot her a sidelong look. “My mother was a whore.” His tone was curiously distant. He waited.

“I’d … about figured that out.”

“Don’t know why she didn’t abort me. She could have, she did those as well as midwifery. Maybe she was looking to her old age. She used to sell me to her customers.”

Cordelia choked. “Now … now that would not have been allowed, on Beta Colony.”

“I can’t remember much about that time. I ran away when I was twelve, when I got big enough to beat up her damned customers. Ran with the gangs, till I was sixteen, passed for eighteen, and lied my way into the Service. Then I was out of here.” His palms slid across each other, indicating how slick and fast his escape.

“The Service must have seemed like heaven, in comparison.”

“Till I met Vorrutyer.” He stared around vaguely. “There were more people around here, back then. It’s almost dead here now.” His voice went meditative. “There’s a great deal of my life I can’t remember very well. It’s like I’m all … patchy. Yet there are some things I want to forget and can’t.”

She wasn’t about to ask, What? But she made an I-am-listening noise, down in her throat.

“Don’t know who my father was. Being a bastard here is damn near as bad as being a mutant.”

“ ’Bastard’ is used as a negative description of a personality, but it doesn’t really have an objective meaning, in the Betan context. Unlicensed children aren’t the same thing, and they’re so rare, they’re dealt with on a case-by-case basis.” Why is he telling me all this? What does he want of me? When he started, he seemed almost fearful; now he looks almost contented. What did I say right? She sighed.

To her secret relief, Koudelka returned about then, bearing actual fresh sandwiches of bread and cheese, and bottled beer. Cordelia was glad for the beer; she’d have been dubious of the water in this place. She chased her first bite with a grateful swallow, and said, “Kou, we have to re—arrange. our strategy.”

He settled awkwardly beside her, listening seriously. “Yes?”

“We obviously can’t take Lady Vorpatril and the baby with us. And we can’t leave her here. We left five corpses and a burning groundcar for Vordarian’s security. They’re going to be searching this area in earnest. But for just a little while longer, they will still be hunting for a very pregnant woman. It gives us a time window. We have to split up.”

He filled a hesitant moment with a bite of sandwich. “Will you go with her, then, Milady?”

She shook her head. “I must go with the Residence team. If only because I’m the only one who can say, This is impossible now, it’s time to quit. Drou is absolutely required, and I need Bothari.” And, in some strange way, Bothari needs me. “That leaves you.”

His lips compressed bitterly. “At least I won’t slow you down.”

“You’re not a default choice,” she said sharply. “Your ingenuity got us in to Vorbarr Sultana. I think it can get Lady Vorpatril out. You’re her best shot.”

“But it feels like you’re running into danger, and I’m running away.”

“A dangerous illusion. Kou, think. If Vordarian’s goons catch her again, they’ll show her no mercy. Nor you, nor especially the baby. There is no ’safer.’ Only mortal necessity, and logic, and the absolute need to keep your head.”

He sighed. “I’ll try, Milady.”

“ ’Try’ is not good enough. Padma Vorpatril ’tried.’ You bloody succeed, Kou.”

He nodded slowly. “Yes, Milady.”

Bothari left to scrounge clothing for Kou’s new persona of poor-young-husband-and-father. “Customers are always leaving things,” he remarked. Cordelia wondered what he could collect here in the way of street clothes for Lady Vorpatril. Kou took food in to Lady Vorpatril and Drou. He returned with a very bleak expression on his face, and settled again beside Cordelia.

After a time he said, “I guess I understand now why Drou was so worried about being pregnant.”

“Do you?” said Cordelia.

“Lady Vorpatril’s troubles make mine look … pretty small. God, that looked painful.”

“Mm. But the pain only lasts a day.” She rubbed her scar. “Or a few weeks. I don’t think that’s it.”

“What is, then?”

“It’s … a transcendental act. Making life. I thought about that, when I was carrying Miles. ’By this act, I bring one death into the world.’ One birth, one death, and all the pain and acts of will between. I didn’t understand certain Oriental mystic symbols like the Death-mother, Kali, till I realized it wasn’t mystic at all, just plain fact. A Barrayaran-style sexual ’accident’ can start a chain of causality that doesn’t stop till the end of time. Our children change us … whether they live or not. Even though your child turned out to be chimerical this time, Drou was touched by that change. Weren’t you?”

He shook his head in bafflement. “I wasn’t thinking about all that. I just wanted to be normal. Like other men.”

“I think your instincts are all right. They’re just not enough. I don’t suppose you could get your instincts and your intellect working together for once, instead of at cross-purposes ?”

He snorted. “I don’t know. I don’t know … how to get through to her now. I said I was sorry.”

“It’s not all right between you two, is it?”

“No.”

“You know what’s bothered me most, on the journey up here?” said Cordelia.

“No …”

“I couldn’t say goodbye to Aral. If … anything happens to me—or to him, for that matter—it will leave something hanging, unraveled, between us. And no way to ever make it right.”

“Mm.” He folded a little more into himself, slumped in the chair.

She meditated a bit. “What have you tried besides ’I’m sorry’? How about, ’How do you feel? Are you all right? Can I help? I love you,’ there’s a classic. Words of one syllable. Mostly questions, now I think on it. Shows an interest in starting a conversation, y’know?”

He smiled sadly. “I don’t think she wants to talk to me anymore.”

“Suppose,” she leaned her head back, and stared unseeing down the hallway. “Suppose things hadn’t taken such a wrong turn, that night. Suppose you hadn’t panicked. Suppose that idiot Evon Vorhalas hadn’t interrupted with his little horror show.” There was a thought. Too painful, that might—not—have—been. “Drop back to square one. There you were, cuddling happily.” Aral had used that word, cuddling. It hurt too much to think of Aral just now, too. “You part friends, you wake up the next morning, er, aching with unrequited love … what happens next, on Barrayar?”

“A go-between.”

“Ah?”

“Her parents, or mine, would hire a go-between. And then they’d, well, arrange things.”

“And you do what?”

He shrugged. “Show up on time for the wedding and pay the bill, I guess. Actually, the parents pay the bill.”

No wonder the man was at a loss. “Did you want a wedding? Not just to get laid?”

“Yes! But … Milady, I’m just about half a man, on a good day. Her family’d take one look at me and laugh.”

“Have you ever met her family? Have they met you?”

“No …”

“Kou, are you listening to yourself?”

He looked rather shamefaced. “Well …”

“A go-between. Huh.” She stood up.

“Where are you going?” he asked nervously.

“Between,” she said firmly. She marched down the hall to Lady Vorpatril’s door, and stuck her head in. Droushnakovi was sitting watching the sleeping woman. Two beers and the sandwiches sat untouched on a bedside table.

Cordelia slipped within, and closed the door gently. “You know,” she murmured, “good soldiers never pass up a chance to eat or sleep. They never know how much they’ll be called on to do, before the next chance.”

“I’m not hungry.” Drou too had a folded-in look, as if caught in some trap within herself.

“Want to talk about it?”

She grimaced uncertainly, and moved away from the bed to a settee in the far corner of the room. Cordelia sat beside her. “Tonight,” she said lowly, “was the first time I was ever in a real fight.”

“You did well. You found your position, you reacted—”

“No.” Droushnakovi made a bitter hand-chopping gesture. “I didn’t.”

“Oh? It looked good to me.”

“I ran around behind the building—stunned the two security men waiting at the back door. They never saw me. I got to my position, at the building’s corner. I watched those men, tormenting Lady Vorpatril in the street. Insulting and staring and pushing and poking at her … it made me so angry, I switched to my nerve disruptor. I wanted to kill them. Then the firing started. And … and I hesitated. And Lord Vorpatril died because of it. My fault—”

“Whoa, girl! That goon who shot Padma Vorpatril wasn’t the only one taking aim at him. Padma was so penta-soaked and confused, he wasn’t even trying to take cover. They must have double—dosed him, to force him to lead them back to Alys. He might as easily have died from another shot, or blundered into our own cross-fire.”

“Sergeant Bothari didn’t hesitate,” Droushnakovi said flatly.

“No,” agreed Cordelia.

“Sergeant Bothari doesn’t waste energy feeling … sorry, for the enemy, either.”

“No. Do you?”

“I feel sick.”

“You kill two total strangers, and expect to feel jolly?”

“Bothari does.”

“Yes. Bothari enjoyed it. But Bothari is not, even by Barrayaran standards, a sane man. Do you aspire to be a monster?”

“You call him that!”

“Oh, but he’s my monster. My good dog.” She always had trouble explaining Bothari, sometimes even to herself. Cordelia wondered if Droushnakovi knew the Earth-historical origin of the term, scapegoat. The sacrificial animal that was released yearly into the wilderness, to carry the sins of its community away … Bothari was surely her beast of burden; she saw clearly what he did for her. She was less certain what she did for him, except that he seemed to find it desperately important. “I, for one, am glad you are heartsick. Two pathological killers in my service would be an excess. Treasure that nausea, Drou.”

She shook her head. “I think maybe I’m in the wrong trade.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Think what a monstrous thing an army of Botharis would be. Any community’s arm of force—military, police, security—needs people in it who can do the necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary, and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity.”

“The way that security colonel quashed that obscene corporal.”

“Yes. Or the way that lieutenant questioned the colonel … I wish we might have saved him,” Cordelia sighed.

Drou frowned deeply, into her lap.

“Kou thought you were angry with him,” said Cordelia.

“Kou?” Droushnakovi looked up dimly. “Oh, yes, he was just in here. Did he want something?”

Cordelia smiled. “Just like Kou, to imagine all your unhappiness must center on him.” Her smile faded. “I’m going to send him with Lady Vorpatril, to try and smuggle her and the baby out. We’ll go our separate ways as soon as she’s able to walk.”

Drou’s face grew worried. “He’ll be in terrible danger. Vordarian’s people will be rabid over losing her and the young lord tonight.”

Yes, there was still a Lord Vorpatril to disturb Vordarian’s genealogical calculations, wasn’t there? Insane system, that made an infant seem a mortal danger to a grown man. “There’s no safety for anybody, till this vile war is ended. Tell me. Do you still love Kou? I know you’re over your initial starry-eyed infatuation. You see his faults. Egocentric, and with a bug in his brain about his injuries, and terribly worried about his masculinity. But he’s not stupid. There’s hope for him. He has an interesting life ahead of him, in the Regents service.” Assuming they all lived through the next forty-eight hours. A passionate desire to live was a good thing to instill in her agents, Cordelia thought. “Do you want him?”

“I’m … bound to him, now. I don’t know how to explain … I gave him my virginity. Who else would have me? I’d be ashamed—”

“Forget that! After we bring off this raid, you’re going to be covered in so much glory, men will be lining up for the status of courting you. You’ll have your pick. In Aral’s household, you’ll have a chance to meet the best. What do you want? A general? An Imperial minister? A Vor lordling? An off-world ambassador? Your only problem will be choosing, since Barrayaran custom stingily only allows you one husband at a time. A clumsy young lieutenant hasn’t got a prayer of competing with all those polished seniors.”

Droushnakovi smiled, a bit skeptically, at Cordelia’s painted vision. “Who says Kou won’t be a general himself someday?” she said softly. She sighed, her brow creasing. “Yes. I still want him. But … I guess I’m afraid he’ll hurt me again.”

Cordelia thought that one over. “Probably. Aral and I hurt each other all the time.”

“Oh, not you two, Milady! You seem so, so perfect.”

“Think, Drou. Can you imagine what mental state Aral is in right this minute, because of my actions? I can. I do.”

“Oh.”

“But pain … seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?”

“I’m not sure I follow that, Milady. But … I have a picture, in my head, Of me and Kou, on a beach, all alone. It’s so warm. And when he looks at me, he sees me, really sees me, and loves me. …”

Cordelia pursed her lips. “Yeah … that’ll do. Come with me.”

The girl rose obediently. Cordelia led her back in to the hall, forcefully arranged Kou at one end of the sofa, sat Drou down on the other, and plopped down between them. “Drou, Kou has a few things to say to you. Since you apparently speak different languages, he’s asked me to be his interpreter.”

Kou made an embarrassed negative motion over Cordelia’s head.

“That hand signal means, I’d rather blow up the rest of my life than look like a fool for five minutes. Ignore it,” Cordelia said. “Now, let me see. Who begins?”

There was a short silence. “Did I mention I’m also playing the parts of both your parents? I think I shall begin by being Kou’s Ma. Well, son, and have you met any nice girls yet? You’re almost twenty-six, you know. I saw that vid,” she added in her own voice as Kou choked. “I have her style, eh? And her content. And Kou says, Yes, Ma, there’s this gorgeous girl. Young, tall, smart– and Kou’s Ma says, Tee hee! And hires me, your friendly neighborhood go-between. And I go to your father, Drou, and say, there’s this young man. Imperial lieutenant, personal secretary to the Lord Regent, war hero, slated for the inside track at Imperial HQ—and he says, Say no more! We’ll take him. Tee—hee. And—”

“I think he’ll have more to say than that!” interrupted Kou.

Cordelia turned to Droushnakovi. “What Kou just said was, he thinks your family won’t like him ’cause he’s a crip.”

“No!” said Drou indignantly. “That’s not so—”

Cordelia held up a restraining hand. “As your go-between, Kou, let me tell you. When one’s only lovely daughter points and says firmly, Da, I want that one, a prudent Da responds only, Yes, dear. I admit, the three large brothers may be harder to convince. Make her cry, and you could have a serious problem in the back alley. By which I presume you haven’t complained to them yet, Drou?”

She stifled an involuntary giggle. “No!”

Kou looked as if this was a new and daunting thought.

“See,” said Cordelia, “you can still evade fraternal retribution, Kou, if you scramble.” She turned to Drou. “I know he’s been a lout, but I promise you, he’s a trainable lout.”

“I said I was sorry,” said Kou, sounding stung.

Drou stiffened.

“Yes. Repeatedly,” she said coldly.

“And there we come to the heart of the matter,” Cordelia said slowly, seriously. “What Kou actually means, Drou, is that he isn’t a bit sorry. The moment was wonderful, you were wonderful, and he wants to do it again. And again and again, with nobody but you, forever, socially approved and uninterrupted. Is that right, Kou?”

Kou looked stunned. “Well—yes!”

Drou blinked. “But… that’s what I wanted you to say!”

“It was?” He peered over Cordelia’s head.

This go-between system may have some real merits. But also its limits. Cordelia rose from between them, and glanced at her chrono. The humor drained from her spirit. “You have a little time yet. You can say a lot in a little time, if you stick to words of one syllable.”