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Count Aral Vorkosigan, current Viceroy of Sergyar, retired admiral, legendary Lord Regent and former Prime Minister of Barrayar, reclined in a hammock on the wrap-around veranda of the viceregal residence. He had a handheld comconsole in one hand, and a glass of iced tea in the other, having given the most recent Nexus newsfeeds a desultory once over. Cordelia was indoors catching up on some paperwork. Miles, Ekaterin and the grandchildren were napping after lunch, exhausted by a combination of too much food, lingering jump lag, and the climate. Ever more conscious of passage of time, he hated to waste any of it napping. While he whole-heartedly agreed with the concept and custom of the afternoon siesta in theory, it just wasn’t for him at this point in his life. Hell, he thought, it’s not likely it ever could have been! When would I have ever been able to squeeze it in if I had wanted to?
The viceregal Residence was built for a tropical climate. Giving in to his lifelong architectural yearnings, he had designed it himself after a good deal of rigorous research, and had it built on the promontory overlooking what had once been the postwar prison camp, the spot where he had asked Cordelia to marry him (the second time). The very spot where she told him she loved him but refused to go to Barrayar with him. Where they had shared their first kiss (a watershed experience in his life to that point), hoping against all hope they might somehow end up together, even though the odds were depressingly against it. How fitting that they should wind up here all these years later. Full circle… A contented smile slowly moved across his face, his eyes shining. The breeze fluffed his thick mane of all white hair as he drifted happily in a wave of nostalgia. He’d been doing a good bit of that these days…
The higher altitude of the ancient volcanic crater made it slightly cooler than the main settlement below and provided a magnificent view of the plains of Chaos Colony. The house was designed on a single floor as much to make it easier on his old bones as for its cooling benefits, with an open floor plan and four guest bedrooms with attached baths to accommodate visiting family. It featured hardwood and cool tile floors throughout, and big ceiling fans in every room. He had carefully planned the location of its many large windows and sliding doors, situated to capture both the prevailing winds by day and cool breezes by night. Unless they were experiencing a heat wave, as they currently were, it was marvelously comfortable. It was all so vastly different from the heavy stone structures of Barrayar, but beautiful in its own practical way. During construction, when his Barrayaran foreman, muttering under his breath at ‘amateur architects’ balked at nearly everything in the blueprints, so foreign to him as it was, Aral consoled himself with the certain knowledge that future generations of viceroys would thank him for it someday.
Draining his glass, he heaved himself out of the hammock with considerable effort and went into the house. Barefoot, in a faded but still wildly colorful tropical print shirt and well-worn cargo shorts, he ambled into their shared office to ask Cordelia if she’d like an iced tea while he was up getting a refill for himself. She was seated at her desk next to his, facing double French doors, with a stunning view of the plains. Surrounded by a haphazard array of flimsies, letter disks, and snack wrappers interspersed among multiple photos of the grandchildren, despite the ceiling fan, she looked wilted and uncharacteristically disheveled from the heat. Her hair was pulled back sensibly, with stray, damp coppery wisps framing her face. He loved her hair, never more so than now. It had been that amazing hue, but was slowly acquiring ever more silver strands. He took a bit of comfort in that. His own hair had been pure white for well over a decade now. Why should I be the only one, eh? he mused, grinning, trying to imagine her all white.
From behind her, he nuzzled her glorious mane, glad she had never succumbed to the trend in hair cleaning and styling products that made the freshly shampooed smell like a fruit salad. She smelled clean, natural, wonderful - all Cordelia, all the time! He’d never get tired of it. Leaning down and twining a wayward coppery lock around a big, thick finger, he tentatively nibbled an earlobe, cocking an eyebrow in a way he hoped was invitational.
She stopped his hand with a sigh of mock exasperation and looked up at him, asking, “Honestly, Aral Vorkosigan, don’t you have anything better to do?”
“To do? As viceroy of a place so aptly named Chaos Colony, I suppose I could find something,” he said with faux sarcasm. “But anything better? Never! And I, unlike others in this household at the moment, got up very early and finished all the important things I did have on the agenda for today. It’s called ‘strategic planning’ - you may have heard of it?”
She responded by dumping a waste basket full of crumpled, discarded flimsies and an alarming number of balled-up wrappers from salty, crunchy snacks on his head.
Bemused, he picked up one of the brightly colored wrappers from the top of the heap around his feet, the one in particular that was over-represented. “I hadn’t realized you were so fond of these, dear Captain, or I’d have ordered quite a lot more. In the interest of scientific inquiry,” he asked dryly, with a perfectly innocuous expression (he was feeling decidedly impish this afternoon), “don’t they make your fingers all orange and sticky, though? And leave a trail of near neon crumbs a blind man could follow?”
Cordelia snatched the evidential bag from his hands. “I’ll have you know, sir, I can take ‘em or leave ‘em! Besides, I only eat them for the salt content. In this heat, an adequate intake of salt is of vital importance.”
Watching her swab a finger inside the bag and lick it several times before wadding it up and tossing it back in the trash container, he nodded. “Uh, huh." Diplomatically, he squelched an incipient snicker. "Indeed. I can quite see that.”
Caught in the act, her expression was both sheepish and guilty as she hurriedly gathered the rest of the former contents of the trash from around his feet while still seated in the chair, scooting around a bit to reach a few strays that had floated away in the breeze, and returned it all to the waste basket. He could easily stand there all day watching her! Well, maybe not all day any more - his bones and his legendary stamina weren’t what they used to be. What was that old saying? The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak? Something like that...
He grinned, joyously content in the moment, taking in the sight of her. It never got old. She would always be like water in the desert to him, more precious than life itself.
“Oh, God, Aral! Please, not ‘The Grin’!” Her expression was flustered but her eyes were shining as she replaced a lock of hair that had fallen loose during her clean-up exertions. “You know I can resist anything but The Grin!”
Even after all these years! He smiled, his brain exploding into ecstatic mental fireworks. What did I ever do to get so lucky? I must have done SOMETHING good... And smiled again, remembering something his little sister Galina had told him when they were both children* - before the madness, before the murders - that when he was grown up, he would meet the lucky lady would love him as much as he loved her, even if he wasn’t the handsomest or tallest man in the room. He’d found it extraordinarily hard to believe then, but here they were... and here he was, in joyously happy overdrive.
Cordelia reached up for him and pulled him down into the chair with her. The chair protested. He did not.
They lost track of time in a delightful, decidedly energetic, and somewhat sweaty way. When they came up for air, laughing, smoothing each other’s hair, a small, bordering-on-peevish voice coming from the open doorway interrupted their laughter.
“I’m BORED, Grandma,” the owner of the small voice whinged.
As copper-haired as her paternal grandmother, four year old Helen Natalia - barefoot and wearing a summer-weight nightie, had a distinctly disgruntled look on her face, so reminiscent of her father at the same age. Same air of resolute determination in her tone, too (some might call it whiny). If her father was any precedent, mischief surely wouldn’t be too far off.
“Yes, sweetie,” Cordelia sighed. “I’m sure you are. That’s why sensible people take naps this time of day. It’s much too hot to do anything else.”
“You and Grand’da aren’t taking a nap,” Helen observed, quite reasonably.
Touché! he thought, chuckling under his breath. Clever girl, Our Little Hellion.
“At this moment, sweetie, I’d very much like to be,” Cordelia told her, in her best no-nonsense Betan voice. “Why don’t you go back to your room and just rest a bit, then? Like your brother, hmmm?”
Hah! The old ‘rest a bit’ ploy… He was surprised she trotted it out so soon. Hmmph, she might be losing her touch... it’ll never work on Helen. Never did with Miles, either, but that didn’t stop her from trying. And trying, and trying... Miles had seemed congenitally unable to comprehend the concept of formal naps, even when literally falling asleep standing up, but the boy did nod off in his arms on a predictably regular basis during those two hour lunch breaks. His biceps and triceps ached at the memory. From Milesian experience, he knew what was coming next, and waited in gleeful anticipation, a happy spectator in the clash of wills between his wife and grandchild. His money was on Helen...
“But I’m not tired, Grandma!”
He snorted loudly, tears of laughter filling his eyes. “That’s my girl! Right on cue!”
“Neither is your grandfather, apparently,” his Lady Love retorted, shooting him a most unladylike glare. “Unlike some of us!”
“Well, can Grand’da come play with me, then?”
Cordelia looked at him, at their granddaughter, and the pile on her desk. “Tire you both out, eh? Excellent idea! Why don’t you go find your shoes, sweetie, and put them on first?”
“Grand’da’s not wearing shoes,” Helen pointed out emphatically.
“Grand’da was just about to go put them on, wasn’t he, Grand’da?” Cordelia hinted, eyebrows raised archly in his direction.
“Absolutely,” he agreed. “Far too many dangerous things out there hell-bent on doing us poor humans bodily harm at every opportunity.” He held his right leg out in front of the girl, pointing to the nasty-looking, jagged scar extending from just below his knee all the way down the shin. “Got this one not too terribly far from here, as a matter of fact.” He didn’t think it was the time or place to point out he had been wearing shoes at the time. Well, boots, anyway...
The girl’s eyes went wide, half horrified, half admiring. “Did it hurt, Grand’da?”
“A fair bit,” he told her. Heh! Had he gone another day without treatment, the infection most likely would have killed him. No need to upset the child, he thought. Cordelia had a wistful look on her face. Possibly remembering those dire circumstances, too… trying to get her crew member properly buried.
Helen’s little face brightened as a thought occurred. “Can I wear my boots, Grand’da?” Can I? Pleeeeaaase?”
At that, he and Cordelia both laughed. Helen had arrived wearing a pair of what were known on Earth as ‘cowboy boots’ - a gift from Uncle Ivan, Miles groused - that were the despair of both parents. Pointy-toed, high heeled, colorfully patterned and astonishingly noisy on uncarpeted surfaces, she wanted to wear them EVERYWHERE, apparently an ongoing situation.
“She wore them for our official family portrait,” Ekaterin had explained, looking both bewildered and dismayed.
“We even find her in bed fast asleep with the damn things on,” Miles had grumbled, sounding seriously aggrieved. Aral found it highly amusing that his son should be upset, as it was exactly the kind of thing Miles himself would have done at the same age if he’d had a pair like that. And if he hadn’t had to wear those damn braces…
He sympathized with his granddaughter completely. He had always wanted a pair of boots like that when he was a boy. He’d seen many pairs of them in his beloved vid encyclopedia of Old Earth and and was fascinated by them. He coveted them - lusted for them - with a passion that only a young child could understand. So exotic, so colorful, so unlike any boots he had ever seen, in a world where boots were ubiquitous, from the utilitarian half boots to knee-high, highly polished riding boots and everywhere in between. Like so much else in his young life during the years of Occupation, he had learned to do without. When the war was over (both of them), he found his childish passion had cooled. Not that he would have turned down a pair, no, never... nor would he even now.
Miles and Ekaterin had somehow managed to dissuade Helen the past few days, telling her it was far too hot for boots, but most importantly, they were not appropriate for diplomatic wear. As the granddaughter of the Viceroy and Vicereine, they explained to her, she had a certain standard to uphold, as did all proper Vor. Even at her tender age, Helen Natalia understood about upholding Vorish standards. How could she not, in this family, Aral mused, but she was emphatically not a happy camper and had refused to wear anything at all on her feet. When told she was not to leave the house barefoot, she refused to even step beyond the veranda.
His reverie was broken by her insistent whine. “Can I, please, Grand’da? Please?”
His first observation was that the clever little minx had appealed to him, and not her grandmother, clearly a negotiating tactic she no doubt had learned from her father. Aral looked down at his own floridly colorful, exotic fashion choice and sighed. “What the hell. Why not? Yes, you may. What a pair we’ll make! Let’s show ‘em what real style is, eh?”
She ran off in a flurry of giggles after a quick dash into the room to plant wet kisses on the grandfatherly knees. Cordelia was looking at him with a peculiar expression. Mostly fond.
“Just don’t let her tire you out too, badly, love.”
Was there a hint of worry there? He snorted. Lately, she seemed... well, he’d have to call it ‘overly protective’ of him, which he always found endearing, but in all honesty, sometimes also a wee bit annoying.
“I can handle her,” he said softly, acknowledging her concern.
“As no one else can, love” she marveled. “From Day One. Still, it’s horribly hot, excessively humid, and she’s at least as rambunctious as Miles was. Just... don’t overdo it. For my sake, if not your own.”
“Noted, dear Captain,” he said wistfully. “And central air conditioning is definitely going in the budget request next year.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” she said, brushing a hank of hair back from his forehead, her fingers lingering. “I’m only surprised we haven’t had it sooner, seeing as how you’re always hot.”
“Seemed to me other things in the colony were a much higher priority. I’m not that fragile. Yet...”
“Well, maybe you’re not... yet. But your feet are,” pointing down at them. “Shoes, sir!”
Laughing, he took her arm, spun her around and kissed her, long and slow, before heading off, his bare feet softly padding on the highly polished, blessedly cool hardwood floors, in search of appropriate footwear.
***
Helen skipped noisily ahead of him down the three veranda steps, helpfully carrying a large blanket. He himself carried a picnic hamper and a cooler with beverages. A small backpack over his shoulder held drawing materials, a first aid kit, sunscreen for the little one, a field scope, and insect repellent recently developed specifically for Sergyar’s own peculiar take on insect life. The pockets of his cargo shorts, in lieu of a utility belt, carried a stunner for possible wildlife intrusions, a folding knife, and a wristcom.
His granddaughter was riotously clad in rainbow-striped cotton leggings, a nearly fluorescent green tutu, and a bright yellow shirt that read ‘My parents went to Beta Colony and all I got was this lousy t- shirt.’ A glittering rhinestone tiara nestled on her auburn locks. Her boots were bright red and heavily stitched, depicting a multi-colored eagle with its wings wrapping around and up the shaft, talons outstretched. Glorious! His own dream pair had been rather more subdued, with red maple leaves on a dark brown shaft. He remembered thinking how utterly perfect they would be if the leaves were silver…
She pirouetted around him several times. “I dressed myself, Grand’da.”
“Hmm, yes. I can see that, Pudge,” he said solemnly, manfully holding back his laughter. “And a fine job of it you’ve done. I feel rather underdressed in comparison.”
“I like your shirt. It’s very pretty! Are those birds on it with the flowers and leaves?”
“Yes, indeed. They’re called parrots - Psittacoidea, native to tropical places on Old Earth. These are hibiscus flowers,” pointing to several flamboyantly colored varieties, “and last but not least, these magnificent foliage specimens are called elephant leaves.”
“Are there parrots on Sergyar, Grand’da? Da says it’s downright tropical here.”
“Alas, no, unfortunately, there are not. But we do have Vampire Balloons which are quite impressive, if not nearly as colorful. We just might see one or three.”
“Ooh, I hope we do, Grand’da!” She bounced up and down clapping her hands in anticipation. “Aral A will be s-o-o-o-o jealous when I tell him. Huh! That’s what he gets for taking stupid old naps!”
“So, are we now calling him Aral A these days?”
“Only I call him that. It’s his name. They can’t make me call him anything else!” she sniffed. “I don’t see why he wanted to be called Sasha anyhow, or Alex now. Aral is a very, very, very good name, I think,” she said, looking at him intently. “Because it’s your name. I would like it if I had it.”
“Perhaps he just needs a little time to grow into it. I know I certainly did. It was the Prince-my-Grandfather’s middle name, you know. Even though I was very proud of it, it was still a little scary having his name.”
Helen snorted disdainfully. “Boys are so silly!”
“You’ll get no argument here!” Laughing, he loaded their gear and Helen into a dusty, open-topped utility lightflyer, just catching a glimpse of Cordelia watching them from her office window. He smiled over his shoulder at her. She blew kisses at him. “Wave to your grandmother, Pumpkin,” he directed. They both did, and were off.
***
Aral carefully picked his way down the ravine, carrying Helen easily - which made him feel invincible for a moment and not at all his age - until they reached the small stream. Under the thick canopy of trees, it was cool, despite the heat of the day, looking very much as it did that fateful day. It was hard to believe it had been so long ago - nearly forty years - and that there was a thriving pioneer colony not so very far from here, if considerably downslope.
She looked around, bright-eyed with curiosity. “Why are we here, Grand’da?”
“This is where it all began, Pipsqueak,” he said, putting the girl down with a grunt. “Our family... right there. This is where we start from.”
He had been concussed from a stun and in crisis mode when he woke from that mutinous attack to find himself alone, battered and bruised amidst the carnage of the Betans’ encampment. Whatever made him stagger his way down to the ravine below was still a mystery - purest serendipity, for which he was forever grateful.
“This,” he told a skeptical looking Helen, “is where I first laid eyes on your grandmother,” pointing to the spot on the bank, forever burned in his memory.
"What? Right there? In the mud?”
“She was glorious, even in the mud! I resolved then and there to ask her to marry me. It took me some time to convince her, but the rest, as they say, is history.” He was beaming, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself…
“Huh! Mama never lets me play in the mud.”
“Ah. I sense a bit of confusion on your part. Your grandmother wasn’t playing, y’see, but trying to escape from men who were shooting at her - the same ones who had tried to kill me earlier - and she fell, from all the way up there,” pointing up the slope to the edge of the ravine.
Helen’s eyes widened considerably. The idea of her grandparents as dashing adventure figures, apparently a new one, seemed to fascinate her. “Did you save Grandma, Grand’da?”
“Heh,” he chuffed, “not exactly. To this day, I’ve never been quite sure which of us saved who, in the long run. It’s all very complicated,” he told her with a wry grin. “You might want to ask her someday. I did help her up out of here, though, and together, we walked all the way to very near where our house is today.”
“You WALKED? ALL THE WAY???” From her stunned expression, that was something far beyond her ability to wrap her little brain around. With her mouth agape, she reminded him of baby birds in the nest, waiting to be fed… Speaking of feeding, it would be such a lovely spot to have a bite to eat, if only he hadn’t left their foodstuffs in the flyer back up in the glade. Ah, well, they’d survive… He snorted. What Cordelia and I wouldn’t have given back then for the contents of today’s picnic basket!
“From personal experience incurred on this very spot, I can tell you that boots do not fare well in this mud, Peanut. You might want to take those beauties off, at least until we get back to the flyer. Trust me, they’ll last so much longer that way.”
His Western-shod progeny glanced up at him, torn. Having won the hard-fought battle to wear them in the first place and her desire to wear them everywhere made her loathe to take them off. He was fairly certain her fondness for the boots (true treasures) would override her contradictory (some might call it combative) nature and take his advice. She did, however reluctantly, and was soon squishing her little toes in the cool, silky mud at the water’s edge.
“Mama plays in the mud all the time,” she announced, plainly irked by the unreasonableness of not being allowed to play in the mud herself very often.
“Your mother is a very talented horticultural designer. True, it often does involve getting dirty in the mud. While it may sometimes look like play - at least like an awful lot of fun - to you and me, she’s actually hard at work. Did you know your mother designed the garden next to Vorkosigan House? Your parents were married there.”
Taken aback, she was speechless for what was probably a record for her, almost twenty seconds. “Mama made that garden?”
“She did. Your father made his own memorable contribution. You might want to ask him about it some day.” Heh! What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall for that conversation!
He removed his own shoes and joined her, taking her hand and wading out into the stream, where the water, almost knee high on Helen, eddied around his ankles. He dug his toes in, making him feel for a brief moment like he was four years old again. At a very early age, probably a bit younger than Helen, he’d been rather fond of taking his clothes off and plopping himself down in puddles, of which there were an abundance in the muddy, rutted roads surrounding his father’s ever-shifting military encampments.** His big brother Selig was often given the unhappy chore of fetching him out of them, protesting loudly that he was so hot. More often than not, they’d both end up prodigiously muddy. Cooler, but muddy. Mama had not been amused. Funny how I remember that so well, nearly eighty years later…
“Did you play in the mud a lot, Grand’da?”
“To my mother’s great dismay, yes. Quite a lot. I loved trying to make the famous buildings I saw in books. Mud was plentiful, you see, when not a lot else was.”
She absorbed that bit of information thoughtfully. “Did Grandma play in the mud, too?”
“Well, no, sadly. She didn’t have the opportunity. There’s no mud to speak of on Beta Colony. It’s all desert. The natives call it ‘The Sandbox.’”
“No mud? At all?” she shrieked, genuinely horrified on behalf of all Betan children. “That’s so sad! Everyone should get to play in the mud, as often as they can, right, Grand’da? Playing in the mud is… is… um… I can’t think of the right word.”
“Earthy, maybe? Elemental, perhaps? Organic?”
“Grand’da! What a big silly you are today!” The look she gave him clearly indicated she thought he’d taken leave of his senses. “Is ‘funnest’ a word?”
“I think not, Porkpie.”
“Well, it should be,” she declared, fists planted firmly on hips.
“You’re quite right, it most certainly should be,” he agreed, laughing.
Before heading back to the lightflyer parked in the glade above, Aral washed copious amounts of mud off Helen and her clothing. Amazing, these modern fabrics, he thought, all soil and stain resistant! We SO could have used something like this when Miles was her age! He hoisted her on his back and headed back up the ravine with considerably more effort than going down. Cordelia’s earlier admonishment, warning him not to overdo it for her sake, if not his own, made him experience a twinge of guilt. Back at the flyer, he rested a bit longer than he had initially planned to while Helen put her boots back on, and they were off again.
***
They proceeded at a leisurely pace to the next stop in what he mentally dubbed The Viceroy’s Traveling Nostalgia Trip. He hovered briefly along the achingly familiar bank of a muddy, rough rushing river, where he had hauled Cordelia and her unfortunate Ensign Dubauer out of the raging torrent all those years ago... then, some few kilometers further downstream, expertly put the flyer down where they had made their one and only campfire and feasted ravenously on charred fuzzy crab. Their culinary efforts attracted the attention of a pack of its fellow carnivorous hexapeds and they’d been forced into desperate battle not only with the beasts on the ground, but an onslaught from above by a swarm of Vampire Balloons, with nothing but flaming torches from the campfire to defend themselves with... I can still smell Cordelia’s singed hair, he reminisced fondly. Less fondly, he recalled that no amount of rinsing could get the stench of dead Vampire Balloon out of his uniform shirt for the duration of their trek, nor out of his mind at the moment. Best to replace it with another more pleasant scent. And quickly!
Helen, perched on a sun-warmed rock, watched as he unpacked the picnic basket and beverages, spreading the blanket in the shade of a large grassy dune. For a mid-afternoon snack, it was admittedly on the lavish side, with several varieties of cheeses, hearty breads, fresh tropical fruits introduced to Sergyar from Old Earth that would never grow on Barrayar, assorted pastries, and a large jar of his lifelong favorite, spicy pickled green beans. He set out napkins and small plates, sliced the cheeses, then filled glasses with cool cider he had had Miles bring from Barrayar. From home... He sighed softly and swallowed hard at the thought, then shook it off and invited Helen down off the rock.
She heaped her plate almost entirely with pastries, but watched with some interest as he piled the green beans on his own.
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Are those vegetables, Grand’da?”
“Um-hm,” he nodded, his mouth already full. He invariably reverted to a perpetually hungry four year old in the presence of those pickled beans…
“Yuck! I hate vegetables!”
That startled him. He knew the world he had grown up in and the one his grandchildren were growing up in could not be more dissimilar, but he was shocked all the same. As a child, he’d never had the luxury of hating vegetables, or any other food. He and his siblings had learned early on to eat whatever was available, whenever it was available, and be thankful for it. Life on the run from the Cetas was not conducive to regularly scheduled hot meals. Still, despite his naturally modest nature, he had to admit he was insufferably pleased with with himself for the part he had played in making Helen’s Barrayar so different from his own.
“Suit yourself,” he said after swallowing. “More for me that way.” He was playing dirty, he knew, but wasn’t feeling at all guilty, forking in another mouthful. The technique had worked with Miles every time…
“What kind of vegetables are they?” she sniffed, as the aroma got her attention, but still looking doubtful.
“The Princess-my-Mother’s special recipe - Spicy Pickled Green Beans. It’s the coriander and fennel seeds that make it so unique, I think. The hot chilies make it spicy. I like spicy. Mama grew beans in her garden at the lake house, and canned dozens of jars of them every summer. I couldn’t wait…”
Helen stared at him in disbelief, as if he were telling the most outlandish, fantastic fairy tale. Good, he chuckled mentally, got her hooked. Now to just reel her in… slowly… slowly.
“I think everyone should eat dessert first,” she proclaimed defiantly. “What if something really really really bad happened before you finished your other stuff and you never got to eat your dessert? Wouldn’t that be awful, Grand’da? No dessert?”
“Dessert first, eh?” Aral chewed another mouthful, thoughtfully. When he was her age, and dessert was such a rarity (almost always confined to the family’s infrequent stays with his Vorbarra grandparents), he had felt exactly the same way, but Gran was a stickler for mealtime protocol. “I suppose that might be a good thing. Sometimes. These beans, though… I like them so much they’re like dessert to me.”
“But they’re vegetables, Grand’da!” She took a determined chomp out of a seed cake, which she didn’t even like, to make a point.
“Mmmph,” he agreed, with a mouthful. “That they are. Grew these myself. Fruits and vegetables always taste so much better when you grow ‘em yourself, and never let anyone tell you otherwise,” he said in his best Sage Grandfatherly Voice.
“Grand’da,” she said, expertly shifting gears into Negotiator Mode, scooting ever closer to him on the blanket, “if you eat some of this cream cake with me now, I might try some of your beans. Maybe.”
His renowned poker face did not fail him now. “I don’t know, Pookie, you probably won’t like ‘em at all.” Now to reel her in. “Usually, only grownups do.”
Hah! Good old reverse psychology! It worked on her exactly as it did on Miles. She reached over to his plate and stabbed a forkful, popping them into her mouth. The expression on her face delighted him, as she experienced the sweet, spicy, hot and tangy flavors, individually and in combination, her eyes wide with surprise.
She took an even bigger forkful from the jar and ate them with gusto, dribbling the savory juices down her chin. He joined her in another helping.
“Are you sure these are vegetables, Grand’da? They taste too good.”
“Quite sure. Made ‘em myself last week. My mother’s recipe, don’t forget.”
“Oh. Well, then. No wonder, if you made ‘em. They’re awfully good,” she conceded.
He managed to squelch a knowing smirk. “Since we’re eating dessert first, would you please pass some of that cream cake?”
A satisfied smile lit her face. She nearly overturned a glass of cider when she leaned across the blanket to give him a hard, if sticky hug along with the cake. They polished off the the pickled beans and pastries before finishing everything else. Hmmm, he mused, Nostalgia Trips really work up the old appetite…
Once finished eating, she enthusiastically helped him pack away the remnants of their meal, eager to get to the stone skipping lessons he had promised her over a third helping of the pickled beans. On the river’s bank, he found he hadn’t lost his touch, and she quickly picked up the knack, giggling with delight when she was finally able to get her stones to skip almost as often as his, with not too much deliberate slacking on his part. He left her there, keeping a watchful eye on the sky, while she enthusiastically practiced her newfound skill. It reminded him of Miles, jumping off the dock over and over and over and over…. for three hours!
Satisfied with her mastery of a brand-new skill, Helen skipped one last stone and skipped back to where he was sitting, leaning against a rock in its shade. On the off chance that she might get bored, he had packed drawing materials, whether for himself or her he wasn’t exactly sure now. She laughed and clapped her hands when she saw the drawings.
“May I keep this one, Grand’da?” She held up one that depicted her in stone-skipping action, with a small flock of Vampire Balloons hovering on the opposite shore. “I want to take it home with me and hang it over my bed. Aral A will definitely be jealous.”
He rolled the drawing up carefully and placed it in the pack. “Remind me to give it to you when we get back to the house. I’m glad you like it.”
“Thank you very much. I like it mostly because you drew it,” leafing through the other rough sketches, mostly done for Cordelia. As if she needs any reminding of that ordeal...
“How did you learn to draw like this, Grand’da?”
“My mother started teaching me, when I was about your age. She was a very good artist. Far better than I’ll ever be.” Hmmph, I might have had a chance if the lessons hadn’t ended… along with her life. He forced himself to pull out of that somber mood when he saw the concern in his granddaughter’s face.
She sat down and curled up into his lap. “Da says your mama was a princess. Was she, Grand’da? A real princess?”
He nodded, rolling up the rest of the sketches. “She was indeed, yes. A granddaughter of Emperor Dorca the Just.” Helen nestled quiet and still in his arms for a few minutes, deep in thought.
“Grand’da?”
“Yes, Poppet?”
“Why do you keep calling me all those funny names?”
“Well, Pigeon, I’m trying to find something that suits you better than ‘hellion.’ My big brother Selig used to call my little sister Galina a hellion. She rather was, quite often, it’s very true, but she hated being called that.” Somehow, that memory wasn’t nearly as painful as used to be. I must be mellowing with age…
She grunted as if she understood entirely, especially about the brother part. He didn’t think her twin was remotely rash enough to undertake anything like his own brother did, but then, Siggie was working from an eight year age advantage. Not that it was a reflection of any kind on young Aral Alexander, just an observation of his personality, not unlike his own, he had to admit. He’d never called Lina a hellion either…
“Is there one in particular you prefer, so far?”
“Huh,” she huffed with a fair amount of derision. “I bet everyone would think I want to be called ‘Princess.’ But I know you don’t think so.”
“That’s certainly true,” he admitted, “but how do you know?”
“’Cause you’d still be calling me that instead of all those others.”
Taking his big gnarled right hand in both of hers, she held it quietly for few moments, in thoughtful silence. “Grand’da… did you have a nickname when you were a little boy?”
“I did, yes. It was given to me by my father’s father when I was a baby, or so I’ve been told. The General-my-Father’s troops used it, too, as did my brother and sister.”
“What was it, Grand’da?”
“Hmm, let me see now... What was it?” He drummed his fingers against his chin, feigning deep thought. “It was quite some time ago, you understand…”
“Grand’da!” She dragged the word out in impressively elongated syllables. “What was it? You have to tell me what it was! You just have to!!!”
“I am being a bit of a tease, aren’t I?” he said, grinning. “It was ‘Little Mouse.’ My Grandpére Vorkosigan called me Little Mouse, because I was so small and very quiet for a baby. One time, my family had been forced to hide very quickly from a Ceta patrol. Everyone was extremely frightened waiting for them to pass. My brother Selig was only five years old, and didn’t understand what was happening, but he could tell something was very wrong. He was scared and started crying. Mama was terrified the Cetas would hear, and got him to hush by pointing out to him how very quiet I was being and did he want people to think he was afraid when his baby brother was not? Heh! I was a baby - I didn’t know enough to be scared!”
Helen, wide-eyed and hanging on every word, looked a bit frightened herself.
“Did those nasty old Cetas find your family, Grand’da?”
“We were very lucky. The Cetas passed right by our hiding place without even a glance. Ever after that, whenever he recounted the story, my grandpére Old Selig would tell people that even though I was just a baby, I somehow knew I had to stay silent not to give them away. ‘Quiet as a mouse, that boy,’ he’d say, ‘a tiny gray-eyed mouse.’ I was always Little Mouse to him after that.”
“Ooh, Grand’da” she sighed, deeply impressed. “That is s-o-o-o awesome! The best nickname I EVER heard!” After a thoughtful pause, she asked, “Um, did you like it?”
“Very much so. But only from family and the General-my-Father’s troops, during the Occupation.” He’d taken some nasty teasing and ridicule about it from a group of his brother’s friends, but Selig - his beloved Siggie - put a definitive stop to that by giving the bullies a surprisingly vicious beating. Aral had never seen his brother angry before. He’d had had to pull Siggie off his would-be tormentors before anyone got seriously hurt. It scared him very badly, seeing his always easy-going big brother like that. No one outside of the family (other than his Greekie prep school roommate, with his permission) ever called him Little Mouse again…
“Grand’da? she asked, looking up at him earnestly, and not surprisingly, sleepy looking. Cordelia would be happy - he had tired her out! She’d sleep well tonight, at any rate.
“Yes, Half-Pint?”
She nestled even more snugly into his arms. It felt so amazingly good, as it had all those years ago with Miles. She was clearly struggling to keep her eyes open. “What’s a ‘pudge’?”
“It’s short for ‘pudgy’. Do you know what pudgy means?”
She shook her curly head negatively.
“It means ‘chubby.’ When you were a baby, you had the most comically pudgy cheeks for the first year. Quite squirrel-like.” He blew out his own cheeks to illustrate the effect, the effort richly rewarded by her giggles. “Unlike your father at the same age, whose face generally resembled a drowned rat. A most endearing drowned rat, to be sure, but still... Heh! Your grandmother despaired of him ever gaining weight those first few years. He could still stand to gain a few pounds, if you ask me.”
“Ah,” said Helen, digesting that nugget of information. Then, “Is Uncle Mark pudgy?”
“I would have to classify your Uncle Mark as a bit more on the portly side rather than merely pudgy, although your Aunt Kareen says he’s finally seen a doctor about having his metabolism regulated. She and your grandmother have been trying to convince him for years that all that extra weight is just not good for him, no matter how much he wants to not be mistaken for your father.”
“Why does Uncle Mark not want to look like Da?”
“It’s a long story, Pet. You’d have to ask him, but my guess is it’s simply because he’s Mark, not Miles, and he wants to make sure everyone knows that, in no uncertain terms.” He shifted her position a little so that when she finally nodded off - and she was just about there now - his arm wouldn’t fall asleep along with her, a lesson painfully learned with Miles.
“Oh. That’s okay, then.”
She went so quiet and still he thought she was asleep. I just might not be averse to grabbing a few winks myself right now. His eyes had just fluttered closed when she spoke.
“Pudge, Grand’da. You can call me Pudge.”
“Pudge it is, then, Pudge.”
Laughing, she graced him with a kiss on the cheek and a very long, slow hug. “I wish you didn’t live here on Sergyar, so I could give you a hug EVERY day, Grand’da. That would be very, very wonderful.”
His eyes were very close to watering. “So it would, Pudge. So, it would. We’ll just have to get all our hugs in before you leave. And when you’re back on Barrayar, whenever you hug your Da, think of me. I’ll know.”
“I know what I’ll do! I’ll give him two hugs every time. One for him and one for you! You can never give too many hugs.”
Or get them, he mused. “That’s a brilliant plan, Pudge. Genius!”
***
Late that night, while lying in bed flirting with sleep, with Cordelia’s arms and legs entwined around his own despite the heat, dwindling though it was, he reviewed the events of the day. It had been a joy spending so much one-on-one time with his oldest granddaughter. Tomorrow, he hoped to do the same with Aral Alexander. The only thing he regretted about the viceregal appointment was that it kept him from spending nearly enough time with with his sons - Gregor included - and their families. The viceroyalty was an essential job and not just busywork, he knew that, but he also knew that Gregor could have appointed any number of qualified people. He long suspected Cordelia had a hand in his appointment, after his health scare and the new heart forced him to give up his position as Prime Minister. He could easily imagine her putting a bug in their foster son’s ear about giving The Old Man a new job that wasn’t too stressful but entailed enough work to keep him moderately busy and out of the capital. Out of the capital, he didn’t mind so much, but away from Barrayar… Well, he lived to serve... always had. Service and sacrifice, his motto!
The afternoon with Helen - Pudge - had been enlightening, in a whimsical way. Hopefully, he had managed to pass on some cherished family history to her. He had always been a firm believer that one was never too old to learn new life lessons, and said lessons could be taught by anyone... one of life’s greatest pleasures, in his opinion. One never knew where the next one would come from! He embraced that philosophy with every fiber of his being. What he had learned today - or rather, had been delightfully reminded of what he had once known very long ago - was the enchanting wisdom of a child:
1.) Play in the mud whenever you get the chance.
2.) Sometimes it’s good to eat dessert first.
3.) You can never give too many hugs. Or get them.
Count Aral Vorkosigan, current Viceroy of Sergyar, retired admiral, legendary Lord Regent and former Prime Minister of Barrayar, fell asleep smiling, an exhausted but very happy man.