Chapter Text
The sun hung bright in the cloudless sky, flattening colors and perspective. Ekaterin put a hand to her forehead to block the light. The zipweed was looking splendid as always; its complement, the scrubwire, had improved after the latest supplement of native organic matter to the soil.
She strolled along the paths, enjoying the opportunity, so rare these days, to inspect her own garden. Well, not hers exactly. It had been a gift to the public of Vorbarr Sultana, and several of them were visiting on this autumn morning: looking at plants, or walking arm-in-arm ignoring them; she was glad either way. In another sense, it very much belonged to her and Miles, a garden of memories and significant events, and a symbol of... how they were Barrayar, she supposed.
Reaching the dark red mass of the skellytum, she frowned. It had not recovered well from its transplantation. Since it was three meters tall, and the very first plant she'd placed in the garden, she'd hoped to keep it where it was, but the damage had been too extensive. If only she'd diagnosed the mysterious greening up one side sooner -- but none of them, not the Vorkosigan household, nor ImpSec, nor the historians at Vorbarr Sultana University, had known about the secret cellar of the demolished mansion that had once stood on this site, until its alkaline remains had been discovered by the skellytum's questing roots. Digging to solve the mystery had weakened the plant further, and she'd had to have it moved. It would survive; it had survived so much already, and she was determined to give it every chance. But it was hard to watch it struggle.
She waved to the university students conducting a painstaking excavation of the cellar site, hoping to find historical treasures, nodded to the wife of a ministerial assistant Miles had befriended during a recent case, and to a vaguely familiar Vorish ensign, and, when no one was watching, bent over a bed of crabpatch to yank out a few of the seedling maple trees that still, years after the parent tree had been removed, continued to infest the garden of native plants.
"Oh! Lady Vorkosigan, there you are!" Ekaterin turned; it was Hannah, one of the maids, approaching in a rush. "Oh, milady! You're wanted at the house. It's" -- Hannah whispered, though no one was close enough to overhear them -- "it's the Emperor come to visit."
"Yes, I see," Ekaterin said, hand over her forehead again, looking back toward Vorkosigan House. She hadn't heard the groundcar approach, but the extra milling figures around the gate declared the advent of Someone Important, and the Imperial livery on some of them confirmed it. "Calm down, Hannah. He's been here plenty of times before."
"Yes, milady, but he usually comes as Count Vorbarra, and brings the Countess. He's all alone today, and he had himself announced as the Emperor."
Curious phenomena, both the reaction to differing identities and the construing of "alone." Ekaterin looked at the guards spreading out around her house, and said, "Let's sneak in through the kitchens, Hannah. I'll have to change my clothes after playing in the dirt out here."
"Milady, he said to just come as you are, no reason to fuss," Hannah said, completely awed. "I'll just take your soiled gloves and--"
"Let's still go in through the kitchens. I promise, no fussing."
Ten minutes later, after a hasty hand-washing and hair-tidying under Ma Kosti's distracted eye -- she was already putting fit-for-the-Emperor tidbits on a tray -- Ekaterin walked into the library and found the ruler of three planets on the sofa reading to her two elder children a story about a horse lost in a forest, while Elizabeth worked at unbuckling his boots.
"Oh, Lizzie, stop it," she said, retrieving her youngster, and then, belatedly, "Hello, Gregor. Sorry; Miles has been letting her do that. He thinks she's going to be an engineer."
"It's fine. I'm used to it." He handed the viewer to Sasha. "How about you and Helen go with Armsman Rahula and show him what words you can read out of this? And Lizzie," he added, looking her very seriously in the eye, "I think your nurse" -- wringing her hands in the doorway -- "has a nap in mind for you. I want to have a talk with your mother."
It took considerably more than that to get the children packed off -- Sasha and Helen were expert at the last-minute delaying tactic -- and then the tray arrived. They talked about the upcoming birth of the Vorbarras' second daughter, and that of little Taura, and about her name-giver, while the coffee was poured and everything arranged by far more servants than Ekaterin had thought she had, and then finally Gregor cleared his throat in that His-Imperial-Majesty-Hates-To-Say-This-But way, and everyone vanished, the door clicking closed behind them.
"Oh, dear," Ekaterin said. "What a circus."
"No, it's perfect," said Gregor. "I love coming here; it's reassuring to know someone besides my own children thinks I'd rather be climbed on than bowed to. Plus," he added indistinctly around something in puff pastry, "Ma Kosti. Mm."
"Well, it's very nice to see you. And" -- she nodded her head in a gesture toward formality -- "to what do we owe the honor, Sire? Miles isn't home, but of course you know that. You just sent him to the Vorrutyer's District yesterday."
"Yes. A pretty little problem, though I think Olivia's solved it thoroughly already. But he'll enjoy being shown around and given dinner and a good gossip."
Ekaterin frowned. "Are you saying you got him out of the way on purpose?"
"Well... yes. That sounds rather improper, doesn't it, getting the husband out of town in order to call on his wife. But I wanted to talk to you." Gregor took a sip of coffee, evidently in no hurry to start talking. The ease of his interactions with children and servants was wearing off; he looked nervous.
"You must have had to clear a lot out of your schedule to visit. I could have--"
"As if you didn't have a schedule too," he chided her. "I'm the Emperor, after all; I should be able to cancel a few appointments. And... it's important. I think it may be the most important--" He broke off. "I don't know where to start."
"At the beginning? Or," she tried when he made a helpless gesture, "you could tell me why you came to me. You have advisors galore; you have Miles and the other Auditors; you have Laisa."
"Oh, Laisa knows. She's been wonderful about it, really. But I can't... it just feels..." He put the coffee cup down; Ekaterin thought his hand was shaking. "I needed someone... less involved. And someone who isn't going to rush off immediately and do something."
"Hence not Miles. I see."
"There are other reasons for not Miles. Though he'll have to know eventually, I suppose."
"Who else does know?" About the thing you can't seem to tell me yet. "Besides Laisa."
"Guy Allegre, and inevitably a few other ImpSec staff have bits of it, but it's his job to plug any leaks there. And Aral, of course."
"Of course?"
"Sorry. I'm not explaining this very well. Aral called me yesterday morning. About a month ago, he met someone at a performance at the new Imperial Theatre... did you hear it's finished? Sounds like it came out splendidly... anyway, the director of a traveling theatre troupe. She maneuvered him into a dressing room and talked at him... made a try at seducing him too, from what I gather. I can just imagine."
Gregor seemed to go off in a reverie for a moment, long enough for Ekaterin to interrupt. "Gregor, what are you talking about? I can tell you're upset about something..."
"Or I wouldn't be so incoherent? Yes, I... it's just hard to know how to... did Miles ever tell you about Cavilo?"
"No, I don't think so. Who or what is that?"
"Who. Her." He made a gesture in front of his face, like wiping clean a slate, and took a breath. "I did something remarkably stupid when I was twenty-five, and ended up halfway across the galaxy, alone, and Miles found me, pretty much by accident. And -- it was complicated, but -- she captured us. Miles got thrown in the brig until she tried to murder him by proxy, which, him being Miles, saved Our Imperial Ass as well as his own. I was... not in the brig." He sighed. "She had this plan, you see. To become Empress."
"Oh," said Ekaterin. Gregor was known for his brevity and ability to summarize, but this account seemed unreasonably succinct. One thread, she could pull out easily enough. "Did she... seduce you?"
"I'm not sure. I mean, yes, in the usual sense, but since I knew right away what she was after... what she was like... it was just as much my pretense as hers. I had to keep it up for six days."
Ekaterin, already flustered, let out a snort, and then was horrified. Her hand went to her mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she said, at the same second that Gregor burst out laughing.
"That's the other reason I like visiting here," he said when he recovered. "I don't have nearly enough people around who dare to even notice when I hand them a straight line like that. Thank goodness you're not Ivan; I can just imagine what he'd have done with it. Ekaterin," he said, leaning forward, all seriousness again. "Lady Vorkosigan. I have to be the Emperor here today, a little. Can you...?" He gestured her hands together, and surrounded them with his own. "Do you give your name's word, and swear by your allegiance to me, Gregor Vorbarra, that you will not divulge without permission anything I tell you here today?"
"I do, Sire," she said, without hesitation, but almost shivering as she felt the tension in his grasp. "By my duty to you and my word as Vorvayne and Vorkosigan." Gregor was covering all the bases; it was not traditional to ask a Vor woman to swear by her name (any of those she had in a lifetime) but he was good at both keeping and throwing out traditions simultaneously.
"Good," he said, releasing her. "That's over. Now" -- his taut intensity vanished -- "as my friend, please feel free to ignore the aura of power and, as your dignity allows, to make jokes about The Imperial Prick, or tell me I've been one as the case may be. All right?"
"All right," she said. "Um. Six days, you say?"
"It wasn't quite that... constant. She had other things to do, like running a mercenary company, and plotting, and killing people, and trying to kill other people... not a nice woman, you may have gathered. She didn't even do charm very well; her smile never got to her eyes. Beautiful eyes, though. Like blue diamonds. Hard." He cleared his throat. "I felt like two versions of myself, that week. One was aware, calculating, hoping to figure out a plan of escape or be rescued. The other was... willing to be swept off my feet, I guess. I had no trouble, um, performing with her. I suppose that's what it was, really, a performance. At least it helps to think of it that way."
"Yes," Ekaterin said. "I understand that." There had been days upon days, nights upon nights, with Tien. "But you're two people most of the time, aren't you? Or three, actually," she added, remembering Hannah's distinction.
"I just did that trick, didn't I?" he said, folding his hands to mimic their oath. "Yes. I told Miles, at the time, that I'd put aside my personal honor. In service to the Imperium, was the implication, not that I really believed it then. I hadn't figured out yet that Gregor-the-Emperor was a real person too."
"I think it's all you, really. Not different people; I misspoke. Different aspects, perhaps."
Gregor nodded. "Sharing a body. Which was pretty heavily in use that week. I had her convinced; I guess that was the Emperor's job just then. And Gregor's." He smiled sadly. "I think Miles was having more fun. If not nearly as many orgasms."
Ekaterin managed not to blush, but whatever comment the cool and forthright Imperial Confidante should have come up with, it was out of her grasp. Cordelia or Laisa would have done much better. "Oh?" she said, inadequately.
Gregor didn't seem to notice her discomfort. "It's one of the few things -- there are two I can think of -- for which I actually owe Cavilo. Finding out that I was good at my job. You'd think that would have been demeaning, given the circumstances, but I discovered that the skills carried over pretty well. The less carnal of them, I mean."
"What was the other thing?"
"Point of comparison. It's how I knew Laisa was for real. That I didn't have to worry she was after my power and my money and not me, myself. I knew what that looked like." He drank some coffee with a pensive air. "I gather it still looks much the same."
"So it was Cavilo that Aral spoke with at the theatre?"
"Oh yes. In all her glory."
"And... what? Was she trying to blackmail you? Through him?"
"Not... exactly."
"It was a long time ago, after all. And before you were married."
"Yes, and it wasn't by any means the most embarrassing part of that adventure. And though she was disappointed in becoming Empress, she did pretty well out of the caper, financially. ImpSec kept an eye on her afterwards, when they could catch up with her -- a guarded but somewhat admiring eye, if I'm reading Guy right. She's still acquisitive, still unscrupulous, possibly a little wiser. The murder of the former director of the Caucasus Players remains unsolved."
Gregor's tone had become increasingly chipper and brittle as he spoke. It wasn't like Miles's babbling -- he tended to become desperately engaging -- but it unsuccessfully masked the same sort of anxiety. "So, why was she talking to Aral?" Ekaterin said, emphasizing each word rather as though questioning Sasha or Helen about the latest mysterious breakage. "What did she want?"
Gregor put his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. Ekaterin waited, and in a moment he looked up again, propping his chin on steepled fingers, and said, "She wanted to tell me I have a son."
Ekaterin wasted not a second of well, of course you do; two in fact misunderstanding; it was as if the whole heavy reality of the situation thudded down on her shoulders at once. It was already bowing Gregor's, and she realized that he'd been burdened all along, that the weight had been crushing him through his reading to Helen and Sasha, his tolerance of servant chaos and budding-engineer boot-fiddling, had been implicit in his tense smiles and his unaccustomed frankness and his sentences that trailed off in the middle. His whole being, Emperor and Gregor in one, was radiating Terrible Insurmountable Problem, and much as she wanted to solve it, she wanted to comfort him more. Before she knew what she was doing, she was on the sofa with her arms around him, as though he'd been a child wailing from a fall.
She had a brief vision of the first time she'd been shown into Gregor's office, with Nikki, to talk about the rumors surrounding Tien's death. She'd felt awed and nervous at being in The Presence, with barely any energy to spare to be annoyed with Miles for not telling her who he'd arranged to have them meet; at least Uncle Vorthys had given her the heads-up before they arrived. But very soon, she'd become... not exactly comfortable, but certain she was in good hands -- and they were Gregor's hands, not the Emperor's. It had helped that both Miles and Uncle Vorthys had made their confidence clear, but it was mostly Gregor himself, his seriousness, his intensity, his... it had been almost a paternal aura, oddly, since Gregor hadn't yet had any children. That he knew about, oh dear. Father of his empire, she supposed. The Emperor, integral with the man. And here she was, patting him on the head.
"Now," she said -- he was submitting to her impromptu embrace more readily than she'd expected, and she didn't want him breaking down -- "tell me all about it. I need data, dammit."
He grinned a little at her imitation of Miles, hugged her back for a second, and let go. Reaching for the coffeepot, he freshened his cup -- she loved men who poured their own coffee without a thought -- and took a sip. "He'd be about Nikki's age," he said, and paused.
"Ah."
Gregor's lip curled. "That's not why I'm here," he said. "Neither help, a teenage boy nor product of first unsuccessful relationship. The circumstances are very different, and I know that." She nodded, and he went on, "He seems to be calling himself Serg. Which, aside from being effrontery of the first order, means either a shallow knowledge of Barrayaran history or... something else."
Ekaterin had been shocked to learn that one of her brothers' childhood heroes had been a sadist and pervert... and that it hadn't got out. Miles had always been reticent on the subject, and then had explained it all to her at the time of little Crown Prince Xav's birth. In fact he'd used much the same language she and Gregor had today: Serg had been two people. Not in the same way as Gregor, though; Serg had been his own, mad self, and others around him had created the hero from a prince-shaped outline and a few tatters of gold cloth.
"You said he's calling himself that. Did she name him Serg?"
"Aral says no. He said... let me back up. Cavilo came to Aral hoping he'd inform me of the boy's existence; she can't really have thought I'd make him my heir, but she wanted something, some gesture of acknowledgment perhaps. Or that was the first story. Aral countered her at every turn, and she apparently gave up and told him it was all a lie and to please go away and not bother her." Gregor took a deep breath. "And then he ran into Serg in the hallway, and... it seems he looks like me. A great deal. So much so that Aral wondered if he was my clone instead of my son. And then he wondered if he was seeing things. He'd wanted to believe Cavilo when she said she'd made the story up, but on the other hand it was a powerful mental image and he thought he might have projected it. Serg looks Barrayaran, but..."
"It's possible he's someone else's son? I mean, given Cavilo's, um, behavior..."
"She dumped another lover to get into bed with me, and she would have slept with Miles too if--" Gregor stopped. "He was smarter than me. And she was very... short. Did I tell you that? Anyway" -- he got over his fluster and went on more coherently -- "Aral was on the comm to Guy Allegre right away, and Guy told him not to blab to anyone, especially me, and ImpSec would check it out. They managed to acquire a genetic sample somehow, compared it to mine, and... it matches up in the right proportions, I guess. He's my son. Not a clone. He just doesn't take after his mother. At least physically."
"But..." Ekaterin had been trying to avoid imagining the scenario, but realities kept edging in. "Look... Nikki was a body birth. When Tien and I decided to conceive, I had to have my implant removed, and then... it took a few months."
Gregor shrugged. "Six days. I know. Laisa says it's possible, though, if she was using -- and then not using -- a different sort of contraception. She reminds me, dryly, that Barrayar went from sheep-gut sheaths to the galactic standard overnight, missing quite a lot along the way. Or Cavilo could have taken a semen sample, or anything else I'd left behind, and had an embryo made that way. It doesn't matter much; he exists."
"So... you said a month ago..."
"Guy asked Aral to keep it quiet. Aral debated with himself, pretty furiously I think -- there was that heart scare a couple of weeks ago--"
Ekaterin gasped. "Yes. You mean that was because of--"
Gregor nodded, looking even more woebegone. "It's my fault. Entirely."
"It is not your fault." She shook him by the shoulder. "But he did tell you."
"He did. Apparently it's exactly what Cavilo said would happen, as Aral explained to me ruefully. He finally told Guy no, I don't care about implications security or otherwise, in no way will I keep this from Gregor, and he called me. And then Guy called me too."
"But no one else knows. Not Cordelia?"
"Well, Aral said he hadn't told her. But I bet she's got it out of him by now. I'm expecting to hear from her any day. And then Miles will find out, and Ivan, and Henri, and..." He put his face in his hands again. "I need to know what's really going on, before this becomes general public knowledge."
"I think you're exaggerating. Surely a few of us can keep a secret. I made my oath, and I won't tell even Miles unless you ask me to. Though it would be better if you told him, in that case."
"Yes, but he'll..." Gregor looked up. "He never has that moment, does he? Not the what-do-I-do-next moment, he has those, but the I-wish-I-could-do-nothing moment. When you just want it all to go away. A wise woman said to him" -- Miles's tones, perfectly -- "you just go on. Well, sometimes I can't. Sometimes I just want to sit down and let the world happen around me, and not touch any of it. To have no influence, no weight." He pulled at his hair. "Damn it all. Why didn't I tell her... I don't know, that Barrayaran emperors had to stay virginal until marriage."
Ekaterin wanted to hug him again, but this time he really would break down. She gave him a curt little laugh instead, and said, "You're hardly the first emperor to scatter by-blows about."
Gregor groaned. "There had better not be more of them. And I didn't... scatter. I barely even tossed."
"I'm joking. She stole this child from you, it seems to me. You didn't have much of a choice in creating him."
"Yes, but that's not the point." He sat up, looking grim. "I want to meet him. That's my 'just go on.' And then we'll... see what happens."
Ekaterin checked are you sure that's a good idea? Bound to trigger defensiveness. "What do you know about this boy?" she asked more cautiously.
The twist in Gregor's mouth told her what was coming: not the details, but the essential disaster of it. "He may have been raised on Eta Ceta. ImpSec is still following some leads there; Aral thinks that part of Cavilo's story was a lie. He has also likely visited Jackson's Whole, and has certainly spent some time on Earth. For his age, he's extraordinarily accomplished in at minimum one style of sword fighting, or at least the stage combat version thereof. Again, facts still to be established. He's a decent actor, fit and apparently healthy, and Aral thinks he has cruel eyes. And he's good at disappearing; no one knows where he is just now."
"Oh, dear."
"Oh shit, is more like it. My son." Gregor sounded oddly... satisfied by the bitter declaration.
"He's not just your son. He's not, by any normal reckoning, your son at all, except that he has some of your genes." Which, considering Prince Serg... well, yes. Do consider him. "Upbringing makes a difference; you should know that. Besides, it's an incomplete portrait. Who knows what he's really like?"
"That's why I want to meet him. But being the Emperor doesn't mean I get my way in matters like this. If there are any other matters like this. One hopes not."
"There was Mark."
"True. But Mark is the younger son, and it was Cordelia and Aral deciding to call him that" -- Gregor's tone made it clear that Cordelia and Aral could do anything they wanted and no one would get in their way -- "and there was the whole business with Miles being dead, and... it was different."
"Of course. Every situation is different; you don't get perfect echoes. Just like Nikki coming out of a loving marriage that went bad, and Serg out of..."
"Six days of sweaty sex in a tiny little spaceship cabin, yes. Mark gives me a precedent for what will be an entirely new decision, is that what you're saying? Thanks."
"Well, what do you want then, Gregor?" she said, letting herself be irritated by him. "Why are you here? Are you hoping I'll talk you into defying your advisors, or talk you out of it? Or did you just want my ears?"
Gregor sat back, surprised, and regarded her in a way she recognized; she felt, under his eye, not only that she had his full attention, but that she existed more solidly and significantly than she'd previously been aware. This time, she knew she'd ripped him away from his own tortured imaginings, but the gaze was no less flattering and in fact made her sure she'd distracted him to the good.
"It helps to say it all out loud," he told her, "and I appreciate your listening to me, but I do need more than that. Your salient characteristic, in my opinion" -- clearly the personal, not the Imperial opinion -- "is prudence: you consider with care, and do the right thing most of the time. And yet, you can be imprudent when there's need... to the greater good of Barrayar, I need not add. I think that's what I require right now; rather than, say, Miles's particular imbalanced contradiction of decision and paralysis."
"You're pretty prudent yourself."
"Except when I'm not. Yes. Then what I need is a mirror, but one with its own strongly felt opinions, not afraid to tell me... that the Emperor has no clothes, or is otherwise a fool."
"I don't think you're that. You said 'require.' Is that a 'request and require'?"
He shook his head. "Not unless you want it to be. I don't think I can compel an honest opinion, anyway. I've tried; it never works."
"All right." She was still sitting close beside him on the sofa. The sun had risen higher outside, which paradoxically made this room darker: not so dark that she couldn't see his face if she moved back to her chair. But she stayed where she was: closeness, and the potential of touch, were important. "I'm your mirror, then. Not because I share with you a habit of watchfulness and slow choices, but because I'm one of your subjects, and therefore I am part of you, the you that is the Imperium personified. No" -- she held up a hand to forestall his objection -- "you can be Gregor again in a minute. Be the Emperor. Is meeting with this young man, assuming you can find him, to the good of the Empire? Would acknowledging him as your son be good, Imperially speaking?"
Gregor sighed. "It depends," he said. "No, wait, give me a chance. I'm being rational here. It depends entirely on him. I don't know yet what he wants. Truth tends to emerge, given time -- I think, for example, that there are fewer people on this planet who regard my father as a great hero, these days -- and if we do nothing decisive, this truth will get out. So it's perhaps better that I make a gesture, and a declaration, now; unless Serg is after my throne, in which case it sounds like a really bad idea."
"ImpSec should be able to help you there. His actions will illustrate his motivations." Gregor shrugged, then nodded. "If his intents are covetous and disruptive," she went on, "what then?"
"He'd have to actually do something toward that goal, but then..." Gregor drew a finger across his throat. "We wouldn't have any choice."
"The Imperial we?"
"All of Us, yes." His voice was taut with pain, but an ironic tinge lingered. "It would be quite a shouting match in here."
"And what would Gregor be shouting?"
He closed his eyes and his head went back a little, baring his throat; Ekaterin realized then that he'd drawn the symbol of judicial murder on his own body, instead of, say, miming a nerve disruptor. He swallowed, hard.
"Oh, my son," he said: not a shout but a whisper.
After a moment he bowed his head, not opening his eyes. "When I met her," he said, clearly meaning Cavilo, "I was running away. I'd been at a conference on Komarr; I'd found out some things about my father; and I had too much to drink. So I climbed off my balcony -- almost took a lethal dive, but some absurd sense of self-preservation kicked in -- and I headed off-planet. I expect I was still dragging suicidal impulses when she took me to bed." His eyes opened and he lifted his hands off his knees, staring at them as if he'd never seen them before. "There is something about sex that makes you look forward to tomorrow, you know? Even if you're dreading it at the same time."
"Yes, I know. I know about Komarran balconies, too." Though she hadn't offered to throw herself off one. "And survival."
"I bet you do." He gave her a potent glance. "Those domes," he said, "don't tell Laisa, but I really hated them. Barrayar... has its faults, but..."
"The open sky. Real air. Plants."
"Plants, yes." Gregor squared his shoulders. "So, enough about me; how are you?" he said.
Ekaterin laughed, a half-hysterical release of energy. "Busy," she said. "As usual. Playing all my different roles."
Gregor shook his head. "You integrate very well. Better than I do, apparently. I'm sorry I landed another task on you."
"No, it's... good, actually. Being called on to serve the Emperor is the best excuse to ignore other responsibilities."
"Ah. As Miles has discovered all too well?"
She hesitated, but in this matter Gregor's insight was excellent. "It would be worse if he had no faith in my competence. I'm glad he trusts me."
"He had damn well better trust you. Find someone you trust, and delegate, all right? And let me know if I'm leaning on him too hard. On either of you."
"I will. Thank you." She paused, but Gregor said nothing else. "That was rather abrupt," she ventured.
"Mm?"
"I mean... you hadn't decided..."
"There isn't much point going on, since I have no idea what to do. Damn!" he said, looking as though he wanted to punch something, and not doing it. "I thought... I thought everything was going so well; that my world was settled. My personal world, I mean; crises of state come and go, but I have Laisa and the children, and my friends, and... I suppose any of you could die at any moment, but I would have had you, and... I was good with myself, had stopped wondering if this was the year Mad Yuri's genes would triumph, finally sleeping well... except for midnight feedings and teething pains and goodness knows we're lucky enough to treat those like an indulgence and let the nurse step in when needed. And really the Imperium is in pretty good shape altogether. Gregor the Generally Fortunate." He took a breath. "And now this. Why? Why this particular sin, coming back to haunt me?"
"Do you have a long list of others?"
"Actually... no. I've done penance for quite a few. Been forgiven for some. This one... I'd mostly forgotten about. I suppose that answers my question. In a cosmic sense. Doesn't help much."
There was something unanswered about his question, though; something Ekaterin couldn't quite grasp. "Well," she said, "when I'm feeling boxed in like that, I try to go outside. Do you think that would help? I was doing a garden walk when you arrived, noting things to be fixed."
"That sounds... perfectly lovely," said Gregor, and then his eye fell on the table. "Can we take Ma Kosti's treats? She might feel insulted if we left them here."
They bundled them into a napkin, and stepped directly out the French doors into the house's back garden, to avoid the complications of children. Gregor told the Armsman waiting there of their intentions, and he muttered into his wristcom. By the time they arrived at the public garden, it was far less public; guards stood at every entrance point and visitors were being escorted out, though Ekaterin could still see activity around the cellar dig. Gregor's Armsmen would obviously have liked to surround their master at close hand, but he waved them back to perimeter guarding, and strolled on almost happily, snacking and listening to Ekaterin point out botanical curiosities.
"And here are more of those bothersome maple trees," she said, stopping at the crabpatch bed again. "I've thought maybe we should let one grow, since this is the Vorkosigan garden after all, but then we'd have even more seedlings. And they are Earth imports as much as the Vorkosigans ultimately are. This is supposed to be Barrayar, if an arranged gardeny version of it. Gardens aren't ever the real world. But they are real." She reached down and pulled out a little tree. "That feeling you described," she said, "the one where you don't want to make any decisions, to be weightless in the world? I know that one. When I feel that way, I try to come out here and weed. You say to yourself, well, I can't address the bigger stuff right now, but I can pull out this plant that doesn't belong" -- she tugged -- "and that one" -- again -- "and one more. And pretty soon, the other things start making sense. Want to try?"
Gregor looked around for a place to put the napkin with the remaining pastries; she took it from him and pocketed it, and he squatted down. "There," he said, pulling out a creeping vine she pointed to. "And a start on the delegation problem I mentioned too, hm?"
She laughed, wondering at the world she'd found herself in, where the Emperor did her weeding. "So back to your trouble," she said between yanks. "I'm thinking -- it's just come clear to me -- that you shouldn't just be asking why this is happening, but why now. Why didn't Cavilo make her appeal when Serg was younger, before you were married and had your own family?"
"Mm. She apparently didn't have him when he was younger. Remember I said she'd claimed he was brought up by the Cetagandans? Aral's doubtful either of them could have escaped, though I'm not so sure. But if she's not lying, it was just three years ago she got Serg back."
"And if she is lying... why? If she's trying to make you feel guilty for conceiving him -- which is ridiculous but nevertheless effective -- then you'd feel worse if she claimed to have brought him up all alone. There's no power of pathos in saying the Cetagandans raised him. It's more like a threat." She paused, her hand on a sprig of ivy. "Maybe it was a threat."
"You mean he's a Cetagandan weapon? Or... but I'm even less likely to declare him my heir if he's Ceta-raised than if she raised him. And she's not stupid. Unfocused and a bit crazy perhaps, but not stupid."
"Then maybe that's not what she was after." Gregor looked at her, shook his head, and yanked out the last of the maple seedlings. "Thank you," Ekaterin said; she started to rise and then spotted... what was that? Chuffweed? She certainly hadn't planted that; Miles was horribly allergic to it, and it wasn't pleasant for anyone else to encounter either. She pulled it out with caution and put it in her pocket for later identification. "Let's walk again," she said.
Gregor led the way, as if drawn, to the skellytum; it was certainly, to the untrained eye, the most impressive thing in the garden. "My," he said, "this has grown. Though it looks a little... oh, that's right, Miles said you had to move it. Yes: the cellar. How's that going?"
"Want to see? I haven't had a chance to look at the excavation in more than a week." They strolled over, ducking under the cautionary tape that marked the site. No one was working above ground now; they peered down into the hole and, beyond the ladder, could see only a pair of legs sticking out from some no-doubt fascinating corner. "Hello," Ekaterin called.
"Good morning," said a voice behind them. "Interested in venturing below?"
She turned. The young man was dressed in casual clothes, appropriate for digging: not a student she'd met before, but familiar. She'd seen him dressed differently... in uniform. The ensign she'd nodded to on the path earlier, yes. But that wasn't it...
She looked at Gregor; he was staring, fascinated. And then, she knew where she'd seen that face before, or one very like it: in the vids and portraits of her Emperor, just prior to emerging from his Regency to become leader in his own right.
The boy lifted the edge of his tunic to show that he was armed: the hilt of a knife, decoratively carved, no doubt with a wicked blade and a swift, trained hand to wield it. He met Gregor's eyes again, and smiled.
"Hello, Da," he said.