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Cordelia could have forgiven him, Piotr thinks, for having tried to kill her son. She’s odd that way, Betan. It’s for how he’s taught him to live afterwards that she hates him.
Cordelia has been arguing with Miles again about school, about his future, about being a soldier. Miles thinks his mother has no faith in him, somewhere beneath all that Betan kindness. It’s not that. It’s just that Cordelia thinks that if she argues hard enough, logically enough, Miles will stop being Vor.
It won’t work of course.
Cordelia could forgive Piotr for hating her son, so long as he wasn’t a present threat. She cannot forgive him for loving him, for taking him up into the Dendarii mountains and teaching him how war is made, for guiding and shaping him into something strong as the mountain’s roots, something she can’t understand.
It’s foolishness of course, to blame Piotr for it all.
Miles has Vorkosigan blood flowing through his veins, strong and true. His bones may be brittle, but the bones of his soul are old and strong and hard as the Dendarii mountains. Miles belongs here, to these mountains, to the District.
I did not steal your son from you, Cordelia, Piotr thinks, He was born to this.
Piotr had wanted Miles, then Piotr, to be District Born, in those happy few months when he and Cordelia were in one accord. Aral wasn’t born in the District. Vorkosigan District wasn’t safe back then, and in any case, Olivia was Princess, and that took precedence. So all of Piotr’s children were born in Vorbarr Sultanna, he’d always regretted it a little.
Dreams have a way of dying. Sometimes Piotr looks around himself, at the next generation, at the new Galactic world they’re living in, and he feels terribly old.
He was wrong about Miles. He’ll admit that, in his head if nowhere else. There is a long, long list of things his ancestors would hate him for, and accepting Lord Miles Vorkosigan into his heart sits lightly on the pile. Miles will be Count Vorkosigan one day. Miles, who is more than half Betan, who was born out of a machine in Vorbarr Sultanna, who is small and brittle and deformed, will one day be Count Vorkosigan. What is the world coming to?
The answer is this: the Cetagandans coming down from the sky with death and poison. Vorkosigan Vashnoi a glassy crater that glows in the dark. A small and broken count for a small and broken district, but magnificent for all that, surviving nevertheless.
Piotr had thought he had learned the art of never giving up long since. He thought he understood what it was to never admit defeat, even against the most impossible of odds. To survive and survive and never accept death as an option. Cordelia taught it to him again. Cordelia and Miles, who faces pain more bravely than any man Piotr knows.
Miles came out of a machine in Vorbarr Sultanna, but he’s district born for all that, down to the roots of his soul. Miles loves the district, Piotr saw that when Miles was six years old, and having seen that, how could Piotr deny his district to him?
Cordelia says that Barrayar eats her children. She’ll say it, watching Gregor becoming Emperor, and all the secrets they don’t keep from him (though Piotr thinks the secrets they do keep will be more trouble in the end). She says it, frustrated and angry, when Piotr brings Miles home to her, brimming with delight at all the ugly truths that Piotr’s taught to him, all the ugly reality that Cordelia can’t protect him from.
Barrayar eats her children, Cordelia says, like an accusation, like a revelation. And Piotr thinks, do you think I don’t know that, girl? Do you think you can come to my planet and tell me things about it I don’t know? How can you look at my son and think I don’t know ?
Piotr gave his son as an offering to Barrayar.
Aral was younger than Miles is now when Piotr made a soldier of him. He had been larger than Miles, of course, but still so very small, small for his age, the younger son. And Piotr had dressed him up as a soldier and made him go to war, because justice demanded it, because it was his right.
Because Barrayar required him.
Piotr’s son belonged to Barrayar, not to the district and not to Piotr, and Barrayar swallowed him up, body and mind and soul. And Piotr watched.
Barrayar eats her children, yes, and those she loves best she devours most thoroughly. But this is what Cordelia does not understand: Barrayar must be fed, or else she in turn will be eaten by much larger predators.
Piotr gave his son up willingly. Piotr has bled his district dry for Barrayar and Vorbarran emperors, and his own grandfather’s ghost would kill him for it if it could. Piotr knew, and he gave his son willingly, but it would not have mattered if he had not.
Children are born and then they live, and you cannot choose for them what they are. Aral was never District born. He is Vorbarra as much as Vorkosigan, his mother’s son, and he dreams of the stars and escape.
Barrayar swallowed Aral whole, chewed him up and spat him out again, just to burn what remained to ash. So Piotr will never cease to be grateful to Cordelia for taking him from her. Cordelia Naismith killed Ges Vorrutyer and came back for Aral and was good for him. For that Piotr would consider himself indebted to her as long as he lives.
But still, but still.
Piotr gave Aral up to Barrayar, but it was not Piotr who could save him. Aral is not shaped that way.
If I could shape boys in my image, girl, Piotr thinks, do you think my son would dream of running away with you to Beta colony?
There is something broken now, between Piotr and Aral, something that all the years of Ges Vorrutyer could not even begin to crack.
Aral will never forgive Piotr for trying to kill his son. He is enough Piotr’s son, at least, for that.
It is strange, the odd, twisted redemption of fate.
Piotr gave Aral over to Cordelia with his blessing, and now Cordelia has given him Miles in return.
If there is justice in the world, then Aral will retire one day, and be free of Barrayar at last. He will turn his face towards the stars and away from the District and not look back. In that, Piotr has watched his son’s misery long enough to be content.
Miles will fly away too, because he is the new generation, and he is his mother’s son. He is Vorkosigan, so he will be a soldier, Piotr has no doubt of that. Miles will grow up and command star fleets far from home, like some fantastic fairytale from Piotr’s childhood. But Miles belongs to the District, Miles is Vorkosigan in every fiber of him, and no matter how far he flies, to what strange corners of the nexus, no matter how long he is away, in the end he will come home.
Aral, if fate is kind, will die one day beneath alien stars. But Miles will come home to him, and burn his offering, and rule his District. And that is more than Piotr deserves, Piotr knows, but such things cannot be deserved or shaped or reasoned. They are simply written, indelibly, upon the soul.