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I
The kerfuffle over Lord Piotr’s soulmark threatens to overshadow the joy at the birth of the new heir. Countess Vorkosigan cautions the women attending the lying-in not to speak of the silvery words on the babe’s body to anyone. But Calista Vorrutyer, Lady Vorkosigan’s younger sister, is just 15 and not good at keeping secrets. Trying to impress some of the Vorkosigan cousins her own age, she lets the information slip. The teen girls naturally circulate the tidbit to other members of the household. In less than two hours, the news spreads throughout Castle Vorkosigan Surleau.
Lord Vorkosigan is furious that the story has gotten out. Count Vorkosigan, far more amused than upset, is exhorted by his wife and daughter-in-law to admonish the Family and servants. His warning keeps the talk at bay for a few days.
But at the end of the week, Lord Vorkosigan overhears one of the grooms regaling another with the tale and thrashes him thoroughly. Word of this gets around and stops the gossiping far more permanently.
By the time Lord Piotr is seven, and the whole world changes, no one will admit to remembering what the boy’s words are, or where.
II
Either the words or their placement alone would be embarrassing enough. The two in conjunction, well, Lord Vorkosigan learns very quickly not to let anyone see him naked if he can help it. Which becomes more difficult when at age 13, he is sent to Vorbarr Sultana to apprentice with the Crown Prince and General Yuri Vorbarra. The first week, he breaks the arm of another apprentice who made fun of his mark in the communal shower.
To the teen’s mortification, Prince Yuri laughs his head off upon hearing the reason for the fight.
“Oh, don’t get your panties in a twist, Vorkosigan!” the Prince tells the boy, clapping him companionably on the shoulder. “A little hazing never hurt a man!”
Piotr can’t help the bright blush that paints his cheeks, but he forces down his fury and humiliation. He’s here to learn soldiering, he reminds himself firmly. And a good soldier has no time or energy to spare for hurt feelings.
He is not punished and none of the boys mention his mark again.
III
The summer Piotr turns 22, war comes to the Vorkosigan District. Not that war is so unusual an occurrence on Barrayar, but this one is against Galactics. Galactics who pretended friendship when they first arrived.
Shaking with rage and grief for the destruction of the Castle, the deaths of his only sister and youngest brother, and the near-fatal wounding of his father, Lord Vorkosigan appears before his Emperor to demand justice for Cetagandan treachery. But Dorca’s resources are stretched thin due to his own fight with the invaders; he has no soldiers to put at his vassal’s back, nor arms to supply them if he did. He awards the young Vor lord a brevet promotion to General, giving Piotr the right and duty to raise an army in defense of the Empire.
General Lord Vorkosigan rides out to rally his District, for his father and his Emperor.
Ezar Vorbarra, a distant cousin of Dorca, is at his side when he goes. In normal times it would be unthinkable for two men so close in age – and the “master” so completely untried – to have a formal military apprenticeship agreement. But the Cetagandans have numbers and technology far beyond that of the Barrayarans. Piotr Vorkosigan knows ancient traditions and practices will have to go out the window if they’re to have any chance to win.
His apprentice says nothing the first time he sees the General’s soulmark, his eyes barely even lingering on the words, and for this non-reaction alone Piotr values the younger man. That Ezar also proves to be a competent and wily soldier endears him all the more.
The two grow very close as they endure years of fighting and running and hiding. And if, on occasion, they slip away together to dispel the tension of all that, too… that’s no one’s business but their own.
IV
General Vorkosigan is pulled from sleep by the sound of voices in the passage outside his ‘quarters’ – really only a small cavity in the rambling cave system, made somewhat private by a heavy cloth curtain strung across the opening. The spot beside him on the straw tick is empty. Merde! He must have been out of it if Ezar getting up did not wake him. Well, three days without much more than a catnap will do that to a body.
The voices grow closer. Ezar’s is now readily identifiable; he’s apparently arguing with a young boy. Piotr wonders how the youth made it this far. He'll have to have a discussion with the men on guard duty.
“The General is sleeping!” Ezar says in what is probably meant to be a whisper except that the man can’t modulate his voice for shit except on missions. Piotr’s never understood that.
“I have a message for General Lord Vorkosigan from Emperor Dorca himself,” the higher voice asserts.
What fresh hell is this? Piotr wonders.
“I’m awake, Colonel Vorbarra!” he calls out. “Might as well let him in.”
Ezar curses loudly but the curtains part to admit him and his extremely sour countenance.
“A messenger from the Emperor, General Vorkosigan,” he announces, with just a hint of ironic emphasis on the visitor’s title.
A figure much taller than Piotr expected pushes past Ezar to stand in the dim lantern light of his chambers. The General does a double take. The messenger’s hair is cut short like a boy’s but neither that nor the red and blue tunic and trousers can disguise the feminine curves. Or her beauty.
Ezar grins at the General’s reaction.
Awareness of his own state of undress slams into Piotr. With his soldiers, it would not matter; he lost any remaining concern for modesty very early in the war. With a female courier however….
Wrapping himself in a blanket and his dignity, he says: “What do you want, girl?”
The courier rocks back as if struck, then grabs at her forearm. Her eyes suddenly widen and Piotr notices with consternation that they are hazel. She slides the sleeve of the tunic up to her elbow to reveal a black soulmark. She stares at it for a very long moment before exclaiming:
“Well, fuck, I guess I’m gonna have to marry you!”
A painful sensation blazes across Piotr’s groin and he bends double for a second, breathing hard. Ezar’s expression goes from amused to concerned; he takes several quick steps toward the make-shift bed.
“Piotr?”
Piotr waves a negating gesture at him. “I’m fine!”
In his peripheral vision, he can see the girl is watching him intently. “It’s not supposed to hurt,” she murmurs.
Ezar’s head snaps around to glare at her, unsheathing the knife in his boot. “What have you done to him, girl?” he demands.
“Hold!” Piotr yells, a momentary panic gripping him. “She didn’t do anything. I’m fine, I tell you!”
The Colonel turns a skeptical eye on his commander.
“Put it away, Ezar,” Piotr says more gently. “The girl has done nothing to me. It’s fate or whatever force of the universe that arranges these things.”
He nods in the courier’s direction. Catching his meaning, the raven-haired girl – well, young woman, he assumes – raises her forearm for Ezar’s inspection. Ezar’s own hazel eyes go wide with realization.
“Your soulmate is Xav’s daughter?!” he asks, incredulously. Then he bursts into laughter.
Piotr glares daggers at him but Ezar cannot seem to stop.
“What does my father have to do with this?” the girl asks, and it’s a sincere inquiry. Clearly, she doesn’t know the depth of animosity that exists between Prince Xav Vorbarra and General Lord Piotr Vorkosigan.
Catching hold of his temper, Piotr looks at her straight on. She is gorgeous, resembling her mother more than her father, he thinks, though he has only ever seen pictures of the famous off-worlder wife of Emperor Dorca’s younger son.
“My apologies, Your Highness,” he says neutrally, giving her a small bow-like nod of his head. “Your father and I have rarely seen eye to eye, but that is hardly your fault. And I had never in my wildest dreams thought my soulmate would turn out to be a Vorbarra.”
The word soulmate makes him choke just a little. He basically gave up any hope of ever meeting his, what with the war – and the uncounted Barrayaran casualties it has caused thus far – taking up the whole of his existence for so many years. He feels a thrill of excitement tightening his belly. And not a small amount of perturbation. Marrying any princess was never an ambition of his – though his mother will be thrilled – and marrying this particular princess….
Ah, shit!
“Um,” he clears his throat sheepishly. “Which -uh- which one are you, by the way?” And fuck! He could have worded that a little more politely. Too much time in the company of rough soldiers. His mother would slap him for such rudeness.
The girl – he has got to stop thinking of her as a girl – is apparently not offended. She grins, her lovely eyes sparkling with mirth. “Olivia,” she tells him. She tilts her head and looks at him speculatively. “So, you gonna show me yours?”
Ezar bursts into laughter again. Piotr blanches. Olivia – Princes Olivia Vorbarra, he reminds himself – frowns in confusion, then annoyance.
“Get your mind out of the gutter, cousin!” she orders Ezar in a tone that says she’s used to being heeded. “I meant his soulmark.”
When this statement neither stops her cousin’s laughter, nor noticeably eases the General’s embarrassment, she stomps her foot. And that distracts Piotr momentarily. He really should not find her indignation so endearing.
“Oh, go on and show her, Piotr!” Ezar urges, having finally controlled his laughter. “She’s your soulmate and I...” – he sees Lord Vorkosigan’s glare and changes what he was going to say on the fly – “have seen it many times before.”
Olivia is looking back and forth between the two men, realization dawning slowly. Her frown morphs into blankness as she fights her obvious amusement. A little snort of laughter escapes her lips.
Piotr wants to yell at her, to smack her back into seriousness. But more, he wants to kick Ezar out, take Olivia into his arms, drag her to the bed, show her his blackened words and… whatever else comes up.
He does none of that as he is suddenly reminded why she is here in the first place. “Didn’t you have a message to deliver?”
“Oh!” Olivia rolls her eyes and tosses her head. “That. Yes. I do.”
Lord Vorkosigan glares down at her sternly. “Well?”
She shrugs. “Emperor Dorca summons you to his Presence. I’m to escort you there.”
“The Emperor sent his granddaughter to carry a simple summons?” he asks skeptically.
Her expression goes slightly guilty. “Technically he sent my cousin,” – she looks at Ezar – “one of my other cousins. But I talked him into letting me come. And it’s a good thing I did, now, isn’t it?”
Piotr scowls. She’s not wrong, exactly. But it is a mildly concerning window into the personality of the woman fate seems to mean for him to spend the rest of his life with. He narrows his eyes at her to show his disapproval.
She puts her hands on her hips and glares right back at him.
And Piotr Vorkosigan knows he is royally screwed.