Work Text:
Miles watched as they put his father’s body in the ground, the dry taste of his official eulogy in his throat. He knew full well what it was to be the son of a living legend, a man who had ruled as Regent, served as soldier and guided them all as Count and Minister. Now he would have to learn to be the successor of Count Vorkosigan, to be mentioned in the biographies and to carry on the Vorkosigan name. Time to grow up, Miles. And while at one time Miles had been Aral’s only son, he knew with a bright tinge of jealousy that he was not the only one now mourning for a lost parent. Somehow, he always had to share.
Like a stone statue he stood beside his mother, even with her shoulder. He was unnaturally still, especially to those who knew him well. On her other side, Cordelia was flanked by Mark, whose grief was quiet, drawn inward.
Cordelia was straight-backed and contained, eyes betraying her brokenness, but not through tears. She had married the planet of a man out of love. With him and because of him, she had cared for Miles, Gregor, Ivan, and Mark. It was the Betan in her that, in grief, stripped the men of their cumbersome titles. They were Aral’s legacy, if not all his sons. Each had been broken by Barrayar, but served Her now with the strength, loyalty and ability that so obviously came from the same paternal source.
And the Barryarian brothers had something else in common. Each one of Cordelia's boys was, by luck or design, accompanied by a strong and capable woman, faces all varied shades of feminine beauty. They were the intergalactic daughters she had never dared hope for.
Ekaterin, holding Taurie in her arms, was worthy of portrait rather than just the vids and captures that would be surfacing soon. The twins stood next to her, solemn in their Vorkosigan colors. On their far side, Nikolai stood at a somewhat astonishing height, with Lizzie lying sleepily against his broadening shoulder. Another young man, suddenly grown.
On the other side of Mark, Kareen Koudelka stood distinguished before her sisters. Her place in Barraryan society may have been damaged by her unorthodox arrangement with Mark, but in Cordelia’s eyes she had raised herself up with honor, shrewdness and a fierce kind of love.
The Imperial family sat on the other side of the aisle. They watched Gregor as he laid his foster father to rest. Laisa's shoulders were steady as she bore the weight of her imperial title. Her children looked out with dark, intelligent eyes that held none of the trauma that Gregor’s had at that age. We saved them from that, Cordelia thought with fierce pride.
In the second row, Tej’s tanned skin made her seem like an exotic princess. She looked devotedly at her husband, small tics of her face betraying her concern for him. Lady Alys and Simon stood beside their daughter-in-law, having orchestrated most of the week-long state funeral. Just as Miles was forced to assume a new identity and title, Aral’s death had instigated changes in these two. Without ever planning it, they now stepped forward as the matriarch and patriarch of this distinguished Vor clan. Uncle Simon, Aunt Alys. Ivan’s mother and, um, stepfather.
It was Alys who took Cordelia home afterward, to the house that hadn’t ever felt so empty despite the number of rooms prepped for the family’s arrival. Mark didn’t leave his mother’s side. With the children in bed and Nikki beating a retreat to his own room, Ekaterin provided fine Barrayan wine and comforting savories from Ma Kosti. The reconvened mourners were comfortable at last to speak freely, reminisce and grill Ivan. That last was definitely a favorite family pastime, Tej thought wryly.
They all fell silent, however, when the Emperor was announced, having been back to the Residence briefly. Gregor’s face was shadowed and he stooped to kiss Cordelia, who smiled wanly up at him. “Where’s Miles?” he asked, looking around at the room.
“He said something about looking for bottle of reserve. Would you mind checking on him, Gregor dear?” Cordelia said.
Gregor blinked, for even his foster mother hadn’t asked him for mundane favors like that in many, many years. “Of course, Tante,” he said, repaying her in like for her choice of address. He inclined his head ever so slightly at the men and women in the room, smiling sardonically before he left. His security men were waiting outside and they followed him down the hall to the library.
Gregor had always preferred the Vorkosigan House to the Imperial Residency. It certainly had it's own ghosts, but not the oppressive hordes that haunted the bleached and gilded halls of the palace. The tall ceilings seemed to have moved closer, now that he looked at them from his full height. Or perhaps it was the grandiose proportions of the Imperial palace that made the place seem constricted and small.
He was sure-footed, finding his way to the library. There were stairs down into a private cellar through the study, which was sectioned off in the back of the arched gallery. He walked through the entryway, past the display of letters Miles had gotten his hands on from “Ivan’s Treasure,” as he called it. The library also held a large collection of antique paper books and shelves and shelves of modern literature, science, history and philosophy.
Gregor found Miles at the far end of the room. Roic was standing just inside the entrance to the reading alcove and he bowed to Gregor, leaving the foster brothers in relative privacy. The armsmen discreetly arranged a perimeter around the two most powerful men of Barrayar. In a week or so they would gradually bring down their security to more normal levels, but experience had taught them all to be cautious. The children were carefully watched and Roic hadn’t let m’Lord out of his sight.
Miles was sitting in an armchair, drinking Betan whiskey and flipping through his correspondence, without opening anything. He nodded at Gregor, taking his cane and starting to get up. Gregor waved him down. “Your mother sent me to check on you,” he said, smiling.
“Ah,” Miles said, eyes crinkling with a unique mix of pain and humor. “Things are not quite so... up and down as they once were, but I can’t blame her for worrying.” He got up anyway, more animated now that he was not head of ceremony. He poured Gregor a liberal portion from the bottle of whiskey, thinking of what he’d put his father through over the years.
“Yes,” Gregor said dryly, “You’re downright mellow these days, Lord Auditor.”
“A nice refreshing ice bath usually wakes him up,” Ivan put in as he came in through the side door, grinning at his cousins.
Miles glared at the unpleasant memory. “None for you,” he said, topping off his glass with the rest of the bottle.
Ivan laughed and opened the liquor cabinet, surveying it’s contents with interest and unconcealed awe. A few minutes after Gregor had left, he’d decided to chase them down. If the old Miles decided to make an appearance, Gregor might need some help. If not, they could all get sensibly drunk together. “Mark?” he’d offered before leaving the assembly.
Mark had looked up in surprise, knowing how Ivan felt about him. He was seated on a low and comfortable stool beside Cordelia, drinking port. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Thank you.” While the family thing still felt awkward, he hoped he could be some comfort to Cordelia, perhaps in a way that Miles, distraught as he was, could not be.
Ivan took out a bottle whose worth probably topped a month of operating costs for the whole of Vorkosigan Surleau. He poured himself a glass. “A toast to Uncle Aral?” he suggested. “I want to hear what you would have said,” he commented, “what the old Miles would have said at the funeral.”
Miles’ thought about it a moment, sipping his whiskey. His mind was still reeling a bit and his head throbbed painfully, but he nodded and stood up on the armchair. Used to the man’s habit of soapboxing on any available furniture, Ivan and Gregor settled opposite him. The Emperor sat in the armchair his regent had once occupied, while Ivan sat in Cordelia’s coffee-colored armchair, savoring the alcohol and looking to Miles, as he had always looked to Miles when he was in need.
“He was our sanity,” Miles said. “In the whole mad history of Barrayar, he was our sanest thought. Baptized in blood and berserk in battle, he still found his way back. And he was ruthless, but he was driven by a clear vision. And he was defiant, but stayed loyal through it all. After all that the was done to crush his soul and destroy his legacy, he never turned his back on Barrayar or allowed himself to be corrupted. How he managed to avoid bitterness, I do not know.
“His own father died still cursing us both. The fallen Vor line. What it must have felt like for Da, to make speeches about that old bastard, I’ll never know. But I do know that, through every spike in that old man’s eye, in every rebellion of tradition, my father made Barrayar stronger. He married an offworlder, ruled as Regent, raised up an Emperor, and suffered a crippled son to live.
“I have thought before about what I will do differently, dreaming of someday outdoing him...” Ivan made an irreverent comment about Vorkosigans and Gregor indicated that he should shut up.
Miles continued, unperturbed. “But he’s always been out there, ahead of us, making space for us, for the impossibility of me and Mark, and the greatness of Gregor, and the infinite mediocrity of Ivan. He prepped Barrayar for Gregor and the Emperor for leadership. He started only one civil war.
"For me, he lived with a guilt I could not dispel. But he never disowned me in his heart, no matter what I did. And he supported Mark, saw Gregor happily married and continuing the Imperial line, held his grandchildren in his arms and... he and Ivan had their moments, I’m sure.” Ivan rolled his eyes and lifted his glass at that remark. They certainly had.
“Knowing all our faults, he never tried to do anything except build us up and and make us better,” Miles continued. “May we all, as fathers, do him justice.”
They raised their glasses to the toast, but Ivan couldn’t help protesting “I’m not a father!” in an alarmed voice.
“Ha!” This time it was Gregor, with a very unImperial snort. “I give it a year.”
“The three of us,” Miles continued, getting agitated, “are not allowed to die. Not a one of us! We have too much to do and we must hold up the world to avoid letting it crash down on our children. We must not let it crush them!”
Gregor’s look was grim as he drank to that. “To our survival. To our sanity,” he intoned quietly.
Miles sat down with a careless thump. He’d finished his drink and now held the empty glass in his hand. “I should warn you that I --” It was an ill-timed attempt to prepare them, because at that moment he arched back in the chair, seizing. The glass dropped from his hand to the carpet. It rolled away to hit the wall gently.
Ivan was beside him first, with Gregor on his feet in an instant as well. “God, that is so creepy!” Ivan said, holding Miles loosely in his arms and gently lowering him to the floor, turning him over to his left side and pillowing the large head in his lap.
They waited in tense silence for Miles to return to them, attention riveted on the little maniac they loved like a brother. Both of the cousins were aware of Miles’ medical condition, and given his epic history of illness and hospitalization, they had not been overly alarmed at the newest glitch. Each had responded to practical considerations, appointing him Lord Auditor and keeping him from killing himself. Until now, neither had felt icy unease or considered the wonder of his continued defiance of mortality. It was part of who Miles was, this dance with death.
Gregor knelt down at Mile’s feet, glancing worriedly at his foster-brother. “Did Aral ever ask you to ‘look after’ Miles?” he asked with a pained expression on his face.
Ivan barked a laugh. “An impossible task if ever I’ve heard one,” he agreed.
“I will drink to that,” Gregor promised, though his hands were empty and he made no move to return to his whiskey.