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"A man's word is something more to a Barrayaran than a vague promise, at least for the old-fashioned types. Heavens, it's even the basis for their government, oaths of fealty and all that." - Cordelia, Shards of Honor
“Good," Tom said, “That place works best when a wizard’s running it." - Wizards at War
Cordelia
When Cordelia is eleven, she watches her father's shuttle lift off with her hand's within her mother's. She never forgets the bright firework that streaks across the sky as it explodes.
It's not her fault, not at all, but at the same time she knows it's the Lone One's revenge for styming It on her Ordeal. Timeheart is beautiful, when she visits, but she'd rather have her father there to grow with her.
***
Being a Ship's Wizard for the Survey is an absolute delight, even if Beta is still sevarfrith and it's not an official Survey position. She talks to alien microbes and plants and animals - though they keep away from planets with sentients: You'd think humanity stringing itself across the stars would mean they'd be ready for other advanced species, but apparently the Powers have other ideas.
When she meets Aral Vorkosigan, her wizardry is the only thing that keeps them alive in the wilderness of the unnamed planet. She's not too surprised, from him, to find that he knows wizards.
***
When Ges Vorrutyer attempts to rape her, she spits her greetings and defiance in the Lone One's face. It's streatching the spirit of 'being polite' to That One, but she thinks the circumstances warrant it.
Bothari recognizes her for a Wizard, which she thinks odd at the time, particularly for such a poor and tortured soul. (She wonders, briefly, if he'd been one himself who lost his power. She never dares to check.)
***
Being a wizard is not an easy path, though the Art is full of joy. She realizes when she meets Aral again that she was feeling stale before Sergyar, before this Escobaran conflict, before she met him. Next to him, though, she feels nothing but alive.
It takes her two whole weeks to realize that Barrayar is astahfrith and she's simultaneously delighted and appalled - because if this backwards world is full of open wizardry, why not Beta? Why not Escobar? Why not the rest of the nexus? And how did it take her so long to notice?
She's greeted with respect as a Wizard by her father-in-law, by household staff, by Alys Vorpatril, and by the Emperor himself.
She meets two Cousins in Vorbarr Sultana: Padma Vorpatril, who among other things is a local Senior, and Princess Kareen, whose duties include serving the Powers as Planetary.
Vordarian is overshadowed, and she tries and fails to save him. Beheading him is the best option she has left. She hates the tiny delight she finds in the vengance.
***
Miles, she thinks when she holds her baby son, left so weak and fragile from the Lone One's poisonings. Live, Live, Live. Oh Powers, oh Powers, please let him live.
***
Cordelia finds herself married as much to Barryar as to Aral. It is a strange and unexpected marriage-gift to have recieved, and an ugly one with the Pretendership, but she slowly learns the beauty in it. It's wizards aren't necessarily special, just statistically a little more frequent. It's non-wizard culture is so strange, though, from the rest of the human Nexus: so much value placed on the weight of the words you speak.
All political power here flows through spoken oaths. So much like Wizardry itself.
Cordelia only places her hands between Gregor's once, to swear her fealty at that grim scene in Ezar's death chamber. Even as a Wizard herself, knowing and living and breathing the power of words, it seems a shallow thing to hinge a government on, to take people at their barest words, once, to hope they never chance to break the vow.
But no one has a problem with this, even as the child is given into her keeping, to be raised in her care. Aral explains it to her one night, gently:
"But my dear Lady, they know you are a Wizard, too. That Oath, here, is more precious and valued than any given to the Empire itself. They know your concerns are larger than us."
"That's not the impression I've been getting, Aral."
"Well, fools will be fools anywhere, dearest. Everyone with any sense knows that your hands, like all our Wizards', are placed between the One's."
She never has to ask again.
***
When Gregor is eight years old, he comes to her with a question.
"Aunt Cordelia?"
"Yes love?"
"Whose hands hold mine?"
"I'm sorry?"
"The Vor place their hands between their liege lords to swear. The soldiers' oaths are held by their officers. The officers' oaths are held by their superiors, up to the Counts and the Admirals, who place their oaths in the hands of the Emperor. I am the Emperor, Aunt Cordelia. Whose hands hold mine?"
It takes her a moment but, if they're old enough to be asked, then -
"Do you know Wizards? They swear oaths, too. Even non-Barrayaran ones. I did."
"You did, Auntie?"
"Yes, love, when I was young, back on Beta Colony. A Wizard's Oath is even more serious than that of your subjects, even more than a Count's to his Emperor. Aral once described it to me as having 'Placed my Hands between the One's'."
"But I'm not a Wizard, Aunt."
"No, you're not. And you might be some day - your mother was - but you might not. The Art isn't offered to everyone who has the potential, and it's offered through the Powers That Be, not through human channels. But the One That Is holds us all, in the end, as we reach for Timeheart.
"I think, love, that if you have to place your hands between something, between someone, you should think always towards that Heart of Time, where all that is good is preserved. Think of that, and think of your people, and what will help this world become closer to that one."
***
When Emperor Gregor Vorbarra is twelve years old, he is searching through old boxes of his ancestors' or ancestors' servants' things in the Imperial Residance.
Old children's books, from a few decades back, catch his hands for a few moments.
This one is small, slim, and large-printed.
So You Want to Be a Wizard? the title asks him.
He takes a deep breath as he reads, several times.
(It's not a choice made lightly. He could die on Ordeal easily, and with Barrayar's political situation that would be disasterous. He could die on Errantry at any time. But his cousin Miles is proof and reminder, if nothing else is, that simply by being Gregor Vorbarra, he runs the same risk.)
Gregor breathes.
"'In Life's name, and for Life's sake,'" he reads aloud, "'I say that I will use the One's Art for nothing but the service of Life. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what lives and grows well in its own way; and I will change no object and creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, is threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will place my hands between the One's, and use them in the Joyful Work. I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so - until the end of the Universe.'"