“What?” said Mark cautiously, panting. He rested his hands on his knees and stared at the man, so oddly reduced to his eye level. The Count had a distracted, absorbed look on his face.
“I think … I had better rest a moment.”
“Suits me.” Mark sat too, on a nearby rock. The Count did not continue the conversation at once. Extreme unease tightened Mark’s stomach. What’s wrong with him? There’s something wrong with him. Oh, shit… . The sky had grown blue and fine, and a little breeze made the trees sigh, and a few more golden leaves flutter down. The cold chill up Mark’s spine had nothing to do with the weather.
“It is not,” said the Count in a distant, academic tone, “a perforated ulcer. I’ve had one of those, and this isn’t the same.” He crossed his arms over his chest. His breath was becoming shallow and rapid, not recovering its rhythm with sitting as Mark’s was.
Something very wrong. A brave man trying hard not to look scared was, Mark decided, one of the most frightening sights he’d ever seen. Brave, but not stupid: the Count did not, for example, choose to pretend that nothing was the matter and go charging up the trail to prove it.
“You don’t look well.”
“I don’t feel well.”
“What do you feel?”
“Er … chest pain, I’m afraid,” he admitted in obvious embarrassment. “More of an ache, really. A very … odd … sensation. Came up between one step and the next.”
“It couldn’t be indigestion, could it?” Like the kind that was boiling up acidly in Mark’s belly right now?
“I’m afraid not.”
“Maybe you had better call for help on your comm link,” Mark suggested diffidently. There sure as hell wasn’t anything he could do, if this was the medical emergency it looked like.
The Count laughed, a dry wheeze. It was not a comforting sound. “I left it.”
“What? You’re the frigging Prime Minister, you can’t go around without—”
“I wanted to assure an uninterrupted, private conversation. For a change. Unpunctuated by half the under-ministers in Vorbarr Sultana calling up to ask me where they left their agendas. I used to … do that for Miles. Sometimes, when it got too thick. Drove everyone crazy but eventually … they became … reconciled.” His voice went high and light on the last word. He lay back altogether, in the detritus and fallen leaves. “No … that’s no improvement… .” He extended a hand and Mark, his own heart lumping with terror, pulled him back into the sitting position.
A paralyzing toxin … heart failure … I was to get alone with you … I was to wait, in your sight, for twenty minutes while you died… . How had he made this happen? Black magic? Maybe he was programmed, and part of him was doing things the rest of him didn’t know anything about, like one of those split personalities. Did I do this? Oh, God. Oh shit.
The Count managed a pallid grin. “Don’t look so scared, boy,” he whispered. “Just go back to the house and get my guardsmen. It’s not that far. I promise I won’t move.” A hoarse chuckle.
/ wasn’t paying any attention to the paths on the way up. I was following you. Could he possibly carry … ? No. Mark was no med-tech, but he had a clear cold feeling that it would be a very bad idea to try to move this man. Even with his new girth he was heavily outweighed by the Count. “All right.” There hadn’t been that many possible wrong turns, had there? “You … you …” Don’t you dare die on me, godammit. Not now!
Mark turned, and trotted, skidded, and flat ran back down the path. Right or left? Left, down the double track. Where the hell had they turned on to it, though? They’d pushed through some brush—there was brush all along it, and half a dozen openings. There was one of those horse-jumps they’d passed. Or was it? A lot of them looked alike. I’m going to get lost in this frigging woods, and run around in circles for … twenty minutes, till he’s brain-dead and rigor-stiff, andthey’re all going to think I did it on purpose … He tripped, and bounced off a tree, and scrambled for balance and direction. He felt like a dog in a drama, running for help; when he arrived, all he’d be able to do would be bark and whine and roll on his back, and no one would understand… . He clung to a tree, gasping, and staring around. Wasn’t moss supposed to grow on the north side of trees, or was that only on Earth? These were Earth trees, mostly. On Jackson’s Whole a sort of slimy lichen grew on the south sides of everything, including buildings, and you had to scrape it out of the door grooves … ah! there was the creek. But had they walked up or down stream? Stupid, stupid, stupid. A stitch had started in his side. He turned left and ran.
Hallelujah! A tall female shape was striding down the path ahead of him. Elena, heading back to the barn. Not only was he on the right path, he’d found help. He tried to shout. It came out a croak, but it caught her attention; she looked over her shoulder, saw him, and stopped. He staggered up to her.
“What the hell’s got into you?” Her initial coldness and irritation gave way to curiosity and nascent alarm.
Mark gasped out, “The Count … took sick … in the woods. Can you get … his guardsmen … up there?”
Her brows drew down in deep suspicion. “Sick? How? He was just fine an hour ago.”
“Real sick, pleasedammit, hurry!”
“What did you do—” she began, but his palpable agony overcame her wariness. “There’s a comm link in the stable, it’s closest. Where did you leave him?”
Mark waved vaguely backward. “Somewhere … I don’t know what you call it. On the path to your picnic spot. Does that make sense? Don’t the bloody ImpSec guards have scanners?” He found he was practically stamping his feet in frustration at her slowness. “You have longer legs. Go!”
She believed at last, and ran, with a blazing look back at him that practically flayed his skin.
I didn’t do— He turned, and began to leg it back to where he’d left the Count. He wondered if he ought to be running for cover instead. If he stole a lightflyer and made it back to the capital, could he get one of the galactic embassies there to give him political asylum? She thinks I7 … they’re all going to think I … hell, even he didn’t trust himself, why should the Barrayarans? Maybe he ought to save steps, and just kill himself right now, here in these stupid woods. But he had no weapon, and rough as the terrain was, there hadn’t been any cliffs high and steep enough to fling himself over and be sure of death on impact.
At first Mark thought he’d taken another wrong turn. Surely the Count couldn’t have risen and walked on—no. There he was, lying down on his back beside a fallen log. He was breathing in short labored gasps, with too-long pauses in between, arms clutched in, clearly in much greater pain than when Mark had left him. But not dead. Not dead yet.
“Hello. Boy,” he huffed in greeting.
“Elena’s bringing help,” Mark promised anxiously. He looked up and around, and listened. But they’re not here yet.
“Good.”
“Don’t … try to talk.”
This made the Count snort a laugh, an even more horrible effect against the disrupted breathing. “Only Cordelia … has ever succeeded … in shutting me up.” But he fell silent after that. Mark prudently allowed him the last word, lest he try to go another round.
Live, damn you. Don’t leave me here like this.
A familiar whooshing sound made Mark look up. Elena had solved the problem of getting transport through the trees with a float-bike. A green-uniformed ImpSec man rode behind her, clutching her around the waist. Elena swiftly dropped the bike through the thinner branches, which crackled. She ignored the whipping backlash that left red lines across her face. The ImpSec man dismounted while the bike was still half a meter in the air. “Get back,” he snarled to Mark. At least he carried a medkit. “What did you do to him?”