"Relax, Ren?, this isn't an official visit. I just dropped by to say hello."

"Oh." Ren? exhaled visible relief, the sudden stiffness in his face reverting to mere tiredness. "I thought you were . . . I thought Gregor might have dispatched you with the bad news."

"No, no, no. After all, the Council can't very well vote without telling you." Miles nodded vaguely toward the river, and the Council's seat beyond it; Ren?, recalled to his hostly duties, depolarized the window and pulled chairs around for himself and Miles to take in the view while they talked. Miles settled himself across from the young Count. Ren? had thought quickly enough to drag up a rather low chair for his august visitor, so Miles's feet didn't dangle in air.

"But you might have been—well, I don't know what you might have been," said Ren? ruefully, sitting down and rubbing his neck. "I wasn't expecting you. Or anyone. Our social life has evaporated with amazing speed. Count and Countess Ghembretten are apparently not good people to know."

"Ouch. You've heard that one, have you?"

"My Armsmen heard it first. The joke's all over town, isn't it?"

"Eh, yeah, sort of." Miles cleared his throat. "Sorry I wasn't by earlier. I was on Komarr when your case broke, and I only heard about it when I got back, and then Gregor sent me up-country, and, well, screw the excuses. I'm sorry as hell this thing has happened to you. I can flat guarantee the Progressives don't want to lose you."

"Can you? I thought I had become a deep embarrassment to them."

"A vote's a vote. With turnover among the Counts literally a once-in-a-lifetime event—"

"Usually," Ren? put in dryly.

Miles shrugged this off. "Embarrassment is a passing emotion. If the Progressives lose you to Sigur, they lose that vote for the next generation. They'll back you." Miles hesitated. "They are backing you, aren't they?"

"More or less. Mostly. Some." Ren? waved an ironic hand. "Some are thinking that if they vote against Sigur and lose, they'll have made a permanent enemy in the Council. And a vote, as you say, is a vote."

"What do the numbers look like, can you tell yet?"

Ren? shrugged. "A dozen certain for me, a dozen certain for Sigur. My fate will be decided by the men in the middle. Most of whom aren't speaking with the Ghembrettens this month. I don't think it looks good, Miles." He glanced across at his visitor, his expression an odd mix of sharpness and hesitancy. In a neutral tone he added, "And do you know how Vorkosigan's District is going to vote yet?"

Miles had realized he would have to answer that question if he saw Ren?. So, no doubt, did every other Count or Count's Deputy, which also explained the sudden dip in Ren?'s social life lately; those who weren't avoiding him were avoiding the issue. With a couple of weeks to think it through behind him, Miles had his answer ready. "We're for you. Could you doubt it?"

Ren? managed a rueful smile. "I had been almost certain, but then there is that large radioactive hole the Cetagandans once put in the middle of your District."

"History, man. Do I help your vote-count?"

"No," sighed Ren?. "I'd already factored you in."

"Sometimes, one vote makes all the difference."

"It makes me crazy to think it might be that close," Ren? confessed. "I hate this. I wish it were over."

"Patience, Ren?," Miles counseled. "Don't throw away any advantage just because of an attack of nerves." He frowned thoughtfully. "Seems to me what we have here are two coequal legal precedents, jostling each other for primacy. A Count chooses his own successor, with the consent of the Council by their vote of approval, which is how Lord Midnight got in."

Ren?'s smile twisted. "If a horse's ass can be a Count, why not the whole horse?"

"I think that was one of the fifth Count Vortala's arguments, actually. I wonder if any transcripts of those sessions still exist in the archives? I must read them someday, if they do. Anyway, Midnight clearly established that direct blood relationship, though customary, was not required, and even if Midnight's case is rejected, there are dozens of other less memorable precedents on that score anyway. Count's choice before Count's blood, unless the Count has neglected to make a choice. Only then does male primogeniture come into play. Your grandfather was confirmed as heir in his . . . his mother's husband's lifetime, wasn't he?" Miles had been confirmed as his own father's heir during the Regency, while his father had been at the height of his power to ram it through the Council.

"Yes, but fraudulently, according to Sigur's suit. And a fraudulent result is no result."

"I don't suppose the old man might have known? And is there any way to prove it, if he did? Because if he knew your grandfather was not his son, his confirmation was legal, and Sigur's case evaporates."

"If the sixth Count knew, we haven't been able to find a scrap of evidence. And we've been turning the family archives inside out for weeks. I shouldn't think he could have known, or he would surely have killed the boy. And the boy's mother."

"I'm not so sure. The Occupation was a strange time. I'm thinking about how the bastard war played out in the Dendarii region." Miles blew out his breath. "Ordinary known Cetagandan by-blows were usually aborted or killed as soon as possible. Occasionally, the guerrillas used to make a sort of gruesome game of planting the little corpses for the occupying soldiers to find. Used to unnerve the hell out of the Cetagandan rank and file. First was their normal human reaction, and second, even the ones who were so brutalized by then as not to care realized anywhere we slipped in a dead baby, we could just as well have slipped in a bomb."

Ren? grimaced distaste, and Miles realized belatedly that the lurid historical example might have acquired a new personal edge for him. He hurried on, "The Cetagandans weren't the only people to object to that game. Some Barrayarans hated it too, and took it as a blot on our honor—Prince Xav, for example. I know he argued vehemently with my grandfather against it. Your great—the sixth Count could well have been in agreement with Xav, and what he did for your grandfather a sort of silent answer."

Ren? tilted his head, looking struck. "I never thought of that. He was a friend of old Xav's, I believe. But there's still no proof. Who knows what a dead man knew, but never spoke of?"

"If you have no proof, neither does Sigur."

Ren? brightened slightly. "That's true."

Miles gazed again at the magnificent view along the urbanized river valley. A few small boats chugged up and down the narrowing stream. In former eras, Vorbarr Sultana had been as far inland as navigation from the sea could get, as the rapids and falls here blocked further commercial transport. Since the end of the Time of Isolation, the dam and locks just upstream from the Star Bridge had been destroyed and rebuilt three times.

Across from where they sat in Vorbretten House, Vorhartung Castle's crenellations loomed up through the spring-green treetops, gray and archaic. The traditional meeting-place of the Council of Counts had overlooked—in both senses of the word, Miles thought dryly—all these transformations. When there wasn't a war on, waiting for old Counts to die in order to effect change could be a slow process. One or two popped off a year, on average these days, but the pace of generational turnover was slowing still further as life spans extended. Having two seats open at once, and both up for grabs by either a Progressive or a Conservative heir, was fairly unusual. Or rather, Ren?'s seat was up for grabs between the two main parties. The other was more mysterious.

Miles asked Ren?, "Do you have any idea what was the substance of Lady Donna Vorrutyer's motion of impediment against her cousin Richars taking the Vorrutyer Countship? Have you heard any talk?"