Miles massaged his forehead with the heels of his hands. "Gah."

"Anyway, the point is, it wasn't me who started this . You grasp?"

"Yeah." Miles sighed. "I suppose. Do me a favor, and quash it when you encounter it, eh?"

"As if anyone would believe me? Everybody knows I've been your donkey since forever. It's not like I was an eyewitness anyway. I don't know any more than anyone else." He asserted after a moment's thought, "Less."

Miles considered the alternatives. Death? Death would be much more peaceful, and he wouldn't have this pounding headache. But there was always the risk some misguided person would revive him again, in worse shape than ever. Besides, he had to live at least long enough to cast his vote against Richars. He studied his cousin thoughtfully. "Ivan . . ."

"It wasn't my fault," Ivan recited promptly, "it's not my job, you can't make me, and if you want any of my time you'll have to wrestle m'mother for it. If you dare." He nodded satisfaction at this clincher.

Miles sat back, and regarded Ivan for a long moment. "You're right," he said at last. "I have abused your loyalty too many times. I'm sorry. Never mind."

Ivan, caught with a mouthful of wine, stared at him in shock, his brows drawing down. He finally managed to swallow. "What do you mean, never mind ?"

"I mean, never mind. There's no reason to draw you into this ugly mess, and every reason not to." Miles doubted there'd be much honor for Ivan to win in his vicinity this time, not even the sort that sparked so briefly before being buried forever in ImpSec files. Besides, he couldn't think offhand of anything Ivan could do for him.

"No need ? Never mind ? What are you up to?"

"Nothing, I'm afraid. You can't help me on this one. Thanks for offering, though," Miles added conscientiously.

"I didn't offer anything," Ivan pointed out. His eyes narrowed. "You're up to something."

"Not up. Just down." Down to nothing but the certainty that the next weeks were going to be unpleasant in ways he'd never experienced before. "Thank you, Ivan. I'm sure you can find your own way out."

"Well . . ." Ivan tilted up his glass, drained it, and set it down on the table. "Yeah, sure. Call me if you . . . need anything."

Ivan trod out, with a disgruntled backward look over his shoulder. Miles heard his indignant mutter, fading down the stairs: "No need . Never mind . Who the hell does he think he is . . . ?"

Miles smiled crookedly, and slumped in his seat. He had a great deal to do. He was just too tired to move.

Ekaterin. . . .

Her name seemed to stream through his fingers, as impossible to hold as smoke whipped away by the wind.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ekaterin sat in the midmorning sun at the table in her aunt's back garden, and tried to rank the list of short-term jobs she'd pulled off the comconsole by location and pay. Nothing close by seemed to have anything to do with botany. Her stylus wandered to the margin of the flimsy and doodled yet another idea for a pretty butter bug, then went on to sketch a revision for her aunt's garden involving the use of more raised beds for easy maintenance. The very early stages of congestive heart failure which had been slowing Aunt Vorthys down were due to be cured this fall when she received her scheduled transplant; on the other hand, she would likely return thereafter to her full teaching load. A container-garden of all native Barrayaran species . . . no. Ekaterin returned her attention firmly to the job list.

Aunt Vorthys had been bustling in and out of the house; Ekaterin therefore didn't look up till her aunt said, in a decidedly odd tone, "Ekaterin, you have a visitor."

Ekaterin glanced up, and stifled a flinch of shock. Captain Simon Illyan stood at her aunt's elbow. All right, so, she'd sat next to him through practically a whole dinner, but that had been at Vorkosigan House, where anything seemed possible. Towering legends weren't supposed to rise up and stand casually in one's own garden in the broad morning as though some passing person—probably Miles—had dropped a dragon's tooth in the grass.

Not that Captain Illyan towered , exactly. He was much shorter and slighter than she'd pictured him. He'd seldom appeared in news vids. He wore a modest civilian suit of the sort any Vor with conservative tastes might choose for a morning or business call. He smiled diffidently at her, and waved her back to her seat as she started to scramble up. "No, no, please, Madame Vorsoisson . . ."

"Won't . . . you sit down?" Ekaterin managed, sinking back.

"Thank you." He pulled out a chair and seated himself a little stiffly, as if not altogether comfortable. Maybe he bore old scars like Miles's. "I wondered if I might have a private word with you. Madame Vorthys seems to think it would be all right."

Her aunt's nod confirmed this. "But Ekaterin, dear, I was just about to leave for class. Do you wish me to stay a little?"

"That won't be necessary," Ekaterin said faintly. "What's Nikki up to?"

"Playing on my comconsole, just at present."

"That's fine."

Aunt Vorthys nodded, and went back into the house.

Illyan cleared his throat, and began, "I've no wish to intrude on your privacy or time, Madame Vorsoisson, but I did want to apologize to you for embarrassing you the other night. I feel much at fault, and I'm very much afraid I might have . . . done some damage I didn't intend."

She frowned suspiciously, and her right hand fingered the braid on the left edge of her bolero. "Did Miles send you?"

"Ah . . . no. I'm an ambassador entirely without portfolio. This is on my own recognizance. If I hadn't made that foolish remark . . . I did not altogether understand the delicacy of the situation."

Ekaterin sighed bitter agreement. "I think you and I must have been the only two people in the room so poorly informed."

"I was afraid I'd been told and forgotten, but it appears I just wasn't on the need-to-know list. I'm not quite used to that yet." A tinge of anxiety flickered in his eyes, giving lie to his smile.

"It was not your fault at all, sir. Somebody . . . overshot his own calculations."

"Hm." Illyan's lips twisted in sympathy with her expression. He traced a finger over the tabletop in a crosshatch pattern. "You know—speaking of ambassadors—I began by thinking I ought to come to you and put in a good word for Miles in the romance department. I figured I owed it to him, for having put my foot down in the middle of things that way. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I have truly no idea what kind of a husband he would make. I hardly dare recommend him to you. He was a terrible subordinate."

Her brows flew up in surprise. "I'd thought his ImpSec career was successful."

Illyan shrugged. "His ImpSec missions were consistently successful, frequently beyond my wildest dreams. Or nightmares. . . . He seemed to regard any order worth obeying as worth exceeding. If I could have installed one control device on him, it would have been a rheostat. Power him down a turn or two . . . maybe I could have made him last longer." Illyan gazed thoughtfully out over the garden, but Ekaterin didn't think the garden was what he was seeing, in his mind's eye. "Do you know all those old folk tales where the count tries to get rid of his only daughter's unsuitable suitor by giving him three impossible tasks?"

"Yes . . ."

"Don't ever try that with Miles. Just . . . don't."

She tried to rub the involuntary smile from her lips, and failed. His answering smile seemed to lighten his eyes.

"I will say," he went on more confidently, "I've never found him a slow learner. If you were to give him a second chance, well . . . he might surprise you."