His mother smiled, but then crossed her arms and stared thoughtfully around the great library.

"But, ma'am . . ." Mark stammered, "could you? Would you? I didn't presume to ask, after all the things . . . people said to one another that night, but I'm getting desperate." Desperately desperate.

"I didn't presume to intrude, without a direct invitation," the Countess told him. She waited, favoring him with a bright, expectant smile.

Mark thought it over. His mouth shaped the unfamiliar word twice, for practice, before he licked his lips, took a breath, and launched it into unsupported air. "Help . . . ? "

"Why, gladly , Mark!" Her smile sharpened. "I think what we need to do is to sit down together, the five of us—you and me and Kareen and Kou and Drou—right here, oh, yes, right here in this library, and talk it all over."

The vision filled him with inchoate terror, but he grasped his knees and nodded. "Yes. That is—you'll talk, right?"

"It will be just fine," she assured him.

"But how will you even get them to come here?"

"I think you can confidently leave that to me."

Mark glanced at his brother, who was smiling dryly. He did not look in the least dubious of her statement.

Armsman Pym appeared at the library door. "Sorry to interrupt, m'lady. M'lord, Count Vorbretten is arriving."

"Ah, good." Miles jumped to his feet, and hastened around to the long table, where he began gathering up stacks of flimsies, papers, and notes. "Bring him straight up to my suite, and tell Ma Kosti to start things rolling."

Mark seized the opportunity. "Oh, Pym, I'm going to need the car and a driver in about," he glanced at his chrono, "ten minutes."

"I'll see to it, m'lord."

Pym set off about his duties; Miles, a determined look on his face and a pile of documentation under his arm, charged out after his Armsman.

Mark looked doubtfully at the Countess.

"Run along to your meeting," she told him comfortably. "Stop up to my study when you get back, and tell me all about it."

She actually sounded interested. "Do you think you might like to invest?" he offered in a burst of optimism.

"We'll talk about it." She smiled at him with genuine pleasure, surely one of the few people in the universe to do so. Secretly heartened, he took himself off in Miles's wake.

* * *

The ImpSec gate guard passed Ivan through to Vorkosigan House's grounds, then returned to his kiosk at a beep from his comm link. Ivan had to step aside while the iron gates swung wide and the gleaming armored groundcar lumbered out into the street. A brief hope flared in Ivan's breast that he had missed Miles, but the blurred shape that waved at him through the half-mirroring of the rear canopy was much too round. It was Mark who was off somewhere. When Pym ushered him into Miles's suite, Ivan found his leaner cousin sitting by the bay window with Count Ren? Vorbretten.

"Oh, sorry," said Ivan. "Didn't know you were enga—occupied."

But it was too late to back out; Miles, turning toward him in surprise, controlled a wince, sighed, and waved him to enter. "Hello, Ivan. What brings you here?"

"M'mother sent me with this note. Why she couldn't just call you on the comconsole I don't know, but I wasn't going to argue with a chance to escape." Ivan proffered the heavy envelope, Residence stationery sealed with Lady Alys's personal crest.

"Escape?" asked Ren?, looking amused. "It sounded to me as though you have one of the cushiest jobs of any officer in Vorbarr Sultana this season."

"Hah," said Ivan darkly. "You want it? It's like working in an office with an entire boatload of mothers-in-law-to-be with pre-wedding nerves, every one of them a flaming control freak. I don't know where Mama found that many Vor dragons. You usually only meet them one at a time, surrounded by an entire family to terrorize. Having them all in a bunch teamed up together is just wrong ." He pulled up a chair between Miles and Ren?, and sat down in a pointedly temporary posture. "My chain of command is built upside down; there are twenty-three commanders, and only one enlisted. Me. I want to go back to Ops, where my officers don't preface every insane demand with a menacing trill of, `Ivan , dear, won't you be a sweetheart and—' What I wouldn't give to hear a nice, deep, straightforward masculine bellow of `Vorpatril! ' . . . From someone other than Countess Vorinnis, that is."

Miles, grinning, started to open the envelope, but then paused and listened to the sound of more persons being admitted into the hall by Pym. "Ah," he said. "Good. Right on time."

To Ivan's dismay, the visitors Pym next gated into his lord's chambers were Lord Dono and Byerly Vorrutyer, and Armsman Szabo. All of them greeted Ivan with repulsive cheer; Lord Dono shook Count Ren?'s hand with firm cordiality, and seated himself around the low table from Miles. By draped himself over the back of Dono's armchair and looked on. Szabo took a straight chair like Ivan's a little back from the principals and folded his arms.

"Excuse me," said Miles, and finished opening the envelope. He pulled out Lady Alys's note, glanced down it, and smiled. "So, gentlemen. My aunt Alys writes: Dear Miles , the usual elegant courtesies, and then—Tell your friends Countess Vorsmythe reports Ren? may be sure of her husband's vote. Dono will need a little more push there, but the topic of his future as a straight Progressive Party voter may bear fruit. Lady Mary Vorville also reports comfortable tidings to Ren? due to some fondly remembered military connection between his late father and her father Count Vorville. I had thought it indelicate to lobby Countess Vorpinski regarding a vote for Lord Dono, but she surprised me by her quite enthusiastic approval of Lady Donna's transformation. "

Lord Dono muffled a laugh, and Miles paused to raise an inquiring eyebrow.

"Count—then Lord—Vorpinski and I were quite good friends for a little while," Dono explained, with a small smirk. "After your time, Ivan; I believe you were off to Earth for that stint of embassy duty."

To Ivan's relief, Miles did not ask for further details, but merely nodded understanding and read on, his voice picking up the precise cadences of Lady Alys's diction. "A personal visit by Dono to the Countess, to assure her of the reality of the change and the unlikelihood —unlikelihood is underscored—of its reversal in the event of Lord Dono obtaining his Countship, may do some good in that quarter .

"Lady Vortugalov reports not much hope for either Ren? or Dono from her father-in-law. However, —hah, get this—she has shifted the birthdate of the Count's first grandson two days forward, so it just happens to coincide with the day the votes are scheduled, and has invited the Count to be present when the replicator is opened. Lord Vortugalov of course will also be there. Lady Vortugalov also mentions the Count's voting deputy's wife pines for a wedding invitation. I shall release one of the spares to Lady VorT. to pass along at her discretion. The Count's alternate will not vote against his lord's wishes, but it may chance he will be very late to that morning's session, or even miss it altogether. This is not a plus for you, but may prove an unexpected minus for Richars and Sigur. "

Ren? and Dono were starting to scribble notes.

"Old Vorhalas has a deal of personal sympathy for Ren?, but will not vote against Conservative Party interests in the matter. Since Vorhalas's rigid honesty is matched by his other rigid habits of mind, I'm afraid Dono's case is quite hopeless there .

"Vortaine is also hopeless; save your energy. However, I am reliably informed his lawsuit over his District's boundary waters with his neighbor Count Vorvolynkin continues unresolved, with undiminished acrimony, to the mortification of both families. I would not normally consider it possible to detach Count Vorvolynkin from the Conservatives, but a whisper in his ear from his daughter-in-law Lady Louisa, upon whom he dotes, that votes for Dono and Ren? would seriously annoy , underscored, his adversary has borne startling results. You may reliably add him to your accounting ."