marilacan embassy

[middlingalong]

Ivan does not successfully get Miles to stop fussing with the thing (Miles takes an impression of its impressions on a plastic flimsy) or convince him to leave it somewhere other than inside the bedchamber (it is in a drawer) nor get him to actually tell Vorreedi as promised (Vorreedi is dealing with importation infractions out of town; this is, Miles says, nothing to do with him). He does, however, get Miles (who complains about not having had warning about all this downtime such that he could have scheduled leg bone replacement surgery) to their ride to the party, on time and in uniform.

The Marilacan embassy is, Vorob'yev says, to be regarded as neutral yet non-secured territory - they can enjoy themselves, among fellow offworlders and some ghem-lords. Vorob'yev entertains them - so to speak - on the way by remarking on the Marilacan strategic situation; they've apparently been taking lots of help from Ceteganda, are ignoring their womhole maps and don't think Cetaganda would ever backstab them and blah blah. There is also more fascinating gossip about suicides with... "uncooperative principals", but not much of it; the topic soon drifts to the fact that the party may yield gossip that they should report to Vorreedi when he's back. Along with certain other things they should report to Vorreedi.

"Try not to give away more than you gain," Vorob'yev says.

"Well, I'm safe," remarks Ivan. "I don't know anything." A position of safety he'd dearly like to be able to cultivate more, coz, hint hint.

The Marilacan embassy is pretty, and scans their guests; Ivan does at least know enough to have left the nerve disruptor behind. There's an art project - Ivan doesn't rightly know what sort of thing to call it; a sculpture? With a water feature? And flying colorful flakes? The Marilacan ambassador, Berneaux, says it's called Autumn Leaves, anyway, so it's an Autumn Leaves - and then both lieutenants are shooed. The hors d'oeuvres are excellent. There is wine. Ivan can at this point get rid of his cousin and see if there are any ladies who could benefit from his company about.

Oh now there is one.

Ivan sets about charming the probably-at-least-an-eighth-haut ghem-lady as best he knows how. Mutants on purpose may be mutants still but pretty on purpose is pretty still likewise. He knows tact, at least with girls. He gets her (Lady Gelle) to laugh. Miles is wandering back in his direction again, but whatever, Miles probably isn't going to compete with him for elbow room here.

Then they're approached by some ghem-lord, Yenaro apparently, who mercifully doesn't seem to be related to or involved with the girl, and indeed obliquely congratulates her on having located "galactic exotics". Good, Ivan has been trading on the right characteristic with her so far. Gelle introduces Ivan, and prompts Ivan to introduce Miles, to Yenaro. They talk ancient history, grandfathers and who's at fault for events of the war - apparently they call it the Barrayaran War here.

Gelle kindly diverts the subject to the art piece, which is Yenaro's handiwork. He insults her stylistic choices and Ivan takes the opening to compliment her; if she's looking for sophisticated Cetegandan taste over appreciative galactic obliviousness Ivan can't help her, but he can show off the latter to best effect in case it'll sell. Yenaro chooses this occasion to tell the lady that Ivan was born in the usual - well, the normal, anyway - fashion. Her revulsion is disheartening, although she seems to find Yenaro's behavior at least as obnoxious as she finds childbirth grotesque. Either way, the combination of the two sends her skating off into the crowd.

Yenaro fumbles and then coaxes them into touring the interior of his sculpture. Miles breaks off, but Ivan goes ahead and has a look, no use holding a grudge at the man for dissuading exactly one girl, however pretty she was. Miles is apparently more interested in talking to the forty-standard lady Vorob'yev has on his arm.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"There's no affordance for - I'll send for you," says Linyabel. "And I have to go too - don't speak of this to anyone else - please!"

And she starts to float away.

[thisvorlunatic]

With a hasty bow bubbleward, Miles turns and starts hobbling at maximum speed back to the reception area from which the lady's ba collected him.

He's not going to make it in time.



He doesn't make it in time. There's Vorob'yev, dragging his feet; there's Ivan, hauling the box. Vorob'yev rather unnecessarily mouths Hurry up, dammit!, to which Miles responds by accelerating his limping stride as much as possible - not in fact very much; he was already near top speed. His painkillers are not keeping up with their assigned duties.

[middlingalong]

Ivan hands over the box as soon as Miles is within handing range. "Where the hell were you all this time, in the lav? I looked there -"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Sh. Tell you later. I've just had the most bizarre..." The sentence trails off unfinished; all his concentration is taken up by holding the box and marching forward to catch up with the line.

The idea is for the procession to proceed into the building that currently houses the empress's bier, make their courtesies to the dead lady, and lay their gifts one by one in a spiral pattern in the carefully prearranged ranking order. Then the haut- and ghem-lords go one way and the galactic delegates go the other, and they all go eat funeral food in their respective pavilions.

Something other than Miles has apparently gone wrong with this plan. Ahead of them, the slow solemn shuffle of the line has bunched up into a milling knot, voices raised in alarm and confusion.

[middlingalong]

"What's gone wrong? Did somebody faint or something?"

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles is hardly in a position to answer this, at least not without a stepstool to stand on for a view of something other than the next fellow's shoulderblades.

The line resumes moving.

They make it into the rotunda; there's the Empress's bier, raised up over the heads of the crowd, shielded by a force-bubble that permits only a faint faded glimpse of her white-wrapped body.

And directly between them and it, a ghem-commander redirecting the line: "Please retain your gifts and proceed directly around the outside walkway to the Eastern Pavilion, please retain your gifts and proceed directly to the Eastern Pavilion, all will be re-ordered presently, please retain..."

In obedience to his insistent murmur, the line turns a sharp left and shuffles straight out of the rotunda again through a nearby door. Past him, Miles can see a row of assorted ghem-guards - repurposed on the spot from the retinues of the satrap governors, if he doesn't miss his guess - stretching across the room, with the obvious intent of keeping everyone on this side of the Empress.

Miles is overcome by curiosity.

He shoves the maplewood box into Ivan's arms, ducks past the officer on shooing duty, and with his face arranged in a pleasant smile and his hands arranged in a nonthreatening palm-out posture, he slips between two guards in the line. As he suspected, their impromptu organization and his sheer audacity combine to forestall all resistance; they just gape at him as he sails past, looking for whatever it is they are so determined to prevent everyone from seeing.

Once he reaches the other side of the catafalque, it's pretty obvious. In pride of place beneath the bier, the spot reserved for the first gift of the first haut-lord, there lies a throat-slit body in a grey-and-white palace servant's uniform. Its right hand holds a jeweled knife; its blood pools fresh and red on the green malachite floor.

Its face is familiar.

Miles last saw it on the Cetagandan transfer station, kicking Ivan in the chest.

Oh, hell.

His glimpse of the body is short-lived; the highest-ranking officer available swoops in to herd him away. "Lord Vorkosigan, would you rejoin your delegation, please?"

"Of course. Who was that poor fellow?"

His cheerful cooperation surprises some truth out of the man. "It is Ba Lura, the Celestial Lady's most senior servitor. The ba has served her for sixty years and more; it seems to have wished to follow on and serve her in death as well. A most tasteless gesture, to do it here..."

Mere seconds after the end of this short speech, the ghem-commander succeeds in getting Miles within Ivan's-arm's-reach of the line.

[middlingalong]

Ivan seizes Miles by the back of his uniform and marches him doorward. "What the hell is going on?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"You should not have gotten out of line, my lord," adds Vorob'yev reprovingly. "Ah... what was it you saw?"

Which question rather undercuts his reprimand, Miles thinks. "One of the late Dowager Empress's oldest ba servants has just cut its throat at the foot of her bier. I didn't know the Cetagandans made a fashion of human sacrifice. Not officially, anyway."

Vorob'yev stifles a grin, not quite in time to conceal it from Miles. "How awkward for them. They are going to have an interesting scramble, trying to retrieve this ceremony."

Yes, indeed... so what did the ba think it was doing? Why did it have the artifact? Why did it come barreling into a Barrayaran personnel pod with the thing in its vest pocket - why did it reach for that pocket wearing an expression of desperate inspiration - why did it come back here the next morning and kill itself in a way calculated to publicly humiliate its celestial superiors?

Miles is particularly confused to note that the haut What's-her-bubble didn't seem to be acting on the theory that the Barrayarans had stolen the sparkly stick. He would expect that if the ba had been up there on any official business, carrying the artifact legitimately, and had panicked and fled when they jumped it, it would have run back to its masters to report being mugged by galactic delegates, and the conversation with the Handmaiden's emissary would have taken a rather different tone.

Or, alternately, it would have omitted to mention the incident at all and... committed dramatic suicide in its shame? But then how did the Handmaiden know to send a haut-lady to question Miles, out of all the people on Eta Ceta? And however she came by that information, why did she decide not to send somebody more aggressive? If Miles received word through whatever channels that a Cetagandan delegate to a Barrayaran state funeral had somehow gotten their hands on a vanished Vor widget, his first ten theories would all involve espionage, and the first person he'd tell would be Illyan. Maybe the Handmaiden of the Star Creche is a very trusting sort. No, he can't imagine anyone that trusting.

In fact, even if the ba wasn't carrying the thing legitimately, why assume that the Barrayarans who ended up with it were innocent in the matter? Why not send some kind of security to shake them down?

His head is spinning.

This train of thought occupies him all the way to the Eastern Pavilion, along the path that circles the central towers. His legs are giving him absolute hell. In the general confusion caused by delegates unexpectedly needing to bring their bulky gifts to the banquet tables, he leaves the maplewood box with Ivan again and navigates around the intervening tables to approach the Vervani delegation and have a quick chat with Mia Maz.

"Good afternoon, m'lady Maz," he greets her when he arrives.

[alicornucopia]

"Lord Vorkosigan! I tried to call you at your embassy earlier, but you'd already left. What in the world happened in the rotunda, do you have any idea? For the Cetagandans to alter a ceremony of this magnitude in the middle - it's unheard of."

[thisvorlunatic]

"They didn't exactly have a choice," he explains. "Well, I suppose they could have ignored the body and just carried on around it—I think that would have been much more impressive, personally—but evidently they decided to clean it up first."

This, needless to say, gets him a great deal of attention. He follows up with the same explanation he gave Ivan and Vorob'yev, rephrased and elaborated somewhat to include more detail and less colour commentary. When the aggregate curiosity of a few dozen delegates has been satisfied, he lowers his voice slightly to resume private conversation with Mia.

"Did you have any luck with that little research question I posed to you last night? I, uh... don't think this is the time or place to discuss it, but..." he would very much like to know if her answer will contain the words 'seal of the Star Creche'.

[alicornucopia]

"Yes, and yes." The need for discretion thus agreed upon, they arrange to meet at the Barryaran embassy ostensibly for tea and etiquette lessons, later - and then back to their assigned places for food. Numerous tiny courses of exquisite deliciousness. Followed by a second attempt at the gift-laying parade, this one unobstructed by suicidal ba.

And then back home they go.

[thisvorlunatic]

The situation with Miles's boots is both worse and better than he thought.

On the one hand, he doesn't think he'll have to cut the bloody things off just to get out of them. On the other hand, that means that the best method for removing them is to brace himself on a couch in his personal suite and enlist Ivan to—

"Pull."

[middlingalong]

Ivan does his level best.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles half-stifles a yowl of pain.

[middlingalong]

Ivan pauses. "Does that hurt?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yes, keep going, dammit."

[middlingalong]

"Maybe you ought to go downstairs to the embassy infirmary again."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Later. I am not going to let that butcher of a physician dissect my best boots. Pull," he says firmly.

[middlingalong]

Ivan pulls. He eventually separates boot from foot.

Then he smiles slightly. "You know, you're not going to be able to get the other one off without me."

[thisvorlunatic]

"So?"

[middlingalong]

"So... give."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Give what?" he asks, one last halfhearted stab at pretending innocence.

[middlingalong]

"Knowing your usual humor, I'd have thought you'd be as amused by the idea of an extra corpse in the funeral chamber as Vorob'yev was, but you came back looking like you'd just seen your grandfather's ghost."

[thisvorlunatic]

"The ba had cut its throat," he says, recalling the image vividly. "It was a messy scene."

[middlingalong]

"I think you've seen messier corpses."