Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [150]
"He's easy to get along with," Cordelia assured Dr. Henri. "Just admire the horses, and ask a few leading questions about the wars, and you can relax and spend the rest of your time listening."
Henri's brows went up, as he searched her face for irony. Henri was a sharp man. Cordelia smiled cheerfully.
Bothari was silently watching her in the mirror set over his control interface, Cordelia noticed. Again. The sergeant seemed tense today. It was the position of his hands, the cording of the muscles in his neck, that gave him away. Bothari's flat yellow eyes were always unreadable; set deep, too close together, and not quite on the same level, above his sharp cheekbones and long narrow jaw. Anxiety over the doctor's visit? Understandable.
The land below was rolling, but soon rucked up into the rugged ridges that channeled the lake district. The mountains rose beyond, and Cordelia thought she caught a distant glint of early snow on the highest peaks. Bothari hopped the flyer over three running ridges, and banked again, zooming up a narrow valley. A few more minutes, a swoop over another ridge, and the long lake was in sight. An enormous maze of burnt-out fortifications made a black crown on a headland, and a village nestled below it. Bothari brought the flyer down neatly on a circle painted on the pavement of the village's widest street.
Dr. Henri gathered up his bag of medical equipment. "The examination will only take a few minutes," he assured Cordelia, "then we can go on."
Don't tell me, tell Bothari. Cordelia sensed Dr. Henri was a little unnerved by Bothari. He kept addressing her instead of the Sergeant, as if she were some translator who would put it all into terms that Bothari would understand. Bothari was formidable, true, but talking past him wouldn't make him magically disappear.
Bothari led them to a little house set in a narrow side street that went down to the glimmering water. At his knock, a heavyset woman with greying hair opened the door and smiled. "Good morning, Sergeant. Come in, everything's all ready. Milady." She favored Cordelia with an awkward curtsey.
Cordelia returned a nod, gazing around with interest. "Good morning, Mistress Hysopi. How nice your house looks today." The place was painfully scrubbed and straightened—as a military widow, Mistress Hysopi understood all about inspections. Cordelia trusted the everyday atmosphere in the hired fosterer's house was a trifle more relaxed.
"Your little girl's been very good this morning," Mistress Hysopi assured the Sergeant. "Took her bottle right down—she's just had her bath. Right this way, Doctor. I hope you'll find everything's all right. . . ."
She guided the way up narrow stairs. One bedroom was clearly her own; the other, with a bright window looking down over rooftops to the lake, had recently been made over into a nursery. A dark-haired infant with big brown eyes cooed to herself in a crib. "There's a girl," Mistress Hysopi smiled, picking her up. "Say hi to your daddy, eh, Elena? Pretty-pretty."
Bothari entered no further than the door, watching the infant warily. "Her head has grown a lot," he offered after a moment.
"They usually do, between three and four months," Mistress Hysopi agreed.
Dr. Henri laid out his instruments on the crib sheet, and Mistress Hysopi carried the baby back over and began undressing her. The two began a technical discussion about formulae and feces, and Bothari walked around the little room, looking but not touching. He did look terribly huge and out-of-place among the colorful, delicate infant furnishings, dark and dangerous