Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [218]
"I'm asking now."
"Now," he said after a long hesitation, "is an extremely delicate time, in the overall strategic situation. We are right now engaged in secret negotiations with two of Vordarian's top commanders to sell him out. The space forces are about to commit. We are on the verge of being able to shut Vordarian down without a major set-battle."
Cordelia's thought was diverted just long enough to wonder how many of Vorkosigan's commanders were secretly negotiating right now to sell them out. Time would tell. Time.
Vorkosigan continued, "If—if we bring this negotiation off as I wish, we will be in a position to rescue most of the hostages in one major surprise raid, from a direction Vordarian does not expect."
"I'm not asking for a big raid."
"No. But I'm telling you that a small raid, particularly if things went wrong, might seriously interfere with the success of the larger, later one."
"Might."
"Might." He tilted his head in concession to the uncertainty.
"Time?"
"About ten days."
"Not good enough."
"No. I will try to speed things up. But you understand—if I botch this chance, this timing, several thousand men could pay for my mistakes with their lives."
She understood clearly. "All right. Suppose we leave the armies of Barrayar out of this for the moment. Let me go. With maybe a liveried man or two, and pinpoint—downright hypodermic—secrecy. A totally private effort."
His hands slapped to the table, and he sputtered, "No! God, Cordelia!"
"Do you doubt my competence?" she asked dangerously. I sure do. Now was not the moment to admit this, however. "Is that 'Dear Captain' just a pet name for a pet, or did you mean it?"
"I have seen you do extraordinary things—"
You've also seen me fall flat on my face, so?
"—but you are not expendable. God. That really would make me terminally crazy. To wait, not knowing . . ."
"You ask that of me. To wait, unknowing. You ask it every day."
"You are stronger than I. You are strong beyond reason."
"Flattering. Not convincing."
His thought circled hers; she could see it in his knife-keen eyes. "No. No haring off on your own. I forbid it, Cordelia. Flat, absolutely. Put it right out of your mind. I cannot risk you both."
"You do. In this."
His jaw clamped; his head lowered. Message received and understood. Koudelka, sitting worriedly beside him, glanced back and forth between the two of them in consternation. Cordelia could sense the pressure of Drou's hand, white-tight on the back of her chair.
Vorkosigan looked like something being ground between two great stones; she had no desire to see him smeared to powder. In a moment, he would demand her word to confine herself to Base, to dare no risk.
She opened her hand, curving up on the tabletop. "I would choose differently. But no one appointed me Regent of Barrayar."
The tension ran out of him with a sigh. "Insufficient imagination." A common failing, among Barrayarans, my love.
* * *
Returning to Aral's quarters, Cordelia found Count Piotr in the corridor, just turning away from their door. He was quite changed from the exhausted wild man who'd left her on a mountain trail. Now he was dressed in the sort of quietly upper-class clothes favored by retired Vor lords and senior Imperial ministers; neat trousers, polished half-boots, an elaborate tunic. Bothari loomed at his shoulder, once again costumed in his formal brown-and-silver livery. Bothari carried a thick coat folded over his arm, by which Cordelia deduced Piotr had just blown in from his diplomatic mission to some fellow District count to the wintery north of Vordarian's holdings. Vorkosigan's people certainly seemed to be able to move at will now, outside the heartlands held by Vordarian.
"Ah. Cordelia." Piotr gave her a formal, cautious nod; not reopening hostilities here. That was fine with Cordelia. She was not sure she had any will