Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [72]
"I see. I should have trouble getting a job as a judo instructor, then. And I could hardly write my memoirs, all things considered."
"Right now I should think you'd have trouble avoiding lynch mobs." She looked up at his bleak face. A mistake; it wrenched her heart. "I've—got to go home for a while, anyway. See my family, and think things through in peace and quiet. Maybe we can come up with some alternate solution. We can write, anyway."
"Yes, I suppose." He stood, and helped her up.
"Where will you be, after this?" she asked. "You have your rank back."
"Well, I'm going to finish up all this dirty work," a wave of his arm indicated the prison camp, and by implication the whole Escobaran adventure, "—and then I believe I too shall go home. And get drunk. I cannot serve him anymore. He's used me up on this. The death of his son, and the five thousand men who escorted him to hell, will always hang between us now. Vorhalas, Gottyan . . ."
"Don't forget the Escobarans. And a few Betans, too."
"I shall remember them." He walked beside her down the path. "Is there anything you need, in camp? I've tried to see that everything was provided generally, within the limits of our supplies, but I may have missed something."
"Camp seems to be all right, now. I don't need anything special. All we really need is to go home. No—come to think of it, I do want a favor."
"Name it," he said eagerly.
"Lieutenant Rosemont's grave. It was never marked. I may never get back here. While it's still possible to find the remains of our camp, could you have your people mark it? I have all his numbers and dates. I handled his personnel forms often enough, I still have them memorized."
"I'll see to it personally."
"Wait." He paused, and she held out a hand to him. His thick fingers engulfed her tapering ones; his skin was warm and dry, and scorched her. "Before we go pick up poor Lieutenant Illyan again . . ."
He took her in his arms, and they kissed, for the first time, for a long time.
"Oh," she muttered after. "Perhaps that was a mistake. It hurts so much when you stop."
"Well, let me . . ." His hand stroked her hair gently, then desperately wrapped itself in a shimmering coil; they kissed again.
"Uh, sir?" Lieutenant Illyan, coming up the path, cleared his throat noisily. "Had you forgotten the Staff conference?"
Vorkosigan put her from him with a sigh. "No, Lieutenant. I haven't forgotten."
"May I congratulate you, sir?" he smiled.
"No, Lieutenant."
He unsmiled. "I—don't understand, sir."
"That's quite all right, Lieutenant."
They walked on, Cordelia with her hands in her pockets, Vorkosigan with his clasped behind his back.
* * *
Most of the Escobaran women had already gone up by shuttle to the ship that had arrived to transport them home, late next afternoon, when a spruce Barrayaran guard appeared at the door of their shelter requesting Captain Naismith.
"Admiral's compliments, ma'am, and he wishes to know if you'd care to check the data on the marker he had made for your officer. It's in his office."
"Yes, certainly."
"Cordelia, for God's sake," hissed Lieutenant Alfredi, "don't go in there alone."
"It's all right," she murmured back impatiently. "Vorkosigan's all right."
"Oh? So what did he want yesterday?"
"I told you, to arrange for the marker."
"That didn't take two solid hours. Do you realize that's how long you were gone? I saw how he looked at you. And you—you came back looking like death warmed over."
Cordelia irritably waved away her concerned protests, and followed the extremely polite guard to the cache caverns. The planetside administrative offices of the Barrayaran force were set up in one of the side chambers. They had a carefully busy air that suggested the nearby presence of Staff officers, and indeed when they entered Vorkosigan's office, his name and rank emblazoned over the smudge that had been his predecessor's, they found him within.
Illyan, a captain, and a commodore were grouped around a computer interface with him, evidently undergoing