Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [81]
"Oh, dear. I'm so sorry."
"Huh? No, damn it. Vorkosigan's no rapist. He's got this thing about prisoners. Wouldn't touch one with a stick. He asked me . . ." she trailed off, looking into the kind, concerned, and loving wall of her mother's face. "We talked a lot. He's all right."
"He doesn't have a very good reputation."
"Yeah, I've seen some of it. It's all lies."
"He's—not a murderer, then?"
"Well . . ." Cordelia foundered on the truth. "He has k-killed a lot of people, I suppose. He's a soldier, you know. It's his job. It can't help spilling over a bit. I only know about three that weren't in the line of duty, though."
"Only three?" repeated her mother faintly. There was a pause. "He's not a, a sex criminal, then?"
"Certainly not! Although I gather he went through a rather strange phase, after his wife committed suicide—I don't think he realizes how much I know about it, not that that maniac Vorrutyer should be trusted as a source of information, even if he was there. I suspect it's partly true, at least about their relationship. Vorrutyer was clearly obsessed with him. And Aral went awfully vague when I asked him about it."
Looking at her mother's appalled face, Cordelia thought, it's a good thing I never wanted to be a defense lawyer. All my clients would be in therapy forever. "It all makes a lot more sense if you meet him in person," she offered hopefully.
Cordelia's mother laughed uncertainly. "He surely seems to have charmed you. What does he have, then? Conversation? Good looks?"
"I'm not sure. He mostly talks Barrayaran politics. He claims to have an aversion to them, but it sounds more like an obsession to me. He can't leave them alone for five minutes. It's like they're in him."
"Is that—a very interesting subject?"
"It's awful," said Cordelia frankly. "His bedtime stories can keep you awake for weeks."
"It can't be his looks," sighed her mother. "I've seen a holovid of him in the news."
"Oh, did you save it?" asked Cordelia, instantly interested. "Where is it?"
"I'm sure there's something in the vid files," her mother allowed, staring. "But really, Cordelia—your Reg Rosemont was ten times better looking."
"I suppose he was," Cordelia agreed, "by any objective standard."
"So what does the man have, anyway?"
"I don't know. The virtues of his vices, perhaps. Courage. Strength. Energy. He could run me into the ground any day. He has power over people. Not leadership, exactly, although there's that too. They either worship him or hate his guts. The strangest man I ever met did both at the same time. But nobody falls asleep when he's around."
"And which category do you fall in, Cordelia?" asked her mother, bemused.
"Well, I don't hate him. Can't say as I worship him, either." She paused a long time, and looked up to meet her mother's eyes squarely. "But when he's cut, I bleed."
"Oh," said her mother, whitely. Her mouth smiled, her eyes flinched, and she busied herself with unnecessary vigor in getting Cordelia's meager belongings settled.
* * *
On the fourth afternoon of her leave, Cordelia's commanding officer brought a disturbing visitor.
"Captain Naismith, this is Dr. Mehta, from the Expeditionary Force Medical Service," Commodore Tailor introduced them. Dr. Mehta was a slim, tan-skinned woman about Cordelia's age, with dark hair drawn back, cool and antiseptic in her blue uniform.
"Not another psychiatrist," Cordelia sighed. Her muscles knotted up the back of her neck. More interrogations—more twisting, more evasions, ever-shakier webs of lies to cover the gaps in her story where Vorkosigan's bitter truths dwelt . . .
"Commodore Sprague's reports finally caught up with your file, a little late, it seems." Tailor's lips thinned sympathetically. "Ghastly. I'm sorry. If we'd had them earlier, we might have been able to spare you last week. And everybody else."
Cordelia flushed. "I didn't mean to kick him. He kind of ran into me. It won't