Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [278]
"Would you like to try riding him?" the Count offered. "Though he hasn't been worked lately, he's probably a bit fresh."
"No, thank you," choked Mark. "Some other time, maybe."
"Ah."
They walked along the fence, Ninny trailing them on the other side till its hopes were stopped by the corner. It whinnied as they walked away, a staggeringly mournful noise. Mark's shoulders hunched as from a blow. The Count smiled, but the attempt must have felt as ghastly as it looked, for the smile fell off again immediately. He looked back over his shoulder. "The old fellow is over twenty, now. Getting up there, for a horse. I'm beginning to identify with him."
They were heading toward the woods. "There's a riding trail . . . it circles around to a spot with a view back toward the house. We used to picnic there. Would you like to see it?"
A hike. Mark had no heart for a hike, but he'd already turned down the Count's obvious overture about riding the horse. He didn't dare refuse him twice, the Count would think him . . . surly. "All right." No armsmen or ImpSec bodyguards in sight. The Count had gone out of his way to create this private time. Mark cringed in anticipation. Intimate chat, incoming.
When they reached the woods' edge the first fallen leaves rustled and crackled underfoot, releasing an organic but pleasant tang. But the noise of their feet did not exactly fill the silence. The Count, for all his feigned country-casualness, was stiff and tense. Off-balance. Unnerved by him, Mark blurted, "The Countess is making you do this. Isn't she."
"Not really," said the Count, " . . . yes."
A thoroughly mixed reply and probably true.
"Will you ever forgive the Bharaputrans for shooting the wrong Admiral Naismith?"
"Probably not." The Count's tone was equable, unoffended.
"If it had been reversed—if that Bharaputran had aimed one short guy to the left—would ImpSec be hunting my cryo-chamber now?" Would Miles even have dumped Trooper Phillipi, to put Mark in her place?
"Since Miles would in that case be ImpSec in the area—I fancy the answer is yes," murmured the Count. "As I had never met you, my own interest would probably have been a little . . . academic. Your mother would have pushed all the same, though," he added thoughtfully.
"Let us by all means be honest with each other," Mark said bitterly.
"We cannot possibly build anything that will last on any other basis," said the Count dryly. Mark flushed, and grunted assent.
The trail ran first along a stream, then cut up over a rise through what was almost a gully or wash, paved with loose and sliding rock. Thankfully it then ran level for a time, branching and re-branching through the trees. A few little horse jumps made of cut logs and brush were set up deliberately here and there; the trails ran around as well as over them, optionally. Why was he certain Miles chose to ride over them? He had to admit, there was something primevally restful about the woods, with its patterns of sun and shade, tall Earth trees and native and imported brush creating an illusion of endless privacy. One could imagine that the whole planet was such a people-less wilderness, if one didn't know anything about terraforming. They turned onto a wider double track, where they could walk side by side.
The Count moistened his lips. "About that cryo-chamber."
Mark's head came up like the horse's had, sensing sugar. ImpSec wasn't talking to him, the Count hadn't been talking to him; driven half-crazy by the information vacuum, he'd finally broken down and badgered the Countess, though it made him feel ill to do so. But even she could only report negatives. ImpSec now knew over four hundred places the cryo-chamber was not. It was a start. Four hundred down, the rest of the universe to go . . . it was impossible, useless, futile—
"ImpSec has found it." The Count rubbed his face.
"What!" Mark stopped short. "They got it back? Hot damn! It's over! Where did they—why didn't you—" He bit off his words as it came to him that there was probably a very good reason the Count hadn't told him at once. And he wasn't