Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [296]
Kareen giggled. "I don't think so, Mark."
He smiled wryly back at her. "No excuses. No quarter."
"Now you sound like Miles."
A young woman emerged from the ballroom. Dressed in some pale blue silky stuff, she was athletically trim, glowingly blonde, and nearly as tall as Ivan. "Kareen!" She waved. "Mama wants us all."
"Now, Delia?" said Kareen, sounding quite put-out.
"Yes." She eyed Mark with alarmingly keen interest, but drawn by whatever daughterly duty, swung back inside.
Kareen sighed, pushed away from the stonework upon which she had been leaning, dusted futilely at a snag in her raspberry gauze, and smiled farewell. "It was nice meeting you, Lord Mark."
"It was nice talking with you too. And dancing with you." It was true. He waved, more casually than he felt, as she vanished into the warm light of the Residence. When he was sure she was out of sight, he knelt and surreptitiously collected the last of the tiny flowers she had shed and stuffed them into his pocket with the rest.
She smiled at me. Not at Miles. Not at Admiral Naismith. Me, myself, Mark. This was how it could have been, if he hadn't bankrupted himself at Bharaputra's.
Now that he was alone in the dark as he had wished, he discovered he didn't much care for it. He decided to go find Ivan, and struck off down the garden walkways. Unfortunately, the paths divided and re-divided, presumably to more than one destination. He passed couples who had taken to the sheltered benches despite the chill, and a few other men and women who'd just wandered down here for private talks, or to cool off. Which way had Ivan gone? Not this way, obviously; a little round balcony made a dead-end. He turned back.
Someone was following him, a tall man in red-and-blues. His face was in shadow. "Ivan?" said Mark uncertainly. He didn't think it was Ivan.
"So you're Vorkosigan's clowne." Not Ivan's voice. But his skewed pronunciation made the intended insult very clear.
Mark stood square. "You've got that straight, all right," he growled. "So who in this circus are you, the dancing bear?"
"A Vor."
"I can tell that by the low, sloping forehead. Which Vor?" The hairs were rising on the back of his neck. The last time he'd felt such exhilaration combined with intense sickness to his stomach had been in the alley in the caravanserai. His heart began to pound. But he's made no threat yet, and he's alone. Wait.
"Offworlder. You have no concept of the honor of the Vor," the man grated.
"None whatsoever," Mark agreed cheerfully. "I think you're all insane."
"You are no soldier."
"Right again. My, we are quick tonight. I was trained strictly as a lone assassin. Death in the shadows is a sort of speciality of mine." He began counting seconds in his head.
The man, who had started to move forward, sagged back again. "So it seems," he hissed. "You've wasted no time, promoting yourself to a countship. Not very subtle, for a trained assassin."
"I'm not a subtle man." He centered his balance, but did not move. No sudden moves. Keep bluffing.
"I can tell you this, little clowne." He gave it the same insulting slur as before. "If Aral Vorkosigan dies, it won't be you who steps into his place."
"Well, that's just exactly right," purred Mark. "So what are you all hot about, Vor bore?" Shit. This one knows that Miles is dead. How the hell does he know? Is he an ImpSec insider? But no Horus-eye stared from his collar; he bore a ship insignia of some kind, which Mark could not quite make out. Active-duty type. "What, to you, is one more little spare Vor drone living off a family pension in Vorbarr Sultana? I saw a herd of them up there tonight, swilling away."
"You're very cocky."
"Consider the venue," said Mark in exasperation. "You're not going to carry out any death threats here. It would embarrass ImpSec. And I don't think you want to annoy Simon Illyan, whoever the hell you are." He kept on counting.
"I don't know what hold you think you have on ImpSec," the man began furiously.
But he was interrupted. A smiling servant in the Residence's livery walked down the path carrying