Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [148]
"Remembering my grandmother, it's possible," said the Professora.
"Mm. And my Great-Aunt Vorvayne." Ekaterin sighed, and glanced worriedly at her present aunt.
The Professora was leaning on the wall with one hand supporting her, looking still very pale and shaky. "If you are done with the attempted sabotage, I think I would like to sit down again."
"Yes, of course. It was a stupid idea anyway."
The Professora sank gratefully onto the only seat in the tiny lavatory, and Ekaterin took her turn leaning on the wall. "I am so sorry I dragged you into this. If you hadn't been with me . . . One of us must get away."
"If you see a chance, Ekaterin, take it. Don't wait for me."
"That would still leave Soudha with a hostage."
"I don't think that's the most important issue, just now. Not if the Komarrans were telling the truth about what that great ugly thing out there does."
Ekaterin rubbed her toe over the smooth gray deck of the lav. In a quieter voice, she asked, "Do you suppose our own side would sacrifice us, if it came to a standoff?"
"For this? Yes," said the Professora. "Or at any rate . . . they certainly ought to. Do the Professor and Lord Auditor Vorkosigan and ImpSec know what the Komarrans have built?"
"No, not as of yesterday. That is, they knew Soudha had built something—I gather they had almost managed to reconstruct the plans."
"Then they will know," said the Professora firmly. And a little less firmly, "Eventually . . ."
"I hope they won't think we ought to sacrifice ourselves, like in the Tragedy of the Maiden of the Lake."
"She was actually sacrificed by her brother, as the tradition would have it," said the Professora. "I do wonder if it was quite so voluntary as he later claimed."
Ekaterin reflected dryly on the old Barrayaran legend. As the tale went, the town of Vorkosigan Surleau, on the Long Lake, had been besieged by the forces of Hazelbright. Loyal vassals of the absent Count, a Vor officer and his sister, had held out till the last. On the verge of the final assault, the Maiden of the Lake had offered up her pale throat to her brother's sword rather than fall to the ravages of the enemy troops. The very next morning, the siege was unexpectedly lifted by the subterfuge of her betrothed—one of their Auditor Vorkosigan's distant ancestors, come to think of it, the latterly famous General Count Selig of that name—who sent the enemy hurriedly marching away to meet the false rumor of another attack. But it was, of course, too late for the Maiden of the Lake. Much Barrayaran historical sympathy, in the form of plays and poems and songs, had been expended upon the subsequent grief of the two men; Ekaterin had memorized one of the shorter poems for a school recitation, in her childhood. "I've always wondered," said Ekaterin, "if the attack really had taken place the next day, and all the pillage and rape had proceeded on schedule, would they have said, `Oh, that's all right, then'?"
"Probably," said Aunt Vorthys, her lips twitching.
After a time, Ekaterin remarked, "I want to go home. But I don't want to go back to Old Barrayar."
"No more do I, dear. It's wonderful and dramatic to read about. So nice to be able to read, don't you know."
"I know girls who pine for it. They like to play dress-up and pretend being Vor ladies of old, rescued from menace by romantic Vor youths. For some reason they never play dying in childbirth, or vomiting your guts out from the red dysentery, or weaving till you go blind and crippled from arthritis and dye poisoning, or infanticide. Well, they do die romantically of disease sometimes, but somehow it's always an illness that makes you interestingly pale and everyone sorry and doesn't involve losing bowel control."
"I've taught history for thirty years. One can't reach them all, though we try. Send them