Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [406]
It was fortunate that it was a Midsummer event, because the only site large enough for all the circles of witnesses (barring the stunningly ugly municipal stadium) was the former parade ground, now a grassy sward, just to the south of the Residence. The ballroom was the backup venue in the event of rain, in Miles's view a terrorist plan that courted death by overheating and oxygen deprivation for most of the government of the Imperium. To match the blizzard that had made the Winterfair betrothal so memorable, they ought to have had summer tornadoes, but to everyone's relief the day dawned fair.
The morning began with yet another formal breakfast, this time with Gregor and his groom's party at the Residence. Gregor looked a little frayed, but determined.
"How are you holding up?" Miles asked him in an undervoice.
"I'll make it through dinner," Gregor assured him. "Then we drown our pursuers in a lake of wine and escape."
Even Miles didn't know what refuge Gregor and Laisa had chosen for their wedding night, whether one of the several Vorbarra properties or the country estate of a friend or maybe aboard a battle cruiser in orbit. He was sure there wasn't going to be any sort of unscheduled Imperial shivaree. Gregor had chosen all his most frighteningly humorless ImpSec personnel to guard his getaway.
Miles returned to Vorkosigan House to change into his very best House uniform, ornamented with a careful selection of his old military decorations that he otherwise never wore. Ekaterin would be watching him from the third circle of witnesses, in company with her uncle and aunt and the rest of his Imperial Auditor colleagues. He likely wouldn't see her till the vows were over, a thought that gave him a taste of what Gregor's anxiety must be.
The Residence's grounds were filling when he arrived back. He joined his father, Gregor, Drou and Kou, Count Henri Vorvolk and his wife, and the rest of the first circle in their assigned staging area, one of the Residence's public rooms. The Vicereine was off somewhere in support of Lady Alys. Both women and Ivan arrived with moments to spare. As the light of the summer evening gilded the air, Gregor's horse, a gloriously glossy black beast in gleaming cavalry regalia, was led to the west entrance. A Vorbarra Armsman followed with an equally lovely white mare fitted out for Laisa. Gregor mounted, looking in his parade red-and-blues both impressively Imperial and endearingly nervous. Surrounded by his party on foot, he proceeded decorously across the grounds through an aisle of people to the former barracks, now remodeled as guest quarters, where the Komarran delegation was housed.
It was then Miles's job to pound on the door and demand in formal phrases that the bride be brought forth. He was watched by a bevy of giggling Komarran women from the wide-flung flower-decked windows overhead. He stepped back as Laisa and her parents emerged. The bride's dress, he noted in the certainty that there would be a quiz later, included a white silk jacket with fascinating glittery stuff over various other layers, a heavy white silk split skirt and white leather boots, and a headdress with garlands of flowers all cascading down. Several tensely smiling Vorbarra Armsmen made sure the whole ensemble got loaded without incident aboard the notably placid mare—Miles suspected equine tranquilizers. Gregor shifted his horse around to lean across and grip Laisa's hand briefly; they smiled at each other in mutual amazement. Laisa's father, a short, round Komarran oligarch who had never been near a horse in his life before he'd had to practice for this, valiantly took the lead line, and the cavalcade wound its stately way back through the aisles of well-wishers to the south lawn.
The marriage pattern was laid on the ground in little ridges of colored groats, hundreds of kilos of them altogether, Miles had been given to understand. The small central circle awaited the couple, surrounded by a six-pointed star for the