Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [431]
That didn't sound good. In fact, it sounded about as not-good as it could be.
"Roic . . ." Taura's brows knotted. "Do you happen to know . . . could I find any commercial pharmaceutical laboratories open at this time of night in Vorbarr Sultana?"
"Pharmaceutical labs?" Roic repeated blankly. "Why, do you feel sick too? I can call out the Vorkosigans' personal physician for you, or one of the medtechs who ride herd on the Count and Countess . . ." Would she need some kind of off-world specialist? No matter, the Vorkosigan name could access one, he was sure. Even on Bonfire Night.
"No, no, I feel fine. I was just wondering."
"Nothing much is open tonight. It's a holiday. Everyone's out to the parties and bonfires and the fireworks. Tomorrow, too. It'll be the first day of the new year here, by the Barrayaran calendar."
She smiled briefly. "It would be. A new start all round; I'll bet he liked the symbolism of that."
"I suppose hospital labs are open all night. Their emergency treatment intakes will be. Busy as hell, too. We used to bring the ones in Hassadar all kinds of customers on Bonfire Night."
"Hospitals, yes, of course! I should have thought of them at once."
"Why do you want one?" he asked again.
She hesitated. "I'm not sure that I do. It was just a train of thought I had earlier this evening, when that aunt-lady called Miles. Not sure I like its destination, though . . . ." She turned away and swung up the stairs, taking them two at a time without effort. Roic frowned, and went off to scare up a vehicle from whatever remained in the sub-basement garage. With so many signed out to transport the household and its guests already, this might take some rapid extemporizing.
But Taura had spoken to him, almost normally. Maybe . . . maybe there were such things as second chances. If a fellow was brave enough to take them . . .
* * *
Lord Auditor and Professora Vorthys's home was a tall, old, colorfully-tiled structure close to the District University. The street was quiet when Roic pulled the car—borrowed without notification, ultimately, from one of the armsmen off with the Count at the Residence—up to the front. From a distance, mainly in the direction of the university, drifted the sharp crackle of fireworks, harmonious singing, and blurred drunken singing. A rich, heady scent of wood smoke and black powder permeated the frosty night air.
The porch light was on. The Professora, an aging, smiling, neat Vor lady who intimidated Roic only slightly less than did Lady Alys, let them in herself. Her soft round face was tense with worry.
"Did you tell her I was coming?" m'lord asked in a low tone as he shed his coat. He stared anxiously up the stairs leading from the narrow, wood-paneled hallway.
"I didn't dare."
"Helen . . . what should I do?" M'lord looked suddenly smaller, and scared, and younger and older all at the same time.
"Just go up, I think. This isn't something that's about talking, or words, or reason. I've run through all those."
He buttoned, then unbuttoned the gray tunic he'd thrown on over an old white shirt, pulled down his sleeves, took a deep breath, mounted the stairs and turned out of sight. After a minute or two, the Professora stopped picking nervously at her hands, gestured Roic to a straight chair beside a small table piled with books and flimsies, and tiptoed up after him.
Roic sat in the hall and listened to the old house creak. From the sitting room, visible through one archway, a glow from a fireplace gilded the air. Through the opposite archway, the Professora's study lay, lined with books; the light from the hall picked out an occasional bit of gold lettering on an ancient spine in the gloom. Roic wasn't bookish himself, but he liked the comfortable academic smell of this place. It occurred to him that back when he was a Hassadar guard, he'd never once gone into a house to clean up a bad scene, blood on the walls and evil smells in the air, where there were books like