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Miles looked up, startled. "D'you want to call down the lightflyer?"

"No. Just back to the embassy in the groundcar."

"But—"

"No, dammit," Ivan hissed. "Just quietly. Before that smirking bastard goes upstairs." He nodded toward Yenaro, who was now standing at the foot of the staircase, gazing upward.

"I take it you don't think it is acute."

"Oh, it was cute all right," Ivan snarled.

"You didn't murder anybody up there, did you?"

"No. But I thought they'd never . . . Tell you in the car."

"You'd better." Miles clambered to his feet. They perforce had to pass Yenaro, who attached himself to them like a good host, seeing them to his front door with suitably polite farewells. Ivan's good-byes might have been etched in acid.

* * *

As soon as the canopy sealed over their heads, Miles commanded, "Give, Ivan!"

Ivan settled back, still seething. "I was set up."

This comes as a surprise to you, coz? "By Lady Arvin and Lady Benello?"

"They were the setup. Yenaro was behind it, I'm sure of it. You're right about that damned fountain being a trap, Miles, I see it now. Beauty as bait, all over again."

"What happened to you?"

"You know all those rumors about Cetagandan aphrodisiacs?"

"Yes . . ."

"Well, sometime this evening that son-of-a-bitch Yenaro slipped me an anti-aphrodisiac."

"Um . . . are you sure? I mean, there are natural causes for these moments, I'm told. . . ."

"It was a setup. I didn't seduce them, they seduced me! Wafted me upstairs to this amazing room—it had to have been all arranged in advance. God, it was, it was . . ." his voice broke in a sigh, "it was glorious. For a little while. And then I realized I couldn't, like, perform."

"What did you do?"

"It was too late to get out gracefully. So I winged it. It was all I could do to keep 'em from noticing."

"What?"

"I made up a lot of instant barbarian folklore—I told 'em a Vor prides himself on self-control, that it's not considered polite on Barrayar for a man to, you know, before his lady has. Three times. It was considered insulting to her. I stroked, I rubbed, I scratched, I recited poetry, I nuzzled and nibbled and—cripes, my fingers are cramped." His speech was a bit slurred, too, Miles noticed. "I thought they'd never fall asleep." Ivan paused; a slow smirk displaced the snarl on his face. "But they were smiling, when they finally did." The smirk faded into a look of bleak dismay. "What do you want to bet those two are the biggest female ghem-gossips on Eta Ceta?"

"No takers here," said Miles, fascinated. Let the punishment fit the crime. Or, in this case, the trap fit the prey. Someone had studied his weaknesses. And someone just as clearly had studied Ivan's. "We could have the ImpSec office do a data sweep for the tale, over the next few days."

"If you breathe a word of this I'll wring your scrawny neck! If I can find it."

"You've got to confess to the embassy physician. Blood tests—"

"Oh, yes. I want a chemical scan the instant I hit the door. What if the effect's permanent?"

"Ba Vorpatril?" Miles intoned, eyes alight.

"Dammit, I didn't laugh at you."

"No. That's true, you didn't," Miles sighed. "I expect the physician will find whatever it was metabolizes rapidly. Or Yenaro wouldn't have drunk the stuff himself."

"You think?"

"Remember the zlati ale? I'd bet my ImpSec silver eyes that was the vector."

Ivan relaxed slightly, obviously relieved at this professional analysis. After a minute he added, "Yenaro's done you now, and he's done me. Third time's a charm. What's next, do you suppose? And can we do him first?"

Miles was silent for a long time. "That depends," he said at last, "on whether Yenaro's merely amusing himself, or whether he too is being . . . set up. And on whether there's any connection between Yenaro's backer and the death of Ba Lura."

"Connection? What possible connection?"

"We are the connection, Ivan. A couple of Barrayaran backcountry boys come to the big city, and ripe for the plucking. Somebody is using us. And I think