Miles, Mystery & Mayhem - Lois McMaster Bujold [50]
"Lady Benello invites you to a private dinner, Lady Arvin invites you to a fire-pattern-viewing party—both tonight—and Lady Senden invites you to observe a court-dance practice, this afternoon."
"Who?"
"Lady Senden," the protocol officer supplied, "is Lady Benello's married sister, according to last night's background checks." He gave Ivan an odd look. "Just what did you do to merit this sudden popularity, Lord Vorpatril?"
Ivan held the papers gingerly, smiling thinly, by which Miles deduced he hadn't told the protocol officer quite everything about last night's adventure. "I'm not sure, sir." Ivan caught Miles's suffused gaze, and reddened slightly.
Miles craned his neck. "Do any of these women have interesting connections at the Celestial Garden, do you suppose? Or friends who do?"
"Your name isn't on these, coz," Ivan pointed out ruthlessly, waving the invitations, all hand-calligraphed in assorted colored inks. A faintly cheerful look was starting in his eyes, displacing his earlier glum dread.
"Perhaps some more background checks would be in order, my lord?" murmured the protocol officer to the ambassador.
"If you please, Colonel."
The protocol officer left with his corporal. Miles, with a grateful parting wave to Vorob'yev, tagged along after Ivan, who clutched the colored papers firmly and eyed him with suspicion.
"Mine," Ivan asserted, as soon as they were out of earshot. "You have ghem-Colonel Benin, who is more to your taste anyway."
"There are a lot of ghem-women here in the capital who serve as ladies-in-waiting to the haut-women in the Celestial Garden, is all," Miles said. "I'd . . . like to meet that ghem-lady I went walking with last night, for instance, but she didn't give me her name."
"I doubt many of Yenaro's crowd have celestial connections."
"I think this one was an exception. Though the people I really want to meet are the satrap governors. Face-to-face."
"You'd have a better chance at that at one of the official functions."
"Oh, yes. I'm planning on it."
Chapter Eight
l,The Celestial Garden was not quite so intimidating on the second visit, Miles assured himself. This time they were not lost in a great stream of galactic envoys, but were only a little party of three. Miles, Ambassador Vorob'yev, and Mia Maz were admitted through a side gate, almost privately, and escorted by a single servitor to their destination.
The trio made a good picture. Miles and the ambassador wore their ultra-formal House blacks again. Maz wore black linings and pure white over-robes, combining the two mourning colors, acknowledging the Cetagandan hue without over-stepping the boundaries of haut-privilege. No accident that it also displayed her own dark hair and lively complexion to advantage, and set off her two companions as well. Her dimple flashed with her smile of anticipation and pleasure, directed over Miles's head to Ambassador Vorob'yev. Miles, between them, felt like an unruly kid being escorted firmly by his two parents. Vorob'yev was taking no chances of unauthorized violations of etiquette today.
The offering of the elegiac poetry to the dead empress was not a ceremony normally attended by galactic delegates, with the exception of a very few high-ranking Cetagandan allies. Miles did not qualify on either count, and Vorob'yev had been forced to pull every string he owned to get them this invitation. Ivan had ducked out, pleading weariness from the court-dance practice and the fire-viewing parties of yesterday, and the excuse of four more invitations for this afternoon and evening. It was a suspiciously smug weariness. Miles had let him escape, his sadistic urge to make Ivan sit along with him through what promised to be an interminable afternoon and evening blunted by the reflection that his cousin could do little to contribute to what was essentially an information-gathering expedition. And Ivan might—just might—pick up some useful new contacts among the ghem. Vorob'yev had substituted the Vervani woman, to her obvious delight, and Miles's benefit.
To Miles's