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But instead will be fed to the lion. . . .

How did the haut live through these things? Had they bioengineered their bladders to some inhuman capacity, along with all the other rumored changes?

Fortunately, before Miles could think of two rhymes for Vorob'yev, the first satrap governor arose to take his place on the speaker's dais. Miles came abruptly awake.

The satrap governors' poems were all excellent, all in the most difficult forms—and, Maz informed Miles in a whisper, mostly ghost-written by the best haut-women poets in the Celestial Garden. Rank hath its privileges. But try as he might, Miles could not read any useful sinister double meanings into them—his suspect was not using this moment to publicly confess his crimes, put the wind up his enemies, or any of the other really interesting possibilities. Miles was almost surprised. The placement of Ba Lura's body suggested Lord X had a weakness for the baroque in his plotting, when the simple would have done better. Making an Art of it?

The emperor sat through it with unruffled solemn calm. The satrap governors all received polite nods of thanks from the chief mourner for their elegant praises. Miles wondered if Benin had taken his advice, and spoken with his master yet. He hoped so.

And then, abruptly, the literary ordeal was over. Miles suppressed an impulse to applaud; that was apparently Not Done. The majordomo came out and made another cryptic gesture, at which everyone went to their knees again; the emperor and his guards decamped, followed by the consort bubbles, the satrap governors, and their ghem-officers. Then everyone else was freed—to find a bathroom, Miles trusted.

* * *

The haut race might have divested itself of the traditional meanings and functions of sexuality, but they were still human enough to make the sharing of food part of life's basic ceremonies. In their own way. Trays of meat were sculpted into flowers. Vegetables masqueraded as crustaceans, and fruit as tiny animals. Miles stared thoughtfully at the plate of simple boiled rice on the buffet table. Every grain had been individually hand-arranged in an elaborate spiral pattern. He almost tripped over his own boots, boggling at it. He controlled his bemusement and tried to refocus on the business at hand.

The informal—by Celestial Garden standards—refreshments were served in a long pavilion open as usual to the garden, presently lit in a warm afternoon glow that invited relaxation. The haut-ladies in their bubbles had evidently gone elsewhere—someplace where they could drop their bubbles to eat, presumably. This was the most exclusive of several post-poetry buffet sites scattered around the Celestial Garden. The emperor himself was somewhere at the other end of the graceful building. Miles wasn't quite sure how Vorob'yev had got them in, but the man deserved a commendation for extraordinary service. Maz, eyes alight, hand on Vorob'yev's arm, was clearly in some sort of sociologist's heaven.

"Here we go," murmured Vorob'yev, and Miles went heads-up. The haut Este Rond's party was entering the crowded pavilion. The other haut, not knowing what to do about these out-of-place outlanders, had been trying to pretend the Barrayarans were invisible ever since they'd arrived. Este Rond did not have that option. The beefy, white-robed satrap governor, his painted and uniformed ghem-general by his side, paused to greet his Barrayaran neighbors.

A white-robed woman, unusual in this heavily male gathering, trailed the Rond's ghem-general. Her silver-blond hair was gathered in a looping queue down her back to her ankles, and she stood with downcast eyes, not speaking. She was much older than Rian, but certainly a haut-woman—God they aged well. She must be the Rond's ghem-general's haut-wife—any officer destined to such high planetary rank would have been expected to win one long ago.

Maz was giving Miles some inexplicable but urgent signal—a tiny head shake, and a No, no! formed silently on her lips. What was she trying to say? The haut-wife, apparently, did not speak unless