Miles, Mystery & Mayhem - Lois McMaster Bujold [96]
It was only a surface cut. Miles breathed again. He pulled out his pocket handkerchief and dabbed at the sticky trickle of blood, then pressed it against the wound.
He glanced up at the haut Rian, and the haut Pel, who floated over to examine her handiwork. "She knocked him over with some kind of drug-mist. Stun on top of that—is he in medical danger?"
"I think not," said Pel. She dismounted from her float-chair, knelt, and rummaged through the unconscious haut Vio's sleeves, coming up with an assortment of objects which she laid out in a methodical row on the pavement. One was a tiny silvery pointed thing with a bulb on the end. The haut Pel waved it under her lovely nose, sniffing. "Ah. This is it. No, he's in no danger. It will wear off harmlessly. He'll be very sick when he wakes up, though."
"Maybe you could give him a dose of synergine?" Miles pleaded.
"We have that available."
"Good." He studied the haut Rian. Only the Celestial Lady has the override. But Rian had used it as one entitled, and no one had blinked, not even the haut Vio. Have you grasped this yet, boy? Rian is the acting Empress of Cetaganda, until tomorrow, and every move she's made has been with full, real, Imperial authority. Handmaiden, ha. Another one of those impenetrable, misleading haut titles that didn't say what it meant; you had to be in the know.
Assured of Ivan's eventual recovery, Miles scrambled to his feet and demanded, "What's happening now? How did you find Ivan? Did you get all the gene banks back, or not? What did you—"
The haut Rian held up a restraining hand, to stem the flood of questions. She nodded to the dead bubble-chair. "This is the Consort of Sigma Ceta's float-chair, but as you see, the haut Nadina is not with it."
"Ilsum Kety! Yes? What happened? How'd he diddle the bubble? How'd you detect it? How long have you known?"
"Ilsum Kety, yes. We began to know last night, when the haut Nadina failed to return with her gene bank. All the others were back and safe by midnight. But Kety apparently only knew that his consort would be missed at this morning's ceremonies. So he sent the haut Vio to impersonate her. We suspected at once, and watched her."
"Why Ivan?"
"That, I do not know yet. Kety cannot make a consort disappear without great repercussions; I suspect he meant to use your cousin to divest himself of guilt somehow."
"Another frame, yes, that would fit his modus operandi. You realize, the haut Vio . . . must have murdered the Ba Lura. At Kety's direction."
"Yes." Rian's eyes, falling on the prostrate form of the brown-haired woman, were very cold. "She too is a traitor to the haut. That will make her the business of the Star Crèche's own justice."
Miles said uneasily, "She could be an important witness, to clear Barrayar and me of blame in the disappearance of the Great Key. Don't, um . . . do anything premature, till we know if that's needed, huh?"
"Oh, we have many questions for her, first."
"So . . . Kety still has his bank. And the Key. And a warning." Damn. Whose idiot idea had it been . . . ? Oh. Yes. But you can't blame Ivan for this one. You thought recalling the gene banks was a great move. And Rian bought it too. Idiocy by committee, the finest kind.
"And he has his consort, whom he knows he cannot let live. Assuming she still lives now. I did not think . . . I would be sending the haut Nadina to her death." The haut Rian stared at the far wall, avoiding both Miles's and Pel's eyes.
Neither did I. Miles swallowed sickness. "He can bury her in the chaos of his revolt, once it gets going. But he can't start his revolt yet." He paused. "But if, in order to arrange her death in some artistic way that incriminates Barrayar, he needs Ivan . . . I don't think she'll be dead yet. Saved, held prisoner on his ship, yes. Not dead yet." Please, not dead yet. "We know one other thing, too. The haut Nadina is successfully concealing information from him, or even actively misleading