Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [124]
The Escobaran woman, pale, paused to lean against the wall and swallow. Miles pulled the scarf from his pocket and crumpled it anxiously in his hands; he had an absurd impulse to offer it to her, heaven knew what for—a basin?
"I'm sorry," Elena said at last. "But the very thought that he was pawing over me in his twisted imagination all these years makes me ill."
"He was never an easy person . . ." Miles began inanely, then cut himself off. He paced, frustrated, two steps, turn, two steps. He then took a gulp of air, and flung himself to one knee before the Escobaran woman.
"Ma'am. Konstantine Bothari sends me to beg your forgiveness for the wrongs he did you. Keep your revenge, if you will—it is your just right—but be satisfied," he implored her. "At least give me a death-offering to burn for him, some token. I give him aid in this as his go-between by my right as his liege-lord, his friend, and, as he was a father's hand, held over me in protection all my life, as his son."
Elena Visconti was backed up against the wall as though cornered. Miles, still on one knee, shuffled back a step and shrank into himself, as if to crush all hint of pride and coercion to the deck.
"Damned if I'm not starting to think you're as weird—you're no Betan," she muttered. "Oh, do get up. What if somebody comes down this corridor?"
"Not until you give me a death-offering," he said firmly.
"What do you want from me? What's a death-offering?"
"Something of yourself, that you burn, for the peace of the soul of the dead. Sometimes you burn it for friends or relatives, sometimes for the souls of slain enemies, so they don't come back to haunt you. A lock of hair would do." He ran his hand over a short gap in his own crown. "That wedge represents twenty-two dead Pelians last month."
"Some local superstition, is it?"
He shrugged helplessly. "Superstition, custom—I've always thought of myself as an agnostic. It's only lately that I've come to—to need for men to have souls. Please. I won't bother you any more."
She blew out her breath in troubled exasperation. "Well—well . . . Give me that knife in your belt, then. But get up."
He rose, and handed her his grandfather's dagger. She sawed off a short curl. "Is that enough?"
"Yes, that's fine." He took it in his palm, cool and silken like water, and closed his fingers over it. "Thank you."
She shook her head. "Crazy . . ." Wistfulness stole over her face. "It allays ghosts, does it?"
"It is said," replied Miles gently. "I'll make it a proper offering. My word on it." He inhaled shakily. "And as I have given you my word, I'll bother you no more. Excuse me, ma'am. We both have other duties."
"Sir."
They passed through the flex tube to the Triumph, turned each away. But the Escobaran woman looked back over her shoulder.
"You are mistaken, little man," she called softly. "I believe you're going to bother me for a long time yet."
* * *
Next he searched out Arde Mayhew.
"I'm afraid I never was able to do you the good I intended," Miles apologized. "I have managed to find a Felician shipmaster who will buy the RG 132 for an inner-system freighter. He's offering about a dime on the dollar, but it's cash up front. I thought we could split it."
"At least it's an honorable retirement," sighed Mayhew. "Better than having Calhoun tear it to pieces."
"I'm leaving for home tomorrow, via Beta Colony. I could drop you off, if you want."
Mayhew shrugged. "There's nothing on Beta for me." He looked up more sharply. "What happened to all this liegeman stuff? I thought I was working for you."
"I—don't really think you'd fit in on Barrayar," said Miles carefully. The pilot officer must not follow him home. Betan or no, the deadly bog of Barrayaran politics could suck him down without a bubble, in the vortex of his liege-lord's fall. "But you could certainly have a place with the Dendarii Mercenaries. What rank would