Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [132]
"Y'know," said Ivan thoughtfully. "We're going to look a pair of damn fools busting in there if it turns out they're all having a debate on water rights or something."
"That thought has crossed my mind," Miles admitted. "It was a calculated risk, landing in secret. Well, we've both been fools before. There won't be anything new or startling in it."
He checked the time, and paused a moment in the pilot's seat, bent his head down, and breathed carefully.
"You feeling sick?" asked Ivan, alarmed. "You don't look so good."
Miles shook his head, a lie, and begged forgiveness in his heart for all the harsh things he'd once thought about Baz Jesek. So this was the real thing, paralyzing funk. He wasn't braver than Baz after all—he'd just never been as scared. He wished himself back with the Dendarii, doing something simple, like defusing dandelion bombs. "Pray to God this works," he muttered.
Ivan looked even more alarmed. "You've been pushing this surprise-scheme on me for the last two weeks—all right, so you've convinced me. It's too late to change your mind!"
"I haven't changed my mind." Miles rubbed the silver circles loose from his forehead, and stared up at the great grey wall of the castle.
"The guards are going to notice us, if we just keep sitting here," Ivan added after a time. "Not to mention the hell that's probably breaking loose back at the shuttleport right now."
"Right," said Miles. He dangled now at the end of a long, long chain of reason, swinging in the winds of doubt. Time to drop to solid ground.
"After you," said Ivan politely.
"Right."
"Any time now," added Ivan.
The vertigo of free fall . . . he popped the doors and clambered to the pavement.
They strode up to a quartet of armed guards in Imperial livery at the castle gate. One's fingers twitched into a devil's horns, down by his side; he had a countryman's face. Miles sighed inwardly. Welcome home. He settled on an incisive nod, by way of greeting.
"Good morning, Armsmen. I am Lord Vorkosigan. I understand the Emperor has commanded me to appear here."
"Damn joker," began a guard, loosening his truncheon. A second guard grasped his arm, staring shocked at Miles.
"No, Dub—it really is!"
They underwent a second search in the vestibule of the great chamber itself. Ivan kept trying to peek around the door, to the annoyance of the guard charged with being the final check against weapons carried into the presence of the Emperor. Voices wafted from the council chamber to Miles's straining ear. He identified Count Vordrozda's, pitched to a carrying nasality, rhythmic in the cadences of formal debate.
"How long has this been going on?" Miles whispered to a guard.
"A week. This was to be the last day. They're doing the summing up now. You're just in time, my lord." He gave Miles an encouraging nod; the two guard captains finished a sotto voce argument, "—but he's supposed to be here!"
"You sure you wouldn't rather be in Betan therapy?" muttered Ivan.
Miles grinned blackly. "Too late now. Won't it be funny if we've arrived just in time for the sentencing?"
"Hysterical. You'll die laughing, no doubt," growled Ivan.
Ivan, approved by the guard, started for the door. Miles grabbed him. "Sh, wait! Listen."
Another identifiable voice; Admiral Hessman.
"What's he doing here?" whispered Ivan. "I thought this thing was closed and sealed to the Counts alone."
"Witness, I'll bet, just like you. Sh!"
". . . If our illustrious Prime Minister knew nothing of this plot, then let him produce this 'missing' nephew," Vordrozda's voice was heavy with sarcasm. "He says he cannot. And why not? I submit it is because Lord Vorpatril was dispatched with a secret message. What message? Obviously, some variation of 'Fly for your life—all is revealed!' I ask you—is it reasonable that a plot of this magnitude could have been advanced so far by a son with no knowledge by his father? Where did those missing 275,000 marks, whose fate he so adamantly refuses to disclose, go but to secretly finance the operation? These repeated requests for delays are simply smokescreen.