Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [151]
"Here you go, Dr. Dea. One horse. No running."
"No fair," wheezed Dea, trudging up. "You had sugar in your pockets."
"Of course I had sugar in my pockets. It's called foresight and planning. The trick of handling horses isn't to be faster than the horse, or stronger than the horse. That pits your weakness against his strengths. The trick is to be smarter than the horse. That pits your strength against his weakness, eh?"
Dea took his reins. "It's snickering at me," he said suspiciously.
"That's nickering, not snickering." Miles grinned. He tapped Fat Ninny behind his left foreleg, and the horse obediently grunted down onto one knee. Miles clambered up readily to his conveniently lowered stirrup.
"Does mine do that?" asked Dr. Dea, watching with fascination.
"Sorry, no."
Dea glowered at his horse. "This animal is an idiot. I shall lead it for a while."
As Fat Ninny lurched back to his four feet Miles suppressed a riding-instructorly comment gleaned from his grandfather's store such as, Be smarter than the horse, Dea. Though Dr. Dea was officially sworn to Lord Vorkosigan for the duration of this investigation, Space Surgeon Lieutenant Dea certainly outranked Ensign Vorkosigan. To command older men who outranked one called for a certain measure of tact.
The logging road widened out here, and Miles dropped back beside Harra Csurik. Her fierceness and determination of yesterday morning at the gate seemed to be fading even as the trail rose toward her home. Or perhaps it was simply exhaustion catching up with her. She'd said little all morning, been sunk in silence all afternoon. If she was going to drag Miles all the way up to the back of beyond and then wimp out on him . . .
"What, ah, branch of the Service was your father in, Harra?" Miles began conversationally.
She raked her fingers through her hair in a combing gesture more nervousness than vanity. Her eyes looked out at him through the straw-colored wisps like skittish creatures in the protection of a hedge.
"District Militia, m'lord. I don't really remember him, he died when I was real little."
"In combat?"
She nodded. "In the fighting around Vorbarr Sultana, during Vordarian's Pretendership."
Miles refrained from asking which side he had been swept up on—most foot soldiers had had little choice, and the amnesty had included the dead as well as the living.
"Ah . . . do you have any sibs?"
"No, lord. Just me and my mother left."
A little anticipatory tension eased in Miles's neck. If this judgment indeed drove all the way through to an execution, one misstep could trigger a blood feud among the in-laws. Not the legacy of justice the Count intended him to leave behind. So the fewer in-laws involved, the better. "What about your husband's family?"
"He's got seven. Four brothers and three sisters."
"Hm." Miles had a mental flash of an entire team of huge, menacing hill hulks. He glanced back at Pym, feeling a trifle understaffed for his task. He had pointed out this factor to the Count, when they'd been planning this expedition last night.
"The village Speaker and his deputies will be your backup," the Count had said, "just as for the district magistrate on court circuit."
"What if they don't want to cooperate?" Miles had asked nervously.
"An officer who expects to command Imperial troops," the Count had glinted, "should be able to figure out how to extract cooperation from a backcountry headman."
In other words, his father had decided this was a test, and wasn't going to give him any more clues. Thanks, Dad.
"You have no sibs, lord?" said Harra, snapping him back to the present.
"No. But surely that's known, even in the back-beyond."
"They say a lot of things about you." Harra shrugged.
Miles bit down on the morbid question in his mouth like a wedge of raw lemon. He would not ask it, he would not . . . he couldn't help himself. "Like what?" forced out past his stiff lips.
"Everyone knows the Count's son is a mutant." Her eyes flicked