Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [175]
"Why did you break Raina's neck, instead of cutting her throat?"
"Harra, she must not know," said Ma Mattulich. "Poor baby. It would look like she just died. . . ."
Miles eyed Lem, Speaker Karal. "It seems a number of others shared your opinion that Harra should not know."
"I didn't want it to be from my mouth," repeated Lem sturdily.
"I wanted to save her double grief, m'lord," said Karal. "She'd had so much. . . ."
Miles met Harra's eyes at that. "I think you all underestimate her. Your excessive tenderness insults both her intelligence and will. She comes from a tough line, that one."
Harra inhaled, controlling her own trembling. She gave Miles a short nod, as if to say Thank you, little man. He returned her a slight inclination of the head, Yes, I understand.
"I'm not sure yet where justice lies in this case," said Miles, "but this I swear to you, the days of cooperative concealment are over. No more secret crimes in the night. Daylight's here. And speaking of crimes in the night," he turned back to Ma Mattulich, "was it you who tried to cut my horse's throat last night?"
"I tried," said Ma Mattulich, calmer now in a wave of fast-penta mellowness, "but it kept rearing up on me."
"Why my horse?" Miles could not keep exasperation from his voice, though a calm, even tone was enjoined upon fast-penta interrogators by the training manual.
"I couldn't get at you," said Ma Mattulich simply.
Miles rubbed his forehead. "Retroactive infanticide by proxy?" he muttered.
"You," said Ma Mattulich, and her loathing came through even the nauseating fast-penta cheer, "you are the worst. All I went through, all I did, all the grief, and you come along at the end. A mutie made lord over us all, and all the rules changed, betrayed at the end by an off-worlder woman's weakness. You make it all for nothing. Hate you. Dirty mutie . . ." Her voice trailed off in a drugged mumble.
Miles took a deep breath, and looked around the room. The stillness was profound, and no one dared break it.
"I believe," he said, "that concludes my investigation into the facts of this case."
The mystery of Raina's death was solved.
The problem of justice, unfortunately, remained.
* * *
Miles took a walk.
The graveyard, though little more than a crude clearing in the woodland, was a place of peace and beauty in the morning light. The stream burbled endlessly, shifting green shadows and blinding brilliant reflections. The faint breeze that had shredded away the last of the night fog whispered in the trees, and the tiny short-lived creatures that everyone on Barrayar but biologists called bugs sang and twittered in the patches of native scrub.
"Well, Raina," Miles sighed, "and what do I do now?" Pym lingered by the borders of the clearing, giving Miles room. "It's all right," Miles assured the tiny grave. "Pym's caught me talking to dead people before. He may think I'm crazy, but he's far too well trained to say so."
Pym in fact did not look happy, nor altogether well. Miles felt rather guilty for dragging him out; by rights the man should be resting in bed, but Miles had desperately needed this time alone. Pym wasn't just suffering the residual effect of having been kicked by Ninny. He had been silent ever since Miles had extracted the confession from Ma Mattulich. Miles was unsurprised. Pym had steeled himself to play executioner to their imagined hill bully; the substitution of a mad grandmother as his victim had clearly given him pause. He would obey whatever order Miles gave him, though, Miles had no doubt of that.
Miles considered the peculiarities of Barrayaran law, as he wandered about the clearing, watching the stream and the light, turning over an occasional rock with the toe of his boot. The fundamental