They returned to the party to find Ivan ensconced on a couch between the two women, entertaining them—or at least, they were laughing encouragingly. The ghem-women fully matched Lady Gelle in beauty; the blonde might have been her sister. The redhead was even more arresting, with a cascade of amber curls falling past her shoulders, a perfect nose, lips that one might . . . Miles cut off the thought. No ghem-lady was going to invite him to dive into her dreams.
Yenaro departed briefly to oversee his servant—he seemed to have only one—and expedite the smooth arrival of fresh food and drinks. He returned with a small transparent pitcher of a pale ruby liquid. "Lord Vorpatril," he nodded at Ivan. "I believe you appreciate your beverages. Do try this one."
Miles went to alert-status, his heart thumping. Yenaro might not be a sculptor-assassin, but he would undoubtedly make a great poisoner. Yenaro poured from the pitcher into three little cups on a lacquered tray, and extended the tray to Ivan.
"Thanks," Ivan selected one at random.
"Oh, zlati ale," murmured one of the junior ghem-lords. Yenaro passed the tray to him, and took the last cup himself. Ivan sipped and raised his brows in surprised approval. Miles watched closely to be sure Yenaro actually swallowed. He did. Five different methods for presenting deadly drinks with just that maneuver and still being sure the victim received the right one, including the trick of the host consuming the antidote first, flashed through Miles's mind. But if he was going to be that paranoid, they ought not have come here in the first place. Yet he'd eaten and drunk nothing himself so far. So what are you going to do, wait and see if Ivan falls over first, and then try it?
Yenaro did not, this time, pause to confide to the two women bracketing Ivan the repulsive biological history of his birth. Hell. Maybe the incident with the fountain really had been an accident, and the man was sorry, and trying his very best to make it up to the Barrayarans. Nevertheless, Miles circled in, trying to get a closer look at Ivan's cup over his shoulder.
Ivan was in the process of the classic I'm just resting my arm along the back of this couch test of the redhead on his right, to see if she was going to flinch from or invite further physical contact. Ivan swiveled his head to repel his cousin with a toothy smile. "Go have a good time, Miles," he murmured. "Relax. Stop breathing up my neck."
Miles grimaced back in non-appreciation of the height-humor, and drifted off again. Some people just didn't want to be saved. He decided instead to try to talk with some of Yenaro's male friends, several of whom were clustered at the opposite end of the room.
It wasn't hard to get them to talk about themselves. It seemed that was all they had to talk about. Forty minutes of valiant effort in the art of conversation convinced Miles that most of Yenaro's friends had the minds of fleas. The only expertise they displayed was in witty commentary upon the personal lives of their equally idle compatriots: their clothes, various love affairs and the mismanagement thereof, sports—all spectator, none participatory, and mainly of interest due to wagers on the outcome—and the assorted latest commercial feelie dreams and other offerings, including erotic ones. This retreat from reality seemed to absorb by far the bulk of the ghem-lordlings' time and attention. Not one of them offered a word about anything of political or military interest. Hell, Ivan had more mental clout.
It was all a bit depressing. Yenaro's friends were excluded men, wasted wastrels. No one was excited about a career or service—they had none. Even the arts received only a ripple of interest. They were strictly feelie dream consumers, not producers. All in all, it was probably a good thing these youths had no political interests. They were just the sort of people who started revolutions but could not finish them, their idealism betrayed by their incompetence. Miles had met similar young men among the Vor, third or fourth sons who for whatever reason had not gained entry to a traditional military career, living as pensioners upon their families, but even they could look forward to some change in their status by mid-life. Given the average ghem life span, any chance of ascent up the social ladder by inheritance was still some eighty or ninety years off for most of Yenaro's set. They weren't inherently stupid—their genetics did not permit it—but their minds were damped down to some artificial horizon. Beneath the air of hectic sophistication, their lives were frozen in place. Miles almost shivered.
Miles decided to try out the women, if Ivan had left any for him. He excused himself from the group to pursue a drink—he might have left without explanation just as easily, for all anyone seemed to care about Lord Yenaro's most unusual, and shortest, guest. Miles helped himself at a bowl from which everyone else seemed to be ladling their drinks, and touched the cup to his lips, but did not swallow. He looked up to find himself under the gaze of a slightly older woman who had come late to the party with a couple of friends, and who had been lingering quietly on the fringes of the gathering. She smiled at him.
Miles smiled back, and slid around the table to her side, composing a suitable opening line. She took the initiative from him.
"Lord Vorkosigan. Would you care to take a walk in the garden with me?"
"Why . . . certainly. Is Lord Yenaro's garden a sight to see?" In the dark?
"I think it will interest you." The smile dropped from her face as if wiped away with a cloth the moment she turned her back to the room, to be replaced with a look of grim determination. Miles fingered the comm link in his trouser pocket, and followed in the perfumed wake of her robes. Once out of sight of the room's glass doors among the neglected shrubbery, her step quickened. She said nothing more. Miles limped after her. He was unsurprised when they came to a red-enameled, square-linteled gate and found a person waiting, a slight, androgynous shape with a dark hooded robe protecting its bald head from the night's gathering dew.
"The ba will escort you the rest of the way," said the woman.
"The rest of the way where?"
"A short walk," the ba spoke in a soft alto.
"Very well." Miles held up a restraining hand, and drew his comm link from his pocket, and said into it, "Base. I'm leaving Yenaro's premises for a while. Track me, but don't interrupt me unless I call for you."
The drivers voice came back in a dubious tone. "Yes, my lord . . . where are you going?"
"I'm . . . taking a walk with a lady. Wish me luck."
"Oh." The drivers tone grew more amused, less dubious. "Good luck, my lord."
"Thank you." Miles closed the channel. "All right."
The woman seated herself on a rickety bench and drew her robes around herself with the air of one preparing for a lengthy wait. Miles followed the ba out the gate and past another residence, across a roadway, and into a shallow wooded ravine. The ba produced a hand-light to prevent stumbles on rocks and roots, politely playing it before Miles's polished boots, which were going to be a lot less polished if this went on very far … they climbed up out of the ravine into what was obviously the back portion of another suburban estate in an even more neglected condition than Yenaro's.
A dark bulk looming through the trees was an apparently deserted house. But they turned right on an overgrown path, the ba pausing to sweep damp branches out of Miles's way, and then back down toward the stream. They emerged in a wide clearing where a wooden pavilion stood—some ghem-lord's former favorite picnic spot for al fresco brunches, no doubt. Duckweed choked a pond, crowding out a few sad water-irises. They crossed the pond on an arched footbridge, which creaked so alarmingly Miles was momentarily glad he was no bigger. A faint, familiar pearlescent glow emanated from the pavilion's vine-veiled openings. Miles touched the Great Key hidden in his tunic, for reassurance. Right. This is it.