Naismith was obsessed with winning at all costs, and being seen to have won.
But Vorkosigan . . . Vorkosigan couldn't surrender.
It wasn't quite the same thing, was it?
Failing to surrender was a family tradition. Vorkosigan lords through history had been stabbed, shot, drowned, trampled, and burned alive. Most recently and spectacularly, one had even been blown nearly in half, then quick-frozen, thawed out, sewn up, and pushed off to stagger punch-drunkenly on his way again. Miles wondered if the Vorkosigans' legendary obduracy wasn't partly luck, whether good or bad he could not say. Maybe one or two had actually tried to surrender, but missed their chance, as in the tale of the general whose last words were reputed to have been, Don't worry, Lieutenant, the enemy can't possibly hit us at this ran—
The joke about the Dendarii District was that they'd wanted to give in, but no one could be found who was literate enough to decipher the Cetagandan amnesty offer, so they'd fought on to a bewildered victory. There is more hillman in me than I'd thought. He should have suspected it of a man who secretly liked the taste of maple mead.
Naismith could, demonstrably, get Vorkosigan killed. He could strip-mine the little lord for every positive human trait down to bare and naked Dendarii bedrock, cold and sterile. Naismith had embezzled his energy, ransacked him for time, nerve, wit, leached the very volume from his voice, even stolen his sexuality. But at that point, even Naismith could go no further. A tollman, dumb as his rocks, just didn't know how to quit. I am the man who owns Vorkosigan Vashnoi.
Miles threw back his head and laughed, tasting the metallic tang of the misting rain sifting into his open mouth.
"My lord?" said Martin uneasily.
Miles cleared his throat, and tried to rub the weird smile back off his face. "Sorry. I just figured out why it was I hadn't gone to get my head fixed yet." And he'd thought Naismith was the sly one. Vorkosigan's Last Stand, eh? "It struck me as funny." Hilarious, in fact. He stood up, stifling another giggle.
"You're not going to try and go back in there, are you?" asked Martin in alarm.
"No. Not directly. Vorkosigan House first. Home, Martin."
He showered again, to wash off the morning's accumulation of rain and city grime, but mostly to scrub out the unpleasant, lingering scent of shame. His mother's people's custom of the baptism crossed his thoughts, as well. A towel around his waist, he visited several closets and drawers to lay out his clothing for inspection.
He had not worn his Vorkosigan House uniform for several years, not even for the Emperor's Birthdays or the Winterfair Balls, casting it aside in favor of what had seemed, to him, the higher status of real Imperial military Service uniforms, dress greens or parade red-and-blues. He laid the brown fabric out on his bed, empty as a snake's shed skin. He inspected the seams and the silver embroidery of the Vorkosigan logos on collar and shoulders and sleeves carefully for wear or damage, but some meticulous servant had put it all away clean and covered, and it was in excellent shape. The dark brown boots too came out of their protective bag still softly gleaming.
Counts and their heirs, honorably retired from more active Imperial service, were permitted by ancient custom to wear their military decorations on their House uniforms, in recognition of the Vor s official and historical status as—what was that dippy phrase? "The Sinews of the Imperium, the Emperor's Right Arm." Nobody'd ever called them the Brains of the Imperium, Miles noted dryly. So how come no one had ever claimed to be, say, the Gall Bladder of the Imperium, or the Emperors Pancreas? Some metaphors were best left unexamined.
Miles had never once worn all his accumulated honors, in part because four-fifths of them related to classified activities, and what fun was a decoration you couldn't tell a good story about, and in part because . . . why? Because they'd belonged to Admiral Naismith?
Ceremoniously, he laid them all out on the brown tunic in what would be the correct order. The bad luck badges like the one Vorberg had just won for getting wounded filled one whole row and part of another. His very first medal ever was from the Vervani government. His most recent high honor had drifted in rather belatedly from the grateful Marilacans, by jump-mail. He'd loved covert ops; it had taken him to such very strange places. He laid out no less than five Barrayaran Imperial Stars in metals of various denominations, depending more on how much salt Illyan had sweated back at HQ during the particular missions they represented than the amount of blood Miles personally had shed on the front lines. Bronze only represented his commander's nails bitten to the second knuckle; gold signified gnawing to the wrist.
He hesitated, then arranged the gold medallion of the Cetagandan Order of Merit on its colorful ribbon, properly, around the tunic's high collar. It was cool and heavy under his hand. He could be one of the few soldiers in history ever to be decorated by both sides in the same war . . . though to be truthful, the Order of Merit had come later, and actually had been presented to Lord Vorkosigan, not the little Admiral for a change.
When they were all arranged, the effect was just short of looney.
Separated into all the little secret compartments, he hadn't realized just how much he'd accumulated, till he put it all together again. No, not again. For the first time.
Let's lay it all on the line. Smiling grimly, he fastened them down. He donned the white silk shirt that went underneath, the silver-embroidered suspenders, the brown trousers with the silver side-piping, the gleaming riding boots. Lastly, the heavy tunic. He fastened his grandfather's dagger in its cloisonne sheath, with the Vorkosigan seal in the jeweled hilt, on its proper belt around his waist. He combed his hair, and stepped back to regard himself, glittering in his mirror.
Going native, are we? The sarcastic voice was growing fainter.
"If you expect to open a can of worms," he spoke aloud for the first time, "you'd best trouble to pack a can-opener."
Martin, engrossed in reading a hand-viewer, looked up at the sound of Miles's booted step, and did a gratifying double-take.
"Bring my car round to the front portico," Miles instructed him coolly.
"Where are we going? My lord."
"To the Imperial Residence. I have an appointment."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Gregor received Miles in the serene privacy of his office in the Residence's north wing. He was seated behind his comconsole desk, perusing some visual display, and didn't look up till after the majordomo had announced Miles and withdrawn. He tapped a control and the holovid vanished, revealing the small, smoldering, brown-uniformed man standing across from him.
"All right, Miles, what's this all ab—good God." Gregor sat up, startled; his brows climbed as he began to take in the details. "I don't think I've ever seen you come the Vor lord with intent."
"At this point," said Miles, "intent should be steaming out both my ears. I would bet"—his catch-phrase used to be, I would bet my ImpSec silver eyes— "anything you please that there is a bigger mess with Illyan than Haroche has reported to you."