Zap ignored his threats about the dire consequences of attacking an Imperial Auditor, and purred and growled from the dimness in her usual schizophrenic fashion. Miles gathered his nerve and rescued his best boots and House uniform, at a cost of some high Vor blood, and sent them downstairs for a hasty cleaning by the overworked Armsman Pym. The Countess, delighted as ever to find her biological empire increasing, came in thoughtfully bearing a cat-gourmet tray prepared by Ma Kosti that Miles would have had no hesitation in eating for his own breakfast. In the general chaos of the morning, however, he had to go down to the kitchen and scrounge his meal. The Countess sat on the floor and cooed into his closet for a good half-hour, and not only escaped laceration, but managed to pick up, sex, and name the whole batch of little squirming furballs before tearing herself away to hurry and dress.
The convoy of three groundcars from Vorkosigan House took off at last in billowing clouds of snow flung up from their fans. After a couple of checks from blocked streets, they lumped and bumped over the last snowbanks and wound around through the wrought-iron gates of the Residence, where a squadron of soldiers and Residence servitors were working frantically to keep the paths clear. The wind, though still a nuisance, had fallen from its dangerous velocities of last night, and the sky, Miles fancied hopefully, was lighter.
They were not the only late arrivals; government ministers and their wives, high-ranking military officers and their wives, and counts and countesses continued to straggle in. The fortunate were escorted by spifry-shiny Armsmen in their many-colored House uniforms; the less so by Armsmen harried, bedraggled, and half-frozen after freeing their groundcars from ice-choked air intakes or predatory snowdrifts, but triumphant upon learning they were not the last to arrive. Since some of the Armsmen were as old or older than the counts they served, Miles felt conscience-stirred to watch them closely for fear of incipient coronary collapse, but only one had to be sent to the Residence's infirmary with chest pains. Happily most of the important Komarrans, including Laisa's parents, had arrived safely downside earlier in the week and been put up in the Residence's extensive guest quarters.
Lady Alys had either passed beyond panic to some sort of smiling whiteout overload, or was so experienced with arranging Gregor's social affairs that nothing could disturb her equanimity, or possibly some odd combination of both. She moved without haste, but without stopping, greeting and sorting guests. Her tension grew less edged when she saw the Countess and Miles arrive, last-but-one of her missing principals for the coming ceremony. Her face lit with open relief a few minutes later when they were followed through the door from the east portico by Viceroy Count Aral Vorkosigan himself, shaking off snow and solicitous Armsmen. Judging from the neat and glittering appearance of his retainers, they'd managed to avoid close personal acquaintance with any drifted ditches between the shuttleport and the Residence.
The Count exchanged a hard hug with the Countess, half-dislodging the flowers from her hair, as if it had been a year instead of weeks since they'd parted on Sergyar. A little "Ah," of pleasure rumbled in his chest, like a man eased of some burden. "I trust," he said to his wife, holding her at arm's length and devouring her with his eyes, "Gregor's weatherman has been sent to Kyril Island for a time, to practice his trade until he can get it right."
"He did say snow would fall." Miles grinned, looking on. "He just missed the part about it falling sideways. I gather he felt under some pressure to produce an optimistic forecast for the date."
"Hello, boy!" In this public arena, they exchanged only a hand-grip, but the Count managed to make it an eloquent one. "You look well. We must talk."
"I believe Lady Alys has first claim on you, sir…"
Lady Alys was stepping down the stairs, her heavy blue afternoon-skirt floating about her legs with the speed of her passage. "Oh, Aral, good, you're here at last. Gregor's waiting in the Glass Hall. Come, come. …"
As distracted as any other artist in the throes of creation, she swept up the three Vorkosigans and herded them before her to their appointment with tradition, a mere hour late off the mark.
Due to the huge mob of witnesses—the betrothal was the foremost, as well as the first, social event of Winterfair—the ceremony took place in the largest ballroom. The bride-to-be and her party were arranged in a line opposite the groom-to-be and his party, like two small armies facing off. Laisa was elegant in Komarran jacket and trousers, though in a fine shade of Barrayaran Winterfair red, a compromise nicely calculated by Lady Alys.
Spearheading the two groups, Laisa was flanked by her parents, and a Komarran woman-friend as her Second; Gregor had his foster parents the Count and Countess Vorkosigan, and Miles as his Second. Laisa clearly had inherited her body-type from her father, a small, round man with an expression of cautious courtesy plastered on his face, and her milk-white skin from her mother, an alert-eyed woman with a worried smile. Lady Alys was of course the go-between. The days were long past when the duties of a Second legally included an obligation to marry the surviving fiancee if some unfortunate fatal accident occurred between the betrothal and the wedding. Nowadays the Seconds were limited to marching a collection of ceremonial gifts back and forth between the two sides.
Some of the gifts were obvious in their symbolism—money in fancy wrappers from the bride's parents, rather a lot of different food items from the groom's, including a bag of colored groats tied up with silver tinsel, and bottles of maple mead and wine. The silver-gilt mounted bridle was a little baffling, since it did not come with a horse. The gift of a small scalpel-like knife with a blunted edge from the bride's mother as pledge of her daughter's genetic cleanliness had been quietly eliminated, Miles was glad to see.
Next came the traditional reading of the Admonishments to the Bride, a task that fell to Miles as Gregor's Second. There were no reciprocal Admonishments to the Groom, a gap that Elli Quinn would have been swift to point out. Rising to the occasion, Miles stepped forward and unrolled the parchment, and read in a good clear voice and with a poker-straight face, as if he were giving a briefing to the Dendarii.
The Admonishments, though traditional in form and content, had been subtly edited too, Miles noted. The comments on the Duty to Bear an Heir had been reworded so as not to imply any particular obligation to do so in ones own body using one's real womb, with all the inherent dangers that entailed. No question whose hand was at work there. As for the rest of them . . . Miles's imagined Quinn's suggestions of how to roll the parchment and in what part of the Admonisher's anatomy he might lodge it for storage thereafter, and how hard. Dr. Toscane, less vigorous in her vocabulary, only cast one or two beseeching looks at Countess Vorkosigan, to be reassured with a few covert palm-down don't-take-it-too-seriously-dear gestures. The rest of the time, fortunately, she was so occupied with smiling at Gregor smiling at her, the Admonishments slithered past without objection.
Miles stepped back, and the fiancees had their hands joined in the last gesture of the ceremony, or rather, each was permitted to grasp one of Lady Alys s hands, and at this well-chaperoned remove exchange their promissory pledges. And if you think this was a circus, just wait till the wedding at Midsummer. Then the ceremony was over, and the party started. Since everyone was feeling more or less snowed-in, the party went on, and on. . . .
Gregor had first claim on Miles's father, so Miles took himself off to one of the buffets. There he encountered Ivan, tall and splendid in his parade red-and-blues, filling a single plate.
"Hello, Lord Auditor Coz," said Ivan. "Where's your gold leash?"