"I'm—not sure. You're as professional as any officer I've ever served with, without once trying to be an, an imitation man. It's extraordinary."
"There's nothing extraordinary about me," she denied.
"Beta Colony must be a very unusual place, then."
"It's just home. Nothing special. Lousy climate."
"So I've heard." He picked up a twig and dug little furrows into the soil with it, until it snapped. "They don't have arranged marriages on Beta Colony, do they?"
She stared. "Certainly not! What a bizarre concept. Sounds almost like a civil rights violation. Heavens—you don't mean to say they do, on Barrayar?"
"In my caste, almost always."
"Doesn't anybody object?"
"They're not forced. Arranged, by the parents usually. It—seems to work. For many people."
"Well, I suppose it's possible."
"How, ah—how do you arrange yourselves? With no go-betweens it must be very awkward. I mean, to refuse someone, to their face."
"I don't know. It's something lovers work out after they've known each other quite a time, usually, and wish to apply for a child permit. This contractual thing you describe must be like marrying a total stranger. Naturally it would be awkward."
"Hm." He found another twig. "In the Time of Isolation, on Barrayar, for a man to take a woman of the soldier caste for a lover was regarded as stealing her honor, and he was supposed to die a thief's death for it. A custom more honored in the breach, I'm sure, although it's a favorite subject for drama. Today we are betwixt and between. The old customs are dead, and we keep trying on new ones, like badly fitting clothes. It's hard to know what's right, anymore." After a moment he added, "What had you expected?"
"From a Barrayaran? I don't know. Something criminal, I suppose. I wasn't too crazy about being taken prisoner."
His eyes fell. "I've—seen what you're talking about, of course. I can't deny it exists. It's an infection of the imagination, that spreads from man to man. It's worst when it goes from the top down. Bad for discipline, bad for morale … I hate most how it affects the younger officers, when they encounter it in the men they should be molding themselves on. They haven't the weight of experience, to fight it in their own minds, nor distinguish when a man is stealing the Emperor's authority to cloak his own appetites. And so they are corrupted almost before they know what's happening." His voice was intense in the darkness.
"I'd actually only thought about it from the prisoner's point of view, myself. I take it I am fortunate in my choice of captors."
"They're the scum of the service. But you must believe, a small minority. Although I've no use for those who pretend not to see, either, and they are not such a minority as … Make no mistake. It's not an easy infection to fight off. But you have nothing to fear from me. I promise you."
"I'd—already figured that out."
They sat in silence for a time, until the night crept up out of the low places to drain the last turquoise from the sky, and the waterfall ran pearly in the starlight. She thought he had fallen asleep, but he stirred, and spoke again. She could barely see his face, but for a little glint from the whites of his eyes, and his teeth.
"Your customs seem so free, and calm, to me. As innocent as sunlight. No grief, no pain, no irrevocable mistakes. No boys turned criminal by fear. No stupid jealousy. No honor ever lost."
"That's an illusion. You can still lose your honor. It just doesn't happen in a night. It can take years, to drain away in bits and dribbles." She paused, in the friendly dark. "I knew this woman, once—a very good friend of mine. In Survey. She was rather—socially inept. Everyone around her seemed to be finding their soul-mates, and the older she grew, the more panicky she got about being left out. Quite pathetically anxious.
"She finally fell in with a man with the most astonishing talent for turning gold into lead. She couldn't use a word like love, or trust, or honor in his presence without eliciting clever mockery. Pornography was permitted; poetry, never.
"They were, as it happened, of equal rank when the captaincy of their ship fell open. She'd sweated blood for this command, worked her tail off—well, I'm sure you know what it's like. Commands are few, and everybody wants one. Her lover persuaded her, partly by promise that turned out to be lies, later—children, in fact—to stand down in his favor, and he got the command. Quite the strategist. It ended soon after. Thoroughly dry.
"She had no stomach for another lover, after that. So you see, I think your old Barrayarans may have been on to something, after all. The inept—need rules, for their own protection."
The waterfall whispered in the silence. "I—knew a man once," his voice came out of the darkness. "He was married, at twenty, to a girl of high rank of eighteen. Arranged, of course, but he was very happy with it."
"He was away most of the time, on duty. She found herself free, rich, alone in the capital in the society of people—not altogether vicious, but older than herself. Rich parasites, their parasites, users. She was courted, and it went to her head. Not her heart, I think. She took lovers, as those around her did. Looking back, I don't think she felt any more emotion for them than vanity and pride of conquest, but at the time … He had built up a false picture of her in his mind, and having it suddenly shattered … This boy had a very bad temper. It was his particular curse. He resolved on a duel with her lovers.
"She had two on her string, or her on theirs, I can't say which. He didn't care who survived, or if he were arrested. He imagined he was dishonored, you see. He arranged to have each meet him at a deserted place, about half an hour apart."
He paused for a long time. Cordelia waited, barely breathing, uncertain whether to encourage him to go on or not. He continued eventually, but his voice went flatter and he spoke in a rush.
"The first was another pigheaded young aristocrat like himself, and he played out the game by the rules. He knew the use of the two swords, fought with flair, and almost killed m—my friend. The last thing he said was that he'd always wanted to be killed by a jealous husband, only at age eighty."
By this time, the little slip was no surprise to Cordelia, and she wondered if her story had been as transparent to him. It certainly seemed so.
"The second was a high government minister, an older man. He wouldn't fight, although he knocked him down and stood him up several times. After—after the other, who had died with a joke in his mouth, he could hardly bear it. He finally slew him outright in the middle of his begging, and left them there.
"He stopped at his wife's apartment, to tell her what he'd done, and returned to his ship, to wait for arrest. This all happened in one afternoon. She was enraged, full of wounded pride—she would have dueled with him, if she could—and she killed herself. Shot herself in the head, with his service plasma arc. I wouldn't have thought it a woman's weapon. Poison, or cutting the wrists, or something. But she was true Vor. It burned her face entirely away. She'd had the most beautiful imaginable face …
"Things worked out very strangely. It was assumed the two lovers had killed each other—I swear, he never planned it that way—and that she'd killed herself in despondency. No one ever asked him the first question about it."
His voice slowed, and intensified. "He went through that whole afternoon like a sleepwalker, or an actor, saying the expected lines, going through the expected motions, and at the end his honor was no better for it. Nothing was served, no point was proved. It was all as false as her love affairs, except for the deaths. They were real." He paused. "So you see, you Betans have one advantage. You at least permit each other to learn from your mistakes."
"I'm—grieved, for your friend. Does it seem very long ago?"