"Before my time, my lord," said Dea. "I've studied his life and campaigns, of course."
"Of course."
Pym had a hand-light now, and was limping with Karal in a slow spiral around the horse lines, inspecting the ground. Karal's eldest boy had recaptured the sorrel mare and brought her back and re-tethered her. Her tether had been torn loose, not cut; had the mysterious attacker's choice of equine victim been random, or calculated? How calculated? Was Ninny attacked as a mere symbol of his master, or had the person known how passionately Miles loved the animal? Was this vandalism, a political statement, or an act of precisely directed, subtle cruelty?
What have I ever done to you? Miles's thought howled silently to the surrounding darkness.
"They got away, whoever it was," Pym reported. "Out of scanner range before I could breathe again. My apologies, m'lord. They don't seem to have dropped anything on the ground."
There had to have been a knife, at least. A knife, its haft gory with horse blood in a pattern of perfect fingerprints, would have been extremely convenient just now. Miles sighed.
Ma Karal drifted up and eyed Dea's medkit, as he cleaned and repacked it. "All that," she muttered under her breath, "for a horse"
Miles refrained, barely, from leaping to a hot defense of the value of this particular horse. How many people in Silvy Vale had Ma Karal seen suffer and die, in her lifetime, for lack of no more medical technology than what Dea was carrying under his arm just now?
Guarding his horse, Miles watched from the porch as dawn crept over the landscape. He had changed his shirt and washed off. Pym was inside getting his ribs taped. Miles sat with his back to the wall and a stunner on his lap as the night mists slowly grew gray. The valley was a blur, fog-shrouded, the hills darker rolls of fog beyond. Directly overhead, gray thinned to a paling blue. The day would be fine and hot once the fog burned away.
It was surely time now to call out the troops from Hassadar. This was getting just too weird. His bodyguard was half out of commission true, it was Miles's horse that had rendered him so, not the mystery attacker. But just because the attacks hadn't been fatal didn't mean they hadn't been intended so. Perhaps a third attack would be brought off more expertly. Practice makes perfect.
Miles felt unstrung with nervous exhaustion. How had he let a mere horse become such a handle on his emotions? Bad, that, almost unbalanced yet Ninny's was surely one of the truly innocent pure souls Miles had ever known. Miles remembered the other innocent in the case then, and shivered in the damp. It was cruel, lord, something cruel Pym was right, the bushes could be crawling with Csurik assassins right now.
Dammit, the bushes were crawling over there, a movement, a damping wave of branch lashing in recoil from what? Miles's heart lurched in his chest. He adjusted his stunner to full power, slipped silently off the porch, and began his stalk, crouching low, taking advantage of cover wherever the long grasses of the yard had not been trampled flat by the activities of the last day, and night. Miles froze like a predatory cat as a shape seemed to coalesce out of the mist.
A lean young man, not too tall, dressed in the baggy trousers that seemed to be standard here, stood wearily by the horse lines, staring up the yard at Karal's cabin. He stood so for a full two minutes without moving. Miles held a bead on him with his stunner. If he dared make one move toward Ninny
The young man walked back and forth uncertainly, then crouched on his heels, still gazing up the yard. He pulled something from the pocket of his loose jacket Miles's finger tightened on the trigger but he only put it to his mouth and bit. An apple. The crunch carried clearly in the damp air, and the faint perfume of its juices. He ate about half, then stopped, seeming to have trouble swallowing. Miles checked the knife at his belt, made sure it was loose in its sheath. Ninny's nostrils widened, and he nickered hopefully, drawing the young man's attention. He rose and walked over to the horse.
The blood pulsed in Miles's ears, louder than any other sound. His grip on the stunner was damp and white-knuckled. The young man fed Ninny his apple. The horse chomped it down, big jaw rippling under his skin, then cocked his hip, dangled one hind hoof, and sighed hugely. If he hadn't seen the man eat off the fruit first Miles might have shot him on the spot. It couldn't be poisoned The man made to pet Ninny's neck, then his hand drew back in startlement as he encountered Dea's dressing. Ninny shook his head uneasily. Miles rose slowly and stood waiting. The man scratched Ninny's ears instead, looked up one last time at the cabin, took a deep breath, stepped forward, saw Miles, and stood stock still.
"Lem Csurik?" said Miles.
A pause, a frozen nod. "Lord Vorkosigan?" said the young man. Miles nodded in turn.
Csurik swallowed. "Vor lord," he quavered, "do you keep your word?"
What a bizarre opening. Miles's brows climbed. Hell, go with it. "Yes. Are you coming in?"
"Yes and no, m'lord."
"Which?"
"A bargain, lord. I must have a bargain, and your word on it."
"If you killed Raina"
"No, lord. I swear it. I didn't."
"Then you have nothing to fear from me."
Lem Csurik's lips thinned. What the devil could this hill man find ironic? How dare he find irony in Miles's confusion? Irony, but no amusement.
"Oh, lord," breathed Csurik, "I wish that were so. But I have to prove it to Harra. Harra must believe me you have to make her believe me, lord!"
"You have to make me believe you first. Fortunately, that isn't hard. You come up to the cabin and make that same statement under fast-penta, and I will rule you cleared."
Csurik was shaking his head.
"Why not?" said Miles patiently. That Csurik had turned up at all was strong circumstantial indication of his innocence. Unless he somehow imagined he could beat the drug. Miles would be patient for, oh, three or four seconds at least. Then, by God, he'd stun him, drag him inside, tie him up till he came round, and get to the bottom of this before breakfast.
"The drug they say you can't hold anything back."
"It would be pretty useless if you could."
Csurik stood silent a moment.
"Are you trying to conceal some lesser crime on your conscience? Is that the bargain you wish to strike? An amnesty? It might be possible. If it's short of another murder, that is."
"No, lord. I've never killed anybody!"
"Then maybe we can deal. Because if you're innocent, I need to know as soon as possible. Because it means my work isn't finished here."
"That's that's the trouble, m'lord." Csurik shuffled, then seemed to come to some internal decision and stood sturdily. "I'll come in and risk your drug. And I'll answer anything about me you want to ask. But you have to promise swear! you won't ask me about about anything else. Anybody else."
"Do you know who killed your daughter?"
"Not for sure." Csurik threw his head back defiantly. "I didn't see it. I have guesses."
"I have guesses too."
"That's as may be, lord. Just so's they don't come from my mouth. That's all I ask."
Miles holstered his stunner and rubbed his chin. "Hm." A very slight smile turned one corner of his lip. "I admit, it would be more elegant to solve this case by reason and deduction than brute force. Even so tender a force as fast-penta."
Csurik's head lowered. "I don't know elegant, lord. But I don't want it to be from my mouth."
Decision bubbled up in Miles, straightening his spine. Yes. He knew, now. He had only to run through the proofs, step by chained step. Just like 5-Space math. "Very well. I swear by my word as Vorkosigan, I shall confine my questions to the facts to which you were an eyewitness. I will not ask you for conjectures about persons or events for which you were not present. There, will that do?"