Csurik bit his lip. "Yes, lord. If you keep your word."
"Try me," suggested Miles. His lips wrinkled back on a vulpine smile, absorbing the implied insult without comment.
Csurik climbed the yard beside Miles as if to an executioner's block. Their entrance created a tableau of astonishment among Karal and his family, clustered around their wooden table where Dea was treating Pym. Pym and Dea looked rather blanker, till Miles made introduction: "Dr. Dea, get out your fast-penta. Here's Lem Csurik come to talk with us."
Miles steered Lem to a chair. The hill man sat with his hands clenched. Pym, a red and purpling bruise showing at the edges of the white tape circling his chest, took up his stunner and stepped back.
Dr. Dea muttered under his breath to Miles as he got out the hypospray. "How'd you do that?"
Miles's hand brushed his pocket. He pulled out a sugar cube and held it up, and grinned through the C of his thumb and finger. Dea snorted, but pursed his lips with reluctant respect.
Lem flinched as the hypospray hissed on his arm, as if he expected it to hurt.
"Count backwards from ten," Dea instructed. By the time Lena reached three, he had relaxed; at zero, he giggled.
"Karal, Ma Karal, Pym, gather round," said Miles. "You are my witnesses. Boys, stay back and stay quiet. No interruptions, please."
Miles ran through the preliminaries, half a dozen questions designed to set up a rhythm and kill time while the fast-penta took full effect. Lem Csurik grinned foolishly, lolling in his chair, and answered them all with sunny good will. Fast-penta interrogation had been part of Miles's military intelligence course at the Service Academy. The drug seemed to be working exactly as advertised, oddly enough.
"Did you return to your cabin that morning, after you spent the night at your parents'?"
"Yes, m'lord." Lem smiled.
"About what time?"
"Midmorning."
Nobody here had a chrono; that was probably as precise an answer as Miles was likely to get. "What did you do when you got there?"
"Called for Harra. She was gone, though. It frightened me that she was gone. Thought she might've run out on me." Lem hiccoughed. "I want my Harra."
"Later. Was the baby asleep?"
"She was. She woke up when I called for Harra. Started crying again. It goes right up your spine."
"What did you do then?"
Lem's eyes widened. "I got no milk. She wanted Harra. There's nothing I could do for her."
"Did you pick her up?"
"No, lord, I let her lay. There was nothing I could do for her. Harra, she'd hardly let me touch her, she was that nervous about her. Told me I'd drop her or something."
"You didn't shake her, to stop her screaming?"
"No, lord, I let her lay. I left to look down the path for Harra."
"Then where did you go?"
Lem blinked. "My sister's. I'd promised to help haul wood for a new cabin. Bella m'other sister is getting married, y'see, and -"
He was beginning to wander, as was normal for this drug. "Stop," said Miles. Lem fell silent obediently, swaying slightly in his chair. Miles considered his next question carefully. He was approaching the fine line, here. "Did you meet anyone on the path? Answer yes or no."
"Yes."
Dea was getting excited. "Who? Ask him who!"
Miles held up his hand. "You can administer the antagonist now, Dr. Dea."
"Aren't you going to ask him? It could be vital!"
"I can't. I gave my word. Administer the antagonist now, doctor!"
Fortunately, the confusion of two interrogators stopped Lem's mumbled willing reply to Dea's question. Dea, bewildered, pressed his hypospray against Lem's arm. Lem's eyes, half-closed, snapped open within seconds. He sat up straight and rubbed his arm, and his face.
"Who did you meet on the path?" Dea asked him directly.
Lem's lips pressed tight; he looked for rescue to Miles.
Dea looked too. "Why won't you ask him?"
"Because I don't need to," said Miles. "I know precisely who Lem met on the path, and why he went on and not back. It was Raina's murderer. As I shall shortly prove. And witness this, Karal, Ma Karal that information did not come from Lem's mouth. Confirm!"
Karal nodded slowly. "I see, m'lord. That was very good of you."
Miles gave him a direct stare, his mouth set in a tight smile. "And when is a mystery no mystery at all?"
Karal reddened, not replying for a moment. Then he said, "You may as well keep on like you're going, m'lord. There's no stopping you now, I suppose."
"No."
Miles sent runners to collect the witnesses, Ma Karal in one direction, Zed in a second, Speaker Karal and his eldest in a third. He had Lem wait with Pym, Dea, and himself. Having the shortest distance to cover, Ma Karal arrived back first, with Ma Csurik and two of her sons in tow.
His mother fell on Lem, embracing him and then looking fearfully over her shoulder at Miles. The younger brothers hung back, but Pym had already moved between them and the door.
"It's all right, Ma." Lem patted her on the back. "Or anyway, I'm all right. I'm clear. Lord Vorkosigan believes me."
She glowered at Miles, still holding Lem's arm. "You didn't let the mutie lord give you that poison drug, did you?"
"Not poison," Miles denied. "In fact, the drug may have saved his life. That damned near makes it a medicine, I'd say. However" he turned toward Lem's two younger brothers, and folded his arms sternly "I would like to know which of you young morons threw the torch on my tent last night?"
The younger one whitened; the elder, hotly indignant, noticed his brother's expression and cut his denial off in mid-syllable. "You didn't!" he hissed in horror.
"Nobody," said the white one. "Nobody did."
Miles raised his eyebrows. There followed a short, choked silence.
"Well, nobody can make his apologies to Speaker and Ma Karal, then," said Miles, "since it was their sons who were sleeping in the tent last night. I and my men were in the loft."
The boy's mouth opened in dismay. The youngest Karal stared at the pale Csurik brother, his age mate, and whispered importantly, "You, Dono! You idiot, didn't ya know that tent wouldn't burn? It's real Imperial Service issue!"
Miles clasped his hands behind his back, and fixed the Csuriks with a cold eye. "Rather more to the point, it was attempted assassination upon your Count's heir, which carries the same capital charge of treason as an attempt upon the Count himself. Or perhaps Dono didn't think of that?"
Dono was thrown into flummoxed confusion. No need for fast-penta here, the kid couldn't carry off a lie worth a damn. Ma Csurik now had hold of Dono's arm too, without letting go of Lem's; she looked as frantic as a hen with too many chicks, trying to shelter them from a storm.
"I wasn't trying to kill you, lord!" cried Dono.
"What were you trying to do, then?"
"You'd come to kill Lem. I wanted to make you go away. Frighten you away. I didn't think anyone would really get hurt I mean, it was only a tent!"
"You've never seen anything burn down, I take it. Have you, Ma Csurik?"
Lem's mother nodded, lips tight, clearly torn between a desire to protect her son from Miles, and a desire to beat Dono till he bled for his potentially lethal stupidity.
"Well, but for a chance, you could have killed or horribly injured three of your friends. Think on that, please. In the meantime, in view of your youth and ah, apparent mental defectiveness, I shall hold the treason charge. In return, Speaker Karal and your parents shall be responsible for your good behavior in future, and decide what punishment is appropriate."
Ma Csurik melted with relief and gratitude. Dono looked as if he'd rather have been shot. His brother poked him and whispered, "Mental defective!" Ma Csurik slapped the taunter on the side of his head, suppressing him effectively.
"What about your horse, m'lord?" asked Pym.
"I do not suspect them of the business with the horse," Miles replied slowly. "The attempt to fire the tent was plain stupidity. The other was a different order of calculation altogether."