Excerpt from CVA
Sep. 28th, 2016 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_kings_scribe“It’s a very Barrayaran story, all waste and aggravation and futility, which I must suppose makes it appropriate to tell here,” said Lady ghem Estif, with a glance down the table at her presumed host. Simon smiled distantly back, but his eyes had gone quite attentive. “The general’s son by one of his prior wives was lost in the Ninth Satrapy.”
“Blown up by Ivan Xav’s ancestors?” Rish inquired brightly from her end.
“We initially thought so, but our best later guess was that he was killed by what is so oxymoronically called friendly fire. Captain ghem Estif vanished while on a three-day leave. Normally this would have been put down to his being murdered by the guerillas or having deserted—desertions were a growing problem by then—but Rae insisted it could not be the second and there was no sign of the first. It was only much later—we had already reached Komarr, as I recall—that one of his son’s friends spoke privately with us, and we found out that the captain had taken a Barrayaran lover.”
She paused to sip soup; fourteen people refrained from interrupting, in unison.
She swallowed delicately and went on: “The captain had apparently penetrated enemy lines to the most dire and notorious nest of guerrillas on the planet in search of his young man. It is entirely unclear if he had found out the city was secretly slated to be destroyed by the ruling ghem-junta—of which General ghem Estif was not a part, so he could not have had the news that way—and was trying to get him out, or if it was just bad luck and bad timing. For all the ironic horror of his son’s immolation, Rae did seem to take some consolation in the assurance that it was not desertion.”
The four Barrayarans around the table were not, actually, quieter than the rest of the audience, Ivan thought—but maybe he was getting a worked demonstration of the difference between attentive and choked silence. The infamous nuclear destruction of the Vorkosigan’s District capital had been the act that had galvanized the war-torn and exhausted planet into its final push against the Occupation.
“My cousin Miles actually owns the site of Vorkosigan Vashnoi,” Ivan put in, affably. Pseudo-affably? Even he wasn’t sure. “It’s finally stopped glowing.”
“Has it,” said Lady ghem Estif, unruffled. “Well, salute the brave ghem-captain and his beloved for me, next time you fly over. I assume you do not land there.”
“No,” said Ivan. “Not even now.”
“Blown up by Ivan Xav’s ancestors?” Rish inquired brightly from her end.
“We initially thought so, but our best later guess was that he was killed by what is so oxymoronically called friendly fire. Captain ghem Estif vanished while on a three-day leave. Normally this would have been put down to his being murdered by the guerillas or having deserted—desertions were a growing problem by then—but Rae insisted it could not be the second and there was no sign of the first. It was only much later—we had already reached Komarr, as I recall—that one of his son’s friends spoke privately with us, and we found out that the captain had taken a Barrayaran lover.”
She paused to sip soup; fourteen people refrained from interrupting, in unison.
She swallowed delicately and went on: “The captain had apparently penetrated enemy lines to the most dire and notorious nest of guerrillas on the planet in search of his young man. It is entirely unclear if he had found out the city was secretly slated to be destroyed by the ruling ghem-junta—of which General ghem Estif was not a part, so he could not have had the news that way—and was trying to get him out, or if it was just bad luck and bad timing. For all the ironic horror of his son’s immolation, Rae did seem to take some consolation in the assurance that it was not desertion.”
The four Barrayarans around the table were not, actually, quieter than the rest of the audience, Ivan thought—but maybe he was getting a worked demonstration of the difference between attentive and choked silence. The infamous nuclear destruction of the Vorkosigan’s District capital had been the act that had galvanized the war-torn and exhausted planet into its final push against the Occupation.
“My cousin Miles actually owns the site of Vorkosigan Vashnoi,” Ivan put in, affably. Pseudo-affably? Even he wasn’t sure. “It’s finally stopped glowing.”
“Has it,” said Lady ghem Estif, unruffled. “Well, salute the brave ghem-captain and his beloved for me, next time you fly over. I assume you do not land there.”
“No,” said Ivan. “Not even now.”
