Elena looked very much less than thrilled.

“I spoke with Gregor,” Count Vorkosigan continued. “You apparently impressed him enough, somehow, that he has given his approval for my formal presentation of you as my heir, House Vorkosigan’s cadet member of the Council of Counts. At a time of my discretion, if and when Miles’s death is confirmed. Obviously, this step is still premature. I’m not sure myself whether it would be better to get your confirmation pushed through before the Counts get to know you, or after they have had time to get used to the idea. A swift maneuver, hit and run, or a long tedious siege. For once, I think a siege would be better. If we won, your victory would be far more secure.”

“Can they reject me?” Mark asked. Is that a light I see at the end of this tunnel?

“They must accept and approve you by a simple majority vote for you to inherit the Countship. My personal property is a separate matter. Normally, such approval is routine for the eldest son, or, lacking a son, whatever competent male relative a Count may put forward. It doesn’t even have to be a relative, technically, though it almost always is. There was the famous case of one of the Counts Vortala, back in the Time of Isolation, who had fallen out with his son. Young Lord Vortala had allied with his father-in-law in the Zidiarch Trade War. Vortala disinherited his son and somehow managed to maneuver a rump session of the Counts into approving his horse, Midnight, as his heir. Claimed the horse was just as bright and had never betrayed him.”

“What … a hopeful precedent for me,” Mark choked. “How did Count Midnight do? Compared to the average Count.”

“Lord Midnight. Alas, no one found out. The horse pre-deceased the Vortala, the war petered out, and the son eventually inherited after all. But it was one of the zoological high points of the Council’s varied political history, right up there with the infamous Incendiary Cat Plot.” Count Vorkosigan’s eye glinted with a certain skewed enthusiasm, relating all this. His eye fell on Mark and his momentary animation faded. “We’ve had several centuries to accumulate any precedent you please, from absurdities to horrors. And a few sound saving graces.”

The Count did not make further inquiries into Mark’s day, and Mark did not volunteer further details. The dinner went down like lead, and Mark escaped as soon as he decently could.

He slunk off to the library, the long room at the end of one wing of the oldest part of the house. The Countess had encouraged him to browse there. In addition to a reader accessing public data banks and a code-locked and secured government comconsole with its own dedicated comm links, the room was lined with bound books printed and even hand-calligraphed on paper from the Time of Isolation. The library reminded Mark of Vorhartung Castle, with its modern equipment and functions awkwardly stuffed into odd corners of an antique architecture that had never envisioned nor provided place for them.

As he was thinking about the museum, a large folio volume of woodcuts of arms and armor caught his eye, and he carefully pulled it from its slipcase and carried it to one of a pair of alcoves flanking the long glass doors to the back garden. The alcoves were luxuriously furnished, and a little table pulled up to a vast wing-chair provided support for the, in both senses, heavy volume. Bemused, Mark leafed through it. Fifty kinds of swords and knives, with every slight variation possessing its own name, and names for all the parts as well … what an absolutely fractal knowledge-base, the kind created by, and in turn creating, a closed-in group such as the Vor… .

The library’s door swung open, and footsteps sounded across the marble and carpeting. It was Count Vorkosigan. Mark shrank back in the chair in the alcove, drawing his legs up out of sight. Maybe the man would just take something and go out again. Mark did not want to get trapped into some intimate chat, which this comfortable room so invited. He had conquered his initial terror of the Count, yet the man managed still to make him excruciatingly uncomfortable, even without saying a word.

Unfortunately, Count Vorkosigan seated himself at one of the com-consoles. Reflections of the colored lights of its display flickered on the glass of the windows Mark’s chair faced. The longer he waited, Mark realized, lurking like an assassin, the more awkward it was going to be to reveal himself. So say hello. Drop the book. Blow your nose, something. He was just working up the courage to try a little throat-clearing and page-rustling, when the door hinges squeaked again, and lighter footsteps sounded. The Countess. Mark huddled into a ball in the wing-chair.

“Ah,” said the Count. The lights reflecting in the window died away as he shut down the machine in favor of this new diversion, and swung around in his station chair. Did she lean over for some quick embrace? Fabric whispered as she seated herself.

“Well, Mark is certainly getting a crash-course about Barrayar,” she remarked, effectively spiking Mark’s last frantic impulse to make his presence known.

“It’s what he needs,” sighed the Count. “He has twenty years of catching up to do, if he is to function.”

“Must he function? I mean, instantly?”

“No. Not instantly.”

“Good. I thought you might be setting him an impossible task. And as we all know, the impossible takes a little longer.”

The Count vented a short laugh, which faded quickly. “At least he’s had a glimpse of one of our worst social traits. We must be sure he gets a thorough grounding in the history of the mutagen disasters, so he’ll understand where the violence is coming from. How deeply the agony and the fear are embedded, which drive the visible anxieties and, ah, as you Betans would see it, bad manners.”

“I’m not sure he’ll ever be able to duplicate Miles’s native ability to dance through that particular minefield.”

“He seems more inclined to plow through it,” murmured the Count dryly, and hesitated. “His appearance … Miles took enormous pains to move, act, dress, so as to draw attention away from his appearance. To make his personality overpower the evidence of the eye. A kind of whole-body sleight-of-hand, if you will. Mark … almost seems to be willfully exaggerating it.”

“What, the surly slump?”

“That, and … I confess, I find his weight gain disturbing. Particularly, judging from Elena’s report, its rapidity. Perhaps we ought to have him medically checked. It can’t be good for him.”

The Countess snorted. “He’s only twenty-two. It’s not an immediate health problem. That’s not what’s bothering you, love.”

“Perhaps … not entirely.”

“He embarrasses you. My body-conscious Barrayaran friend.”

“Mm.” The Count did not deny this, Mark noticed.

“Score one for his side.”

“Would you care to clarify that?”

“Mark’s actions are a language. A language of desperation, mostly. They’re not always easy to interpret. That one is obvious, though.”

“Not to me. Analyze, please.”

“It’s a three-part problem. In the first place, there’s the purely physical side. I take it you did not read the medical reports as carefully as I did.”

“I read the ImpSec synopsis.”

“I read the raw data. All of it. When the Jacksonian body-sculptors were cutting Mark down to match Miles’s height, they did not genetically retrofit his metabolism. Instead they brewed up a concoction of time-release hormones and stimulants which they injected monthly, tinkering with the formula as needed. Cheaper, simpler, more controlled in result. Now, take Ivan as a phenotypic sample of what Miles’s genotype should have resulted in, without the soltoxin poisoning. What we have in Mark is a man physically reduced to Miles’s height who is genetically programmed for Ivan’s weight. And when the Komarrans’ treatments stopped, his body again began to try to carry out its genetic destiny. If you ever bring yourself to look at him square on, you’ll notice it’s not just fat. His bones and muscles are heavier too, compared to Miles or even to himself two years ago. When he finally reaches his new equilibrium, he’s probably going to look rather low-slung.”