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let them rush to their doom." Grass was being pulled up in bunches now.
"It all fit so well, there was a hypnotizing fascination to it. But chancy.
There was even a possibility, leaving events to themselves, that everyone
might be killed but the Prince. I was placed where I was to see the script was
followed. Goading the Prince, making sure he got to the front lines at the
right time. Hence that little scene you witnessed in my cabin. I never lost my
temper. I was just putting another nail in the coffin."
"I suppose I can see why the other agent was-the chief surgeon?" "Quite."
"Lovely."
"Isn't it, though." He lay back on the grass, looking through the turquoise
sky. "I couldn't even be an honest assassin. Do you recall me saying
I wanted to go into politics? I believe I'm cured of that ambition."
"What about Vorrutyer? Were you supposed to get him killed, too?"
"No. In the original script he was cast as the scapegoat. It would have been
his part, after the disaster, to apologize to the Emperor for the mess, in the
full old Japanese sense of the phrase, as part of the general collapse of the
war party. For all he was the Prince's spiritual advisor, I did not envy him
his future. All the while he was riding me, I could see the ground crumbling
away beneath his feet. It baffled him. He always used to be able to make me
lose my temper. It was great sport for him, when we were younger. He couldn't
understand why he'd lost his touch." His eyes remained focused somewhere in
the high blue emptiness, not meeting hers.
"For what it's worth to you, his death just then saved a great many lives.
He would have tried to continue the fight much longer, to save his political
skin. That was the price that bought me, in the end. I thought, if only I were
in the right place at the right time, I could do a better job of running the
pullout than anyone else on the General Staff."
"So we are, all of us, just Ezar Vorbarra's tools," said Cordelia slowly,
belly-sick. "Me and my convoy, you, the Escobarans-even old Vorrutyer. So much
for patriotic hoopla and righteous wrath. All a charade."
"That's right."
"It makes me feel very cold. Was the Prince really that bad?"
"There was no doubt of it. I shall not sicken you with the details of
Negri's reports. . . . But the Emperor said if it wasn't done now, we would
all be trying to do it ourselves, five or ten years down the road, and
probably botching the job and getting all our friends killed, in a full-scale
planet-wide civil war. He's seen two, in his lifetime. That was the nightmare
that haunted him. A Caligula, or a Yuri Vorbarra, can rule a long time, while
the best men hesitate to do what is necessary to stop him, and the worst ones
take advantage.
"The Emperor spares himself nothing. Reads the reports over and over-he had
them all nearly word-perfect. This wasn't something undertaken lightly, or
casually. Wrongly, perhaps, but not lightly. He didn't want him to die in
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shame, you see. It was the last gift he could give him."
She sat numbly hugging her knees, memorizing his profile, as the soft airs of
the afternoon rustled in the woods and stirred the golden grasses.
He turned his face toward her. "Was I wrong, Cordelia, to give myself to this
thing? If I had not gone, he would simply have had another. I've always tried
to walk the path of honor. But what do you do when all choices are evil?
Shameful action, shameful inaction, every path leading to a thicket of death."
"You're asking me to judge you?"
"Someone must."
"I'm sorry. I can love you. I can grieve for you, or with you. I can share
your pain. But I cannot judge you."
"Ah." He turned on his stomach, and stared down at the camp. "I talk too much
to you. If my brain would ever grant me release from reality, I believe I
would be the babbling sort of madman."
"You don't talk to anyone else like that, do you?" she asked, alarmed.
"Good God, no. You are-you are-I don't know what you are. But I need it.
Will you marry me?"
She sighed, and laid her head upon her knees, twisting a grass stem around her
fingers. "I love you. You know that, I hope. But I can't take Barrayar.
Barrayar eats its children."
"It isn't all these damnable politics. Some people get through their whole
lives practically unconscious of them."
"Yes, but you're not one of them."
He sat up. "I don't know if I could get a visa for Beta Colony."
"Not this year, I suspect. Nor next. All Barrayarans are considered war
criminals there at the moment. Politically speaking, we haven't had this much
excitement in years. They're all a little drunk on it just now. And then there
is Komarr."
"I see. I should have trouble getting a job as a judo instructor, then.
And I could hardly write my memoirs, all things considered."
"Right now I should think you'd have trouble avoiding lynch mobs." She looked
up at his bleak face. A mistake; it wrenched her heart. "I've-got to go home
for a while, anyway. See my family, and think things through in peace and
quiet. Maybe we can come up with some alternate solution. We can write,
anyway."
"Yes, I suppose." He stood, and helped her up.
"Where will you be, after this?" she asked. "You have your rank back."
"Well, I'm going to finish up all this dirty work," a wave of his arm
indicated the prison camp, and by implication the whole Escobaran adventure,
"-and then I believe I too shall go home. And get drunk. I cannot serve him
anymore. He's used me up on this. The death of his son, and the five thousand
men who escorted him to hell, will always hang between us now. Vorhalas,
Gottyan . . ."
"Don't forget the Escobarans. And a few Betans, too."
"I shall remember them." He walked beside her down the path. "Is there
anything you need, in camp? I've tried to see that everything was provided
generally, within the limits of our supplies, but I may have missed
something."
"Camp seems to be all right, now. I don't need anything special. All we really
need is to go home. No-come to think of it, I do want a favor."
"Name it," he said eagerly.
"Lieutenant Rosemont's grave. It was never marked. I may never get back here.
While it's still possible to find the remains of our camp, could you have your
people mark it? I have all his numbers and dates. I handled his personnel [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]