Droushnakovi nodded understandingly, as if she had received some coded underlayer to this simple request, gathered up the boy, and walked out hand in hand with him. His child-voice drifted back, "Droushie, can I have a cream cake? And one for Steggie?"

Cordelia sat gingerly, thinking about Negri's reports, and Barrayaran disinformation about their recent aborted campaign to invade the planet Escobar. Escobar, Beta Colony's good neighbor and ally . . . the weapons that had disintegrated Crown Prince Serg and his ship high above Escobar had been bravely convoyed through the Barrayaran blockade by one Captain Cordelia Naismith, Betan Expeditionary Force. That much truth was plain and public and not to be apologized for. It was the secret history, behind the scenes in the Barrayaran high command, that was so . . . treacherous, Cordelia decided, was the precise word. Dangerous, like ill-stored toxic waste.

To Cordelia's astonishment, Princess Kareen leaned over, took her right hand, lifted it to her lips, and kissed it hard.

"I swore," said Kareen thickly, "that I would kiss the hand that slew Ges Vorrutyer. Thank you. Thank you." Her voice was breathy, earnest, tear-caught, grateful emotion naked in her face. She sat up, her face growing reserved again, and nodded. "Thank you. Bless you."

"Uh . . ." Cordelia rubbed at the kissed spot. "Um . . . I . . . this honor belongs to another, Milady. I was present, when Admiral Vorrutyer's throat was cut, but it was not by my hand."

Kareen's hands clenched in her lap, and her eyes glowed. "Then it was Lord Vorkosigan!"

"No!" Cordelia's lips compressed in exasperation. "Negri should have given you the true report. It was Sergeant Bothari. Saved my life, at the time."

"Bothari?" Kareen sat bolt upright in astonishment. "Bothari the monster, Bothari, Vorrutyer's mad batman?"

"I don't mind getting blamed in his place, ma'am, because if it had become public they'd have been forced to execute him for murder and mutiny, and this gets him off and out. But I . . . but I should not steal his praise. I'll pass it on to him if you wish, but I'm not sure he remembers the incident. He went through some draconian mind-therapy after the war, before they discharged him—what you Barrayarans call therapy"—on a par with their neurosurgery, Cordelia feared, "and I gather he wasn't exactly, uh, normal before that, either."

"No," said Kareen. "He was not. I thought he was Vorrutyer's creature."

"He chose . . . he chose to be otherwise. I think it was the most heroic act I've ever witnessed. Out of the middle of that swamp of evil and insanity, to reach for . . ." Cordelia trailed off, embarrassed to say, reach for redemption. After a pause she asked, "Do you blame Admiral Vorrutyer for Prince Serg's, uh, corruption?" As long as they were clearing the air . . . Nobody mentions Prince Serg. He thought to take a bloody shortcut to the Imperium, and now he's just . . . disappeared.