"No . . ." His breath became a purse-lipped sigh, as he glanced back over his shoulder at Gregor in meditative unease.

"Did Piotr tell you what happened yesterday afternoon?"

"Yo. I left the lake day-before-yesterday morning. Missed all the excitement. I expect the news will catch up with me before noon."

"Is . . . anything else likely to catch up with us by then?"

"We'll just have to see." He added more hesitantly, "You'll have to get out of those clothes, Milady. The name VORKOSIGAN, A., in big block letters over your jacket-pocket isn't any too anonymous."

Cordelia glanced down at Aral's black fatigue shirt, quelled.

"My lord's livery sticks out like a flag, too," Kly added, looking back at Bothari. "But you'll pass well enough, in the right clothes. I'll see what I can do, in a bit here."

Cordelia sagged, her belly aching in anticipation of rest. Refuge. But at what price to those who gave her refuge? "Will helping us put you in danger?"

His tufted grey brow rose. "Belike." His tone did not invite further comment on the topic.

She had to bring her tired mind back on-line somehow, if she was to be asset and not hazard to everyone around her. "That gum-leaf of yours. Does it work anything like coffee?"

"Oh, better than coffee, Milady."

"Can I try some?" Shyness lowered her voice; it might be too intimate a request.

His cheeks creased in a dry grin. "Only backcountry sticks like me chew gum-leaf, Milady. Pretty Vor ladies from the capital wouldn't be caught dead with it in their pearly teeth."

"I'm not pretty, I'm not a lady, and I'm not from the capital. And I'd kill for coffee right now. I'll try it."

He let his reins drop to his steadily plodding horse's neck, rummaged in his blue-grey jacket pocket, and pulled out his pouch. He broke off a chunk, in none-too-clean fingers, and leaned across.

She regarded it a doubtful moment, dark and leafy in her palm. Never put strange organics in your mouth till they've been cleared by the lab. She lapped it up. The wad was made self-sticking by a bit of maple syrup, but after her saliva washed away the first startling sweetness, the flavor was pleasantly bitter and astringent. It seemed to peel away the night's film coating her teeth, a real improvement. She straightened.

Kly regarded her with bemusement. "So what are you, off-worlder not-a-lady?"

"I was an astrocartographer. Then a Survey captain. Then a soldier, then a POW, then a refugee. And then I was a wife, and then I was a mother. I don't know what I'm going to be next," she answered honestly, around the gum-leaf. Pray not widow.

"Mother? I'd heard you were pregnant, but . . . didn't you lose your baby to the soltoxin?" He eyed her waist in confusion.