After a moment's thought, Cordelia added the swordstick, tightening a loop of her belt around its grip. A serious weapon it wasn't, but it had proved an unexpectedly useful tool on this trip. For luck. Then from the last depths of the satchel, Cordelia pulled what she privately considered to be the most potent weapon of all.

"A shoe?" said Droushnakovi blankly.

"Gregor's shoe. For when we make contact with Kareen. I rather fancy she still has the other." Cordelia nested it deeply in the inner pocket of one of Drou's Vorbarra-crested boleros, worn over Cordelia's dress to complete the picture of an inner Residence worker.

When their preparations were as complete as possible, Drou led them again into narrowing darkness. "Now we're under the Residence itself," she whispered, turning sideways. "We go up this ladder, between the walls. It was added after, there's not much space."

This proved an understatement. Cordelia sucked in her breath and climbed after her, sandwiched flat between two walls, trying not to accidently touch or thump. The ladder was made, naturally, of wood. Her head throbbed with exhaustion and adrenaline. She mentally measured the width. Getting the uterine replicator back down this ladder was going to be a bitch. She told herself sternly to think positively, then decided that was positive. Why am I doing this? I could be back at Tanery Base with Aral right now, letting these Barrayarans kill each other all day long, if it is their pleasure. . . .

Above her, Drou stepped aside onto some sort of tiny ledge, a mere board. When Cordelia came up beside her, she gestured "stop" and extinguished her hand-light. Drou touched some silent latch mechanism, and a wall panel swung outward before them. Clearly, everything had been kept well oiled right up to Ezar's death.

They looked out into the old Emperor's bedchamber. They had expected it to be empty. Drou's mouth opened in a voiceless O of dismay and horror.

Ezar's huge old carved wooden bed, the one he'd for-God's-sake died in, was occupied. A shaded light, dimmed to an orange glow, cast highlight and shadow across two bare-torsoed, sleeping forms. Even in this foreshortened view, Cordelia instantly recognized the dish-face and moustache of Vidal Vordarian. He sprawled across four-fifths of the bed, his heavy arm flung possessively across Princess Kareen. Her dark hair was tumbled on the pillow. She slept in a tight, tiny ball in the upper corner of the bed, facing outward, white arms clutched to her chest, nearly in danger of falling out.