"With Alys Vorpatril behind this? They wouldn't dare."

The affair grew from there. By a week in advance Kou and Drou were considering eloping out of sheer panic, having lost all control of everything whatsoever to their eager helpers. But the Imperial Residence's staff brought it all together with practiced ease. The senior housewoman flew about, chortling, "And here I was afraid we weren't going to have anything to do, once the admiral moved in, but those dreadful boring General Staff dinners."

The day and hour came at last. A large circle made of colored groats was laid out on the floor of the Red Room, encompassed by a star with a variable number of points, one for each parent or principal witness to stand at: in this case, four. In Barrayaran custom a couple married themselves, speaking their vows within the circle, requiring neither priest nor magistrate. Practically, a coach, called appropriately enough the Coach, stood outside the circle and read the script for the fainthearted or faint-headed to repeat. This dispensed with the need for higher neural functions such as learning and memory on the part of the stressed couple. Lost motor coordination was supplied by a friend each, who steered them to the circle. It was all very practical, Cordelia decided, as well as splendid.

With a grin and a flourish Aral placed her at her assigned star point, as if setting out a bouquet, and took his own place. Lady Vorpatril had insisted on a new gown for Cordelia, a sweeping length of blue and white with red floral accents, color-coordinated with Aral's ultra-formal parade red-and-blues. Drou's proud and nervous father also wore his red-and-blues and held down his point. Strange to think of the military, which Cordelia normally associated with totalitarian impulses, as the spearhead of egalitarianism on Barrayar. The Cetagandans' gift, Aral called it; their invasion had first forced the promotion of talent regardless of origin, and the waves of that change were still traveling through Barrayaran society.

Sergeant Droushnakovi was a shorter, slighter man than Cordelia had expected. Either Drou's mother's genes, better nutrition, or both had boosted all his children up taller than himself. All three brothers, from the captain to the corporal, had been broken loose from their military assignments to attend, and stood now in the big outer circle of other witnesses along with Kou's excited younger sister. Kou's mother stood on the star's last point, crying and smiling, in a blue dress so color-perfect Cordelia decided Alys Vorpatril must have somehow gotten to her, too.

Koudelka marched in first, propped by his stick with its new cover and Sergeant Bothari. Sergeant Bothari wore the most glittery version of Piotr's brown and silver livery, and whispered helpful, horribly suggestive advice like "If you feel really nauseous, Lieutenant, put your head down." The very thought turned Kou's face greener, an extraordinary color-contrast with his red-and-blues that Lady Vorpatril would no doubt have disapproved.