He snagged a prebreakfast roll from the kitchen on the way through, and walked out along the hillside path to the garden-and-graveyard. Formerly the last resting place of the barracks's guardsmen, it had been taken over by the Vorkosigans as their family plot after the destruction of Vorkosigan Vashnoi. Miles sat companionably for a while beside Sergeant Bothari's grave, nibbling the roll and watching the rising sun burn redly through the morning mists above Vorkosigan Surleau.

Then he strolled over to old General Piotr's plot, and stared down at it for long minutes. Time was he had stamped and shouted to that mockingly silent stone, whispered and pleaded. But the old man and he seemed to have nothing further to say to each other. Why not?

I'm talking to the wrong damned grave, is the problem, Miles decided abruptly. Ruthlessly, he turned and strode back to the house to wake up Martin, who would sleep till noon if allowed. He knew someplace he could go where the comconsole could not pursue him. And he desperately needed to talk to a certain small lady there.

"So where are we headed, m'lord?" Martin inquired, settling into the lightflyer's pilot's seat, and flexing his fingers.

"We're going to a little mountain community called Silvy Vale." Miles leaned over and entered instructions into the vid map/navigator program, which projected a color-enhanced 3-D grid for them. "There's a particular spot I want you to land, in this little valley here, just above this narrow fork. It's a cemetery, actually. There should be just enough space between the trees to put the lightflyer down. Or there was, the last time I was up there. It's a pretty place, beside the brook. The sun comes down through the trees . . . maybe I should have packed a picnic. It's about a four day-walk from here, or two and a half days on horseback. Or something under an hour by lightflyer."

Martin nodded, and powered up; they rose above the ridge, and turned southeast. "I bet I could get you there faster," Martin offered.

"No . . ."

"Are we going the long way around again?"

Miles hesitated. Now that he was in the air, his urgency was slackening, to be replaced by seeping dread. And you thought apologizing to the Emperor was hard. "Yeah. I've been meaning to show you a few facts of life about mountain downdrafts and lightflyers. Head south and west here, toward those peaks."

"Very good, sir," said Martin, practicing his best Vor lord's servant's style, though spoiling the effect immediately thereafter by adding, "A hell of a lot better than another riding lesson." Martin and Ninny had not gotten along as well as Miles had expected them to. Martin clearly preferred lightflyers.