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- Gordon Dickson Dragon 07 The Dragon and the Gnarly King (v1.2) (lit)
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- Goodkind, Terry Das Schwert der Wahrheit 07 Die Nächte des roten Mondes_1
- Weis & Hickman Deathgate Cycle 07 The Seventh Gate
- Ledenda Drizzta 07 Dziedzictwo
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- Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan 06.5 The Mountains of Mourning
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robes, combining the two mourning colors, acknowledging the Cetagandan
hue without over-stepping the boundaries of haut-privilege. No accident that
it also displayed her own dark hair and lively complexion to advantage, and
set off her two companions as well. Her dimple flashed with her smile of
anticipation and pleasure, directed over Miles's head to Ambassador
Vorob'yev. Miles, between them, felt like an unruly lad being escorted firmly
by his two parents. Vorob'yev was taking no chances of unauthorized
violations of etiquette today.
The offering of the elegiac poetry to the dead empress was not a ceremony
normally attended by galactic delegates, with the exception of a very few high-
ranking Cetagandan allies. Miles did not qualify on either count, and
Vorob'yev had been forced to pull every string he owned to get them this
invitation. Ivan had ducked out, pleading weariness from the court-dance
practice and the fire-viewing parties of yesterday, and the excuse of four more
invitations for this afternoon and evening. It was a suspiciously smug
weariness. Miles had let him escape, his sadistic urge to make Ivan sit along
with him through what promised to be an interminable afternoon and
evening blunted by the reflection that his cousin could do little to contribute
to what was essentially an information-gathering expedition. And Ivan might-
just might-pick up some useful new contacts among the ghem. Vorob'yev had
substituted the Vervani woman, to her obvious delight, and Miles's benefit.
To Miles's relief the ceremony was not carried out in the rotunda, with all its
alarming associations, where the empress's body still lay. Neither did the
haut use anything so crass as an auditorium, with people packed in efficient
rows. Instead the servitor took them to a-dell, Miles supposed he might call it,
a bowl in the garden lined with flowers, plants, and hundreds of little box-seat
arrangements overlooking a complex array of daises and platforms at the
bottom. As befitted their rank, or lack of it, the servitor placed the Barrayaran
party in the last and highest row, three quarters of the way around from the
best frontal view. This suited Miles-he could watch nearly the whole audience
without being over-looked himself. The low benches were flawless wood,
hand-smoothed to a high polish. Mia Maz, bowed gallantly to her seat by
Vorob'yev, patted her skirts and stared around, bright-eyed.
Miles stared too, much less bright-eyed-he'd spent a great deal of time the last
day peering into his comconsole display, swotting up background in hopes of
finding an end to this tangle. The haut were filtering in to their places, men in
flowing snowy robes escorting white bubbles. The dell was beginning to
resemble a great bank of white climbing roses in a frenzy of bloom. Miles
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finally saw the purpose of the box seats-it gave room for the bubbles. Was
Rian among them?
"Will the women speak first, or how do they organize this?" Miles asked Maz.
"The women won't speak at all, today," said Maz. "They had their own
ceremony yesterday. They'll start with the men of lowest rank and work up
through the constellations."
Ending with the satrap governors. All of them. Miles settled himself with the
patience of a panther in a tree. The men he had come to see were filing into
the bottom of the bowl even now. If Miles had owned a tail, it would have
twitched. As it was, he stilled a tapping boot.
The eight satrap governors, assisted by their highest-ranking ghem-officers,
sank into seats around a raised reserved dais. Miles squinted, wishing for
rangefinder binoculars-not that he could have carried them past the tight
security. With a twinge of sympathy he wondered what ghem-Colonel Benin
was doing right now, and if Cetagandan security went as frantic behind the
scenes as Barrayaran security did at any ceremony involving Emperor
Gregor. He could just picture them.
But he had what he'd come for-all eight of his suspects, artistically arranged
on display. He studied his top four with particular care.
The governor of Mu Ceta was one of the Degtiar constellation, the present
emperor's half-uncle, being half-brother to the late empress. Maz too watched
closely as he settled his aged body creakily into his seat, and brushed away his
attendants with jerky, irritated motions. The governor of Mu Ceta had been at
his present post only two years, replacing the governor who had been
recalled, and subsequently quietly exiled into retirement after the Vervain
invasion debacle. The man was very old, and very experienced, and had been
chosen explicitly to calm Vervani fears of a re-match. Not, Miles thought, the
treasonous type. Yet by haut Rian's testimony, every man in the circle had
taken at least one step over the line, secretly receiving the unauthorized gene
banks.
The governor of Rho Ceta, Barrayar's nearest neighbor, worried Miles a great
deal more. The haut Este Rond was middle-aged and vigorous, haut-tall
though unusually heavy. His ghem-officer stood well back from his governor's
sweeping movements. Rond's general effect was bullish. And he was bullishly
tenacious in his efforts, diplomatic and otherwise, to improve Cetaganda's [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]