Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (7 page)

Her smile slid sideways. “Well…no reason to go actively hunting for trouble, either, eh?”

He had to laugh a little.

“Try it,” she challenged, absurdly forthright as usual. “Next time you’re all gossiping around the water cooler, or whatever you fellows do on base or upside.
For my fiftieth birthday, I’ve decided to have a son
, or whatever. All right, maybe the younger lads won’t understand, but most of the older officers are parents themselves. You may find out you’ve joined a club you never knew existed. Ask them for advice—
that’ll
win them over in a hurry.”

That last was a convincing argument, to be sure. But he managed, austerely, “Soldiers of the Imperium do not gossip. We just exchange mission-critical information.”

She snickered. “Right. All your fellows gossip like washerwomen.”

He grinned back, his heart lightened, though he could not say exactly how. “Except with more bragging and lies, pretty much, yeah.”

He became aware that he was standing very close to her, in the cool-warm shade of the concealing sack-walls, his arm out propping him almost over her. When at this rare range it always vaguely surprised him to rediscover that, though a tallish woman, she was shorter than himself. The air was very quiet, not even the distant boom or whine of one of the orbital shuttles taking off or landing. They might have been a hundred kilometers away from anyone, out in the rugged volcanic hills somewhere. Picnicking, perhaps. Now, there was an idea for a weekend retreat…

The scents trapped on the still air teased his senses—light sweat, her hair, the perfume of her soap, the dry dust of the plascrete. He became conscious of her lips, as she regarded him with a quizzical half smile, face tipped up, and that she had gone quite still, and what did
that
mean? He also became aware that a certain witless part of his body was earnestly suggesting that backing up the Vicereine to a wall of plascrete sacks and doing her standing would be a delightful addition to both their afternoons.

Hell you say. I’m not putting
you
in charge of anything to do with the Vicereine
ever.

How long did that bloody Betan nasal spray
last
, anyway?

He shook himself out of his temporary hypnosis and took an abrupt step backward. Did she just catch her breath? He had to, though he trusted he concealed it. “Well!” he said brightly. “Supper, Your Excellency?”

She did not, immediately, push off from the wall. Her chin tucked. Her smile didn’t thin, exactly, it just became a little stiffer—the
nice
smile she used for the holovids, not for him. “If you say so, Oliver. Lead on.”

He almost offered her his arm, but hesitated too long; she was already striding off. He followed.

I have to find a boat. Somehow.

* * *

As they walked back toward the building housing the officers’ mess, Cordelia suppressed a scowl. She had been very nearly certain Oliver had been about to kiss her. And she had been very nearly certain that she would like it. She had before, on certain special occasions…

Don’t be stupid, woman. You know he prefers men.
She’d known that for decades.

Do I?
In that case, why hadn’t he found himself one, in the past three years? Not in those first few shell-shocked months, no. But she knew that he collected passes from both sexes—and the rare visiting herm—she’d seen that both back in their Vorbarr Sultana period, and since he’d been assigned to Sergyar Command. Oliver had been awkward at ducking them in his first days, absorbed in learning his new tasks as the overworked aide to one of the most high-powered men on the planet, and then there had followed that amusing period when he’d been so caught up in Aral that barely anyone else seemed to register. But in time, he’d become as deft at giving off silent
don’t try me
vibes as any virtuously faithful Vor matron. As had she, she supposed, but given that she was Aral’s wife, very few men who weren’t obviously insane had ever bothered her with unwanted advances. Although her own social obliviousness had doubtless also helped smooth things over. Any whose futile hopes she could not depress herself, she could send ImpSec to hand on a clue to. Word like that got around.

Which suggested that she, too, might be out of practice at this sort of thing, except that she had never been in practice in the first place. She’d been thirty-three years old, a Betan Astronomical Survey commander, in a situation as unconducive to romance as any she could imagine, when Aral had,
ha
, fallen in love on her—her lips curved up again at the memory of Oliver’s extremely apt turn of phrase, melting her urge to scowl—and her life had never been the same again.

She considered Oliver’s confidence—the real one, not the Plas-Dan smokescreen. He was, she realized belatedly, trying to process a sort of technological miscarriage, without the words or even the concepts for it. No way to package the experience for himself at all. Would it help if she suggested he name the lost zygote? Volunteer to aid him in burning a Barrayaran death-offering? Or would that be too intrusive? Offensive? Or just incomprehensible? No, not that—she had not mistaken the bewildered pain in his voice. Maybe just being his good listener was enough. The one friend he could talk to.
Damn. I meant to give you a gift of joy, not…this
.

The base officers’ mess was divided into two sections, an efficient cafeteria downstairs for the people in a hurry, and a somewhat less utilitarian dining room upstairs, with wide windows looking out over the shuttleport. The food all came out of the same kitchen, merely being plated and served more nicely up here. She and Aral had eaten many working meals with the military staff in this mess, when colony concerns had taken them onto the base, usually in one of the smaller private rooms off either end of the main one. Today Oliver simply guided her to a table by the windows. Heads turned as they passed. The service was instantly attentive, certainly. Happily, the enlisted server was one of the older hands, undaunted by his Admiral and the Vicereine.

Discussions of what were, Cordelia suspected, only going to be the first of several thousand other practical issues involving the impact of the new base carried them through the salad and the main course. Oliver was clearly amused by her not-at-all secret hope that the boost to the Gridgrad settlement by this huge infusion of military money and construction people would shift the center of colonization away from Kareenburg’s
why-for-the-love-of-logic
semi-desert ecosystem—not to mention the active tectonic boundary and not-actually-dead volcanoes—to the much more salubrious, well-watered, and geologically stable zone around Gridgrad.

“This place was never picked for a colony site in the first place,” she argued. “It was picked because the caves in what is now Mount Thera made a dandy cache to hide an invasion fleet’s worth of supplies from people like, well, passing Betan Astronomical Survey vessels, while the old war party scraped together that insanely stupid Escobar conquest scheme. Grant you, the caves did work exactly as hoped, I’ll give old Emperor Ezar’s bloodthirsty cutthroats that much credit.”

Oliver held up his hands palm-out in nondisagreement—he’d heard this rant from her before. A motion by the table that was not their server bearing dessert caught her eye, and she stopped in mid-spate to look around. Oliver’s aide, Lieutenant Vorinnis, presented herself, and Cordelia’s heart caught with the fear that it might be some crisis, soothed when the girl offered a hesitant, even hangdog, salute.

“Admiral Jole, sir. Good evening, Your Excellency.” A respectful motion in Cordelia’s direction that was neither salute nor bow nor curtsey—more of a bob. “My apologies for interrupting”—a glance at their empty plates indicated hope that she was not too ill-timed—“but I received this…this thing, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I showed it to Colonel Martin, but she didn’t know either, so she said I should ask you, sir, because you’d probably know all about this kind of stuff. And someone said they saw you come up here, and—well, here.”

She thrust out her hand, holding a stiff, colored-paper envelope in a style Cordelia recognized, but hadn’t expected to see in this place. Oliver, too, recognized it, his brows rising as he took it for closer examination. “Well, well. What have we here, Lieutenant?”

“I
think
it says it’s an invitation to a party at the Cetagandan consulate. Although the wording’s a little…oblique. From Lord ghem Soren. Supposedly.” She said this in a voice of gruff suspicion.

“Well, that it is. Addressed to you personally, I see, no mistake there. Hand-calligraphed, too, as is right and proper for a rising young ghem. Someone made him practice, once. Assuming he didn’t panic and pay someone more expert to do the task for him, which would be considered terribly déclassé if he were caught at it. Paper hand-made, good touch, though doubtless purchased.” He ran the card extracted from within delicately under his nose, and sniffed.

Cordelia sat back, beginning to be amused. “What else can you determine?”

“Cinnamon, rose, and gardenia, I think. Not terribly subtle, but perhaps he was making allowances for the recipient, which suggests a certain effort at diplomatic courtesy. Or perhaps even straightforwardness, perish the thought. See what you make of it, Cordelia.” He handed the card and its envelope across to her.

“A fellow shouldn’t be drenching letters in perfume, should he?” asked Vorinnis uneasily. “Or are all their consulate invitations like that?”

“You’ve heard of the language of flowers, Lieutenant?” asked Cordelia.

The girl’s rather straight and thick eyebrows lowered. “Wasn’t that some Time of Isolation custom? Different flowers would have different meanings. Red roses for love, white lilies for grief, that sort of cra—thing?”

“That’s right,” said Oliver. “Well, Cetagandan ghem culture, when it’s at home, doesn’t just stop at flowers. Objects, artistic choices and their juxtapositions, flowers—naturally—scents, you name it. All convey coded messages.”

“Should I take this to Base Security, then? I wondered.”

“Ah—coded
social
messages, usually,” Oliver clarified. “The things the ghem say with plasma cannons tend to be more direct. I’m sure it pains their sense of aesthetics.”

“Oh. Aesthetics,” said Vorinnis. Her tone conveyed uncoded dubiousness.

Oliver went on, “So the elements you need to observe to deconstruct this will be the choices of paper, ink, the particular style of the calligraphy, wording—extra points for obscure poetic references—the method of delivery—which was what, by the way?”

“I think somebody handed it in at the gate, and it went by base mail after that.”

“I see.”

The girl craned her neck at the paper still in Cordelia’s hand. “So what
does
it say? Convey.”

“Well, to start with, it is in the correct form, which indicates some baseline of respect, personal or professional,” Oliver began.

“Or a basic ability to follow the instructions in an etiquette manual,” Cordelia put in. “Which is not a point against the boy, mind you.”

She handed it back across, and Oliver turned it over once more. He said, “The paper itself is relatively neutral, the colors of envelope and card blend pleasingly enough, so there is no covert hostility. Calligraphy style is formal, not familiar, but not official. The scents, however…heh.”

“What?” Vorinnis did not
quite
wail.

Cordelia put in, “Cinnamon for warmth, which is supposed to give a hint how to construe the other odors blended in. Roses—for once, even the Cetagandans follow the old Earth traditions—love, lust, or friendship, depending on the color of the rose.”

“How can you tell the
color
of a rose from its
scent
?” said Vorinnis.

“Cetagandans can,” said Oliver. “So can a lot of other people, with a little training. It’s not a superpower.”

“And—oh, dear, I forget gardenia. Oliver? Help us out.”

“Hope,” he intoned, blue eyes crinkling just a tiny bit, though he kept his face perfectly straight. “Lord ghem Soren is asking you for a date, Lieutenant. He hopes you will accept.” He handed the papers back to the girl.

She accepted them, her face scrunching up in unfeigned bewilderment. “Good grief,
why
?”

Cordelia’s brow wrinkled at this. It didn’t sound as though it boded well for either the ghem lord or the Vor lieutenant. She wasn’t sure whether to wince or sit back and watch the show. For now, she sat back.

“Well, the ghem are very competitive,” said Oliver. “I know very little of this one yet, but as a general rule you may guess that he either wants to show you up, or show you off.”

Vorinnis’s face stayed scrunched. “I’m not sure I follow that, sir.”

Oliver rubbed his lips, meditatively. “Alternatively, I observe that a cultural attaché is often an unofficial spy. What slicker way to keep tabs on the competition’s boss than to date his secretary?”

Vorinnis drew herself up in offense. “Sir! I would never!”

“I didn’t suggest that you would, Lieutenant.”

“That could cut both ways, of course,” Cordelia put in. “Is there any disinformation you want to feed the Cetagandan consulate this week, Oliver?”

The lieutenant grew less stiff, considering this wrinkle.

“Not especially. You?”

“Not offhand. I’d have to think about it.”

“But what should I do about this, sir?” said Vorinnis, waving her…prospective love letter? Bait? Cetagandans, not to mention run-of-the-mill, un-gene-modified humans, could also
lie
with flowers, after all.

“We are not at war with Cetaganda, nor even, at the moment, in an especially tense diplomatic phase.”

Not by Oliver’s standards, certainly, Cordelia reflected.

“I’d say you are free to accept or decline as you wish, Lieutenant.”

“Although should you wish to decline in an especially cutting fashion, I’m sure Admiral Jole can direct you to some useful reference materials,” Cordelia put in.

“Oh, there’s an entire manual for military support staff to diplomatic outposts in the Cetagandan Empire, to which I call your attention just as general background reading, Lieutenant. Although I don’t recommend trying that route unless one is expert. Shows far too flattering an interest, you see.” He added after a moment, “Also, it’s very long and detailed.”