symphony

[isthisart]

The day of the party approaches. Linya learns a Barrayaran-original solo piano symphony, adds some flourishes of her own where the composer has marked that it may be played "freely", memorizes the whole thing, and arranges to be playing it on the grand piano when party guests file in on the day of. She smiles and nods at them and takes note of how they arrange themselves in the room; there are thirteen minutes in the piece unless she decides she needs an extra three (if there seem to be a lot of stragglers; if there isn't a good path to the people she wants to meet and around the people she wants to avoid) and takes the repeat at the end to prolong it.

She doesn't wind up taking the repeat; the end of the symphony without it has her playing the final chord when Lord Auditor Vorthys is nearer than anyone she's hoping to evade. She counts out the beats, holds for a moment longer, and then lifts her hands from the keyboard. She has decided that given her choice of titles she's going to address this particular guest as -

"Professor Vorthys."

Comments

[isthisart]

"I was very fortunate with respect to Miles's - availability, though."

[first_loyalty]

"Hmm?"

[isthisart]

"I am literally the first haut-lady to marry a non-ghem-lord. I needed a favor from the Empress haut Lisbet to manage it."

[first_loyalty]

Madame Vorsoisson looks mildly daunted. "Oh."

[isthisart]

"And of course Miles had to do something plausibly worthy of a haut-wife, since that's how that works."

[first_loyalty]

"I don't know anything at all about that," Madame Vorsoisson admits.

[isthisart]

"Usually if one is born a haut one stays within the sort of - sphere, that implies. Haut women are sometimes awarded as brides to ghem-lords who have accomplished valuable things - to rid the haut of anyone who isn't up to their exacting standards, to incentivize doing valuable things, to get haut genes into the ghem population in a controlled manner. If Miles hadn't come along, one likely possibility for me looked like remaining in my constellation until I was thirty or so and then marrying some ghem-general or similar."

[first_loyalty]

"And Lord Vorkosigan did a valuable thing...?"

[isthisart]

"Yes. But it was a classified valuable thing, sorry."

[first_loyalty]

"Oh. That's fine."

[isthisart]

"I probably could have stayed and not married a ghem-lord if I'd really wanted, since Lisbet was disposed to do me favors by then, but I preferred to come here with Miles."

[first_loyalty]

"Do you like him?"

[isthisart]

"Very much."

[first_loyalty]

"Good."

[isthisart]

"Yes. We're thinking of having a second wedding - we had a haut-wife ceremony, with some aesthetic tweaks as a nod to him being Barrayaran, but it was very little like a wedding as they're understood here."

[first_loyalty]

"No vows?" she guesses.

[isthisart]

"Not a one. The parties getting married barely speak except to accept the offer presented of the prospective spouse."

[first_loyalty]

"I made a proper old-fashioned southern-continent oath when I married my husband. I can't imagine just... accepting him in trade."

[isthisart]

"Well, in the usual case with haut-wives, personal relationship is an afterthought, if one is to exist at all, and what the ghem-lord is really being offered is his wife's genome, expertise in using it to make half-his children, and a social status marker. But this does not seem to encompass how things have worked out between me and Miles."

[first_loyalty]

"I... see."

[isthisart]

"I worry I'm making it sound worse than it is. It works for most haut most of the time. I'm unusual, or I wouldn't be here."

[first_loyalty]

"I... worry about the unusual people who aren't here, I think."

[isthisart]

"There are a handful. But only a handful. Does Barrayar work very well across all its strata for its unusuals?"

[first_loyalty]

"Well - I don't know. But at least we have marriage. I'm sorry - I must sound terribly provincial."

[isthisart]

"The haut have romantic relationships amongst themselves, I assure you. Just not - standardized ones."