choreography

[isthisart]

Linya unpacks. She is introduced to the armsmen and the other householders, and those of them younger and less thoroughly worn smooth by experience than Pym react to her with various combinations of glassy-eyed staring and suspicion - none of which fails to retreat at a well-timed throat-clearing, though, so she is able to bring one along with her for protection when she makes a trip to a music store for piano tuning tools. It goes without incident. She also makes sure she will be able to find food in the wee hours of the morning when she's up late or early.

She well-tempers the piano, and plays one of her relatively few memorized pieces (there are, in fact, a lot of them, but fewer than musicians of her acquaintance acquire for their repertoires) to make sure it's how she wants it.

The next morning, she draws Miles a diagram of the cascade braid and lets him practice it until he's got it down and she can wear it out. Cordelia mentions that she has invited Gregor over.

Linya tries groats with maple syrup on them for breakfast and, unexpectedly, loves them. (She does not try ethanol in any form, nor animal meat, this early in her residence.) She gets her pen to connect to the Barryaran comm networks. She meets, by comm-call, the Vorkosigan family accountant Tsipis, with whom she gets on absolutely famously; after fifteen minutes they have an enthusiastic agreement to talk thrice weekly so he can teach her economics and keep her up to date on how he's doing with errands for her nascent pen development business - sourcing materials and tools for her prototypes, materials and tools and manufacturers and programmers for scaling up when she has a solid consumer version.

She starts teaching herself the local form of Greek and has another bowl of groats in the dimness when there's nobody about but the night guard.

She slips into bed with her husband contentedly and snuggles up and goes to sleep.

Comments

[isthisart]

"The only ongoing interest Cetaganda has in me is that my constellation geneticists would probably like to continue to receive copies of my medical records, in case I turn up with an obscure allergy or something that they can rescue the next generation from. But I think I would want to better know both you and the intricate details in question before making an oath - if I am being asked to consider it any more personally involved than 'these are the magic words that make irritating political opponents less irritating and oppositional'. Not that I plan to make mischief or be particularly uncooperative, but in a context where oaths are taken with such deadly seriousness I'd like to be especially mindful."

[seewhathappens]

"Take your time, certainly," he says. "Do all the legal and historical research you feel you need. I'm never going to object to someone taking their oaths seriously."

[isthisart]

"Thank you. And I assume complainants about the marriage would need brightly colored groats thrown at them by a similar token?"

[seewhathappens]

"Yes."

[isthisart]

"That one's already under consideration. I admit it seems paradoxical to me that anyone inclined to complain about my having married Miles would be placated by having me do it twice."

[seewhathappens]

"There is," says Gregor, "a world of difference between 'placated' and 'shut up', but when you can't get the former, the latter is a good substitute."

[isthisart]

"Aha. Well, Cordelia found me an interesting book on the subject that answered most of my background questions about Barrayaran weddings, so remaining figuring on that subject should be relatively straightforward."

[thisvorlunatic]

What a perfect cue for Miles to gaze adoringly at her some more!

[isthisart]

Linya giggles when she catches him at it, and leans over and kisses him on the forehead.

[thisvorlunatic]

Eeeeee.

[seewhathappens]

[isthisart]

"I like the composition of the Barrayaran ceremony very much, actually, unless there are marked differences between book and practice of which I am unaware. The way the couple marry themselves and the - sentiment in the vows, in contrast to what amounts to - 'here, have some genes; the phenotype, let alone any personal relationship, is more or less irrelevant beyond a wink and a nod'."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm sure your genes are very lovely, but they are not what I married you for."

[greatcomposure]

"The book is accurate to my recollections," says Cordelia.

[isthisart]

"They are not what you married me for, but they are technically what Lisbet offered you. Those and, by custom more than interpretation of the text of the offering, my genetics expertise. To be fair to our irritating political opponents, they may have a point about marital validity in the sense that the two customs share a name principally by historical accident. We should certainly at least discuss incorporating colorful groats."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm all in favour of colourful groats!"

[isthisart]

"The one line that gave me much pause was the bit about guarding each other's honor. It seems like a very Barrayaran notion, and consequently not one I have a non-academic understanding of. What does that constitute?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Um..."

Miles looks at his mother.

[greatcomposure]

"It's open to a certain degree of interpretation," she says. "I'm sure the book mentioned that it used to be a coded way of saying that the wife wasn't going to cheat on the husband and the husband wasn't going to tolerate adultery in the wife, but modern readings tend to be rather more open-ended... for me personally, I would say it means supporting each other in difficult decisions and helping each other find the right choices. But I'm Betan, so perhaps I'm missing something."

[isthisart]

"The book did mention that, but since 'forsaking all others' is also in the text it seemed redundant if that was the entire point - unless, as is perhaps plausible, those composing these vows were rather obsessed with adultery. There was a footnote about someone attempting to use it as an excuse to arguably abuse his political power to protect his wife from what was either slander or substantiated rumor, the book did not opine on the veracity of the unkind words in question..."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I think part of it might be - trying to be worthy of each other," says Miles. "Because when you're married, you're not quite entirely separate people anymore. Things one spouse does reflect on the other one. So you guard each other's honour by acting honourably. Which leads right back to 'what is honour', I suppose."

[isthisart]

"It really does," agrees Linyabel. "Is it easier to answer in more concrete form? Do I currently have some status with respect to honor, and what things would change that status?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Um... no, that's not very much easier," he says. "I mean, I suppose you could say honour is just not breaking your word. But I feel like that doesn't quite cover it, somehow."

[isthisart]

"It does sound like that would be some sort of oversimplification..."

[seewhathappens]

"It's certainly arguable that being forsworn is at the root of all dishonor. But there are more complex cases," says Gregor. "If I had to boil the concept down to two oversimplified rules, it would be 'behave ethically and don't break your word'. Which, if not exactly a complete explanation, does have the advantage of putting things in more galactically accessible terms."