He took a detour over the rural territory, to give Tej an idea of the extent of it. A few areas of early snow, just inland, proved no novelty to her, as Jackson’s Whole was apparently temperate all the way to the equator, with large and barren polar regions. Happily, the snow covered up the last few biocide blights lingering from the Occupation. But a little way up the coast past the summer resort town of Bonsanklar, Good Saint Claire in one of the old tongues, lay a cozy little inn specializing in the Vor trade, fondly remembered from a few visits in Ivan’s youth. It was still there, perhaps a little shabbier, but just as cozy. He and Tej managed one walk on the pebbled beach before darkness drove them indoors; the next day it rained, but their end room boasted its own fireplace, food service, and no reason to go out. None at all.
Far too soon the next morning, they were back in his lightflyer, threading their way upriver to the Vorpatril District capital city of New Evias.
“I don’t understand what I’m supposed to call him,” said Tej, peering anxiously ahead out the front canopy. “Count Vorpatril or Count Falco? And if only his heir is Lord Vorpatril, why are you Lord Vorpatril too, or are you?”
“All right, I’ll try to explain it. Again,” said Ivan. “There are the Counts and their heirs, political heirs. Count Vorwho, Lord Vorwho, Lord Firstname-the firstborn males-like Aral, Miles, and Sasha, all right?”
“That, I got.”
“Any other siblings of Lord Firstname, like Sasha’s twin Lady Helen, get to stick on a Lord or Lady in front of their names too, as a courtesy title. Whether they drool or not. But those titles aren’t inherited in the next generation. So we have a case like By, whose grandfather was a count, whose father was a younger son and so Lord Firstname, and then Byerly, who is just Vorrutyer, the Vor part standing in for any other honorific. So you’d never introduce him as Mister or Monsieur Vorrutyer, just as Vorrutyer. Although his wife, if he had one, would be Madame Vorrutyer, and his sister, before she married, was Mademoiselle Vorrutyer.”
“All right,” said Tej, more doubtfully.
“Then, just to confuse the tourists, there are a bunch more Lord Vorlastnames running around, like me, who have the title as a permanent inheritance even though we aren’t in line for any Districts. My grandfather, who was just a younger grandson of that generation’s Count Vorpatril and so didn’t even rate a Lord Firstname, was given his when he married Princess Sonia, as some sort of prize, I guess.”
“Oh,” said Tej, fainter but still valiant. “But…”
“Those are the correct formal titles. Then we come to casual conversation. Falco, or Aral, would be Falco or Aral to their close friends and cronies, wives, and what-not. But I’d never call ’em that; it would be Count Falco or Count Aral, sort of like Uncle Aral. Informal but not so familiar or intimate, y’see? And also useful when there are a bunch of people with the same last name in the conversation, to keep straight which is which. So my mother gets called Lady Alys a lot, because there’s another Lady Vorpatril in town, Falco’s daughter-in-law, as well as his Countess Vorpatril. Er, and you, now.”
“But…I’m not intimate with the same people you’re intimate with-so I can’t just copy you, can I?”
“Keep it simple,” advised Ivan. “Just call him Count Vorpatril or Sir, unless he tells you otherwise. And still call him Count Vorpatril when we’re actually in his court, because that’s very formal, see?” He added after a moment, “I sure plan to.”
The outskirts of New Evias hove into view, and Ivan had to give over his lightflyer’s control to the municipal traffic computer. New Evias was maybe one-tenth the size of Vorbarr Sultana, but perhaps for that very reason, more uniformly modernized. In any case, the control system brought them down neatly into one of the few empty circles painted atop the parking garage next to the assorted District offices of justice. The targeting was accurate to within, oh, twenty centimeters or so. Or thirty. Ivan rubbed his jaw, made sure Tej hadn’t bitten her tongue or anything in the hard landing, and escorted her out.
Count Falco Vorpatril sat in judgment, as had several equally stodgy ancestors before him, in one of the few remaining Time-of-Isolation public buildings still left standing in downtown New Evias. The structure’s musty legal smell seemed to be ageless. Tej, who had grown very silent, perked up at the dark woodwork and elaborate stone carving gracing the architecture. “Now, this really looks like Barrayar,” she said. Ivan was gratified.
In a second-floor corridor, they encountered, prematurely, the count himself, who seemed to be on his way back from lunch.
“Ivan, my boy!” Falco hailed them.
He was still white-haired, stout, jovial-like a sly Father Frost with a hidden agenda. Falco was nothing if not a political survivor, Conservative by inclination, Centrist by calculation. He wore the formal Vorpatril House uniform of dark blue and gold, which adapted itself to his contours much as he adapted himself to the political landscape. A clerk bearing an electronic case filer stamped with the Vorpatril crest dogged his steps, obsequiously. Falco eyed Tej in open appreciation as they stopped and he strolled up.
“Sir.” Ivan came to attention. “May I introduce my wife, Lady Tej?”
“Indeed, you may.” Count Falco shook Tej’s hand, aborting a vague attempt on her part at a curtsey. “I’ve heard about you, young lady.”
“How do you do, Count Vorpatril, sir,” said Tej. Loading it all in, just in case, Ivan guessed.
“Talk with Mamere, did you, sir?” Ivan hazarded.
“Quite an entertaining talk, yes.”
“Oh, good, that’ll save a shipload of time.” Ivan squeezed Tej’s hand. “See, didn’t I say it’ll be fine?” Tej smiled gratefully and squeezed back, huddling closer. Ivan slipped a supporting arm around her waist.
Falco smiled benignly. “Countess Vorpatril was very curious about your nuptials, Ivan,” he went on, tapping Ivan familiarly on the chest with one broad finger. “She’d like to hear about them from you, by preference. We will both be down to the capital later in the week, note, where you may find her at Vorpatril House at the usual hours. You are behindhand on your courtesy visit, head of the clan and all that.”
“It’s only a temporary marriage, sir, as I hope Mamere explained? To rescue Tej from some, um, legal complications on Komarr. Which worked fine, all right and tight-got her all fixed up, free of them. Now we just have to get her free of me, and she’ll be, um…free.”
The clerk touched his wristcom, indicating time issues, and Count Falco gave him an acknowledging wave. “Yes, yes, I know. Well, good luck to you both…”
Falco toddled off down the corridor to the back door of his chambers. Ivan led Tej in the opposite direction, where they found the waiting area. Another clerk took their names, and left them to wait.
Tej circled the room, eyeing the woodwork and the items decorating the walls, mostly historical artifacts and prints, then stood studying the big wall viewer displaying successive scans of New Evias and rural District scenes since the Time of Isolation.
Ivan, too, rose after a while, because sitting was becoming unbearable, and studied the woodwork, or pretended to. “I’m glad they didn’t just knock this old place down like most of the rest of it. Makes it feel like our past isn’t just something to be thrown on a scrap heap, now we’re all turning galactic, y’know?”
This brought a smile to Tej’s lips, one of the few in the past hours. “Is that what you Barrayarans think you’re doing?”
But before Ivan could figure out a reply, the clerk returned to say, “Captain and Lady Vorpatril? Your case is up next.”
The clerk led them down the hall to Falco’s hearings chamber. They stood aside to let a group, no, two groups of people exit, one set looking elated, the other downcast and grumpy. The wood-paneled room was surprisingly small, and, to Ivan’s relief, uncrowded: just Falco and his clerk sitting at a desk on a raised dais; a couple of desks toward the front, where a woman lawyer was gathering up what appeared to be stacks of yellowing physical documents dating back to the Time of Isolation, along with her electronic case book; some empty backless benches bolted to the floor; and, by the door, an elderly sergeant-at-arms in a Vorpatril District uniform. The sergeant received Ivan and Tej from the clerk, who departed again, presumably to deal with whoever next needed to wait, and directed them to the empty tables.