“But,” said Tej, in a confused voice, “it was the deal!”
“Yeah, there you go, sir!” said Ivan. “Breach-of-promise. That’s some kind of illegal, isn’t it?”
Falco’s bushy white eyebrows climbed. “Breach-of-promise, Ivan, is where an expectation of marriage is denied, not where an expectation of divorce is denied. Also, the complainant has to show palpable harm.” He looked them both over and just shook his head.
The clerk passed Falco a swiftly-scribbled note. He squinted, read it, and nodded. “Do either of you make any financial claims upon the other?”
“No,” said Tej, and “No,” said Ivan.
“Now, that is interesting. And nearly unique, if I may say so.” Falco sat back, sighing. At length, his tapping fingers stilled. He drew a breath. “It is the ruling of this Count’s Court that the respondents, Lord Ivan Xav Vorpatril and Lady Akuti Tejaswini Jyoti ghem Estif Arqua Vorpatril, have no grounds for the dissolution of their respective, freely spoken marital oaths. Your petition is denied. Case closed.”
The clerk reached over and banged the spear butt in its rest with two loud, echoing clacks.
Tej’s mouth had fallen open. Ivan was so stunned he could scarcely suck in air to sputter. “But, but, but…you can’t do that, sir!”
“Of course I can,” said Falco serenely. “That’s what I come here every session to do, in case you missed the turn, Ivan. Sit, listen to people, form and deliver judgments.” His smile stretched, endlessly it seemed. “I do this quite a lot, you know,” Falco confided to Tej. “Sometimes I begin to imagine I’ve heard it all, yet every once in a while there’s still some new surprise. Human beings are so endlessly variable.”
“But didn’t you say you’d talked to my mother?” said Ivan desperately.
“Oh, yes. At great length.” Falco leaned forward for the last time, his expression chilling down, and for a moment Ivan was conscious that he stood not before an elderly relative, but a count of Barrayar. “These are some words not from your mother. Do not ever again attempt to play fast and loose with solemn oaths in any jurisdiction of mine, Captain and Lady Vorpatril. If you should in the future acquire grounds for your petition, you may again bring it, but my court-which is very busy, I must point out, and has no time for frivolous suits-will not hear you again on the same matter in less than one-half year.”
“But,” moaned Ivan, still in shock. Even he wasn’t sure but what.
Falco made a finger-flicking gesture. “ Out, Ivan. Good day, Lady Tej. Countess Vorpatril hopes to see you both at Vorpatril House in the near future.”
Count Falco jerked his head at the sergeant-at-arms, who came forward and grasped Ivan by the sleeve, towing him gently but inexorably toward the door. Tej followed, bewilderment in every line of her body. A mob of people waiting to enter shouldered impatiently past them as they cleared the doorframe and stood, directionless, in the corridor, and the sergeant-at-arms turned his attention to herding the newcomers toward their respective benches. The door closed on the babble, although it opened again in a moment to emit the lawyer, papers and files stacked in her arms.
She twisted around her stack and reached into her case to extract a card, which she handed to Ivan. “My number, Captain.”
Ivan took it in numb fingers. “Is this…if we want legal advice?”
“No, love. It’s for if you ever want a date.” She trod away up the hall, laughing. By the time she reached the far end of the corridor, the echoes had died, but then she glanced back and her un-lawyerly giggles burst forth once more as she turned down the stairwell.
Holding onto each other like two people drowning, Ivan and Tej staggered out of the archaic building and into watery early-winter sunlight. Apparently, still married.
At least I was right about one thing, Ivan thought. It did only take ten minutes.
Chapter Thirteen
Tej paced up and down Ivan Xav’s living room. Ivan Xav sat with a drink in his hands, occasionally putting it down in favor of holding his head, instead. Rish perched on the couch with her feet drawn up, listening to their tale; at first with gratifying disbelief, then with increasing and much less gratifying impatience, which was now edging into exasperation.
“I still can’t believe that one old man, who wasn’t even there, could cancel out my deal like that!” fumed Tej. “I thought this was supposed to be all fixed up in advance!”
“It was, it seems-but not by me,” said Ivan Xav, sounding morose. “That was my first mistake, going to someone who knows Mamere. We should have taken this to some judge who didn’t know me from a hole in the ground, let alone since childhood. Total strangers wouldn’t have known what the hell was going on, and might have let us just slide on through.”
“So what do you have to do?” said Rish. “To provide these grounds they want.”
Ivan Xav shook his head. “Divorce turns out to be a lot of work. Way more than I thought.”
“There has to be something. Let’s go down your list again,” said Rish in an annoyingly reasonable tone, squaring her shoulders. “Mutation. Couldn’t one of you pretend to be a mutant? Well, not Tej, I suppose. But the captain here is just a natural conception-a body-birth, if you can believe it! Run him through an exhaustive enough gene scan, something would be bound to turn up that you could pretend to object to.”
“No!” said Ivan Xav, incensed. “Besides, it would go down on the court’s public record. Think what it would do to my reputation! Dear God, I’d never get laid on this planet again.”
Rish tilted her head in concession. “All right, so what about this adultery thing? Which I gather isn’t about being a grownup, something we could probably use around here, but about sleeping with someone when you’re married to someone else. Sounds easy enough. Pleasurable, even.”
“Who with, for pity’s sake?” said Tej. “The only other male I even know very well on this benighted world is Byerly.”
Ivan Xav set down his drink with a thunk that sloshed it over the edge of the glass. “You are not sleeping with Byerly.”
“Who else have I even met here? Well, there’s The Coz and The Gregor, I suppose, but be reasonable. Anyway, they’re both taken.” Tej added after a moment, “And Simon Illyan was very nice, too, but no. Just no. Just…no.”
“No,” said Ivan Xav. “So many kinds of no, I can’t even count the ways.”
“That’s what I just said.” Tej eyed him in speculation. “I don’t suppose you could sleep with Byerly…?”
“Only if I can watch,” murmured Rish.
“ No! ” said Ivan Xav. “ Nobody is sleeping with Byerly, all right?”
Frostily, Rish cleared her throat.
Ivan Xav waved his arms. “You know what I mean. Neither Tej nor I are sleeping with Byerly. Separately or together.”
“A foursome, now there’s a thought,” purred Rish. “You know, I bet we could persuade By to-”
“Stop teasing poor Ivan Xav, Rish,” said Tej. He was getting an alarming flush. “If you can’t say something to the point, just give over.”
Rish looked at Ivan Xav. “Don’t you have any old girlfriends you could call on for a favor?”
“Sure, but they’re mostly married now. Even Dono, and Olivia would-never mind. Jealous husbands…spouses…I figured I was done dealing with that kind of excitement in my life. It’s just no fun anymore, y’know? Hasn’t been for a while.”
Both women stared at him in bemused silence; after a moment, he stirred uncomfortably and took another swallow of his wine.
Rish sat back. “What else was there? Oh yes, abuse.”
“I am not beating Tej.” Ivan Xav glowered at Rish. “You, I’m less and less sure about.”
Rish snickered. “You couldn’t lay a hand on me if you tried, natural-boy.”
Ivan Xav sighed, avoiding conceding the point. “Besides, it’d get me in so much trouble with so many people-after Mamere, Uncle Aral, and Aunt Cordelia-and Simon-there’d be Miles and Ekaterin and all the Koudelka girls lining up to deal with the remains- and their mother- and Gregor, and Desplains-God, there wouldn’t be enough left of me to carry to court in a bucket. Hell, a teacup.” Ivan Xav sat back in what, had he been of another gender, Tej would not have hesitated to describe as a flounce. A little too large and surly for the term, here.