“Haven’t you ever found that oddly asymmetrical?”

“But simpler for her. Most women usually only had one husband at a time, but the Vor were all too frequently presented with a choice of emperors, and where was your loyalty then? Bad guesses could be lethal. Though when my grandfather General Piotr-and his army-abandoned Mad Emperor Yuri for Emperor Ezar, it was lethal for Yuri. Good for Barrayar, though.”

She sipped again. From where she sat, he was silhouetted against the darkening dome, shadowed, enigmatic. “Indeed. Is your passion politics, then?”

“God, no! I don’t think so.”

“History?”

“Only in passing.” He hesitated. “It used to be the military.”

“Used to be?”

“Used to be,” he repeated firmly.

“And now?”

It was his turn to not answer. He stared down at his glass, tilting it to make the last of the wine swirl about. He finally said, “In Barrayaran political theory, it all connects. The ordinary subjects are loyal to their Counts, the Counts are loyal to the Emperor, and the Emperor, presumably, is loyal to the whole Imperium, the body of the Empire in the form of all its, er, bodies. Here I find it grows a trifle abstract for my taste; how can he be answerable to all, yet not answerable to each? And so we arrive back at square one.” He drained his glass. “How do we be true to one another?”

I don’t know anymore…

Silence fell, as they both watched the last glint of mirror slip behind the hills. A pale glow in the sky still haloed its passing for a minute or two longer.

“Well. I’m afraid I’m getting rather drunk.” He did not seem that drunk to her, but he rolled his glass between his hands and pushed off from the balcony rail against which he’d been leaning. “Goodnight, Madame Vorsoisson.”