Roic heard the odd emphasis in her voice, but was unclear how to interpret it. "I'm very sure of it, ma'am," he avowed loyally. M'lady-to-be's frowns, her darkening mood, were surely just pre-wedding nerves piled atop examination stress, on the substrate of her not-so-distant bereavement.

"Of course." Her smile flicked back in a perfunctory sort of way. "Have you served Lord Vorkosigan long, Armsman Roic?"

"Since last winter, ma'am, when a space fell vacant in the Vorkosigans' armsmen's score. I was sent up on recommendation from the Hassadar Municipal Guard," he added a bit truculently, challenging her to sneer at his humble, non-military origins. "A count's twenty armsmen are always from his own District, y'see."

She did not react; the Hassadar Municipal Guard evidently meant nothing to her.

He asked in return, "Did you ... serve him very long? Out there?" In the galactic backbeyond where m'lord had acquired such exotic friends.

Her face softened, the fanged smile reappearing. "In a sense, all my life. Since my real life began, ten years ago, anyway. He is a great man." This last was delivered with unselfconscious conviction.

Well, he was a great man's son, certainly. Count Aral Vorkosigan was a colossus bestriding the last half-century of Barrayaran history. Lord Miles had led a less public career. Which no one would tell Roic anything about, the most junior armsman not being ex-ImpSec like m'lord and most of the rest of the armsmen, eh.

Still, Roic liked the little lord. What with the birth injuries and all—Roic shied away from the pejorative, mutations—he'd had a rough ride all his life despite his high blood. Hard enough for him to just achieve normal things, like ... like getting married. Although m'lord had brains enough, belike, in compensation for his stunted body. Roic just wished he didn't think his newest armsman a dolt.