Chapter Text
The Emperor of Barrayar does not believe in love at first sight. Or at least, he did not, until he met Doctor Laisa Toscane.
When they are introduced, he manfully ignores the frisson of attraction. He does allow himself to be favorably impressed by their brief interaction at dinner. And after he has opened the dancing with the Correct Parties, he cannot help but direct Armsman Gerard to invite the young woman over so he can ask her for a dance. By the time he is sharing an unprecedented third dance with the quick-witted Komarran, he is sure of it: he is falling in love.
If Cordelia were here, she would probably say something horribly Betan about the subconscious mind and evolutionary imperatives; she is such a romantic. Gregor is not completely oblivious to his hidden motivations. Yes, Dr Toscane is smart, lovely, and socially adept. She is also Not Vor and in no way resembles either Stefan or Cavilo. The former is a requirement he settled on after learning the truth about his father. He is not quite sure when the latter one snuck in.
He does not say anything to Aunt Alys, not just yet. He needs to explore this further first. He does not know how to go about courting the Komarran woman. Not only has he never had to exert himself in this manner, but there are also definite cultural differences regarding romantic relationships at play.
In the end, he falls back on a political angle as an excuse… a plausible reason to see her again.
Oddly, his normally curious-to-a-fault Chief of ImpSec does not inquire very deeply into his interest in getting Dr. Toscane’s contact details. He blandly hands over the information, and the lengthy security report on the lady herself as well as the business interest she represents, at their morning meeting.
Doctor Toscane's presentation to Racozy could not go better if he handed her a script. She is demonstrably good at her job, clearly not a mere nepotistic appointment. She is clear, concise, and convincing. It helps that his new Prime Minister is from a slightly more enlightened generation of men who are used to women with meaningful educations and positions of power. Not that Gregor would have allowed him to take her anything less than seriously.
Afterwards, he indulges himself and takes twenty minutes to chat/debrief her in the antechamber of the conference room. He gently draws her out and learns she speaks fluent French and passable Barrayaran Russian; her grandmother, seeing which way the winds blew years ago, insisted that she learn both languages. He finds himself being drawn out in turn, and he parts with more personal details than he planned. The conversation is too short, and he reluctantly tells her he needs to withdraw. She daringly squeezes his hand when he bows over it, and Gregor knows he is completely gone on her.
********
“Would you be so kind as to identify a forthcoming Imperial or District event, lowkey but culturally significant, that would be appropriate to invite Doctor Toscane to attend?” he asks his Social Secretary at their next meeting.
Lady Vorpatril gives him a very piercing look, eyebrows rising in evident curiosity.
“She expressed interest in more cultural experiences while she is here on Barrayar,” he answers the silent inquiry. When Lady Alys’ eyebrows go higher still, he adds: “She is the daughter of an influential Komarran oligarch, not to mention representative of an important business consortium.”
His Social Secretary hums in wordless commentary, but as it is not one of her disapproving noises, he breathes a little sigh of relief.
“Next week is the retirement ceremony for the District’s Water Resources Manager and your Master Viticulturist,” she informs him after consulting her own scheduling application. Both men were well over 80 and had served his grandfather before him; Gregor needed to show his face personally for that, not send a Deputy.
“Perfect! If it is convenient for her, please ask her to attend as my particular guest!” He tries very hard to keep anything like excitement or more than business-like interest from his tone. But by the flash of suspicion in his aunt’s eye, he can tell he did not succeed. Damn all his nearest and dearest for knowing him so well.
“As you wish, Sire.” She says it graciously enough. And there is still no hint of disapprobation in her expression or tone.
“Very good,” he says briskly. “What’s next?”
********
Dr. Toscane is very pleased to attend the rather prosaic ceremony. He gives her a little summary of what is to happen beforehand, then goes to do his duty. The actual returning of the old men’s symbols of office takes very little time and then they sit down to a celebratory luncheon. Thankfully, his guest is seated to his left, the two retirees to his right, so he doesn’t have to talk across anyone to converse with her. He listens desultorily to the old men go on about his grandfather’s day, more attentively to the lovely Komarran woman’s impressions of the event she just observed.
“It’s so delightful,” she gushes. “But are they always this quick?”
“Mostly,” Gregor replies. Thank God! he does not say. “The investiture of the new Viticulturalist will probably have more pomp and circumstance because the Guild likes to show off. But generally, while we Barrayarans love our ceremonies, we also have very short attention spans.”
He is rewarded for this small self-deprecation by a tinkling laugh. Her whole face lights up when she does this and Gregor loses track of where he is and what he is doing for just a moment.
“So, these two served your gra… Emperor Ezar?” she asks curiously. Ah, she has been listening!
“Yes, some of the very last of the men to do so. I may have two or three more of their generation still in my service now but most are retired or gone.” Gregor makes a grim face. “The passing of an era really. The vast majority of my government, at least at the top echelons, are now men who put in place by Regent Vorkosigan. Though even they are starting to reach the point when they will want to step down.” And I can finally put in men of my own generation.
“They’re all men, though, right?” Laisa asks, voice curious but not judgement.
Gregor spreads his hands as if in apology. “I am afraid the Barrayaran culture is still very… patriarchal. There has been a shift over the last decade or so as more women see academic and professional success. I did manage to sneak in a woman as an Assistant Deputy to the Minister of Education a couple of years ago. The Imperial Physician is also a woman. As are about half of my District judges and Voices, law having been one of the few careers traditionally open to women even during the Time of Isolation. The Vorbarr Sultana Municipal guard swore in the first female officers ten years ago and most of them are now commanding watch stations. The practice has spread to my other cities, as well as a few of the more, shall we say, progressive Districts. The Vorkosigan’s notably.”
“Oh, I see. But not the military?” Now there is a hint of disapproval. Not that Komarr has, or ever had, a military of their own, but almost everywhere else in the Nexus has integrated armed services.
Gregor’s lip twitches just a bit in wry amusement. “No. That is still a non-starter for a slim majority on the Council of Counts and Council of Ministers. But their numbers are shrinking. Maybe someday.”
“Are the Counts really all such stogy old men?”
Gregor lowers his voice and says confidingly. “In my experience, most of them are not cruel or evil, just pining for a world that no longer exists. They do seem to genuinely want the best for the Empire. They just have a very narrow view of what that means."
“Ah,” she murmurs. “You know, my grandmother, Dagmar Toscane, was one of the early supporters of integration into the Empire.”
“I know,” the Emperor replies. “I read your dossier, and hers. I met her briefly, you know? When I was sixteen. I was on planet for a state visit.”
“Oh!” The young woman brightens. “I remember that visit! I was ten and terribly excited about it. It was midweek so I wasn’t allowed to attend in person by my whole school watched the broadcast of the dedication in class.”
Gregor blinks at this sudden reminder of their age difference. Not that it is much in the scheme of things; hardly more than the gap between him and Miles. Far, far less than the difference between him and Stefan. He doesn’t know how old Cavilo was. Or is. Whatever. But Doctor Toscane is a woman of almost thirty now, whatever she was when he was sixteen - it is not the same thing, at all. He shoves all those thoughts aside.
At the end of the luncheon, he walks her outside to her groundcar, to the slight consternation of his Armsmen and ImpSec. Taking this opportunity, he retrieves the crisp envelope he’s been carrying from an inner jacket and places it in her hand even as he helps her into the vehicle. She looks down at it in some wonder, then back up at him with round eyes that seem to sparkle with expectation.
He desperately hopes he is not imagining that she appears pleased.
The Armsman closes the canopy on the vision of her smile as she opens the invitation.
********
Laisa and Gregor disagree on when their courtship began. Gregor counts it from the very beginning, when he danced with her at that first Imperial State dinner. Which is wholly inline with a Barrayaran cultural understanding of the process. Laisa, on the other hand, insists it is the first, more intimate – if not exactly private – luncheon in the Southern Garden of the Residence.
“I danced with you four times at that dinner-party!” Gregor insists amiably.
“Yes, but I was there with Duv, technically.”
“You said that wasn’t a date!” he mock-accuses.
“It wasn’t,” she asserts firmly. “With either of you!”
He laughs, kissing her nose. “Well, what about the retirement luncheon, when I asked you to call me Gregor.”
“A noontime meal with two dozen men over 80 does not a date make, beloved,” she informs him sardonically, reaching up to twine her arms around his neck and pull him in for a real kiss.
“But lunch with my cousin-slash-foster-brother and aunt-cum-duenna is?” he asks a little breathlessly when they break apart.
“Oh, please! With all that business with the horse?” she teases. “Definitely a date! Anyway, that’s when it finally hit me that you really were trying to court me, and not just being polite to a very important ally’s daughter.”
“Took you that long, eh?” He laughs and kisses her again.
“It’s not because I’m slow, Gregor Vorbarra!” she shoots back. “It’s… because I thought I had to be making up a fantasy in my head. Having whatever the Barrayaran equivalent is to the fairytale about the seamstress and the Oligarch’s son, you know?”
“But you’re an Oligarch daughter,” he points out reasonably.
She waves this away as if it was a non sequitur. “It’s the fantasy, not the details, beloved.”
“Of course.”
They go back to kissing for a time.
“Pardon my paranoia,” she says after a few minutes of this. “But I feel like Lady Alys or one of the Armsmen may come crashing in here at any moment. Shouldn’t we get back to the festivities?”
He invited her to yet another Imperial soiree, a Lady Alys Vorpatril special laid on in unseemly – to his Social Secretary’s way of thinking – haste. But his aunt had leant herself wholeheartedly to the task, knowing what was afoot. It was the only way for Gregor to create this moment of relative privacy for them. As private as anywhere in the Residence, anyway.
“We have a few minutes yet,” he says, taking her hand and stepping back a bit.
He considered several elaborate setups for this moment: a string quartet, champagne under the stars, and a score of others. But anything that involved the presence of other people, able to hear his babbling or her answer – all signs point to yes, Miles had said or something to that effect, but Gregor still has awful doubts – became an immediate “no” as soon as he thought of them. So however unromantic it might be to simply pull her aside into a quiet chamber down the hall from the shenanigans of drunken Vor and prole VIPs, he decided on this.
Lady Alys expressed mild disapproval at his plan to propose on bended knee. “The Emperor,” she sniffed, “kneels to no one.”
Practiced at hiding his winces after all these years, Gregor accepted that as the advice she obviously meant to impart, and not a dig. Because Lady Alys might know about Stefan but she did not know all about Stefan.
However, he decides he does not need to heed her. This marriage may serve dynastic purposes and be for the good of the Empire, but this moment is only for him and his Laisa. Screw Imperial Dignity: he will kneel for his lady love.
Gregor goes to one knee, Laisa’s hand still in his, gazing up with hopeful eyes into hers. And he knows he is not mistaken – Laisa is looking back at him the way his foster father looked at Cordelia for as long as Gregor can remember.
The ring he commissioned is brand new; he wants no ghosts attached to haunt him or his bride-to-be. He holds it up between the thumb and forefinger of his free hand, letting the chandelier’s candlelight glint on the rubies and sapphires set into the band of white gold.
“Doctor Laisa Toscane,” he says simply, because everything else he rehearsed beforehand has completely fled his brain. He’s not even 100 percent sure which language he is speaking now. God, please let it be Standard English, or at least Russian, since she’ll understand that! “Will you do me the greatest honor and become my Empress and my wife?”
Oh God! she’s crying but at the same time she’s blurting out: “Yes, yes, yes!” So, that’s alright. He slips the band onto her finger, and she bends to kiss him.
And it is glorious!
********
“She said yes,” he gushes to Lady Vorpatril at the end of the evening.
“Well, of course she did, dear,” she replies, with every appearance of nonchalance. Gregor isn’t fooled; Lady Alys could not be happier if she had made the match herself. After a moment, she relents and gives him a smile. “Congratulations, Gregor.”
“Thank you, Aunt Alys.” He is grinning so hard his cheeks hurt. “Laisa went back to her flat to call her parents and I’m going to go record a message to Aral and Cordelia as soon as we’re done here. Can I dispatch you to inform Captain Illyan?”
“My pleasure, Sire.” Her face turns serious again. “The official announcements will have to wait, per protocol, of course. But Gerard and I will clear your schedule for tomorrow so you can begin informing your on-planet relations. I assume Ivan and Miles are at the top of that list?”
“Of yes!” Gregor knows just how relieved his cousins are going to be at this news. To be fair, they will be happy for him, too. “Laisa and I will make the calls together.” He glances at her a little warily, afraid she might decide that would not be proper but Alys raises no objections. “Then if you will excuse me…,” he murmurs and escapes to his room and giddy solitude.
Recording the tightbeam message to his foster parents reminds him how much he misses them. Sending them to Sergyar was really for the best. For Aral’s health, for Cordelia’s peace of mind, for Gregor’s autonomy. And as Commodore Jole is now stationed there as well, it will probably be some time before they return for more than the Annual Report visit. At thirty-five, with love and the new adventure of parenthood within reach, he really ought not to feel so… orphaned. But he really could use their more active support.
Merde!
He shoves away those thoughts and switches on the vidrecorder.
********
The Emperor of Barrayar does not sneak off to dark corners of the Residence for covert necking sessions with his intended bride. Definitely not. Gregor, on the other hand, absolutely does. And the self-control preventing him from just taking her back to his apartments is beginning to slip. But it isn’t until after the Winterfair betrothal, with the figurative and literal sturm and drang that preceded it, that he realizes they really do not need to wait. They have not discussed the fact explicitly, but Gregor is sure she is not a twenty-nine-year-old virgin. And as long as they maintain propriety publicly, Lady Alys cannot… well, she can complain, but Gregor’s starting not to care that much. Or at all really.
“You know,” he says oh-so casually when they next come up for air, “we are betrothed now.”
She is breathless but she laughs anyway. “Yes, I seem to recall some ceremony to that effect.”
A small smirk escapes his attempt at blandness. She has clearly missed the point. Which, fair; the nuances of Barrayaran marriage law and tradition have probably not been thoroughly explained to her. How can I put this delicately?
“What I mean is,” he begins diffidently, “for certain intents and purposes, it is the same as an Oath sworn marriage. If, for example, a woman gives birth after a duly witnessed betrothal, but before the official wedding, the child is still considered legitimate.”
Laisa pulls a face, obviously trying to parse this statement. Enlightenment dawns. “Gregor, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
He pulls her closer so she can feel his intention against her belly. “I am saying that I would very much like to make love to you, and I do not wish to wait another half year to do so.”
Laisa’s eyebrows climb and she grins with unabashed desire. “Oh, good, because I would very much like to fuck your brains out and I really can’t wait another six months to do it!” She wriggles suggestively against him.
He makes a very undignified noise and his hips twitch involuntarily, chasing the contact.
“Um… yes, that would be… unobjectionable.” His continuing attempt to maintain a straight face is wholly ineffectual, but this pronouncement elicits the laugh he is going for. It also makes him impossibly harder.
He bends to kiss her again with heat and a passion stronger than anything he has ever felt before. And oh, yes, it is better than with Stefan, far better than with Cavilo. He forcefully pushes those memories away; they have no place now. Eternity seems to pass in seconds, or seconds in an eternity.
They break apart again, Gregor nearly hyperventilating and Laisa not much better off. He takes the opportunity to raise his wristcom.
“Gerard?”
“Sire?”
“I need you to clear all the hallways between my location and the Imperial suite please.”
“Yes, Sire!”
“Vorbarra out!”
He suspects Gerard knows precisely what this order is about. And sure enough, a clatter in the hallway outside their little nook tells Gregor the Armsman Commander has put his men straight to work. He takes Laisa’s hand with a smug, lopsided smile and leads her toward his quarters.
They meet no one along the way.
********
The fourth time he sneaks her into his rooms he finally has the courage to let his control slip.
The sex thus far has been mind-blowing, many orders of magnitude better than even those first euphoric times with Stefan. Laisa tells him she feels the same way about it, and since she is in some respects more experienced than he is, he is very pleased to take the praise.
“Call me your good boy,” he whispers as she’s straddling him.
“You’re my good boy,” she repeats easily. “So good for me.”
He shudders beneath her, the familiar shock of pleasure shooting up his spine. He waits for the hit of humiliation, but it doesn’t follow.
Laisa feels his reaction and smiles down into his eyes. “Oh! We like a bit of praise, do we Gregor Vorbarra?”
And the question is just so ridiculously hot and loving that he whines a little. He feels like his whole being is vibrating out of his skin.
“Yes, My Lady,” he murmurs, cheeks going a bit pink and eyes cast down out of sheer old habit. But the mortifying feeling that he is dishonoring his name and rank still does not manifest. Instead, he feels a little floaty, almost light-headed. “I want to be good for you. Only for you.”
Her smile widens into a grin. “Oh, you are too perfect. Perfect for me. All mine and so, so good for me.” She leans down to claim his mouth.
Oh God, Aral was right! It is… freeing. He determinedly pushes aside any thoughts of his foster father – so not the time or place! – and gives himself entirely over to his Laisa.
********
Gregor hopes that someday he will look back on the wedding preparations with more fondness than anxiety. For now, it is just one more ordeal the Emperor of Barrayar has to go through for the good of his subjects. Or something.
The wedding itself brings unalloyed happiness, nerves aside. He never, ever wants to forget the first sight of his Laisa emerging from the dressing room, or being led by her father on her horse to the circle. That first touch of her hand in his and their first kiss – first public kiss, so it counts! – or the hard hugs and slightly damp kisses his foster parents claim as soon as humanly possible. Yes, he wants to keep all that forever.
In years to come, he will find the only memories that rival that day are the births of his children.
In between and after they forge so many more golden memories to add to his cherished collection.
********
Gregor asks Aral for a personal audience on the Viceregal couple’s next official visit back to the homeworld. He has an important question for his foster father.
“It is about the Crown-Prince-to-be’s name.”
Aral’s face goes a little green. “Never tell me you’re going to name him Serg!”
“God no!” Gregor recoils himself. “Thankfully the Vorbarras have rarely followed that old naming convention, so publicly no one has to know why we won’t saddle our son with that!”
After his return from the Hegen Hub, Gregor quietly made certain absolutely nothing more was ever named for his biological father. Even went as far as taking down some of the less prominent monuments to the deceased Prince around his capital. It was done so efficiently that absolutely no one seemed to notice, for which Gregor was immensely grateful.
“Using tradition to good effect. Clever, boy!” He looks at Gregor speculatively. “I assume you’ve told Laisa the reasons why, eh?”
A solemn nod. “Of course. I could not have asked her to marry me in good conscience without her knowing… at least the bits she needs to know.”
“Good man!”
Gregor lights up at his approval but he manages to keep his reaction to a slight upward twitch of his lips.
“We do want to name him for someone, however.” He points an eloquent finger in the older man’s direction. “You, in fact. Aral Andres Vorbarra. Has a ring to it, doesn’t it?”
To Gregor’s consternation, Aral pales. “I… uh, forgive me, Sire, but please don’t.”
Cold seeps into his belly and the start of tears sting his eyes. His foster father is… refusing his name for Gregor’s son? Why? The one reasonable possibility occurs to him, or at least the one that makes it less… personal.
“Oh, of course, I shouldn’t usurp Miles' heir’s right,” Gregor says apologetically.
“No, boy! No!” Aral is quick to reassure him. “It’s not like that! And Miles would never begrudge you wishing to honor me. I’d be the first to smack him if he tried to pull any sibling rivalry nonsense over this.” He looks down at his boots, two spots of red on his cheek. He’s embarrassed, Gregor realizes, his heart climbing slowly out of his throat. “It’s just… a Crown Prince Aral, and worse! An eventual Emperor Aral, even if I would be long dead before that happened, well, it… no offense intended, Sire, but the idea makes my skin crawl. I’ve spent too much of my life….”
“Avoiding being the Heir or the Emperor,” Gregor fills in, understanding. And relieved beyond measure. It really is not about Gregor. “I see. Fair enough.”
Aral sighs his own clear relief. “Besides, the radical Komarran contingent aren’t the only ones who would have apoplectic fits at that name.”
The image drags a smile onto the Imperial face. “Oh, that was half of the appeal, sir!”
Aral guffaws. “Now, where did you get that vile sense of humor, boy? Must have been from Cordelia. Certainly not from me!”
“Oh, of course,” Gregor shoots back dryly. “We all know you have no sense of humor, sir!”
They both laugh now.
Aral fixes him with a rather evil version of his infamous grin. “Well, if you really feel like tweaking wide swaths of Vor bores, name him Xav! Half the Council of Counts will drop dead on the spot!”
“Just for that, I really am going to call him Xav!”
“Hadn’t you best ask Laisa first?”
Gregor waves that aside. “She accepted naming him Aral readily enough. I can’t imagine her objecting to this alternative.” Probably. “And if Xav is as close as I get to naming a son for my real father,” he says pointedly, “then Xav it will be.”
He catches the tears in his foster father’s eyes even as Aral turns away to try to hide them. “Thank you, boy. I’ll allow it.”
“Xav Andres Vorbarra.” Gregor tries the name out loud. “Yeah, I like that.”
“Can I tell Cordelia?”
“As if I could stop you.”
“Fair.”
********
They deliberately time things so the Crown Prince can be uncorked very shortly after the Emperor’s Birthday. Not on the same day because they want to allow their son the chance for it to be just his birthday, not a major Imperial Occasion, for a few years. But close enough that when, in the very distant future, it becomes the start of the new fiscal year, the disruption to the old calendar will be minimal.
That the timing also brings his foster parents home a little earlier than usual, extending their annual visit by a few weeks, is an added bonus. He only feels a tiny bit guilty keeping them from Oliver. But they do say absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?
Besides the usual gene cleaning, Gregor and Laisa opted not to make any adjustments to the blastocyst. The replicator gestation was already controversial enough without putting their thumbs on the scales in any other regard. So no one is truly surprised that Xav is born dark haired and hazel-eyed, like generations of Vorbarras before him.
The ceremonies surrounding the first birth of a Crown Prince in sixty-some years are almost as onerous as the wedding rituals. Gregor wonders darkly how his own mother bore up under the strain of being required to rise almost immediately from childbed to appear before the full Council of Counts and Council of Ministers. Of course, his birth would also have been Attended. God, that must have been ghastly as well! This way is so much more civilized.
A few weeks later, and far more privately, they take Crown Prince Xav Andres Vorbarra with them to burn an offering at his great-grandfather’s tomb.
“Well, Grandfather,” Gregor says quietly after the little fire has burned down. “Here is the next Vorbarra Emperor. May he be as worthy an heir to your legacy as you desired.”
Viceroy Vorkosigan lays an affection hand on his liege lord’s shoulder. “Sire, you are as worthy an heir to Ezar Vorbarra as he could ever have deserved.”
Gregor tries not to squirm under this praise, too close to the insecurities that still plague him at thirty-six, for all he has more than grown into his role. But for certain, Aral Vorkosigan is the only man on the planet who can truly understand all that Gregor carries daily; he buries any demurral and takes the compliment.
“Thank you, sir,” he murmurs.
“Well, old man,” Aral says more loudly, addressing the tomb. “And here I am nearly as old as you were when you first dropped this whole mess on me. I hope I did you proud.” And he mutters something that Gregor is almost sure sounds like: “Still never came out on top, did I, you tricky old bastard!”
And is Gregor ever curious to get more of the story behind that statement!
But Laisa derails his nascent plan to get the older man drunk and coax it out of him.
“It’s getting cold, beloved,” she says, bundling Xav closer to her breast. “We should get the baby back inside.”
Gregor smiles adoration on his wife and son.
“As you wish!”