Hour of the Wolf

[extrapenguin]

For the Bujold Ficathon. On AO3.

How could ghem-General Benin sleep, when the year's whole crop of Rho Cetan haut-babies was missing?

 

Dag wished he could sleep. Post-coital bliss had given him a few much-needed hours, but eventually his worries had chased him awake. He'd soon gotten out of bed to avoid disturbing Anya.

He'd also run out of chamomile tea. Cursing his misfortune, he dug out the green tea with ginger. At least the motions of brewing it would help calm him. (He wished that long hair would come into fashion, running his fingers through it had been the one thing that calmed him. Perhaps he should try being a trendsetter for a change.) The kettle was on, and now his hands had nothing to do, and his woes came back to bother him.

Up until today (or was it yesterday?), he'd been secure in his position of not jumping to rash decisions. The usual culprits had wanted to declare war on Barrayar, but most were willing to follow the ghem-General's example. Caution and following up on leads were not unpopular opinions.

Then, one of their agents had uncovered empty replicators, obviously from the Star Crèche, in a Barrayaran warehouse, and now the general opinion was out for blood. (The agent's more complete report would probably be coming on a more secure and thus slower connection. He'd judged the short version to be more important that his cover, so it had been sent on a less secure channel. Dag wanted to throttle him for only sending part of the information so.)

The kettle clicked. Dag poured the steaming water into the teapot. He should probably give up on sleeping this night.

Was this what his future would look like? Sleepless nights while he waited for news?

Sleepless nights after Cetaganda was forced into a war with Barrayar, wondering whether he could've prevented the loss of life?

(He'd been able to stave off Pel's bloodthirst by asking after a way to make sure the replicators on Barrayar were the ones destined for Rho Ceta. Pel had gone on a dive for the serial numbers. The other haut-ladies were not so easy to calm.)

He was considering sending a cuttingly worded message to Miles Vorkosigan in the hopes of receiving a silver bullet when the secure comconsole in the adjacent room chimed in the insistent fashion that spoke of an urgent message. He poured himself a mug of tea, walked over, read the file index, and almost spilled his tea as he succumbed to a hysterical fit of giggles.

He interrupted his breakdown to make sure that a copy had indeed been sent to a haut-lady, then let his giggling morph into hysterical laughter, at which point Anya stomped over. At this point, Dag was not quite flat on his back. Anya went and returned with her own mug of tea.

She pulled over a chair. “What's the news?”

Dag, short of breath, waved at the comconsole screen.

Anya leaned over and quirked an eyebrow. “Your Barrayaran seems not to have heard of lower-case letters.”

“He's not my Barrayaran”, Dag grumbled. He was, however, relieved, and the weeks of insomnia were catching up with him. He pushed himself up, forwarded the whole message to his secretary Rohan, the Celestial Handmaiden, and all relevant department heads. He stared at his tea.

“You should sleep”, Anya said. She grasped one of his hands.

Dag looked through the summary the Lord Auditor had provided. “I should make travel arrangements”, he began.

“Let Rohan do that”, she said. “In the morning.” She kissed the heel of his hand. “You are currently needed-” (she kissed his wrist) “-very urgently-” (she nipped his inner arm gently, pushing up the sleeve of his nightshirt) “-in my bed.”

Dag sipped his tea and nodded mutely. He flicked through the data (helpfully organized by topic under titles such as 'TWAS A RENEGADE BA and BARRAYAR IS INNOCENT MY WORD AS VORKOSIGAN ) for one last time, looking for landmines and finding none, drank his tea, and let Anya pull him back to bed.