Homefront (Vorkosigan Saga)
Series: Lois McMaster Bujold's "Vorkosigan Saga"
Rating: G
Disclaimer: The Vorbarras and the rest of the Vorkosoverse belong to LMB.
Notes: Thank you to avariecaita for being a great beta on a short deadline! And to Patricia Polacco for writing Thunder Cake and inspiring my own family's tradition.
Warnings: Spoilers for Shards of Honor. Also, it makes a heck of a lot more sense if you've read Barrayar too.
Summary: Kareen does what she can to hold things together. It will do for now.
The storm clouds have been advancing on the capital all day, marshalling above the trees and growing darker with every hour. Through the morning, Kareen has watched them from the patio where she has settled to review the guest list for Ezar's coming birthday and begin drafting invitations. With so many of the usual crowd caught up in the Betan conflict, keeping the balance between young and old, male and female, powerful and not-quite-as powerful is proving more difficult than usual, and Kareen holds few doubts that the entire affair will likely devolve into a morbid round of "Who's Not Here This Year?" and "Do You Think He'll Come Back Alive?"
Nearby, Gregor and Drou pour over star charts, plotting out the Barrayaran fleet's recent movements and trying to decide where in all that space Gregor's father might be at this exact moment. Every now and then, when Gregor is adequately distracted with triangulating positions or expounding on the latest report from the frontline (heavily censored, first by ImpSec and then by Kareen), Drou looks up and casts a worried glance in Kareen's direction, as if certain that these goings-on will prove too distressing for Kareen at any moment. Kareen, unable to find an appropriately politic way of explainig to Drou that she is fine -- perhaps more than fine -- with her current situation, signs her name at the bottom of the finalized list in choppy, staccato strokes and tries not to frown too deeply when Gregor asks, for the third time that morning, when his father will be coming home.
---
By afternoon, enough clouds have gathered overhead that Kareen and her lunch guest decide it safest to concede defeat and retreat inside for the remainder of their meal.
Countess Vorkochur, newly-named since the tragic death of her brother-in-law during one of the conflict's first clashes, is a tiny, prim thing. She wields her tea cup like a nerve disrupter, as if she feels there is no other way to direct the conversation than by force. Kareen watches with a faint, bitter smile. This young Countess will learn to contain her excitement soon. If not in days, in months. If not in months, in years. Vorbarr Sultana is like that; it pushes you into yourself, makes you shrink to fit it.
"It was quite kind of his Excellency to allow Fedor to return for the funeral," Countess Vorkochur is saying.
"Ezar is quite aware of the importance of family, especially in light of the ongoing hostilities," answers Kareen. She does not add that Ezar's own imminent death is clearly weighing on his mind, making him more generous than he would have been even a month ago. She does not add that sometimes she imagines the invitation list for her own funeral, and Gregor is the only person she would want to invite.
"Oh, absolutely," the Countess says with an enthusiastic nodding of her head. "It will be such a relief to me to have him here, if only for a short time." She smiles and leans in conspiratorially. "But surely you know how that feels. It must be awful, being separated from Prince Serg for so long."
"Surely," Kareen echoes. Against her porcelain cup, her fingertips feel numb and oddly cold. Outside, thunder rumbles, too distant to be truly menacing. The air floating in from the garden is cool but thick and heavy as well.
"I suppose it will rain tonight after all," says the Countess. "For a while there, I thought it might pass us by."
Kareen tilts her head to one side. She feels unsettled and old and weary of this conversation. She rests her teacup in the palm of her right hand. "No," she says. "I don't think it will."
---
The storm finally breaks after sundown when Kareen is perched in bed, taking the bobby pins out of her hair and collecting them into a pile on the sheet in front of her. The first crash of thunder catches her by surprise, and she jumps, clutching her covers up to her stomach and scattering a handful of bobby pins onto the floor. When the noise finally dies away, Kareen shakes her head, a rueful little gesture, and begins to tidy up.
By the time the rain starts to pound on the window, she's burrowed down into the covers, watching shadows lap against the ceiling. Her wing is one of the newer additions to the Residence, but it still isn't much of a stretch to think of ghosts and hauntings and the centuries of murder-plots and executions that have taken place under this roof.
Kareen doesn't hear the bedroom door slip open; the mechanical whooshing is lost in another roll of thunder. She catches the stumble of footsteps that follow, however, but not quite soon enough to intercept the flying tackle and sudden press of cold feet against her calf.
When things are settled, she rises onto an elbow and looks down at the lump huddling under her covers. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Nothing," comes Gregor's muffled answer. Kareen waits patiently for a moment, until her son's head pops out from under the covers. He fixes her with an earnest, slightly nervous look and adds, "I thought you might be lonely."
She suppresses a smile. "Oh, did you?"
His response is cut off by a sharp flash of lightning and, six seconds later, more thunder. Gregor burrows back under the covers, and it takes all Kareen's well-tested willpower not to laugh aloud at the sight. It's the first time in months that she's even felt the urge.
"Get up," she says, patting the blankets in the general region of his head and swinging her own feet around to the floor. When he doesn't budge, she lifts a corner of the duvet and peaks under. "I want to show you something."
Gregor looks at her in a way, Kareen fancies, which looks almost put-upon. Then, slowly, he begins to uncurl, straightening his legs, lifting his head entirely, reaching out to put his hand in hers.
"Alright," he says grudgingly and hops off the bed.
---
The kitchen smells largely like disinfectant at this time of night. The staff is only a skeleton of what it is at peak hours, maintained to prepare coffee for the guards coming on and off shift, or to fill any surprise dead-of-night requests from the imperial family. They're more than a little startled to see Kareen and Gregor enter, but the nightshift chef rallies quickly and hurries over to greet them with a bow.
"Your imperial highness," he says, "can I assist you with something?"
"A mixing bowl and some eggs will do for the moment," Kareen answers, steering Gregor over to one of many unoccupied corners of the kitchen. The chef looks flummoxed, but he does what he's told and eventually Kareen and Gregor are presented with a bowl, a half dozen eggs, and a variety of spoons, whisks, and spatulas.
Thunder booms again as they settle down to separate eggs, and Gregor nearly knocks their whole carton onto the ground when it does. But Kareen takes him by the hand and shows him how to beat the eggs into stiff white peaks and soon, he is calm again, focused on his task, with his tongue clenched gently between his teeth.
"What are we making anyway?" Gregor asks eventually, after a few more ingredients have been added to the clutter forming on their counter. His hands are busy sifting cocoa into a new bowl, and his nightshirt has dark, powdery streaks on it from where some has spilled over and down his front.
"A cake," Kareen answers. "My grandmother and I used to make this together when I was young. I used to be scared of thunder too."
Gregor makes a mildly offended face. "I'm not scared."
Kareen smiles and raises her eyebrows slightly. "Oh?" she says. "My mistake."
Later, when the finished product is safely browning in the oven, Gregor crawls up into Kareen's lap and leans his head against her collarbone. She waits a moment before wrapping her arms loosely around his middle, uncertain whether even this small sign of affection will be enough to embarrass him. He doesn't move; instead, he stifles a yawn.
After what seems like an hour - although judging by the timer over the oven, it has only been a few minutes - Gregor rearranges himself to look Kareen in the eye. "Mom," he says, "are you sad?"
Kareen tries not to stiffen visibly. Something of the morning's anxiousness and frustration seeps back into her anyway. "Sad about what?" she asks.
"Drou told me not to talk about Dad around you. She says you're sad he's away."
Kareen makes a mental note to talk to Droushnakovi about what are and are not acceptable topics of conversation to have within Gregor's hearing. Then she makes another mental note not to bother; what damage Drou could do has probably already been done by now.
For now, Kareen does the only thing she can think to do. She squeeze Gregor tightly, pressing her cheek into his hair, and says, "I'm sad that this is so hard for you, Gregor. I'm sad that you miss him as much as you do."
It is only a half-truth, but it will do for now.
The Thunder Cake Recipe (from Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco)
Cream together, one at a time:
1 cup shortening
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs, separated
(Blend yolks in. Beat whites until they are stiff and dry, then fold in.)
1 cup cold water
1/3 cup pureed tomatoes
Sift together:
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup dry cocoa
1 ½ tsps baking soda
1 tsp salt
Mix dry ingredients into creamy mixture.
Bake in two greased and floured 8 ½-inch round pans at 350-degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.
Frost with chocolate butter icing. Top with strawberries.
Rating: G
Disclaimer: The Vorbarras and the rest of the Vorkosoverse belong to LMB.
Notes: Thank you to avariecaita for being a great beta on a short deadline! And to Patricia Polacco for writing Thunder Cake and inspiring my own family's tradition.
Warnings: Spoilers for Shards of Honor. Also, it makes a heck of a lot more sense if you've read Barrayar too.
Summary: Kareen does what she can to hold things together. It will do for now.
The storm clouds have been advancing on the capital all day, marshalling above the trees and growing darker with every hour. Through the morning, Kareen has watched them from the patio where she has settled to review the guest list for Ezar's coming birthday and begin drafting invitations. With so many of the usual crowd caught up in the Betan conflict, keeping the balance between young and old, male and female, powerful and not-quite-as powerful is proving more difficult than usual, and Kareen holds few doubts that the entire affair will likely devolve into a morbid round of "Who's Not Here This Year?" and "Do You Think He'll Come Back Alive?"
Nearby, Gregor and Drou pour over star charts, plotting out the Barrayaran fleet's recent movements and trying to decide where in all that space Gregor's father might be at this exact moment. Every now and then, when Gregor is adequately distracted with triangulating positions or expounding on the latest report from the frontline (heavily censored, first by ImpSec and then by Kareen), Drou looks up and casts a worried glance in Kareen's direction, as if certain that these goings-on will prove too distressing for Kareen at any moment. Kareen, unable to find an appropriately politic way of explainig to Drou that she is fine -- perhaps more than fine -- with her current situation, signs her name at the bottom of the finalized list in choppy, staccato strokes and tries not to frown too deeply when Gregor asks, for the third time that morning, when his father will be coming home.
---
By afternoon, enough clouds have gathered overhead that Kareen and her lunch guest decide it safest to concede defeat and retreat inside for the remainder of their meal.
Countess Vorkochur, newly-named since the tragic death of her brother-in-law during one of the conflict's first clashes, is a tiny, prim thing. She wields her tea cup like a nerve disrupter, as if she feels there is no other way to direct the conversation than by force. Kareen watches with a faint, bitter smile. This young Countess will learn to contain her excitement soon. If not in days, in months. If not in months, in years. Vorbarr Sultana is like that; it pushes you into yourself, makes you shrink to fit it.
"It was quite kind of his Excellency to allow Fedor to return for the funeral," Countess Vorkochur is saying.
"Ezar is quite aware of the importance of family, especially in light of the ongoing hostilities," answers Kareen. She does not add that Ezar's own imminent death is clearly weighing on his mind, making him more generous than he would have been even a month ago. She does not add that sometimes she imagines the invitation list for her own funeral, and Gregor is the only person she would want to invite.
"Oh, absolutely," the Countess says with an enthusiastic nodding of her head. "It will be such a relief to me to have him here, if only for a short time." She smiles and leans in conspiratorially. "But surely you know how that feels. It must be awful, being separated from Prince Serg for so long."
"Surely," Kareen echoes. Against her porcelain cup, her fingertips feel numb and oddly cold. Outside, thunder rumbles, too distant to be truly menacing. The air floating in from the garden is cool but thick and heavy as well.
"I suppose it will rain tonight after all," says the Countess. "For a while there, I thought it might pass us by."
Kareen tilts her head to one side. She feels unsettled and old and weary of this conversation. She rests her teacup in the palm of her right hand. "No," she says. "I don't think it will."
---
The storm finally breaks after sundown when Kareen is perched in bed, taking the bobby pins out of her hair and collecting them into a pile on the sheet in front of her. The first crash of thunder catches her by surprise, and she jumps, clutching her covers up to her stomach and scattering a handful of bobby pins onto the floor. When the noise finally dies away, Kareen shakes her head, a rueful little gesture, and begins to tidy up.
By the time the rain starts to pound on the window, she's burrowed down into the covers, watching shadows lap against the ceiling. Her wing is one of the newer additions to the Residence, but it still isn't much of a stretch to think of ghosts and hauntings and the centuries of murder-plots and executions that have taken place under this roof.
Kareen doesn't hear the bedroom door slip open; the mechanical whooshing is lost in another roll of thunder. She catches the stumble of footsteps that follow, however, but not quite soon enough to intercept the flying tackle and sudden press of cold feet against her calf.
When things are settled, she rises onto an elbow and looks down at the lump huddling under her covers. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Nothing," comes Gregor's muffled answer. Kareen waits patiently for a moment, until her son's head pops out from under the covers. He fixes her with an earnest, slightly nervous look and adds, "I thought you might be lonely."
She suppresses a smile. "Oh, did you?"
His response is cut off by a sharp flash of lightning and, six seconds later, more thunder. Gregor burrows back under the covers, and it takes all Kareen's well-tested willpower not to laugh aloud at the sight. It's the first time in months that she's even felt the urge.
"Get up," she says, patting the blankets in the general region of his head and swinging her own feet around to the floor. When he doesn't budge, she lifts a corner of the duvet and peaks under. "I want to show you something."
Gregor looks at her in a way, Kareen fancies, which looks almost put-upon. Then, slowly, he begins to uncurl, straightening his legs, lifting his head entirely, reaching out to put his hand in hers.
"Alright," he says grudgingly and hops off the bed.
---
The kitchen smells largely like disinfectant at this time of night. The staff is only a skeleton of what it is at peak hours, maintained to prepare coffee for the guards coming on and off shift, or to fill any surprise dead-of-night requests from the imperial family. They're more than a little startled to see Kareen and Gregor enter, but the nightshift chef rallies quickly and hurries over to greet them with a bow.
"Your imperial highness," he says, "can I assist you with something?"
"A mixing bowl and some eggs will do for the moment," Kareen answers, steering Gregor over to one of many unoccupied corners of the kitchen. The chef looks flummoxed, but he does what he's told and eventually Kareen and Gregor are presented with a bowl, a half dozen eggs, and a variety of spoons, whisks, and spatulas.
Thunder booms again as they settle down to separate eggs, and Gregor nearly knocks their whole carton onto the ground when it does. But Kareen takes him by the hand and shows him how to beat the eggs into stiff white peaks and soon, he is calm again, focused on his task, with his tongue clenched gently between his teeth.
"What are we making anyway?" Gregor asks eventually, after a few more ingredients have been added to the clutter forming on their counter. His hands are busy sifting cocoa into a new bowl, and his nightshirt has dark, powdery streaks on it from where some has spilled over and down his front.
"A cake," Kareen answers. "My grandmother and I used to make this together when I was young. I used to be scared of thunder too."
Gregor makes a mildly offended face. "I'm not scared."
Kareen smiles and raises her eyebrows slightly. "Oh?" she says. "My mistake."
Later, when the finished product is safely browning in the oven, Gregor crawls up into Kareen's lap and leans his head against her collarbone. She waits a moment before wrapping her arms loosely around his middle, uncertain whether even this small sign of affection will be enough to embarrass him. He doesn't move; instead, he stifles a yawn.
After what seems like an hour - although judging by the timer over the oven, it has only been a few minutes - Gregor rearranges himself to look Kareen in the eye. "Mom," he says, "are you sad?"
Kareen tries not to stiffen visibly. Something of the morning's anxiousness and frustration seeps back into her anyway. "Sad about what?" she asks.
"Drou told me not to talk about Dad around you. She says you're sad he's away."
Kareen makes a mental note to talk to Droushnakovi about what are and are not acceptable topics of conversation to have within Gregor's hearing. Then she makes another mental note not to bother; what damage Drou could do has probably already been done by now.
For now, Kareen does the only thing she can think to do. She squeeze Gregor tightly, pressing her cheek into his hair, and says, "I'm sad that this is so hard for you, Gregor. I'm sad that you miss him as much as you do."
It is only a half-truth, but it will do for now.
The Thunder Cake Recipe (from Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco)
Cream together, one at a time:
1 cup shortening
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs, separated
(Blend yolks in. Beat whites until they are stiff and dry, then fold in.)
1 cup cold water
1/3 cup pureed tomatoes
Sift together:
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup dry cocoa
1 ½ tsps baking soda
1 tsp salt
Mix dry ingredients into creamy mixture.
Bake in two greased and floured 8 ½-inch round pans at 350-degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.
Frost with chocolate butter icing. Top with strawberries.