A living ganglion of irreconcilable antagonisms

Fic: Thursday's Child

2009-04-28T15:09:36Z

Title: Thursday's Child
Author: aella_irene
Rating: About the same as the books
Fandom: Vorkosigan
Disclaimer: The characters and world belong to Lois Mc Master Bujold, not me.
Summary: Eudokia Vorbarra has her life changed. Forever
Author's Notes: Thanks to clanwilliam for beta reading.

Eudokia Vorbarra had never liked Vorbarr Sultana.

She had been brought up first on a remote farm in the country, and then, during the invasion, on a succession of grey military bases, and had spent only two years in Vorbarr Sultana before retiring, after her father's death, to a dacha on the South Continent, where you could see for miles, and go for weeks on end without meeting anyone not a member of your own household.

It suited her perfectly to be left there, with her books and her cats for company, except for those rare occasions when she was asked to open a Municipal Hospital, or a School for Children of the Invasion. Returning from one such visit, she handed her jacket to her personal maid for salvage- the infant chosen to present her with the bouquet had had distinctly sticky fingers- and went to her rooms to read before dinner. Years before, the year she was twelve, before the invasion, Xav had given her a box of classic romances, written by an Old Earth novelist of a period even older. She adored them and, in the twenty years of war that followed, had read them almost to shreds.

Having collected the cup of coffee sitting on the table by her door and turfed her cat off the chair in front of the window, she sat down and opened her favourite.

The library at Fontley Priory, like most of the principal apartments in the sprawling buildings, looked to the south-east...

The hero had just been informed of the true extent of his father's debts, and the necessity that he make a marriage of convenience, when the shooting started. For a moment, Eudokia sat still, unable to believe what she was hearing. Then the shrubbery burst into flames and she leapt to her feet, book still in hand, and ran out into the hallway. The dacha was large and sprawling, but there was only one floor of it and her rooms were close to the front, so the first thing she saw was a man in black shooting her Armsman with a plasma-arc. He turned towards her and she threw herself to the floor, as a jet of white-hot flame ripped through the air where she'd been standing and waited for death.

It didn't come. There was a thud, and a thump, and then her brother Xav was shouting "Eudokia! Eudokia, hurry!" and she lifted her head to see him standing there in front of the door, with two other men. She scrambled to her feet, hearing her thin silk stockings rip, and ran towards them.

"Xav, what's happening? What's going on?"

"Yuri's gone mad, that's what's happened. He's sent out death squads, now, come with us."

Not bothering to identify 'us', he hurried her out, into the baking late afternoon, and a scene of carnage. Bodies were spread out over the ground, some in black, some in the Imperial Livery. She stepped over one man, distantly recognising him as her butler, and up into the waiting car. All three men climbed in after her, and it rumbled into motion.

"What do you mean, Yuri's sent out death squads?"

"He has become convinced," said one of the men, hatchet-faced and dark-haired, and she was sure she ought to recognise him- "that his relatives are plotting to assassinate him. Therefore, he decided to kill them. All of them. All your siblings but the Prince and Yuri himself, are dead. So are their children. And grandchildren, except for my Aral and 'Veta's Padma."

Now she recognised him- Olivia's husband, Count Piotr Vorkosigan, who had been a guerilla leader during the Invasion, and, through the tears that welled up, she thought she recognised the other- Cousin Ezar, son of her father's long-dead youngest brother, Gregor, who had, with his elder son Serg, been killed in the First Defence of Vorbarr Sultana.

Xav was speaking. "We only got here in time because he didn't have quite enough men, and then they got lost."

Lost. I have been saved because my assassins got lost. She could hardly believe it.

"We need to act quickly, Eudokia. I cannot become Emperor- I am too old, and I have no sons. And Aral is too young. And after that..."

"And after that, come our cousins Henri, who is a drunkard, and Yegor, who is almost as bad as Yuri," said Ezar. The car turned a corner, and he slid forward, by accident, she thought at first, but then he knelt before her.

"My lady, Prince Xav and Count Vorkosigan have agreed to follow me, but I must cement my claim, and to do that, I ask for your hand in marriage."

She was Vor. She was Vorbarra, and Xav was looking at her in that way he had copied from their Father, that demanded obedience and honour. And, in a world so mad that nearly all her siblings - Sofia and Ivan and Yelena and Irene and Marina and Theodora- could be dead, why should she not marry the man kneeling before her, with his blazing eyes and thin mouth?

"Yes," she said, and shut her eyes.

aella_irene @ 2009-01-25T21:32:00

2009-01-25T21:32:13Z

Despite failing to watch a single episode of the first series, I discovered Lark Rise to Candleford at Christmas, and have been watching every episode since, having fallen in love unreservedly. It is, in fact, the only program I have been watching regularly, (I did watch Hunter, but that was only two episodes, and I have only just started watching Victorian Farm).

At present, I am avidly shipping Dorcas Lane/James Dowland, and started bouncing during tonight's episode. (I also keep getting ideas for PG-13 James/Dorcas Wedding Night fic, but that less said about that the better.)

aella_irene @ 2009-01-25T17:28:00

2009-01-25T18:09:40Z

I am developing a fondness for the French side of the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars, and would like to read some books about it, which are not too British biased. Could any of you recommend some?

Success

2008-04-11T21:38:35Z

I have done it! Flowers and champagne to ankaret, who provided instructions! (Why yes, I am easily pleased)

aella_irene @ 2008-03-16T22:13:00

2008-03-16T22:14:16Z

ONE DAY CONTENT STRIKE

For one day, Friday, March 21, make no posts. Make no comments. Let there be NO new content added to LJ.

SUP obviously does not realize that Basic users have given something of value to them, that it is content that drives the site.

So, for one 24-hour period, from midnight GMT to midnight GMT, let's see how many people we can get to pledge to contribute NO CONTENT.

This will create a permanent downward spike in the daily-posts statistics, a permanent reminder of the power of the userbase.

Full information at The Fox's Den.

SPREAD THE WORD!

aella_irene @ 2008-01-31T17:50:00

2008-01-31T17:51:08Z

What is the correct terminology for a Private Mental Health Unit? Is it just 'Private Mental Health Unit'?

Book Review: The Benjamin January Series, by Barbara Hambly

2008-01-26T22:37:55Z

I feel that I should start this off by saying that I know very little about racial politics in America, especially racial politics of the era covered in the Benjamin January books. In school we did the British slave trade in history, and Martin Luther King in RE, and nothing in between. (Except for those of us who'd read Gone With the Wind, which is probably very biased). So, if you think I'm being offensive, please tell me. I don't mean to be.

The Benjamin January books are set in New Orleans, and Louisiana (mostly), in the 1840s. Benjamin January, a former slave (the man who bought Ben, his mother, and his sister when Ben was about 8 set them all free) has returned to New Orleans, unable to stay in Paris, where he had been working as a musician, and sometime doctor, after the death of his wife. The books manage to combine interesting mysteries with an intriguing cast of characters- Ben, his friend Hannibal Sefton, his mother, Livia, his full sister, Olympe, his half-sister, Dominique, and his friend Rose Vitrac, and the people who surround them are all layered, and most of them have hidden depths. Two of my favourites (apart from Ben and Rose) are Hannibal Sefton, an Anglo-Irish fiddler with consumption, obviously from a wealthy, noble background, who lives above brothels, pawning everything he owns apart from his violin, and Abishag Shaw, a Lieutenant in the New Orleans City Guard, a Kentuckian, a stranger in a strange land, distrusted and disliked by most, who nonetheless speaks to Ben as an equal, (at least, when he can). Both of them have layers, and intriguingly hinted at backstory- Hannibal's family had a mansion in County Mayo, and he attended Oxford, Shaw had a sister who died young, and that is, honestly, all I need to make me love a character.

In conclusion, go read these books. Now.

aella_irene @ 2008-01-07T20:38:00

2008-01-07T20:47:02Z

The cat just killed (or at least maimed) my father's laptop.

aella_irene @ 2008-01-03T22:33:00

2008-01-03T22:36:10Z

The New Year was spent in London, and I saw the fireworks from Temple and Arch. I'm assured they were fabulous, but rain, mist, and smoke obscured most of the later ones, which meant that the rousing chorus, led by my father, of 'Will the man at the front please put down his umberella' before they began was rather wasted.

Also, is it just me, or is it really stupid to have sparklers going in a crowd of 30,00 people.

aella_irene @ 2007-12-24T18:08:00

2007-12-24T18:09:10Z

Still no gas.

The Gasman Cometh (Not)

2007-12-23T22:13:10Z

I'm so glad I'm working tomorrow

Here in the Casa d'Aella, Christmas is approaching...

2007-12-23T15:37:58Z

My little sister has revealed that, trusting in the Amazon delivery service, she hasn't even ordered my present yet, I've lost half of her present, and we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the gas man, and the restoration of heat, and food that hasn't been cooked in microwave/toaster.

Joyeux Noel!

Baa

2007-12-19T12:05:31Z

The effortless meme (on my part, at least):

I know very little about some of the people on my friends list.

Some of you I know relatively well. Some I know very well; one or two of you I even know in RL.

Some of you I hardly know at all. Perhaps you lurk, for whatever reason. But you friended me and I thank you for your interest in my words.

But here's a thought: why not take this opportunity to tell me a little something about yourself? It can be any old thing at all. Just so the next time I see your name I can say: "Ah, there's so and so...they listen in rapture to the love-music of she-turnips." I might feel compelled to mock your musical taste, but I'll certainly remember you.

I'd love it if every single person who friended me would do this. Yes, even you people who I know really well. Then post this in your own journal and see what gems of knowledge appear.

I have just been attacked...

2007-12-16T22:28:29Z

by a kitchen cupboard door. It fell onto my head. I am, apparently, uninjured, if irritated at the lack of sympathy shown by the APs. My mother had an excuse- she was moving the cupboard door. My father does not.

In Aid of Research...

2007-12-16T22:25:26Z

Does anyone know good biographies of Kit Marlowe?

Italian Speakers on my F-list...

2007-12-13T15:04:35Z

What would be the Italian equivalent of the word 'Dowager' and would it come before or after the title? i.e. Would it be the Dowager Duchess, or the Duchess Dowager (translated)?

Yesterday, a first line came to me...

2007-12-10T20:56:41Z

"Rome is not a good city for Necromancers."

My Father, on Chekov...

2007-12-05T20:45:44Z

"They all blend together, really, into one long "Mad Uncle Vanya in the Cherry Orchard". And meanwhile, there I am, sitting in the stalls, repressing the urge to shout 'Pull yourself together man!'"

(I have just finished Stanislavski in Theatre Studies. Now we're on to Shadow of a Gunman Hurrah!)

Holiday Meme

2007-12-02T14:17:06Z

Get Your Own! | More Flash Toys

aella_irene @ 2007-11-21T19:00:00

2007-11-21T19:02:09Z

A short family discussion over dinner has concluded that my father is Mr. Snevilicci, I am Miss Snevilicci, my sister is the Infant Phenomenon, and my mother is Madam Mantellini.

So...

2007-11-18T20:32:10Z

You may have noticed that I have, recently, been posting little snippets and random questions relating to my Hapsburg 'verse. To save the f'lists of everyone who isn't interested (and because I have a fondly cherished hope that they might be published someday), I will now be filtering them. If you want to go on the filter, comment here and I shall put you on!

(It will contain questions like in the post below, little snippets, and mini character studies.)

I have a character...

2007-11-18T19:27:48Z

Who lives in Antwerp, and I have come across a problem with names of streets, and names of days. Character A lives on the Vrijdagmarkt. Should she say that she lives on the Vrijdagmarkt and the day is Friday, that she lives on the Vrijdagmarkt and the day is Vrijdag, or that she lives on the Friday Market and the day is Friday?

aella_irene @ 2007-11-14T18:30:00

2007-11-14T18:37:08Z

I just ordered Loeb copies of the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid. Each of which comes in two volumes.

I am so glad I am still at the stage where my parents pay for these things.

aella_irene @ 2007-11-13T18:16:00

2007-11-13T18:20:57Z

Our Drama teacher is making noises about taking us to see The Importance of Being Earnest for our A-Level Notes, as a contrast to our last trip, which was Stockholm by Bryony Lavery.

Hurrah!

aella_irene @ 2007-11-12T22:09:00

2007-11-12T22:12:13Z

I have recently come to the conclusion that I could quite cheerfully strangle my Latin teacher for Years 8 and 9.

I want to learn Latin, or Greek. Preferably both, at least the basics, before I go to University.

OU, here I come.