video; un: eproghuefgdzptrrw

[vorrutyer]

[ Byerly Vorrutyer is sitting in front of a piano, fingers on the keys. Byerly Vorrutyer is also, apparently, drunk. There's a bottle of brandy in front of him balanced beside the music rack that's two-thirds drained, and there's a tiny sway in his posture, and he looks sloppy - suit coat opened, shirt-collar loosened. When he speaks, his voice slurs. But as he talks, he plays Chopin beautifully, expressively. He only misses the very occasional note. ]

God help me, but this place is dull. And I know from dull. I spent an entire season - an entire season! - on the Vorinnis estate on the South Continent. If Lady Vorinnis hadn't been there to distract me with all her deliciousness, I'd have actually, literally, died of boredom. I nearly set fire to the whole taiga. Roasted all the little birdies and rabbits and peasants. Pheasants. Peasants. Whichever.

[ He sighs mournfully, casting a sorrowful glance at the camera. ]

Say, fellows, how does a man have fun around here? It's clear no one knows how to play whist, so that's out, and dueling for laughs seems tacky. I've already watched a few of you brutes bash one another's faces in, which had its charms and no doubt, but the time for that is over. I can't play bed, wed, behead with you, because you're all proles of no account and no education who wouldn't know the high-society names I mention to you. Oh!

[ He sits up a bit, stopping his playing mid-note, right before the end of the first section of the piece. What a musical anticlimax. ]

I've got one. I'll write limericks about you. Tell me a bit about yourself, and I'll write limericks. Go on, do. They'll be funny, I promise - this is one of my favorite games. Absolutely kills at parties.

[ And then, with a small bow - ]

Byerly Vorrutyer, Emperor of Barrayar, at your lyrical service.

Comments

[priorly]

[Jewelled daggers.]

I can't say they were part of the couture back home. I don't actually want to maim people, you understand.

[vorrutyer]

Whyever not? A bit of danger makes people take you seriously.

[priorly]

[Just the idea of him as a danger. His temper, maybe. Barbed words are the chief weapon in his armory, and even those saved for the ones who truly deserve them.]

I couldn't even throw a decent punch before all this. It's the wrists, they're tragically stereotypical.

[vorrutyer]

Ah? Have you ever actually attempted to throw a punch?

[priorly]

I'm a gay man, Byerly, and I do not pass as anything else. [So-] I said they're barely decent, not that I didn't know how.

[vorrutyer]

[ Ah. Well. He hesitates only a moment before shrugging. ]

I know rather little of your world, dear Prior, you know that. I haven't the faintest idea of what sorts of people end up punching and what sorts of people do not. In any case, there are far more effective ways to fight, you know.

[priorly]

[It was a bare moment's sobriety. Always easiest when cloaked in a smile.]

Go for the earrings first, then the wig?

[vorrutyer]

Dear heavens. You know you hurt a Barrayaran's heart, talking like that.

[priorly]

Well, it's go for the jugular or go home with you guys, right? I mean, from what you've told me.

[vorrutyer]

Actually, not a bad summary of my home at all. You know, all our Vor ladies carry a dagger - the Vorfemme knife, it's called. Do you know why they carry that?

[priorly]

[The vorfemme knife sounds lik a cabaret act Prior might have heard of, but leaving that aside-]

When one is at the centre of one's social circle it is often beneficial to have a letter opener close at hand.

[No? No, fine. With a wave of his hand-]

To defend her dignity, I would guess.

[vorrutyer]

Oh, that's a good guess, but not a fun one. No. They say the reason is that if the women were allowed to carry swords, all the Vor men would be slaughtered where they stand.

[ A beat. ]

Point is - anyone can fight. And everyone should fight.

[priorly]

I think I'd like to meet some Vor women. [And it's a good story, but Prior sits back, assessing.] I do believe you've begun working on wearing me down on a new objective. But weapons? Really? A can of mace I can work with, but swinging a broadsword may be beyond my reach.

[vorrutyer]

Dear Prior, if you think that the only sort of murder I can teach you is a broadsword, you truly underestimate Barrayarans.

[priorly]

Murder?

[High enough that dogs can hear.]

[vorrutyer]

Ooh, does the idea of murder unnerve you?

[priorly]

[Across the city, terriers are pricking up their ears.]

Of course the idea of murder unnerves me! Murder's supposed to unnerve people, that's the reason any of us are still alive. Doesn't it unnerve you?

[And somehow his nails remain unbitten.]

[vorrutyer]

[ A shrug. (In truth: yes. It does.) ]

Not really. But - very well; we'll stop short of murder. Murder writ small. How about that?

[priorly]

Come and live in my house Prior. Murder doesn't unnerve me, Prior. How about just a little murder, Prior. Well I've tried a little murder, I put down poison when we had a rat problem. And I felt bad about it.

[vorrutyer]

What - do you think I'm a brute, now? Heavens, I'll be certain never to tell you stories about my family. Look, dear fellow, I'm not saying that I'm going to commit murder. Simply that Barrayarans are, generally speaking, trained to have a facility with it. It's a cultural quirk, like how Cetagandans paint their faces.

[priorly]

In the end I had to leave for the weekend and make Louis tell me he took them to a farm.

[vorrutyer]

A rat farm.

[priorly]

Farms have rats!

[Don't you push him on this.]

I don't think you're a brute. I think I'm not.

[vorrutyer]

Though you have punched people.

[priorly]

I've been jumped in alleys. What am I going to do, offer to cuddle?