"Yes. We're thinking of having a second wedding - we had a haut-wife ceremony, with some aesthetic tweaks as a nod to him being Barrayaran, but it was very little like a wedding as they're understood here."

"No vows?" she guesses.

"Not a one. The parties getting married barely speak except to accept the offer presented of the prospective spouse."

"I made a proper old-fashioned southern-continent oath when I married my husband. I can't imagine just... accepting him in trade."

"Well, in the usual case with haut-wives, personal relationship is an afterthought, if one is to exist at all, and what the ghem-lord is really being offered is his wife's genome, expertise in using it to make half-his children, and a social status marker. But this does not seem to encompass how things have worked out between me and Miles."

"I... see."

"I worry I'm making it sound worse than it is. It works for most haut most of the time. I'm unusual, or I wouldn't be here."

"I... worry about the unusual people who aren't here, I think."

"There are a handful. But only a handful. Does Barrayar work very well across all its strata for its unusuals?"

"Well - I don't know. But at least we have marriage. I'm sorry - I must sound terribly provincial."

"The haut have romantic relationships amongst themselves, I assure you. Just not - standardized ones."

"Oh. Is that... good?"

"I didn't have any, but they seemed to be arranged how their participants wanted them."

"It sounds good, then."

"By and large the way the haut live is a nice way to grow up and it would make a good place to retire," Linya opines. "And if it were more - porously bordered, it could be nice for the rest of one's life, too, but it is not."

She nods. "I'd hardly even heard of the haut at all before, well, this party."

"What made you decide to attend?"

"My uncle offered us an invitation, and Tien said - well - most of the people here are well above our social grade and we aren't likely to get many other chances to meet them."

"How does the social grading work...? If it's not a sensitive subject or something."

"I'm - I'm not sensitive about it exactly, but I don't have the first idea how to explain. I suppose I could start with, not all Vor families have a Count anywhere nearby... we're all related to some if you go back far enough, of course, but that hardly, um, counts. None of my immediate ancestors for a few generations are especially famous, and even Uncle Georg wasn't anyone special before he was appointed Auditor. High Vor are all the ones who are closely related to someone with military or political importance, and the rest of us are... descendants of second sons and so forth. Still Vor, but not very important Vor."

"Huh. Do you happen to know how Lord Vorpatril with his courtesy title fits into this? He's Miles's second cousin."

"Courtesy titles are at least a little bit important... and if he's second cousin to a Count's heir, that's not too bad either. With there being so few Vorkosigans, he might be one of the closest people to the Vorkosigan Countship, and even if that doesn't matter for inheritance, it matters for - I'm trying to find a politer word than 'nepotism'." She smiles tentatively and adds, "Without success, as you can see."

"Yes, if I recall correctly Miles has referred to his family tree as 'pruned'... Is there a concrete reason to want to attend high-Vor-ish parties or does it just seem to be the thing to do?" Linya wonders.

"Well. One attends High Vor parties to try to make friends with some High Vor, is I think how it's supposed to go. It can be almost as good as being their immediate relatives, you see."

"Yes, but armed with all that nepotism, you will accomplish - what? I've always had this problem understanding social status games and they don't make any more sense here than they did in Cetaganda."