Title: Setting Fashion.
Author: lannamichaels
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga
Series: Part 16 of Liegelord
Rating: G
A/N: Cast list and timeline.
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld

Summary: It starts when Anna tears one of Julia's dresses.



1.

It starts when Anna tears one of Julia's dresses. Nanny Polly sits down on the armchair, puts the dress across her lap, and before Anna's eyes, everything is made whole again.

Anna tears a lot of dresses after that. And when she insists on fixing them herself, they teach her. You never know when she'd be living in a war camp and need to keep her own clothes neat, or sew up one of her brothers. It's as important as anything else.

Plus, she could embroider rude words on the underside of Julia's skirt and no one would ever, ever know. It's great.

When Anna is ten, her mother pushes Anna to the front of the Empress's wardrobe assessment. They go through all of mother's dresses, with mother's ladies looking over all of them with a critical eye. What's too old, what's too worn, what's just the wrong color, what could be changed. And then mother takes a handful of the discards and gives them to Anna.

Anna's been told her entire life that the Empress sets fashion. The Empress has decided that these clothes aren't fashionable anymore.

Anna grins. Her mother is giving her a challenge. She's going to rise to it.



2.

By the time Anna is nineteen, she puts the estimate of the number of her mother's dresses she's ruined at fifty. She had help with some of them -- Tamar's hopeless, but always happy to hold things down so Anna can poke them with needles. But she's had successes, too; when she was fifteen, she convinced her mother to let her wear one of her own creations to Ivan's formal birthday. Everyone had talked for weeks about it; Anna had all but floated on air.

She and Tamar live in an apartment that is filled up with a lot of clothes, most of them not in any state to be worn. But every so often, things work out. Anna knows she's getting better. She'd get better a lot faster if she was serious about it or trying to make a career, but that's not for her. This is for fun. This is for pride. This is for having something no one else has. This is making something no one else has done. This is about walking into a ballroom and outshining everyone. This is about being a Vorbarra and better than everyone else.

Leave a career to Sonia. Anna isn't ashamed of being a Vorbarra or being a princess.

Aunt Alys takes Anna on a whirlwind shopping tour for her birthday and then sits her down. Aunt Alys has always been Anna's favorite aunt and she's eager to learn any secrets she has to impart.

"Clothes are a weapon," Aunt Alys says. "You are the only one of your siblings who understands that."

Anna nods. But Aunt Alys expects an answer, so Anna says, "Vorbarras like to be well-armed."

Aunt Alys laughs at that, a pearl in the air. "I am going to arm you better than any armory ever could," she promises. Anna likes the sound of that. "But there's more, dear. Your mother thinks you have the aptitude for the rest of it as well."

Anna leans forward. And Aunt Alys tells her.



3.

It's not spying, really. Father has two spymasters, after all. This is just gossip. Aunt Alys is careful to always say that and Anna is careful to always believe her. It's not spying. And why would the Empress need spies? She doesn't.

Helen is also not-going to need spies, Anna understands. She sees Helen more than she used to, now that Anna is spending more times with her mother's ladies. It's been four years since the assassination attempt and Helen's made uterine replicators into her personal project. Some of the Empress's ladies like it. Some don't. Anna isn't sure of her opinions on it yet. But she's heard enough muttering from Helen that she would divorce Ivan and run off to Escobar, if only she didn't love the man, that Anna thinks that she should never tell Helen that she thinks uterine replicators are kind of... weird.

Thankfully it doesn't matter that much. Anna is in charge of Helen's wardrobe now and is setting herself up to be Helen's not-spymaster when Mother wants to step away and Aunt Alys is ready to retire with her to a dowager castle. But that doesn't mean Anna is one of Helen's close friends or confidants.

It just means she knows things before any of the rest of her siblings, including things her siblings will never know. But Anna knows how to keep secrets, even from Tamar. Aunt Alys would never have picked Anna as her successor if she talked as much as Julia did, or if she couldn't stop herself from dating security risks like Sonia and Tamar do.

"Should I get married?" she idly asks Aunt Alys one day, reviewing fabric samples. Julia is about to marry Lord Vorlightly, the only one of her siblings to really make a political match. Except for Richard, who doesn't count.

Aunt Alys makes a steady hum and doesn't answer.

"My mother thinks I shouldn't," Anna says, because if she doesn't talk, it's not like Aunt Alys will start. "And you didn't get married." Because Aunt Alys was too busy being the Empress's chief lady.

"You are in a position to only marry if you wish to," Aunt Alys says. "If it's sex you want--"

Anna blushes too hard too fast and has to interrupt. "I know the rules." No bastards. That's it. Well, no bastards and no scandals, but that one is just Anna's rule for herself. She's not Sonia.

"Your parents do not seal political alliances with weddings," Aunt Alys says, each word perfect, each word an indictment of Anna's siblings. Richard got married for the politics and is taking way too long to produce an heir for Ivan. Nicholas is going to marry Olivia Vorkosigan, but that's years away. Sonia and Tamar aren't going to do it. Margot and Galina are too young to think of anything but horses.

"It's always been weird that my brothers have to get married but no one wants me to get married," Anna says.

Aunt Alys puts down her eyeglasses and fixes Anna with a look so steady, Anna feels like she's missed something obvious and Aunt Alys is about to decide she was the wrong choice. "Think, my dear, about your grandmother."

"Did she not want to get married?" Anna asks, but then stops herself so fast she trips on the words. Oh. Not that grandmother. Not the Vorinnis one. Aunt Alys means Anna's father's mother. Princess Sonia, who had married a nobody. Princess Sonia, whose son had become Emperor, because he'd been the only one left who could.

There may be too many Vorbarra princes these days, but that's not the problem. The problem is the sons of the Vorbarra princesses. Because the Vor love nothing so much as a precedent.

"It wouldn't matter if you wanted to be married," Aunt Alys says, as if Anna hadn't realized the cold blooded political calculation beneath her mother's love and care. "No one will prevent it, if your choice is reasonable. But, no, my dear. Your family will never require it of you."

Because any political alliance sealed with a wedding is marrying a princess to someone powerful enough to marry a princess to seal an alliance. That could be backing for any of her sons.

"Then why is Julia allowed to marry Thomas?" Anna blurts out. It's no longer confusing why Sonia is allowed to date proles. But Julia? Julia's going to be a Countess.

"Because she wants to," Aunt Alys says. "She knows the risks she takes. My dear, no one will prevent you from marrying a Count or a General if you like. No one will protect you from the politics you seek out. So seek them out carefully."

Anna gulps. "Yes, Aunt Alys," she says meekly.



4.

She makes mistakes, which is only natural. The wrong color, the wrong embroidery. The wrong interpretation of an overheard comment.

But she learns. She improves.

And when Aunt Alys is ready to retire, Anna steps forward. Seamlessly.



5.

When Helen becomes Empress, she sits down with Anna. "There's something you need to know," Helen says.

Anna waits.

Helen says, "Ivan and I have a daughter."

Anna's fingers tighten on her teacup.

"She's eleven years old," Helen says. "She lives with my brother. Ivan pretends he doesn't know she's ours."

And then Helen waits. And Anna asks, "what's her name?"

Helen smiles. "Ivan wanted to name her Dorcas."

Anna can't help it. She laughs.

"Ivan pretends," Anna realizes.

"He does," Helen says. "And I'm telling you because you need to know. You've needed to know for a long time."

"Did Mother know?" Did Aunt Alys?

"She did. Your father didn't. No one else in your family even suspects." Helen takes a deep breath. "And now you know."

And now her. Anna smiles. "What are your orders, my liege?"



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