Oh, Byerly thinks to himself, oh, god. Involuntarily his hands curl in on themselves, protecting their vulnerable parts. God. For a single mad moment, he thinks that this is why he's been invited here - that right now, Vorkosigan will turn around and leer at him, this is what we do to traitors and liars. He'll strap By in beside Galeni, start torturing him for information, all he knows that he's not telling the man...
But...No. That's not Vorkosigan's way. Too byzantine. If he thought By knew something more, he'd just torture him, without any elaborate set-ups or pointed torture of other people or whatever. It's certainly not too cruel for him, of course - it's visibly, obviously not too cruel - but it would be too complicated.
What does one do with cruelty like Piotr Vorkosigan's? That's the thing that frightens By. It's not like he's any stranger to cruelty, no. But you can appease sadists. You can beg mercy, or start crying, or pass out from lack of air, or your bone can finally snap, and that'll make them happy. But someone doing this with a purpose? How do you satisfy them? By giving up the information, yes, but they'll always be convinced there's more, that there's a lie in there somewhere, that they can get something extra. How do you appease a man who starts in on torture with an expression of businesslike grimness? By feels like he's going to be sick. Bile stings his throat.
But he can't show that. No. Instead, he forces his hands to uncurl. He forces his jaw to unclench. And he forces himself to let loose a laugh - a sadist's laugh, a laugh of appreciation and regard. A well done good show laugh.
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But...No. That's not Vorkosigan's way. Too byzantine. If he thought By knew something more, he'd just torture him, without any elaborate set-ups or pointed torture of other people or whatever. It's certainly not too cruel for him, of course - it's visibly, obviously not too cruel - but it would be too complicated.
What does one do with cruelty like Piotr Vorkosigan's? That's the thing that frightens By. It's not like he's any stranger to cruelty, no. But you can appease sadists. You can beg mercy, or start crying, or pass out from lack of air, or your bone can finally snap, and that'll make them happy. But someone doing this with a purpose? How do you satisfy them? By giving up the information, yes, but they'll always be convinced there's more, that there's a lie in there somewhere, that they can get something extra. How do you appease a man who starts in on torture with an expression of businesslike grimness? By feels like he's going to be sick. Bile stings his throat.
But he can't show that. No. Instead, he forces his hands to uncurl. He forces his jaw to unclench. And he forces himself to let loose a laugh - a sadist's laugh, a laugh of appreciation and regard. A well done good show laugh.