Byerly would be furious on Sonia's behalf if he didn't know how damnably true that rumor was. Honestly, his first shower after he'd arrived here had been nearly enough to make him into a theist. Of all the things he'd hated about the Barrayaran camp, his own odor had been first and foremost.

"Ah - in addition to everything else, you know your politics, Doctor ghem-Soren," he says, assaying a small bow at her. "Indeed she is - her father, Prince Xav, married a Betan and raised her there, rather than on Barrayar. So she is technically a royal, but a royal raised in all that Betan egalitarianism. So if you must blame anyone for that undecorousness, blame those absurd democrats."