Cordelia Naismith
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- This page is about the character in the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. For the character in Lady on the Embankment by the same author, please see Cordelia Naismith (Lady on the Embankment).
Cordelia Naismith is a fictional character from the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. Naismith, who first appears in the novel Shards of Honor, is a citizen of Beta Colony, and was a member of the Betan Astronomical Survey, which was later converted into the Betan Expeditionary Force during wartime.
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[edit] Early Years
She was the commander of a vessel in the Betan Astronomical Survey, exploring jump-points and newly discovered planets in the Nexus, requiring advanced mathematical and scientific knowledge and no small degree of daring, as well as interpersonal skills, as her crew was comprised of non-military civilian scientists that Cordelia often considered 'a group of prima-donnas and cry-babies.' Brought up with Beta Colony's liberal and anti-militarist values, she despised the military mindset. On a survey mission on the newly discovered world that would later be named Sergyar, she was captured by the controversial Admiral Aral Vorkosigan of the Barrayaran Imperial Military Service, scorned by galactic society at large as the Butcher of Komarr. They spent an arduous period on the planet's surface together, and during that time, they fell in love.
[edit] The Escobar War
Aral and Cordelia later crossed paths again during the war precipitated by Barrayar's abortive attempt to invade Escobar, into which Beta Colony was brought as an ally of Escobar. Cordelia received a promotion to captain, and transferred to the Betan military the Betan Expeditionary Force. She was captured along with her crew after she successfully broke the Barrayaran blockade, allowing vital military supplies and weapons to reach the Escobarans, instrumental in their turning back the invading Barrayaran forces.
During her time as a military prisoner she was brought to the attention of Ges Vorruyter, a high-ranking commander of the Barrayaran forces and a notable sadist and pervert who enjoyed tormenting and raping female captives. She was spared a violent rape at the directives of Vorruyter when Sergeant Bothari rejected his orders and killed him by slicing his throat. Later, upon the conclusion of the war, many of her compatriots and allies believed that she was the heroine who slew Vorruyter, earning her a brief status as a heroic celebrity on Beta Colony.
However, her favorable opinion of Aral Vorkosigan, protestations of his honor and integrity and later her profession of love for him, quickly earned her the suspicions of her government, who believed that she had been psychologically conditioned and brainwashed to serve as a Barrayaran deep-cover mole, using the supposedly false love affair as a means of transmitting intelligence to Barrayar. After several attempts to remedy this non-existent psychological tampering, including being drugged against her will, and being told that her mental state would prevent her from resuming her command, Cordelia fled to Barrayar, and became Aral's wife, and thus Lady Cordelia Vorkosigan, only to learn that the retired soldier she thought she was marrying was to be pressed into government service as the new Regent of Barrayar upon the death of the elderly and gravely ill Emperor Ezar Vorbarra. Upon her husband's appointment, she was to be titled Regent-Consort.
[edit] As Lady Vorkosigan and Regent-Consort
Upon the death of Emperor Ezar, a period of political instability ensued, replete with assassination attempts on both Cordelia and her husband, the new Regent. While pregnant, Cordelia was present at a soltoxin poison-gas attack on her husband by political terrorists. While both Cordelia and Aral were given the antidote, the antidote would have disastrous affects on her unborn child.
The political instability flared into full scale insurrection when Count Vidal Vordarian and his conservative Vor allies mounted a coup d'etat and seized the Imperial Residence in the hopes of apprehending both the child-Emperor Gregor and his mother Princess Kareen, whom Vordarian hoped to marry and seize the throne. The ensuing tumult became known as the War of the Vordarian Pretendership, in which Gregor was rescued from the palace by loyalists and Princess Kareen was killed. Count Vordarian was also killed by beheading during an attempt by Cordelia and her allies (Sgt. Bothari and Ludmilla "Drou" Droushnakovi) to break into the Imperial Residence to rescue her gestating fetus, now transferred to a uterine replicator due to the damage from the soltoxin gas' antidote. The uterine replicator had been housed in the residence, and in danger of failure due to neglect when the residence was occupied by Vordarian's forces.
Cordelia become known as the woman who executed Vidal Vordarian and presented his severed head to her husband and his faction at Tanery base, as well as to the partisans of Count Vordarian who were present negotiate a settlement, thus bringing the insurrection to an end. This incident earned her a no small degree of awe and respect from the military-minded Vor caste, all the more unique due to her being a woman.
In addition to Aral's role as Regent, and Cordelia's affiliated social position as Regent-Consort, Aral and Cordelia were appointed the distinct status of being the legal guardians of the child-emperor Gregor, and Cordelia was given essentially a guiding role over his formative years and education, placing her in an enormously powerful position to mold the emperor's political and social attitudes and thus affect Barrayar's future as a whole. The full repercussion of her new role went almost entirely unnoticed by the Council of Counts, and the more conservative elements of Barrayaran society.
[edit] Mother of Miles and Mark Vorkosigan
As a result of the soltoxin antidote given to her, her child, Miles Vorkosigan, suffered severe physical deformities which were partially ameliorated by additional treatment received in the uterine replicator; her father-in-law, Count Piotr Vorkosigan refused to allow the deformed child to use his name. Instead, he was named Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, after Cordelia's own father.
Cordelia and Aral intentionally had only one child, their son Miles. They later discover that a clone of their son Miles, named Mark Vorkosigan, had been created without their knowledge. While his legal status as a Vorkosigan is questionable on Barrayar, Cordelia unquestionably accepts him as her son. She endorses him openly to the rest of Barrayaran society, buffers his culture shock to Barrayar, buys him a ship to use to find Miles and even helps his love life by acting as a go-between for him, his girlfriend Kareen Koudelka and Kareen's parents.
[edit] As Countess Vorkosigan and Vicereine of Sergyar
Upon Count Piotr's death, she became Countess Vorkosigan. Later, after Emperor Gregor achieved his majority, Aral was named Viceroy of Sergyar. Cordelia became Vicereine Countess Vorkosigan. Their new positions required them to move to Sergyar to assume its governance and settlement.
[edit] Ideology and Policies
Cordelia maintains an independent and assertive front, being a full partner to Aral. This is a bit disconcerting to Barrayaran society, where women are just barely beginning looking beyond being wives and mothers. Because she is known as a Betan emigrant, her unique status as a female military hero is/was vaguely ignored by Vor society, partially due to her conscious decision to be apolitical and remain out of the spotlight, initially bending her energies to rearing both her own son (Miles) and Gregor.
She heartily encourages imports of civilized thinking and goods that allows more freedom and independence for the people of Barrayar. As Countess Vorkosigan, she was the architect of a large-scale scholarship program, making galactic standard educations in medicine and science available to Barrayaran students with promise, and not just those born Vor.
[edit] Personal Appearance and Style
Countess Cordelia Vorkosigan is tall woman, with roan-red hair leavened with gray, that she wears parted in the center and long in the back (in her youth, her hair was a coppery red) and 'sea grey' eyes. Although not accounted a great beauty, with her face having a nose a bit too bold, an a jawline a bit too strong, she is nonetheless an attractive woman. She wears what would be deemed appropriate wear for a Vor-class matron, long flowing skirts and tailored bolero style jackets, but will slip into her Betan Astronomical Survey fatigues in private for comfort and nostalgia.
Early in her marriage and new to her status as Lady Vorkosigan, she relied upon Lady Alys Vorpatril's expertise in Barrayaran fashions and etiquette, as to not socially embarrass her husband to his political foes.
[edit] References
Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honor.
Lois McMaster Bujold, Barrayar.
Lois McMaster Bujold, The Warrior's Apprentice.
Lois McMaster Bujold, Dreamweaver's Dilemma.
