Oh ho. Well. Clever Princess. She didn't even miss a beat, did she? Perhaps it's a family trait. Ivan always was good at thinking on his feet when properly motivated - which is to say, motivated to avoid getting socked in the nose by a jealous husband. Being the subject of a scandal due to a bad association with an unvirtuous young man is, Byerly supposes, the Vor lady equivalent of a Vor gentleman's getting socked in the nose. Which is, he thinks, a very hateful sort of thing. Having been punched many a time, he'd sooner endure that than a scandal.
Our poor women. Well, nothing to be done for the status of the ladies of the Occupation. Aside from retching convincingly in defense of their perceived virtue.
And so Byerly does give a convincing retch - he's vomited enough times that he knows how to fake it well, a hideous gut-deep noise that concludes with a sick, lurching sort of belch and then a miserable shiver. This isn't winking playacting for the Princess' gullible prole guardsman - hell, her Armsman is no doubt smart, no one to wink around. So he gives a very, very plausible performance of a man who's sick and miserable, tensing his throat till a nasty blotchy sort of redness comes into his face, swiping some snow over his forehead to give himself a look of damp distress. He looks up at the Armsman under eyelashes clumping with the start of tears of distress.
"I just ate a fruit," he said, leaning into his city accent with alacrity. Playing the clueless urban Vor, transplanted cluelessly to the back-country, blundering about. "It was one of the native fruits, yeah, but I thought that was okay. I didn't know they'd really kill you..." Fortunately, not kill - By is not quite ready to commit that fully to this performance - but the particular fruit he'll pretend to have ingested does apparently cause the most hideous diarrhea. Gruesome.
You're perfect
Our poor women. Well, nothing to be done for the status of the ladies of the Occupation. Aside from retching convincingly in defense of their perceived virtue.
And so Byerly does give a convincing retch - he's vomited enough times that he knows how to fake it well, a hideous gut-deep noise that concludes with a sick, lurching sort of belch and then a miserable shiver. This isn't winking playacting for the Princess' gullible prole guardsman - hell, her Armsman is no doubt smart, no one to wink around. So he gives a very, very plausible performance of a man who's sick and miserable, tensing his throat till a nasty blotchy sort of redness comes into his face, swiping some snow over his forehead to give himself a look of damp distress. He looks up at the Armsman under eyelashes clumping with the start of tears of distress.
"I just ate a fruit," he said, leaning into his city accent with alacrity. Playing the clueless urban Vor, transplanted cluelessly to the back-country, blundering about. "It was one of the native fruits, yeah, but I thought that was okay. I didn't know they'd really kill you..." Fortunately, not kill - By is not quite ready to commit that fully to this performance - but the particular fruit he'll pretend to have ingested does apparently cause the most hideous diarrhea. Gruesome.