Paladin of Souls

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CATTILARA'S LADIES WRAPPED ISTA IN A GRACEFUL, GAUZY nightdress, and tucked her into a bed covered in the finest embroidered linens. Ista had them leave the candle in its glass vase burning on her table. The women tiptoed out and shut the door to the outermost of the two chambers, where the acolyte and a maid would sleep tonight, within the royina's call. Ista sat up on a generous bank of pillows, contemplating the wavering light and the darkness it drove back. Contemplating her options.

It was possible to resist sleep for days on end, till the room swayed and strange, formless hallucinations spurted across one's vision like sparks spitting from a fire. She'd tried that, once, when the gods had first troubled her dreams, when she'd feared she was going mad and Ias had let her go on thinking so. It had ended badly. It was possible to drown one's wits, and dreams, in drink. For a little while. She'd tried that, too, and it had worked even less well, in the long run. There was no refuge from the gods to be had in madness, either; quite the reverse.

She brooded about what might be lying, on a bed not dissimilar to this if less delicately perfumed, in that room on the other end of the gallery. Actually, she rather thought she knew quite precisely how the bed, and the rugs, and the room—and its occupant—appeared. She didn't even need to look. I never saw Goram the groom before, though. Although she supposed his existence was implied.

So, You dragged me here, whichever of You harries me. But you cannot force me through that door. Nor can you open it yourselves. You cannot lift so much as a leaf; bending iron or my will is a task equally beyond your capacities. They were at a stand, she and the gods. She could defy them all day long.

But not all night long. Eventually I must sleep, and we all know it.

She sighed, leaned over, and blew out her candle. The hot wax smell lingered in her nose, and the dazzle of its light left a colored smear in her eyes as she rolled over and thumped her pillow into shape beneath her shoulder. You cannot open that door. And You cannot make me do it, either, send what dreams You will.

Do Your second-worst. Your worst, you have done to me already.

HER SLEEP AT FIRST WAS FORMLESS, DREAMLESS, BLANK. THEN SHE swam for a little in ordinary dreams, their anxious absurdities melting one into another. Then she stepped into a room, and all was changed; the room was solid, square, its angles unyielding as any real place, though not any place she'd yet been. Not Lord Illvin's chamber. Not her own. It was bright afternoon outside, by the light falling through the tracery of the shutters. She knew it for a room in Castle Porifors by its style, then she realized she had glimpsed it once before, in a flash of candlelight. Lord Arhys had cried out...

All was serene and empty now. The chamber was clean and swept. And unpeopled, but for herself—no, wait. A door opened.

A familiar figure was briefly backlit by the hazy light falling into the flower-decked court beyond. It filled the door from side to side, heaved its hips through, let the door swing shut. Briefly, her heart lifted in joy and relief to see Learned dy Cabon safe and well.

Except... it was not dy Cabon. Or not dy Cabon only.

He was fatter, brighter, whiter. Faintly androgynous. Did that flesh swell as if to contain the uncontainable? His garments were spotless— by that alone, Ista might have known the difference—and luminous as the moon. Above the creases of his smile, cheerfully echoed by the curves of his chins, the god's eyes glinted at her. Wider than skies, deeper than sea chasms, their complexity bent inward endlessly, each layer a lamination of other layers, repeated into infinity, or the infinitesimal. Eyes that might simultaneously contemplate each person and living thing in the world, inside and out, with equal and unhurried attention.

My Lord Bastard. Ista did not speak His name aloud, lest He mistake it for a prayer. Instead, she said lightly, "Aren't I a little overmatched?"

He bowed over his immense belly. "Small, yet strong. I, as you know, cannot lift a leaf. Nor bend iron. Nor your will. My Ista."

"I am not yours."

"I speak in hope and anticipation, as a suitor may." His smile bunched his fat face tighter.

"Or with the trickery of a rat."

"Rats," he observed, sighing, "are low, shy, straightforward creatures. Very limited. For trickery, one wants a man. Or a woman. Trickery, treachery... truth, triumph... traps for bears..."

She twitched at this possible reference to Foix. "You want something. The gods' tongues can grow quite honeyed, when they want something. When I wanted something—when I prayed on my face, arms outflung, in tears and abject terror—for years—where were You then? Where were the gods the night Teidez died?"

"The Son of Autumn dispatched many men in answer to your prayers, sweet Ista. They turned aside upon their roads, and did not arrive. For He could not bend their wills, nor their steps. And so they scattered to the winds as leaves do."

His lips curved up, in a smile more deathly serious than any scowl Ista had ever seen. "Now another prays, in despair as dark as yours. One as dear to me as Teidez was to my Brother of Autumn. And I have sent—you. Will you turn aside? As Teidez's deliverance did? At the last, with so few steps left to travel?"

Silence fell between them.

Ista's throat was clogged with rage. And more complicated things, a boiling mixture even she could not separate and name. A stew of anguish, she supposed. She snarled through her teeth, "Lord Bastard, you bastard."

He merely grinned, maddeningly. "When the man arises who can make you laugh, solemn Ista, angry Ista, iron Ista, then will your heart be healed. You have not prayed for this: it's a guerdon even the gods cannot give you. We are limited to such simples as redemption from your sins."

"The last time I tried to follow the gods' holy addled inadequate instructions, I was betrayed into murder," she raged. "But for You, I wouldn't need redemption. I don't want to be part of You. If I thought I could pray for oblivion, I would; to be smudged, blotted out, erased, like the sundered ghosts, who die to death indeed, and so escape the world's woe. What can the gods give me?"

His brows twitched up in an expression of remarkably disingenuous goodwill. "Why, work, sweet Ista!"

He stepped closer; beneath his feet, the boards creaked and groaned, dangerously. She almost retreated just for the fearful vision of the pair of them crashing through the floor into the chamber beneath. He held his hands lightly above, but not quite touching, her shoulders. She noticed, with extreme annoyance, that she was nude. He leaned forward over his belly, its equator bumping hers, and murmured, "My mark is on your brow."

His lips brushed her forehead. The spot burned like a brand.

He has given me back the gift of second sight. Direct, unguided perception of the world of spirit, His realm. She remembered how the print of the Mother's lips had seared her skin, just like this, in that long-ago waking vision that had led to such disastrous consequences. You may press Your gift on me, but I need not open it. I refuse it, and defy You!

His eyes glinted with a brighter spark. He let his fat hands drift down over her bare back, and hugged her in tighter to his girth, and bent again, and kissed her on the mouth with an utterly smug lascivious relish. Her body flushed with an embarrassing arousal, which only infuriated her more.

The dark infinities abruptly vanished from those eyes, so close to hers that they crossed. A merely human gaze grew wide, then appalled. Learned dy Cabon choked, recovered his tongue, and leapt backward like a startled steer.

"Royina!" he yelped. "Forgive me! I, I, I..." His gaze darted around the chamber, flicked to her, grew wider still, and sought the ceiling, the floor, or the far walls. "I don't quite know where I am..."

He was not, now, her dream, she was quite certain of it. She was his. And he would remember it vividly when he awoke, too. Wherever he was.

"Your god," snapped Ista, "has a vile sense of humor."

"What?" he asked blankly. "He was here? And I missed Him?" His round face grew distraught.

If these were real dreams, each the other's... "Where are you now?" asked Ista urgently. "Is Foix with you?"

"What?"

Ista's eyes sprang open.

She was lying on her back in the dark bedchamber, tangled in her fine linen sheets and Cattilara's translucent nightclothes. Quite alone. She spat a foul word.

It was drawing toward midnight, she guessed; the fortress had fallen silent. In the distance, filtering through her window lattices, the faint sawing of insects grated. A night bird warbled a low, liquid note. A little dull moonlight seeped in, rendering the room not quite pitch-black.

She wondered whose prayers could have drawn her here. All sorts of persons prayed to the Bastard as the god of last resort, not just those of dubious parentage. It could be anyone in Porifors. Except, she supposed, a man who'd never woken from an exsanguinated collapse. If ever I find who has done this to me, I'll make them wish they'd never so much as recited a rhyme at bedtime...

A cautious creak and scuff of steps sounded on the stairs to the gallery.

Ista fought her way clear of the sheets, swung her bare feet onto the boards, and padded silently to the window that gave onto the court. She unbarred the wooden inner shutter and swung it back; fortunately, it did not squeak. She pressed her face to the ornate iron lace of the outer grating and peered into the court. The waning moon had not yet dropped below the roofline. Its sickly light angled onto the gallery.

Ista's dark-adapted eyes could make out clearly the tall, graceful form of Lady Cattilara, in a pale robe, unattended, gliding along the balcony. She paused at the door at the far end, gently swung it open, and slipped within.

Am I to follow? Sneak and spy, listen at windows, peer in like a thief? Well, I will not!

No matter how benighted curious You make me, curse You...

By no force could the gods compel her to follow Lady Cattilara to her afflicted brother-in-law's bedchamber. Ista closed the shutter, turned, marched back to her bed. Burrowed under the covers.

Lay awake, listening.

After a few furious minutes, she rose again. She silently lifted a stool to the window and sat, leaning her head against the iron lattice, watching. Faint candlelight leaked through the gratings opposite. At length, it went out. A little time more, and the door half opened again, just wide enough for a slim woman to twist through. Cattilara retraced her steps, descended the stairs. She did not appear to be carrying anything.

So, she oversaw the sick man's care. Not beneath a chatelaine's duties, for a man so highborn, an officer so essential, a relative so close and, apparently, esteemed by her husband. Perhaps Lord Illvin was due some midnight medication, some hopeful treatment that the physicians had ordered. There were a dozen possible mundane, harmless explanations.

Well, a handful.

One or two, at least.

Ista hissed through her teeth and returned to her bed. It was a long, galling time before she slept again.

FOR A WOMAN WHO HAD STILL BEEN FLITTING AROUND THE CASTLE secretly at midnight, Lady Cattilara appeared at Ista's chambers much too soon after dawn, bursting with cheerful hospitality and the plan of dragging Ista to the temple in the village for morning prayers of thanksgiving. With an effort, Ista suppressed the twinging tension the young marchess's presence induced in her. When Ista arrived in the flower-decked entry court to discover Pejar holding a horse for her, it was too late to beg off. Muscles still sore, feeling altogether decrepit, in anything but a thankful mood, she let herself be loaded aboard. Pejar led her mount at a decorous pace. Lady Cattilara walked ahead in the procession, head high, arms swinging freely, and had breath to spare to sing a hymn with her ladies as they descended the treacherous twisting path.

The village of Porifors, tightly crowded behind its gates, was clearly a town-in-waiting for either more walls, or a reign of peace in which walls might be dispensed with. Its temple likewise was small and old, the altars of the four gods hardly more than arched niches off the central court, the Bastard's Tower one of those temporary outbuildings that had lasted beyond all expectation, or desire. Nevertheless, after the services the old divine was eager to show the dowager royina all of his temple's little treasures. Ferda signed Pejar to attend Ista and excused himself, claiming he would not be gone long. Ista's lips twitched at his timing.

The treasures proved not so little after all, as the temple was recipient of largesse from many of Lord Arhys's more successful raids and forays. Lord Illvin's name, too, came up often in the divine's enthusiastic inventory. Indeed, yes, the crime that had laid him low was a terrible, terrible event. Alas, that the rural temple physicians here could do naught for him, though there was still hope that wiser men imported from one of the greater cities in Ibra or Chalion might yet work wonders, when the agents Lord Arhys had dispatched finally succeeded in getting one here. The divine had run through his most interesting, or lurid, tales of provenance and had progressed to a detailed account of the building plans for a new temple, pending peace and the march and marchess's patronage, before Ferda returned.

His face was grave. He paused to kneel briefly in the niche of the Lady of Spring, his eyes closing and his lips moving, before coming to Ista's side.

"Excuse me, Learned," Ista ruthlessly overrode the divine's monologue. "I must speak to my good officer-dedicat."

They returned to the Lady's niche. "What, then?" asked Ista quietly.

His voice was equally quiet. "The morning courier from Lord dy Caribastos has ridden in. No news of Foix or dy Cabon, or of Liss. I therefore ask your leave to take two of my men and search for them." He glanced across in judicious admiration at Lady Cattilara, who had taken over the task of listening politely to the divine. "You are clearly in the best of hands, here. It will only take a few days to ride up to Maradi and back—Lord Arhys undertakes to lend us some good, fresh horses. I'd expect to return before you are ready to travel again."

"I ... mislike this. I do not care to dispense with your support, should some emergency arise."

"If Lord Arhys's troops cannot protect you, my handful could do no more," said Ferda. He grimaced. "As we have proved, I fear. Royina, under ordinary circumstances I would defer to you without hesitation." His voice grew lower still. "But then there is the matter of the bear."

"Dy Cabon is better fit to deal with those complications than either of us."

"If he lives," said Ferda heavily.

"I am sure he does." Ista decided she didn't want to explain how she knew. Worse, she could not likewise vouch for Foix.

"I know my brother. He can be forceful and persuasive. And tricky, if the first does not serve. If ... his will is not quite his own, and yet is informed by all his wits... I'm not sure dy Cabon could handle him. I can. I have ways." His face was lightened, temporarily, by a brief fraternal grin.

"Mm," said Ista. Persuasion, it seemed, ran in the family.

"And then there is Liss," he said more vaguely.

What there was about Liss, he did not expand upon, and Ista mercifully forbore to prod him. "I do dearly wish she were back by my side, that is so." She added after a moment, "And dy Cabon." Perhaps especially dy Cabon. Whatever the god was about, the bewildered young divine figured in it as well.

"Then may I have your leave, Royina? Dedicat Pejar can serve all your needs in this minor court, I am sure. And he is eager enough to do so."

Ista let the little flash of Cardegoss arrogance pass without comment. Were Porifors an ordinary rural court, Ferda would doubtless be correct. "Do you mean to go now?"

He ducked his head. "At once, please you. If there is any problem, the sooner I arrive, the better." He added to her frowning silence, "And if there isn't, then the sooner I may return."

She sucked on her lower lip in doubt. "And there is, as you say, the matter of the bear." Traps for bears, the god had said. Ms accursed pet,

escaped. No point in praying to the god for protection, either; if he could directly control his wild demons fled into the realm of matter, he presumably would, and not let his divine weakness depend upon human weakness.

"Very well," she sighed. "Go on, then. But return quickly." He offered a strained smile. "Who knows? I may meet them coming down the road from Tolnoxo and be back before nightfall." He knelt and kissed her hand, gratefully. By the time she drew a second breath, the flapping of his vest-cloak had already vanished out the temple's doors.

Luncheon, Ista discovered to her dismay, was to be a fete in the dowager royina's honor in the village square, complete down to a choir of village children offering a selection of songs, hymns, and earnest and not especially rhythmic local dances. Lord Arhys was not present; the young marchess did the honors for the castle, in a warm style obviously much approved by the proud and anxious parents. More than once, Ista caught her looking at the littlest ones with open longing in her eyes. When the urchins had stamped through their last erratic caper, and Ista had had her hands kissed by all and sundry, she was loaded back aboard her horse and permitted to escape. Surreptitiously, she wiped upon the animal's mane the slimy offering left on her fingers by the waif with the cold. She was by this time almost glad to see that horse. Almost.

DISMOUNTED AGAIN BACK IN THE FLORAL ENTRY COURT, ISTA WAS just trying to decide whether she was annoyed or glad for Lady Cattilara's delicately worded suggestion that perhaps a lady of the royina's age would care for an afternoon nap, when a whoop at the gate cried against its closing.

"Hallo, Castle Porifors! Courier from Castle Oby!"

Ista spun on her heel at the familiar, boisterous voice. Riding through the gate on a fat and lathered yellow nag was Liss. She wore her castle-and-leopard tabard, and held up a leather pouch in the official style, its wax seals bouncing on their strings. Her shirt, beneath the tabard, was as wet with sweat as the horse, and her face flushed with sunburn. Her mouth went round as she gazed about at the pots of color and greenery.

"Liss!" Ista cried in delight.

"Ha, Royina! So you are here after all!" Liss kicked loose her stirrups, swung her off leg up over her horse's neck, and jumped down. Grinning, she knelt courtier-fashion at Ista's feet; Ista raised her by her hands. It was all she could do not to hug her.

"How came you here, on this horse—did Ferda find you?"

"Well, I came here on this horse, of course, great slug that it is. Ferda? Is Ferda safe? Hallo, Pejar!"

The sergeant-dedicat at Ista's elbow grinned back broadly. "The Daughter be thanked, you made it!"

"If the tales I heard were true, you all were in worse case than I ever was!"

Ista said anxiously, "Ferda left here not three hours ago—you must have passed him on the road to Tolnoxo, surely?"

Liss's brow wrinkled. "I came in by the road from Oby, though."

"Oh. But how came you to be at—oh, come, come, sit with me and tell me everything! How I have missed your currying and grooming!"

"Yes, dearest Royina, but I must first hand off my letters, since I am a courier again for today, and see to this beast. It isn't mine, five gods be thanked. It belongs to the courier station midway between here and Oby. I should be grateful for a bucket of water, though."

Ista motioned to Pejar, and he nodded and dashed off.

Cattilara and her ladies drifted up. The marchess smiled in inviting puzzlement at the courier girl, and at Ista. "Royina... ?"

"This is my most loyal and brave royal handmaiden, Annaliss of Labra. Liss, make a curtsey to Lady Cattilara dy Lutez, Marchess of Porifors, and likewise these ..." Ista went down the ranks of Cattilara's ladies, who goggled at the courier girl. Liss complied with a series of friendly little dips at the string of introductions.

Pejar dashed up with a sloshing bucket. Liss grabbed it in passing and plunged her whole head in. She came up for air with a sigh of relief, and her soaked black braid swung droplets in an arc that nearly spattered Cattilara's recoiling ladies. "Ah! That's better. Five gods, but Caribastos is a hot country in this season." She allowed the bucket to continue to the horse, giving its side a hearty pat.

Pejar said eagerly, as the horse shoved at him getting its nose in the water, "We were sure you must have warned that crossroads village, but where you went after that, we could not guess."

"My good courier mount was done in by the time I reached there, but my tabard and chancellery baton persuaded them to lend me another. They had no soldiers fit to fight the Jokonans, so I left them to save themselves and rode east as fast as I could whip the poor blowing plow horse. Did the villagers escape harm?"

"They were all fled by the time we got there, close to sunset," said Pejar.

"Ah, good. Well, right after that same sunset I reached a courier station on the main road to Maradi, and once I'd convinced them I wasn't raving, they got the hunt up. Or so I thought. I slept there, and rode in to Maradi the next morning at a saner pace only to find the provincar of Tolnoxo just then leading his cavalry out the gates in pursuit. As fast as the Jokonans were moving, I greatly feared he was already too late."

"It did prove so," agreed Ista. "But a courier reached Castle Porifors in time for Lord Arhys to set an ambush along the line of the Jokonan retreat."

"Yes, that must have been one of the fellows who rode directly from my courier station, five gods rain blessings on their wits. One of them said he was native to this region. I'd hoped he might know what he was about."

"Did you hear anything of Foix and Learned dy Cabon?" asked Ista urgently. "We never saw them again after we hid them in that culvert."

Liss shook her head, frowning. "I told of them at the courier station, and I warned Lord dy Tolnoxo's lieutenants, when we passed, to be on watch for them both. I was not sure then if they'd been taken by the Jokonans, as you were, or if they had got away, or would follow the road forward or back or strike into the scrub, or what. So I went to the temple at Maradi, and found a senior divine of Learned dy Cabon's order, and told her of all our troubles, and that our divine was likely out on the road and much in need of help. And she undertook to send some dedicats to seek them."

"That was well thought of," Ista said, her voice warm with approval.

Liss smiled gratefully. "It seemed little enough. I waited a day at the chancellery's office in Maradi, but no word came back from Lord dy Tolnoxo's column. So I bethought me of a faster route south and volunteered to ride courier to Oby. I reckoned, since it was the greater fortress, you would most likely be rescued by its soldiers and brought there. Then I flew—I don't think any courier has ridden that road faster than I did, that day." She shoved a strand of wet hair out of her sunburned face, raking it back with her fingers. "All were still in suspense when I arrived at the fortress that night. But my labors were repaid next morning, when the letter came there from the march of Porifors that you were all safely rescued. Oby's lord and men had gone out on patrol for the Jokonans, too, but they came riding back that afternoon."

"My father is the march of Oby," observed Cattilara, an eager tinge leaking into her voice. "Did you see him?"

Liss made her unique half bow, half curtsey again. "He is in good health, my lady. I begged the boon from him of riding courier to Porifors, so I might most speedily rejoin the royina." She held up her pouch. "He saw me off at dawn this morning. I received this from his own hands. There may be something in here for you—ah." Her eye brightened at the approach of Porifors's castle warder, an aging, landless lordling who reminded Ista much of Ser dy Ferrej, except for being stringy instead of stout. The groom Goram followed in his wake. The warder took the pouch in charge, to Liss's obvious relief, and hastened away with it, after directing the groom to assist with the courier's horse.

"You must be exhausted," said Lady Cattilara, whose eyes had widened more than once during Liss's account. "Such a frightening ordeal!"

"Oh, but I love my task," said Liss cheerfully, slapping her dirty tabard. "People give me fast horses and get out of my way."

Ista's lips twitched up at this. Reason enough for joy, indeed.

But at least it appeared that she hadn't let Ferda go off on a fool's errand, for all that he had missed Liss on the road. And that she could hope that by the time he reached Maradi, he would find his bear-ridden brother and his conductor safely in the temple's charge there.

Liss, attempting to follow her horse as Goram led it away, made little excusing bows in all directions.

Ista said smoothly, "When my handmaiden has seen to her mount, she will be in need of a bath, as I was. And, I pray you, a loan of clothing as well. Her things were stolen by the Jokonans along with mine." Actually, Liss's extremely scant wardrobe had mostly been in her saddlebags. But Ista judged that Cattilara's ladies' noses were in the air at more than the reek of horses and sweat from the lowborn, high-riding girl.

"And fodder, pray you, dear Royina!" Liss called over her shoulder.

"It shall be worthy of your great ride, the fame of which shall reach Cardegoss itself in my next letter," Ista promised.

"So it is quick, it may be anything you please!"

LISS WAS A LONG TIME IN THE STABLES, BUT AT LAST SHE PRESENTED herself at Ista's new quarters. Cattilara's ladies, local petty lords' daughters who had nearly fallen over themselves for the honor of serving the dowager royina, were clearly less taken with the chore of serving Liss. But a bath Liss had, under Ista's firm eye, in between snatching bites from the tray of bread, olives, cheese, and dried fruit, and sloshing down cup after cup of lukewarm herb tea. Her rank riding clothes were sent off with the servants to be properly washed.

Cattilara's castoffs suited Liss's height and age much better than they did Ista's, even if they were a trifle too generously cut in the chest for the riding girl. Liss laughed in delight and awe, waving about one trailing, delicate sleeve, and Ista smiled at her pleasure with the unfamiliar richness.

One person's delight in Liss was unalloyed; the medical acolyte finally had someone to assume the care of Ista's hurts so that she might return to her neglected temple and family. Liss hadn't finished drying before the acolyte finished her tutelage, turned over a supply of bandages and ointments, gathered her things, received a suitable vail from Ista for her pains, and scampered off for home.

DINNER THAT AFTERNOON WAS PRESENTED IN A SMALLER CHAMBER off the courtyard of the star fountain, and proved to be an almost entirely female gathering, under Lady Cattilara's dominion. No chair was left ritually empty.

"Does Lord Arhys not dine tonight?" Ista asked as she was seated at the marchess's right hand. Or ever? "I should think his tertiary fever would worry you."

"Not nearly as much as his military duties," Lady Cattilara confided with a sigh. "He has taken some men on a patrol toward the northern border. My heart will be in my mouth till he returns. I am in agony inside with terror for him when he rides out, though of course I smile, and do not let him guess. If anything ever happened to him, I believe I would go mad. Oh." She covered her gaffe with a sip of wine and held her cup up to Ista in salute. "But you understand, I'm sure. I wish I could keep him by my side forever."

"Is not his superior military craft a part of his"—admittedly appalling—"attractiveness? Hobble him, and you risk killing the very thing you admire in the attempt to preserve it."

"Oh, no," said Lady Cattilara seriously. Denying, but not answering, the objection, Ista noted. "I do make him write to me every day, when he is gone. If he forgot, I should be quite cross with him"—her lips turned up, and her eyes sparkled with laughter—"for a whole hour at least! But he doesn't forget. Anyway, he's supposed to be back by nightfall. I'll watch for him on the road from the north tower, and when I see his horse, my heart will stop choking me and start beating a thousand times a minute instead." Her face softened in anticipation.

Ista bit hard into a large mouthful of bread.

The food, in any case, was excellent. Lady Cattilara, or her castle cook, at least did not attempt to ape the excesses, or worse, what they imagined to be the excesses, of Cardegoss court feasting, but served simple, fresh fare. There did seem to be more sweets tonight, which Ista could not fault, and which Liss plainly relished, consuming an enviable portion. She was very quiet in this company, in what seemed to Ista unnecessary awe of her surroundings. Ista thought she would rather have heard Liss's tales than the local gossip that filled the time. When they had escaped the ladies and returned to the square stone court, Ista told her so, and chided her for her shyness.

"Truly," Liss admitted, "I think it's the dress. I felt a great gawk next to those highborn girls. I don't know how they manage all this fancy cloth. I'm sure I shall trip over myself and tear something."

"Then let us walk about in the colonnade, that I may stretch my scabs as the acolyte instructs, and that you may practice swishing in silks to do me honor in this court. And tell me more of your ride."

Liss shortened her steps in a most ladylike fashion, keeping to Ista's slow limp in the cool of the cloistered walkway. Ista primed her with questions about every aspect of her journey. Not that Ista needed a catalogue of every hair, fault, virtue, and quirk of every horse Liss had ridden for the past several days, but Liss's voice was such welcome music, it hardly mattered what it dwelt upon. Ista had less to report, she found, of her own ride, certainly not details of the Jokonan horseflesh, which she had mainly experienced as a penance. Nor had she desire to recall green flies gathering to feed on thickening blood.

Passing a pillar, Liss reached out to trail her fingers over the carved tracery. "It looks like stone brocade. Porifors is a far more beautiful castle than I was expecting. Is Lord Arhys dy Lutez as great a sword master as the marchess was bragging?"

"Yes, in fact. He slew four of the enemy who attempted to ride off with me. Two escaped." She had not forgotten them. She was almost glad, in retrospect, that the translator officer had been one of those fled. She had spoken with him, eye to eye, a few too many times for her to imagine him as a cipher, blurred into the faceless ranks of the fallen. A feminine weakness, that, perhaps, like refusing to eat any animal one had named as a pet.

"Was it true the march rode in with you upon his saddlebow?"

"Yes," said Ista shortly.

Liss's eyes crinkled with delight. "How splendid! Too bad he's so married, eh? Is he really as handsome as his wife seems to think?"

"I can't say," Ista growled. She added in reluctant fairness, "He is, however, quite handsome."

"How fine, to have such a lord at your feet, though. I am glad you have come to such a place, after all this."

Ista changed He wasn't exactly at my feet to, "I do not plan to linger here."

Liss's brows rose. "The Mother's acolyte said you could not ride far yet."

"Ought not, perhaps. Not comfortably. I could at need." Ista followed Liss's admiring glance around the court, shaded in the slanting light of the late day, and tried to evolve a reason for her unease that did not involve bad dreams. A rational, sensible reason, for a woman who was not mad in the least. She rubbed at the itch on her forehead. "We are too close to Jokona, here. I do not know what treaties of mutual aid presently exist between Jokona and Borasnen, but everyone knows the port of Visping is the prize of my royal daughter's eye. What is planned to happen in the fall will be no mere border raid. And there was a terrible event here this spring that can't have helped relations with the prince of Jokona in any way." Ista did not look toward that corner room.

"You mean how Porifors's master of horse was stabbed by that Jokonan courtier? Goram told me of it while we were swabbing down that fat palomino. Odd fellow—I think he's a little simple in the head—but he knows his trade." She added, "Here, Royina, you are limping worse than my second horse. Sit, rest." She chose a shaded bench at the court's far end, the one where Cattilara's ladies had collected the previous evening, and with an air of determined heedfulness settled Ista upon it.

After a moment of silence, she gave Ista a sidelong look. "Funny old man, Goram. He wanted to know if a royina outranked a princess. Because a princess was the daughter of a prince, but you were only the daughter of a provincar. And that Roya Orico's widow Sara was a dowager royina more recent than you. I said a Chalionese provincar was worth any Roknari prince, and besides, you were the mother of the royina of all Chalion-Ibra herself, and nobody else is that."

Ista forced herself to smile. "Royinas do not often come in his way, I expect. Did your answers pacify him?"

Liss shrugged. "Seemed to." Her frown deepened. "Isn't it a strange thing, for a man to lie stunned like that, for months?"

It was Ista's turn to shrug. "Palsy-strokes, broken heads, broken necks... drownings ... it happens that way, sometimes."

"Some recover though, don't they?"

"I think those that recover start to do so ... sooner. Most struck down that way do not live long thereafter, unless their care is extraordinary. It's a slow, ugly death for a man. Or anyone. Better to go swiftly, at the first."

"If Goram cares for Lord Illvin half as well as he cares for his horses, perhaps that explains it."

Ista became conscious that the runty man himself had emerged from the corner chamber and hunkered down behind the balustrade, watching them. After a time he rose, came down the stairs, and crossed the court. As he neared, his steps shortened, his head drew in like a turtle's, and his hands gripped one another.

He stopped a little distance off, bent his knees, and ducked his head, first to Ista, then to Liss, then back to Ista again as if to make sure. His eyes were the color of unpolished steel. His stare, from under those bushy brows, was unblinking.

"Aye," he said at last, to a point halfway between the two women. "She's the one he was going on about, no mistake." He pursed his lips, and his gaze suddenly fixed on Liss. "Did you ask her?"

Liss smiled crookedly. "Hello, Goram. Well, I was working up to it."

He wrapped his arms around himself, rocking forward and back. "Ask her, then."

Liss cocked her head. "Why don't you? She doesn't bite."

" 'B 'n 't," he mumbled obscurely, glowering at his booted feet. "You."

Liss shrugged amused bafflement and turned to Ista. "Royina, Goram wishes you to come view his master."

Ista sat back and was silent for a long, withheld breath. "Why?" she finally asked.

Goram peered up at her, then back down at his feet. "You were the one he was going on about."

"Surely," said Ista after another moment, "no man would wish to be seen in his sickbed by strangers."

"That's all right," Goram pronounced. He blinked, and stared hard at her.

Liss, her eyes crinkling, cupped her hand and whispered in Ista's ear, "He was more talkative in the stalls. I think you frighten him."

Articulate smooth persuasion, Ista thought she might resist. In this odd tangle, she could hardly find an end. Urgent eyes, tongue of wood, a silent pressure of expectation... She could curse a god. She could not curse a groom.

She glanced around the court. Neither midnight nor noon, now; no details matched her dreams. Her dream had held neither Goram nor Liss, the time of day was all wrong... maybe it was safe, benign. She drew a breath.

"So, then, Liss. Let us renew my pilgrimage party and go view another ruin."

Liss helped her up, her face alert with open curiosity. Ista climbed the stairs upon her arm, slowly. Goram watched her anxiously, his lips moving, as if mentally boosting her up each step.

The women followed the groom to the end of the gallery. He opened the door, backed up, bowed again. Ista hesitated, then followed Liss inside.