The Curse of Chalion

Chapter 15

After some time casting about the Zangre they ran Orico to earth, to Cazaril’s surprise, in Royina Sara’s chambers on the top floor of Ias’s Tower. The roya and royina were seated at a small table by a window, playing at blocks-and-dodges together. The simple game, with its carved board and colored marbles, seemed a pastime for children or convalescents, not for the greatest lord and lady in the land . . . not that Orico could be mistaken for a well man by any experienced eye. The royal couple’s eerie shadows seemed merely a redundant underscore to their weary sadness. They played not for idleness, Cazaril realized, but for distraction, diversion from the fear and woe that hedged them all around.

Cazaril was taken aback by Sara’s garb. Instead of the black-and-lavender court mourning that Orico wore, she was dressed all in white, the festival garb of the Bastard’s Day, that intercalary holiday inserted every two years after Mother’s Midsummer to prevent the calendar’s precessing from its proper seasons. The bleached linens were far too light for this weather, and she huddled into a large puffy white wool shawl to combat the chill. She looked dark and thin and sallow in the pale wrappings. Withal, it was an even more edged insult than the colorful gowns and robes she’d hastily donned for Dondo’s funeral. Cazaril wondered if she meant to wear the Bastard’s whites for the whole period of mourning. And if dy Jironal would dare protest.

Iselle curtseyed to her royal brother and sister-in-law, and stood before Orico with eyes bright, hands clasped before her in an attitude of demure femininity belied by the steel in her spine. Cazaril and Lady Betriz, flanking her, also made their courtesies. Orico, turning from the game table, acknowledged his sister’s greeting. He adjusted his paunch in his lap and eyed her uneasily. On closer view, Cazaril could see where his tailor had added a matched panel of lavender brocade beneath the arms to enlarge his tunic’s girth, and the slight discoloration where the sleeve seams had been picked out and resewn. Royina Sara gathered her shawl and withdrew a little into the window seat.

With the barest preamble, Iselle launched into her plea for the roya to open formal negotiations with Ibra for the hand of the Royse Bergon. She emphasized the opportunity to make a bid for peace, thus repairing the breach created by Orico’s ill-fated support of the late Heir, for surely neither Chalion nor exhausted Ibra were prepared to continue the conflict now. She pointed out how appropriate a match in age and rank Bergon was for her own years and station, and the advantage to Orico—she diplomatically did not add and then Teidez—in future years to have a relative and ally in Ibra’s court. She painted a vivid word-picture of the harassment from lesser lords of Chalion vying for her hand that Orico might neatly sidestep by this ploy, a bit of eloquence that caused the roya to vent a wistful sigh.

Nonetheless, Orico began his expected equivocation by seizing on this last point. “But Iselle, your mourning protects you for a time. Not even Martou—I mean, Martou won’t insult the memory of his brother by marrying off Dondo’s bereaved fiancée over his hot ashes.”

Iselle snorted at the bereaved. “Dondo’s ashes will chill soon enough, and what then? Orico, you will never again force me to a husband without my assent—my prior assent, obtained beforehand. I won’t let you.”

“No, no,” Orico agreed hastily, waving his hands. “That . . . that was a mistake, I see it now. I’m sorry.”

Now, there’s an understatement . . .

“I did not mean to insult you, dear sister, or, or the gods.” Orico glanced around a little vaguely, as though afraid an offended god might pounce upon him out of some astral ambuscade at any moment. “I meant well, for you and for Chalion.”

Belatedly, it dawned upon Cazaril that while no one at court but himself and Umegat knew just whose prayers had hurried Dondo . . . well, not out of the world, but out of his life—all knew that the royesse had been praying for rescue. None, Cazaril thought, suspected or accused her of working death magic—of course, neither did they suspect or accuse him—nevertheless, Iselle was here, and Dondo was gone. Every thinking courtier must be unnerved by Dondo’s mysterious death, and some more than a little.

“No marriage shall be offered to you in future without your prior accordance,” said Orico, with uncharacteristic firmness. “That, I promise you upon my own head and crown.”

It was a solemn oath; Cazaril’s brows rose. Orico meant it, apparently. Iselle pursed her lips, then accepted this with a slight, wary nod.

A faint dry breath, puffed through feminine nostrils—Cazaril’s eyes went to Royina Sara. Her face was shadowed by the window embrasure, but her mouth twisted briefly in some small irony at her husband’s words. Cazaril considered what solemn promises Orico had broken to her, and looked away, discomfited.

“By the same token,” Orico skipped to his next evasion like a man crossing stepping-stones on a steam, “our mourning makes it too soon to offer you to Ibra. The Fox may construe an insult in this haste.”

Iselle made a gesture of impatience. “But if we wait, Bergon is likely to be snatched up! The royse is now the Heir, he’s of marriageable age, and his father wants safety on his borders. The Fox is bound to barter him for an ally—a daughter of the high march of Yiss, perhaps, or a rich Darthacan noblewoman, and Chalion will have lost its chance!”

“It’s too soon. Too soon. I don’t disagree that your arguments are good, and may have their day. Indeed, the Fox made diplomatic inquiries for your hand some years ago, I forget for which son, but all was broken off when the troubles in South Ibra erupted. Nothing is fixed. Why, my poor Brajaran mother was betrothed five different times before she was finally wed to Roya Ias. Take patience, calm yourself, and await a more seemly time.”

“I think now is an excellent time. I want to see you make a decision, announce it, and stand by it—before Chancellor dy Jironal returns.”

“Ah, um, yes. And that’s another thing. I cannot possibly take a step of this grave nature without consultation with my chief noble and the other lords in council.” Orico nodded to himself.

“You didn’t consult the other lords the last time. I think you’re most strangely afraid to do anything dy Jironal doesn’t approve. Who is roya in Cardegoss, anyway, Orico dy Chalion or Martou dy Jironal?”

“I—I—I will think on your words, dear sister.” Orico made craven little waving-away motions with his fat hands.

Iselle, after a moment spent staring at him with a burning intensity that made him writhe, accepted this with a small, provisional nod. “Yes, do think on my petition, my lord. I’ll ask you again tomorrow.”

With this promise—or threat—she made courtesy again to Orico and Sara and withdrew, Betriz and Cazaril trailing.

“Tomorrow and every day thereafter?” Cazaril inquired in an undervoice as she sailed down the corridor in a savage rustling of skirts.

“Every day till Orico yields,” she replied through set teeth. “Plan on it, Cazaril.”

Wintry yellow light slanted through gray clouds later that afternoon as Cazaril made his way out of the Zangre to the stable block. He pulled his fine embroidered wool coat around him and drew in his neck like a turtle against the damp, cold wind. When he opened his mouth and exhaled, he could make his breath mist in a little cloud before him. He blew a few puffs at the ghosts that, pale almost to invisibility in the sunlight, bobbed perpetually after him. A damp frost rimed the cobbles beneath his feet. He pushed the menagerie’s heavy door aside just enough to nip within and pulled it shut again immediately thereafter. He stood a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the darker interior, and sneezed from the sweet dust of the hay.

The thumbless groom set down a pail, hurried up to him, bowed, and made welcoming noises.

“I have come to see Umegat,” Cazaril told him. The little old man bowed again and beckoned him onward. He led Cazaril down the aisle. The beautiful animals all lurched to the front of their stalls to snort at him, and the sand foxes jumped up and yipped excitedly as he passed.

A stone-walled chamber at the far end proved to be a tack room converted to a work and leisure room for the menagerie’s servants. A small fire burned cheerfully in a fieldstone fireplace, taking the chill off. The faint, pleasant scent of woodsmoke combined with that of leather, metal polish, and soaps. The wool-stuffed cushions on the chairs to which the groom gestured him were faded and worn, and the old worktable was stained and scarred. But the room was swept, and the glazed windows, one on either side of the fireplace, had the little round panes set in their leads polished clean. The groom made noises and shuffled out again.

In a few minutes, Umegat entered, wiping his hands dry on a cloth and straightening his tabard. “Welcome, my lord,” he said softly. Cazaril felt suddenly uncertain of his etiquette, whether to stand as for a superior or sit as for a servant. There was no court Roknari grammatical mode for secretary to saint. He sat up and half bowed from the waist, awkwardly, by way of compromise. “Umegat.”

Umegat closed the door, assuring privacy. Cazaril leaned forward, clasping his hands upon the tabletop, and spoke with the urgency of patient to physician. “You see the ghosts of the Zangre. Do you ever hear them?”

“Not normally. Have you?” Umegat pulled out a chair and seated himself at right angles to Cazaril.

“Not these—” He batted away the most persistent one, which had followed him inside. Umegat pursed his lips and flipped his cloth at it, and it flitted off. “Dondo’s.” Cazaril described last night’s internal uproar. “I thought he was trying to break out. Can he succeed? If the goddess’s grip fails?”

“I am certain no ghost can overpower a god,” said Umegat.

“That’s . . . not quite an answer.” Cazaril brooded. Perhaps Dondo and the demon meant to kill him from sheer exhaustion. “Can you at least suggest a way to shut him up? Putting my head under the pillow was no help at all.”

“There is a kind of symmetry to it,” observed Umegat slowly. “Outer ghosts that you may see but not hear, inner ghosts that you may hear but not see . . . if the Bastard has a hand in it, it may have something to do with maintaining balance. In any case, I am sure your preservation was no accident and would not be accidentally withdrawn.”

Cazaril absorbed this for a moment. Daily duties, eh. Today’s had brought some curious turns. He spoke now as comrade to comrade. “Umegat, listen, I’ve had an idea. We know the curse has followed the House of Chalion’s male line, Fonsa to Ias to Orico. Yet Royina Sara wears nearly as dark a shadow as Orico does, and she is no spawn of Fonsa’s loins. She must have married into the curse, yes?”

The fine lines of Umegat’s face deepened with his frown. “Sara already bore the shadow when I first came, years ago, but I suppose . . . yes, it must have been so.”

“Ista likewise, presumably?”

“Presumably.”

“So—could Iselle marry out of the curse? Shed it with her marriage vows, when she leaves her family of birth behind and enters into the family of her husband? Or would the curse follow her to taint them both?”

Umegat’s brows went up. “I don’t know.”

“But you don’t know that it’s impossible? I was thinking that it might be a way to salvage . . . something.”

Umegat sat back. “Possibly. I don’t know. It was never a ploy to consider, for Orico.”

“I need to know, Umegat. Royesse Iselle is pushing Orico to open negotiations for her marriage out of Chalion.”

“Chancellor dy Jironal will surely not allow that.”

“I would not underestimate her powers of persuasion. She is not another Sara.”

“Neither was Sara, once. But you are right. Oh, my poor Orico, to be pressed between two such grinding stones.”

Cazaril bit his lip, and paused a long time before venturing his next query. “Umegat . . . you’ve been observing this court for many years. Was dy Jironal always so poisonous a peculator, or has the curse slowly been corrupting him, too? Did the curse draw such a man to his position of power, or would any man trying to serve the House of Chalion become so corroded, in time?”

“You ask very interesting questions, Lord Cazaril.” Umegat’s graying brows drew down in thought. “I wish I had better answers. Martou dy Jironal was always forcible, intelligent, able. We shall leave aside consideration of his younger brother, who made his reputation as a strong arm in the field, not a strong head in the court. When he first took up the post of chancellor I would have judged the elder dy Jironal no more susceptible to the temptations of pride and greed than any other high lord of Chalion with a clan to provide for.”

Faint enough praise, that. And yet . . .

“Yet I think . . .” Umegat seemed to continue Cazaril’s very thought, his eyes rising to meet his guest’s, “the curse has done him no good either.”

“So . . . getting rid of dy Jironal is not the solution to Orico’s woes? Another such man, perhaps worse, would simply rise in his place?”

Umegat opened his hands. “The curse takes a hundred forms, twisting each good thing that should be Orico’s according to the weaknesses of its nature. A wife grown barren instead of fertile. A chief advisor corrupt instead of loyal. Friends fickle instead of true, food that sickens instead of strengthening, and on and on.”

A secretary-tutor grown cowardly and foolish instead of brave and wise? Or maybe just fey and mad . . . If any man who came within the curse’s ambit was vulnerable, was he destined to become Iselle’s plague, as dy Jironal was Orico’s? “And Teidez, and Iselle—must all her choices fall out as ill as Orico’s, or does he bear a special burden, being the roya?”

“I think the curse has grown worse for Orico over time.” The Roknari’s gray eyes narrowed. “You have asked me a dozen questions, Lord Cazaril. Allow me to ask you one. How came you into the service of Royesse Iselle?”

Cazaril opened his mouth and sat back, his mind jumping first to the day the Provincara had ambushed him with her offer of employment. But no, before that came . . . and before that came . . . He found himself instead telling Umegat of the day a soldier of the Daughter astride a nervy horse had dropped a gold coin in the mud, and how he had arrived in Valenda. Umegat brewed tea at the little fire and pushed a steaming mug in front of Cazaril, who paused only to lubricate his drying throat. Cazaril described how Iselle had discomfited the crooked judge on the Daughter’s Day, and, at length, how they had all come to Cardegoss.

Umegat pulled on his queue. “Do you think your steps were fated from that far back? Disturbing. But the gods are parsimonious, and take their chances where they can find them.”

“If the gods are making this path for me, then where is my free will? No, it cannot be!”

“Ah.” Umegat brightened at this thorny theological point. “I have had another thought on such fates, that denies neither gods nor men. Perhaps, instead of controlling every step, the gods have started a hundred or a thousand Cazarils and Umegats down this road. And only those arrive who choose to.”

“But am I the first to arrive, or the last?”

“Well,” said Umegat dryly, “I can promise you you’re not the first.”

Cazaril grunted understanding. After a little time spent digesting this, he said suddenly, “But if the gods have given you to Orico, and me to Iselle—though I think Someone has made a holy mistake—who is given for the protection of Teidez? Shouldn’t there be three of us? A man of the Brother, surely, though whether tool or saint or fool I know not—or have all the boy’s hundred destined protectors fallen by the roadside, one by one? Maybe the man is just not here yet.” A new thought robbed Cazaril of breath. “Maybe it was supposed to have been dy Sanda.” He leaned forward, burying his face in his hands. “If I stay here talking theology with you much longer, I swear I’ll end up drinking myself blind again, just to make my brain stop spinning round and round inside my skull.”

“Addiction to drink is actually a fairly common hazard, among divines,” said Umegat.

“I begin to see why.” Cazaril tilted back his head to catch the last trickle of tea, grown cold in his cup, and set it down. “Umegat . . . if I must ask of every action not only if it is wise or good, but also if it’s the one I’m supposed to choose, I shall go mad. Madder. I’ll end up curled in a corner not doing anything at all, except maybe mumbling and weeping.”

Umegat chuckled—cruelly, Cazaril thought—but then shook his head. “You cannot outguess the gods. Hold to virtue—if you can identify it—and trust that the duty set before you is the duty desired of you. And that the talents given to you are the talents you should place in the gods’ service. Believe that the gods ask for nothing back that they have not first lent to you. Not even your life.”

Cazaril rubbed his face, and inhaled. “Then I shall bend all my efforts to promoting this marriage of Iselle’s, to break the hold of the curse upon her. I must trust my reason, or why else did the goddess choose a reasonable man for Iselle’s guardian?” Though he added under his breath, “At least, I used to be a reasonable man . . .” He nodded, far more firmly than he felt, and pushed back his chair. “Pray for me, Umegat.”

“Every hour, my lord.”

It was growing dark when Lady Betriz brought a taper into Cazaril’s office and drifted about for a moment lighting his reading candles in their glass vases. He smiled and nodded thanks. She smiled back and blew out her taper, but then paused, not yet returning to the women’s chambers. She stood, Cazaril observed, in the same spot where they had parted the night of Dondo’s death.

“Things seem to be settling down a little now, thank the gods,” she remarked.

“Yes. A little.” Cazaril laid down his quill.

“I begin to believe all will be well.”

“Yes.” His stomach cramped. No.

A long pause. He picked up his quill again, and dipped it, although he had nothing more to write.

“Cazaril, must you believe you are about to die in order to bring yourself to kiss a lady?” she demanded abruptly.

He ducked his head, flushing, and cleared his throat. “My deepest apologies, Lady Betriz. It won’t happen again.”

He dared not look up, lest she try anew to break through his fragile barriers. Lest she succeed. Oh, Betriz, do not sacrifice your dignity to my futility!

Her voice grew stiff. “I’m very sorry to hear that, Castillar.”

He kept his eyes on his ledger as her footsteps retreated.

Several days passed, as Iselle continued her campaign upon Orico. Several nights passed, made ghastly for Cazaril by the howls of Dondo’s soul in its private torment. This intestinal visitation did indeed prove to be nightly, a quarter of an hour reprising the terror of that death. Cazaril could not fall to sleep before the midnight interlude, in sick apprehension, nor for long after it, in shaken resonance, and his face grew gray with fatigue. The blurry old phantasms began to seem pleasant pets by comparison. There was no way he could drink enough wine, nightly, to sleep through it, so he set himself to endure.

Orico endured his sister’s visitations with less fortitude. He took to avoiding her in increasingly bizarre ways, but she broke in upon him anyway, in chamber, kitchen, and once, to Nan dy Vrit’s scandal, his steam bath. The day he rode out to his hunting lodge in the oak woods at dawn, Iselle followed promptly after breakfast. Cazaril was relieved to note that his own spectral retinue fell behind as they rode out of the Zangre, as though bound to their place of death.

It was clear that the fast gallop was an inexpressible joy to Iselle, as she shook out the knots and strains of her trammeled existence in the castle. A day in the saddle in the crisp early-winter air, going and returning from an otherwise futile interview, brightened her eye and put color in her cheeks. Lady Betriz was no less invigorated. The four Baocian guards told off to ride with them kept up, but only just, laboring along with their horses; Cazaril concealed agony. He passed blood again that evening, which he’d not done for some days, and Dondo’s nightly serenade proved especially shattering because, for the first time, Cazaril’s inward ear could make out words in the cries. They weren’t words that made any sense, but they were distinguishable. Would more follow?

Dreading another such ride, Cazaril wearily climbed the stairs to Iselle’s chambers late the next morning. He had just eased himself stiffly into his chair at his desk and taken up his account book, when Royina Sara appeared, accompanied by two of her ladies. She wafted past Cazaril in a cloud of white wool. He scrambled to his feet in surprise and bowed deeply; she acknowledged his existence with a faint, faraway nod.

A flurry of feminine voices in the forbidden chambers beyond announced her visit to her sister-in-law. Both the royina’s ladies-in-waiting and Nan dy Vrit were exiled to the sitting room, where they sat sewing and quietly gossiping. After about half an hour, Royina Sara came out again and crossed through Cazaril’s office antechamber with the same unsmiling abstraction.

Betriz followed shortly. “The royesse bids you attend upon her in her sitting chamber,” she told Cazaril. Her black eyebrows were crimped tight with worry. Cazaril rose at once and followed her inside.

Iselle sat in a carved chair, her hands clenched upon its arms, pale and breathing heavily. “Infamous! My brother is infamous, Cazaril!” she told him as he made his bow and pulled a stool up to her knee.

“My lady?” he inquired, and let himself down as carefully as he could. Last night’s belly cramp still lingered, and stabbed him if he moved too quickly.

“No marriage without my consent, aye, he spoke that truly enough—but none without dy Jironal’s consent, either! Sara has whispered it to me. After his brother’s death, but before he rode out of Cardegoss to seek the murderer, the chancellor closeted himself with my brother and persuaded him to make a codicil to his will. In the event of Orico’s death, the chancellor is made regent for my brother Teidez—”

“I believe that arrangement has been known for quite some time, Royesse. There is a regency council set up to advise him, as well. The provincars of Chalion would not let that much power pass to one of their number without a check.”

“Yes, yes, I knew that, but—”

“The codicil does not attempt to abolish the council, does it?” asked Cazaril in alarm. “That would set the lords in an uproar.”

“No, that part is left all as it was. But formerly, I was to be the ward of my grandmother and my uncle the provincar of Baocia. Now, I am to be transferred to dy Jironal’s own wardship. There is no council to check that! And listen, Cazaril! The term of his guardianship is set to be until I marry, and permission for my marriage is left entirely in his hands! He can keep me unwed till I die of old age, if he chooses!”

Cazaril concealed his unease and held up a soothing hand. “Surely not. He must die of old age long before you. And well before that, when Teidez comes to his man’s estate and the full powers of the royacy, he can free you with a royal decree.”

“Teidez’s majority is set at twenty-five years, Cazaril!”

A decade ago, Cazaril would have shared her outrage at this lengthy term. Now it sounded more like a good idea. But not, granted, with dy Jironal in the saddle instead.

“I would be almost twenty-eight years old!”

Twelve more years for the curse to work upon her, and within her . . . no, it was not good by any measure.

“He could dismiss you from my household instantly!”

You have another Patroness, who has not chosen to dismiss me yet. “I grant you have cause for concern, Royesse, but don’t borrow trouble before its time. None of this matters while Orico lives.”

“He is not well, Sara says.”

“He is not very fit,” Cazaril agreed cautiously. “But he’s not by any means an old man. He’s barely more than forty.”

By the expression on Iselle’s face, she found that quite aged enough. “He is more . . . not-well than he appears. Sara says.”

Cazaril hesitated. “Is she that intimate with him, to know this? I had thought them estranged.”

“I don’t understand them.” Iselle knuckled her eyes. “Oh, Cazaril, it was true what Dondo told me! I thought, later, that it might have been just a horrid lie to frighten me. Sara was so desperate for a child, she agreed to let dy Jironal try, when Orico . . . could not, anymore. Martou was not so bad, she said. He was at least courteous. It was only when he could not get her with child either that his brother cajoled him to let him into the venture. Dondo was dreadful, and took pleasure in her humiliation. But Cazaril, Orico knew. He helped persuade Sara to this outrage. I don’t understand, because Orico surely does not hate Teidez so much he’d wish to set dy Jironal’s bastard in his place.”

“No.” And yes. A son of dy Jironal and Sara would not be a descendant of Fonsa the Fairly-wise. Orico must have reasoned that such a child might grow up to free the royacy of Chalion from the Golden General’s death curse. A desperate measure, but possibly an effective one.

“Royina Sara,” Iselle added, her mouth crooking, “says if dy Jironal finds Dondo’s murderer, she plans to pay for his funeral, pension his family, and have perpetual prayers sung for him in the temple of Cardegoss.”

“That’s good to know,” said Cazaril faintly. Although he had no family to pension. He hunched over a little and smiled to hide a grimace of pain. So, not even Sara, who had filled Iselle’s maiden ears with details of shocking intimacy, had told her of the curse. And he was certain now that Sara, too, knew of it. Orico, Sara, dy Jironal, Umegat, probably Ista, possibly even the Provincara, and not one had chosen to burden these children with knowledge of the dark cloud that hung over them. Who was he to betray that implicit conspiracy of silence?

No one told me, either. Do I thank them now for their consideration? When, then, did Teidez’s and Iselle’s protectors plan to let them know of the geas that wrapped them round? Did Orico expect to tell them on his deathbed, as he’d been told by his father Ias?

Had Cazaril the right to tell Iselle secrets that her natural guardians chose to conceal?

Was he prepared to explain to her just how he had found it all out?

He glanced at Lady Betriz, seated now on another stool and anxiously watching her distressed royal mistress. Even Betriz, who knew quite well that he had attempted death magic, did not know that he had succeeded.

“I don’t know what to try next,” moaned Iselle. “Orico is useless.”

Could Iselle escape this curse without ever having to know of it? He took a deep breath, for what he was about to say skirted treason. “You could take steps to arrange your marriage yourself.”

Betriz stirred and sat up, her eyes widening at him.

“What, in secret?” said Iselle. “From my royal brother?”

“Certainly in secret from his chancellor.”

“Is that legal?”

Cazaril blew out his breath. “A marriage, contracted and consummated, cannot readily be set aside even by a roya. If a sufficiently large camp of Chalionese were persuaded to support you in it—and a considerable faction of opposition to dy Jironal exists ready-made—setting it aside would be rendered still harder.” And if she were got out of Chalion and placed under the protection of, say, as shrewd a father-in-law as the Fox of Ibra, she might leave curse and faction both behind altogether. Arranging the matter so that she didn’t simply trade being a powerless hostage in one court for being a powerless hostage in another was the hard part. But at least an uncursed hostage, eh?

“Ah!” Iselle’s eyes lit with approval. “Cazaril, can it be done?”

“There are practical difficulties,” he admitted. “All of which have practical solutions. The most critical is to discover a man you can trust to be your ambassador. He must have the wit to gain you the strongest possible position in negotiation with Ibra, the suppleness to avoid offending Chalion, nerve to pass in disguise across uneasy borders, strength for travel, loyalty to you and you alone, and courage in your cause that must not break. A mistake in this selection would be fatal.” Possibly literally.

She pressed her hands together, and frowned. “Can you find me such a man?”

“I will bend my thoughts to it, and look about me.”

“Do so, Lord Cazaril,” she breathed. “Do so.”

Lady Betriz said, in an oddly dry voice, “Surely you need not look far.”

“It cannot be me.” With a swallow, he converted I could fall dead at your feet at any moment to, “I dare not leave you here without protection.”

“We shall all think on it,” said Iselle firmly.

The Father’s Day festivities passed quietly. Chill rain dampened the celebrations in Cardegoss, and kept many from the Zangre from attending the municipal procession, though Orico went as a royal duty and as a result contracted a head cold. He turned this to account by taking to his bed and avoiding everyone thereby. The Zangre’s denizens, still in black and lavender for Lord Dondo, kept a sober Father’s Feast, with sacred music but no dancing.

The icy rain continued through the week. Cazaril, one sodden afternoon, was combining practical application with tutorial by teaching Betriz and Iselle how to keep accounts, when a crisp rap on the chamber door overrode a page’s diffident voice announcing, “The March dy Palliar begs to see my lord dy Cazaril.”

“Palli!” Cazaril turned in his chair, and levered himself to his feet with a hand on the table. Bright delight flooded both his ladies’ faces with sudden energy, driving out the ennui. “i wasn’t expecting you in Cardegoss so soon!”

“Nor was I.” Palli bowed to the women and favored Cazaril with a twisted grin. He dropped a coin in the page’s hand and jerked his head; the boy bent double, in a gradation that indicated deep approval of the amount of the largesse, and scampered off.

Palli continued, “I took only two officers and rode hard; my troop from Palliar follows at a pace that will not destroy horses.” He glanced around the chamber and shrugged his broad shoulders. “Goddess forfend! I didn’t think I was speaking prophecy, last time I was here. Gives me a worse chill than this miserable rain.” He cast off a water-spotted woolen cloak, revealing the blue-and-white garb of an officer of the daughter’s order, and ran a rueful hand through the bright drops beading in his dark hair. He clasped hands with Cazaril, and added, “Bastard’s demons, Caz, you look terrible!”

Cazaril could not, alas, respond to this with a very well put. He instead turned off the remark with a mumble of, “It’s the weather, I suppose. It makes everyone dull and drab.”

Palli stood back and stared him up and down. “Weather? When last I saw you, your skin was not the color of moldy dough, you didn’t have black rings around your eyes like a striped rock-rat, and, and, you looked pretty fit, not—pale, pinched, and potbellied.” Cazaril straightened up, indignantly sucking in his aching gut, as Palli jerked a thumb at him and added, “Royesse, you should get your secretary to a physician.”

Iselle stared at Cazaril in sudden doubt, her hand going to her mouth, as if really looking him for the first time in weeks. Which, he supposed, she was; her attentions had been thoroughly absorbed by her own troubles through these late disasters. Betriz looked from one of them to the other, and set her teeth on her lower lip.

“I don’t need to see a physician,” said Cazaril firmly, loudly, and quickly. Or any other such interrogator, dear gods.

“So all men say, in terror of the lancet and the purgative.” Palli waved away this stung protest. “The last one of my sergeants who developed saddle boils, I had to march in to the old leech-handler at sword’s point. Don’t listen to him, Royesse. Cazaril”—his face sobered, and he made an apologetic half bow to Iselle—“May I speak to you privately for a moment? I promise I shall not keep him from you long, Royesse. I cannot linger.”

Gravely, Iselle granted her royal permission. Cazaril, quick to catch the undertone in Palli’s voice, led him not to his office antechamber but all the way down the stairs to his own chamber. The corridor was empty, happily. He closed his heavy door firmly behind them, to thwart human eavesdroppers. The senile spirit smudges kept their confidences.

Cazaril took the chair, the better to conceal his lack of grace in movement. Palli sat on the edge of the bed, folded his cloak beside him, and clasped his hands loosely between his knees.

“The daughter’s courier to Palliar must have made excellent time despite the winter muds,” said Cazaril, counting days in his head.

Palli’s dark brows rose. “You know of that already? I’d thought it a, ah, quite private call to conclave. Though it will become obvious soon enough, as the other lord dedicats arrive in Cardegoss.”

Cazaril shrugged. “I have my sources.”

“I don’t doubt it. And so have I mine.” Palli shook his finger at him. “You are the only intelligencer in the Zangre that I would trust, at present. What, under the Gods’ eyes, has been happening here at court? The most lurid and garbled tales are circulating regarding our late Holy General’s sudden demise. And delightful as the picture is, somehow I don’t really think he was carried off bodily by a flight of demons with blazing wings called down by the Royesse Iselle’s prayers.”

“Ah . . . not exactly. He just choked to death in the middle of a drinking fest, the night before his wedding.”

“On his poisonous, lying tongue, one would wish.”

“Very nearly.”

Palli sniffed. “The lord dedicats whom Lord Dondo put in a fury—who are not only all the ones he failed to buy outright, but also those who’ve grown ashamed of their purchase since—have taken his taking-off as a sign the wheel has turned. As soon as our quorum arrives in Cardegoss, we mean to steal a march on the chancellor and present our own candidate for Holy General to Orico. Or perhaps a slate of three acceptable men, from which the roya might choose.”

“That would likely go down better. It’s a delicate balance between . . .” Cazaril cut off, loyalty and treason. “Too, dy Jironal has his own powers in the temple, as well as in the Zangre. You don’t want this infighting to turn too ugly.”

“Even dy Jironal would not dare disrupt the temple by setting soldiers of the son upon soldiers of the daughter,” said Palli confidently.

“Mm,” said Cazaril.

“At the same time, some of the lord dedicats—naming no names right now—want to go farther, maybe assemble and present evidence of enough of both the Jironals’ bribes, threats, peculations, and malfeasances to Orico that it would force him to dismiss dy Jironal as chancellor. Make the Roya take a stand.”

Cazaril rubbed his nose, and said warningly, “Forcing Orico to stand would be like trying to build a tower out of custard. I don’t recommend it. Nor will he readily be parted from dy Jironal. The Roya relies on him . . . more deeply than I can explain. Your evidence would need to be utterly overwhelming.”

“Yes, which is part of what brings me to you.” Palli leaned forward intently. “Would you be willing to repeat, under oath before the daughter’s conclave, the tale you told me in Valenda about how the Jironals sold you to the galleys?”

Cazaril hesitated. “I have only my word to offer as proof, Palli, too weak to topple dy Jironal, I assure you.”

“Not alone, no. But it might be just the coin to tip the scale, the straw to light the fire.”

Just the straw to stand out from all the others? Did he want to be known as the pivot of this plot? Cazaril’s lips screwed up in dismay.

“And you’re a man of reputation,” Palli went on persuasively.

Cazaril jerked. “No good one, surely . . . !”

“What, everyone knows of Royesse Iselle’s clever secretary, the man who keeps his own counsel—and hers—the Bastion of Gotorget—utterly indifferent to wealth—”

“No, I’m not,” Cazaril assured him earnestly. “I just dress badly. I quite like wealth.”

“And possessing the Royesse’s total confidence. And don’t pretend a courtier’s greed to me—with my own eyes I saw you turn down three rich Roknari bribes to betray Gotorget, the last while you were starving near to death, and I can produce living witnesses to back me.”

“Well, of course I didn’t—”

“Your voice would be listened to in council, Caz!”

Cazaril sighed. “I . . . I’ll think about it. I have nearer duties. Say that I’ll speak in the sealed session if and only if you think my testimony would be truly needed. Temple internal politics are no business of mine.” A twinge in his gut made him regret that word choice. I fear I am afflicted with the goddess’s own internal politics, just now.

Palli’s happy nod claimed this as a firmer assent than Cazaril quite wished. He rose, thanked Cazaril, and took his leave.