The Curse of Chalion

Chapter 26

Distraught, Cazaril kept to his chamber all morning. In the afternoon a page knocked, with the unwelcome news that the royse and royesse desired him to attend upon them in their rooms. Cazaril considered feigning illness, though he hardly need feign. No, for Iselle would surely bring physicians down upon him, probably in packs—he remembered the last time, with Rojeras, and shuddered. With a boundless reluctance, he straightened his garments, making himself presentable, and walked out around the gallery to the royal suite.

The sitting room’s high casement windows were open to the cool spring light. Iselle and Bergon, still in festive dress from the noon banquet at the March dy Huesta’s palace, awaited him. They sat around the corner from each other at a table that bore paper, parchment, and new pens, with a third chair pulled invitingly to the other side. Their heads, amber and brown, were bent together in low-voiced conversation. The shadow still boiled slowly around them, viscous as hot tar. At Cazaril’s step, they both looked up at him and smiled. He moistened his lips and bowed, his face stiff.

Iselle gestured at the papers. “Our next most urgent task is to compose a letter to my brother Orico, to acquaint him of the steps we have taken, and assure him of our most loyal submission. I think we should include extracts of all the articles of our marriage most favorable to Chalion, to help reconcile him to it, don’t you think?”

Cazaril cleared his throat and swallowed.

Bergon’s brows drew inward. “Caz, you look as pale as a . . . um. Are you all right? Please, sit down!”

Cazaril managed a tiny headshake. Again he was tempted to flee into some malingering lie—or half-truth, now, for he was feeling sick enough. “Nothing is all right,” he whispered. He sank to one knee before the royse. “I have made a vast mistake. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Iselle’s wary, startled face blurred in his vision. “Lord Caz . . . ?”

“Your marriage”—he swallowed again, and forced his numb lips to speak on—“has not lifted the curse from Iselle as I’d hoped. Instead, it has spread it to you both.”

“What?” breathed Bergon.

Tears clogged Cazaril’s voice. “And now I know not what to do . . .”

“How do you know this?” Iselle asked urgently.

“I can see it. I can see it on you both now. If anything, it’s even darker and thicker. More grasping.”

Bergon’s lips parted in dismay. “Did I . . . did we do something wrong? Somehow?”

“No, no! But both Sara and Ista married into the House of Chalion, and into the curse. I thought it was because men and women were different, that it somehow followed the male line of Fonsa’s heirs along with the name.”

“But I am Fonsa’s heir, too,” said Iselle slowly. “And flesh and blood are more than just names. When two become wed, it doesn’t mean that one disappears and only the other remains. We are joined, not subsumed. Oh, is there nothing we can do? There must be something!”

“Ista said,” Cazaril began, and stopped. He was not at all sure he wanted to tell these two decisive young people what Ista had said. Iselle might take thought again . . .

Ignorance is not stupidity, but it might as well be, Iselle had cried. It was much too late to shelter her now. By the wrath of the gods, she was to be the next royina of Chalion. With the right to rule came the duty to protect—the privilege of receiving protection had to be left behind with childhood’s other toys. Even protection from bitter knowledge. Especially from knowledge.

Cazaril swallowed to unlock his throat. “Ista said there was another way.”

He climbed into the chair and sat heavily. In a broken voice, in terms so plain as to be almost brutal, Cazaril repeated the tale Ista had told him of Lord dy Lutez, Roya Ias, and her vision of the goddess. Of the two dark hellish nights in the Zangre’s dungeons with the bound man and the vat of icy water. When he finished, both his listeners were pale and staring.

“I thought—I feared—I might be the one,” Cazaril said. “Because of the night I tried to barter my life for Dondo’s death. I was terrified that I might be the one. Iselle’s dy Lutez, as Ista named me. But I swear before all the gods, if I thought it would work, I’d have you take me outside right now and drown me in the courtyard fountain. Twice. But I cannot become the sacrifice now. My second death must be my last, for the death demon will fly away with my soul and Dondo’s, and I don’t see how there can be any getting it back into my body then.” He rubbed his wet eyes with the back of his hand.

Bergon gazed at his new wife as if his eyes could swallow her. He finally said huskily, “What about me?”

“What?” said Iselle.

“I undertook to come here to save you from this thing. So, the method’s just got a little harder, that’s all. I’m not afraid of the water. What if you drowned me?”

Cazaril’s and Iselle’s instant protests tumbled out together; Cazaril gave way with a little wave of his hand. Iselle repeated, “It was tried once. It was tried, and it didn’t work. I’m not about to drown either one of you, thank you very much! No, nor hang you either, nor any other horrid thing you can think of. No!”

“Besides,” Cazaril put in, “the goddess’s words were, a man must lay down his life three times for the House of Chalion. Not of the House of Chalion.” At least, according to Ista. Had she repeated her vision verbatim? Or did her words embed some treacherous error? Never mind, so long as they deterred Bergon from his horrifying suggestion. “I don’t think you can break the curse from the inside, or it would have been Ias, not dy Lutez, who put himself into the barrel. And, five gods forgive me, Bergon, you are now inside this thing.”

“It feels wrong anyway,” said Iselle, her eyes narrowing. “Some kind of cheat. What was that thing you told me Saint Umegat said, when you’d asked him what you should do? About daily duties?”

“He said I should do my daily duties as they came to me.”

“Well, and so. Surely the gods are not done with us.” She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “It occurs to me . . . my mother lay down twice in childbed for the House of Chalion. She never had the chance for a third such trial. That is certainly a duty that the gods give to one.”

Cazaril considered the havoc that the curse might wreak, intersecting with the hazards of pregnancy and childbirth as it had intersected with the chances of Ias’s and Orico’s battles, and shivered. Barrenness like Sara’s was the least of the potential disasters. “Five gods, Iselle, I think we’d do better to put me into the barrel.”

“And besides,” said Bergon, “the goddess said a man. She did say a man, didn’t She, Caz?”

“Uh . . . that was Lady Ista’s account of the words, yes.”

“The divines say, when the gods instruct men in their pious duties, they mean women, too,” Iselle growled. “You can’t have it both ways. Anyway, I lived under the curse for sixteen years, unknowing. I survived somehow.”

But it’s getting worse now. Stronger. Teidez’s death seemed a fair example to Cazaril of its working out—the boy’s special strengths and virtues, few as they had been, all twisted to a dire ill. Iselle and Bergon between them had many strengths and virtues. The scope for the curse’s distortions was immense.

Iselle and Bergon were gripping hands across the tabletop. Iselle knuckled her eyes with her free hand, pinched the bridge of her nose, and sniffed deeply.

“Curse or no curse,” she said, “we must make dutiful submission to Orico, and at once. So that dy Jironal cannot declare me to be in revolt. If only I were by Orico, I know I could persuade him of the benefit of this marriage to Chalion!”

“Orico is very persuadable,” Cazaril admitted dryly. “It’s making him stay persuaded that’s the difficult part.”

“Yes, and I don’t forget for a moment that dy Jironal is with Orico in Cardegoss. My greatest fear is that the chancellor may, upon hearing this news, somehow persuade Orico to again change the terms of his will.”

“Attach enough of the provincars of Chalion to your party, Royesse, and they may be willing to help you resist any such late codicils.”

Iselle frowned deeply. “I wish we might go up to Cardegoss. I should be by Orico, if this proves to be his deathbed. We should be in the capital when events unfold.”

Cazaril paused, then said, “Difficult. You must not put yourself in dy Jironal’s hands.”

“I had not planned to go unattended.” Her smile flashed darkly, like the moon on a knife blade. “But we should seize every legal nicety as well as every tactical advantage. It would be well to remind the lords of Chalion that all the chancellor’s legal power flows to him through the roya. Only.”

Bergon said uneasily, “You know the man better than I do. Do you think dy Jironal will just sit still at this news?”

“The longer he can be induced to sit, the better. We gain support daily.”

“Have you heard anything of dy Jironal’s response?” Cazaril asked.

“Not yet,” said Bergon.

The time lag ran both ways, alas. “Let me know at once if you do.” Cazaril drew a long breath, flattened out a clean sheet of paper, and picked up a quill. “Now. How do you two wish to style yourselves . . . ?”

The problem of how to deliver this politically vital missive was a trifle delicate, Cazaril reflected, crossing the courtyard below the royal chambers with the signed and sealed document in his hands. It would not do to toss it into a courier bag for delivery at the gallop to the Zangre Chancellery. The article needed a delegation of men of rank not only to give it, and Iselle and Bergon, the proper weight, but also to assure that it was delivered to Orico and not dy Jironal. Trustworthy men must read the letter out accurately to the dying roya in his blindness, and give politic answers to any questions Orico might have about his sister’s precipitate nuptials. Lords and divines—some of each, Cazaril decided. Iselle’s uncle was fitted to recommend suitable men who might ride out fast, and tonight. His stride lengthened, as he started in search of a page or servant to tell him dy Baocia’s whereabouts.

Under the tiled archway into the court, he met Palli and dy Baocia himself, hurrying in. They, too, both still wore their banquet garb.

“Caz!” Palli hailed him. “Where were you at dinner?”

“Resting. I . . . had a bad night.”

“What, and here I’d have sworn you were the only one of us who went to bed sober.”

Cazaril let this one pass. “What’s this?”

Palli held up a sheaf of opened letters. “News from dy Yarrin in Cardegoss, sent in haste by Temple courier. I thought the royse and royesse should know at once. Dy Jironal rode out of the Zangre before midmorning yesterday, none knows where.”

“Did he take troops—no, tell it once. Come on.” Cazaril turned on his heel and led the way back up the gallery stairs to the royal chambers. One of Iselle’s servants admitted them, and went to bring the young couple out to the sitting room again. While they were waiting Cazaril showed them the letter to Orico and explained its contents. The provincar nodded judiciously, and named some likely lords for the task of carrying it to Cardegoss.

Iselle and Bergon entered, Iselle still patting her braided hair into place, and the three men bowed to them. Royse Bergon, at once alert to the papers in Palli’s hand, bade them be seated around the table.

Palli repeated his news of dy Jironal. “The chancellor took only a light force of his household cavalry. It seemed to dy Yarrin that he meant to ride either a short way, or very fast.”

“What news of my brother Orico?” asked Iselle.

“Well, here . . .” Palli passed the letter to her for examination. “With dy Jironal out of the way, dy Yarrin tried at once to get in to see the roya, but Royina Sara said he was asleep, and refused to disturb his rest for any supplication. Since she had undertaken to smuggle in dy Yarrin before despite dy Jironal, he fears the roya may have taken a turn for the worse.”

“What’s the other letter?” asked Bergon.

“Old news, but interesting all the same,” said Palli. “Cazaril, what in the world is the old archdivine saying about you? The commander of the Taryoon troop of the Order of the Son came to me, all a-tremble—he seems to think you’re god-touched and dares not approach you. He wanted to talk to a man who bore Temple oaths like himself. He’d received a copy of an order that had gone out from the Chancellery to all the military posts of the Order of the Son in western Chalion—for your arrest, if it please you, for treason. You are slandered—”

“Again?” murmured Cazaril, taking the letter.

“And accused of sneaking into Ibra to sell Chalion to the Fox. Which, since all the world now knows the real case, falls a trifle flat.”

Cazaril scanned down the order. “I see. This was his net to catch me if his assassins failed at the border. He set it out a bit too late, I’m afraid. As you say, old news.”

“Yes, but it has a sequel. This obedient fool of a troop commander sent a letter in turn to dy Jironal, admitting he’d seen you but excusing himself from arresting you. He protested that the arrest order was clearly a misapprehension. That you had acted under the Royesse Iselle’s orders, and had done great good for Chalion, and no treason; that the marriage was immensely popular with the people of Taryoon. And that everyone thinks the royesse is extremely beautiful, too. That the new Heiress was seen by everyone as wise and good, and a great relief and hope after the disasters of Orico’s reign.”

Dy Baocia snorted. “Which, as they are concomitantly the disasters of dy Jironal’s reign, works out to an unintended insult. Or was it unintended?”

“I rather think so. The man is, um, plain-minded and plainspoken. He says he meant it to help persuade dy Jironal to turn to the royesse’s support.”

“It’s more likely to effect the opposite,” said Cazaril slowly. “It would persuade dy Jironal that his own support is failing rapidly and that he had better take action at once to shore it up. When would dy Jironal have received this sage advice from his subordinate?”

Palli’s lips twisted. “Early yesterday morning.”

“Well . . . there’s nothing in it that he would not have received from other sources by then, I suppose.” Cazaril passed the order over to Bergon, waiting with keen interest.

“So, dy Jironal’s out of Cardegoss,” said Iselle thoughtfully.

“Yes, but gone where?” asked Palli.

Dy Baocia pulled his lip. “If he left with so few men, it has to be to somewhere that his forces are mustered. Somewhere within striking distance of Taryoon. That means either to his son-in-law the provincar of Thistan, to our east, or to Valenda, to our northwest.”

“Thistan is actually closer to us,” said Cazaril.

“But in Valenda, he holds my mother and sister hostage,” said dy Baocia grimly.

“No more now than before,” said Iselle, her voice stiff with suppressed worry. “They bade me go, Uncle . . .”

Bergon was listening with close attention. The Ibran royse had grown up with civil war, Cazaril was reminded; he might be disturbed, but he showed no signs of panic.

“I think we should ride straight for Cardegoss while dy Jironal is out of it, and take possession,” said Iselle.

“If we are to mount such a foray,” her uncle demurred, “we should take Valenda first, free our family, and secure our base. But if dy Jironal is mustering men to attack Taryoon, I do not wish to strip it of defenses.”

Iselle gestured urgently. “But if Bergon and I are out of Taryoon, dy Jironal will have no reason to attack it. Nor Valenda either. It’s me he wants—must have.”

“The vision of dy Jironal ambushing your column on the road, where you are out in the open and vulnerable, doesn’t appeal to me much either,” said Cazaril.

“How many men could you spare to escort us to Cardegoss, Uncle?” Iselle asked. “Mounted. The foot soldiers to follow at their best speed. And how soon could they be mustered?”

“I could have five hundred of horse by tomorrow night, and a thousand of foot the day after,” dy Baocia admitted rather reluctantly. “My two good neighbors could send as many, but not as soon.”

Dy Baocia could pull out double that number from his hat, Cazaril thought, if he weren’t hedging. Too great a care could be as fatal as too great a carelessness when the moment came to hazard all.

Iselle folded her hands in her lap and frowned fiercely. “Then have them make ready. We will keep the predawn vigil of prayers for the Daughter’s Day and attend the procession as we had planned. Uncle, Lord dy Palliar, if it please you send out what men you can find to ride in all directions for news of dy Jironal’s movements. And then we’ll see what new information we have by tomorrow night, and take a final decision then.”

The two men bowed, and hurried out; Iselle bade Cazaril stay a moment.

“I did not wish to argue with my uncle,” she said to him in a tone of doubt, “but I think Valenda is a distraction. What do you think, Cazaril?”

“From the point of view of the roya and royina of Chalion-Ibra . . . it does not command a position of geographic importance. Whoever may hold it.”

“Then let it be a sink for dy Jironal’s forces instead of our own. But I suspect my uncle will be difficult about it.”

Bergon cleared his throat. “The road to Valenda and the road to Cardegoss run together for the first stage. We could put it about that we were making for Valenda, but then strike for Cardegoss instead at the fork.”

“Put it about to who?”

“Everyone. Pretty nearly. Then whatever spies dy Jironal has among us will send him haring off in the wrong direction.”

Yes, actually, this was the son of the Fox of Ibra . . . Cazaril’s brows twitched up in approval.

Iselle thought it over, then frowned. “It works only if my uncle’s men will follow us.”

“If we lead, they’ll have no choice but to follow us, I think.”

“My hope is to avoid a war, not start one,” said Iselle.

“Then not marching up to a town full of the chancellor’s forces makes sense, don’t you think?” said Bergon.

Iselle smiled mistily, leaned over, and kissed him on the cheek; he touched the spot in mild wonder. “We shall both take thought until tomorrow,” she announced. “Cazaril, start that letter toward my brother Orico all the same, as if we meant to sit tight here in Taryoon. Perchance we shall overtake it on the road and deliver it ourselves.”

With dy Baocia’s and the archdivine’s guidance, Cazaril found no lack of eager volunteers in town or temple to take the royesse’s letter to Cardegoss. Men seemed to be flocking to the royal couple’s side. Those who’d missed the wedding itself were now pouring into town for the Daughter’s Day celebration tomorrow. All that youth and beauty acted as a powerful talisman upon men’s hearts; the Lady of Spring’s season of renewal was being strongly identified with Iselle’s impending reign. The trick would be to get the governance of Chalion on a more even footing while the mood held, so that it might still stand strong in less happy hours. Surely no witness here in Taryoon would ever quite forget this time of hope; it would still linger in their eyes when they looked at an older Iselle and Bergon.

Thus Cazaril oversaw a party of a dozen grave men climb into their saddles at a time of night when most men were climbing into their beds. He gave the official documents into the hands of a senior divine, a sober lord who had risen high in the Order of the Father. The March dy Sould rode with them, as Bergon’s witness and spokesman. The earnest ambassadors clattered out of the temple plaza, and Palli walked Cazaril back to dy Baocia’s palace and wished him good night.

The little distracting flurry of action fading in his mind, Cazaril’s steps grew heavy again as he climbed the stairs of his courtyard gallery. The weight of the curse was a secret burden dragging down all bright hopes. A younger Orico had started out his reign just as eager and willing as Iselle, a dozen years ago. As if he’d believed then that if only he applied enough effort, goodwill, steady virtue, he could overcome the black blight. But it had all gone wrong. . . .

There were worse fates than becoming Iselle’s dy Lutez, Cazaril reflected. He might become Iselle’s dy Jironal. How much frustration, how much corrosion could a loyal man endure before going mad, watching such a long slow drain of youth and hope into age and despair? And yet, whatever Orico had been, he had held on long enough for the next generation to gain its chance. Like some doomed little hero holding back a dike of woe, and drowning while the others escaped the tide.

Cazaril readied himself for bed, and his nightly attack, but Dondo was surprisingly quiescent. Exhausted? Recouping his forces? Waiting . . . Despite that malevolent presence and promise, Cazaril slept at last.

A servant woke him an hour before dawn and led him by candlelight down into the courtyard, where the royal couple’s inner household was to have its holy vigil. The air was chill and foggy, but a few faint stars directly overhead promised a fair dawning soon. Ibran-style prayer mats had been arranged around the central fountain, and each person took their station upon them, on knees or prone as they were so moved; Iselle and Bergon knelt side by side. Lady Betriz placed herself between the royesse and Cazaril. Dy Tagille and dy Cembuer, yawning, hurried in to join them on the outer ring of rugs, with some half a dozen other persons of lesser rank. A divine from the temple led a short prayer aloud, then invited all to meditate upon the blessings of the turning season. All over Taryoon, winter’s fires were being extinguished. When all was in readiness, the last candles were blown out. A profound darkness and silence descended.

Quietly, Cazaril laid himself prone upon his rug, arms outstretched. He told over the couple of spring prayers he knew three times each, but then gave up trying to fill his mind with rote words to keep his thoughts out. If he let his thoughts run their course, perhaps some silence would follow. And in it he might hear . . . what?

He changed the subject, Betriz had charged, when the answers were too difficult for him. He’d tried to do so to the gods. He hadn’t fooled them either, apparently.

Ista had been given her chance to lift the curse, and failed; and had failed, it seemed, for her generation. If he failed, he suspected he would not be allowed to go around to try again. So would Iselle or Bergon or both get to be the new Orico, holding back the tide until they foundered, to create the next chance?

They will be vastly unlucky in their children. He knew it, suddenly, with a cold clarity. The whole of their scheme for peace and order rode upon the hope of a strong, bright heir to follow them both. They would pour themselves until empty into children miscarried, dead, mad, exiled, betrayed . . .

I’d storm heaven for you, if I knew where it was.

He knew where it was. It was on the other side of every living person, every living creature, as close as the other side of a coin, the other side of a door. Every soul was a potential portal to the gods. I wonder what would happen if we all opened up at once? Would it flood the world with miracle, drain heaven? He had a sudden vision of saints as the gods’ irrigation system, like the one around Zagosur; a rational and careful opening and closing of sluice gates to deliver each little soul-farm its just portion of benison. Except that this felt more like floodwaters backed up behind a cracking dam.

Ghosts were exiles upon the wrong border, people turned inside out. Why didn’t it work the other way around? What would it be like to be an anti-ghost of flesh let loose in a world of spirit? Would one be frustratingly invisible to most spirits, impotent there, as ghosts were invisible to most men?

And if I can see ghosts sundered from their bodies, why I can’t see them when they’re still in their bodies? Had he ever tried? How many people were ranged around him right now? He closed his eyes and tried to see them in the dark with his inner sight. His senses were still confused by matter; somewhere in the outer rank of prayer rugs, someone started to snore, and was nudged awake with a startled grunt by a snickering companion. If only it worked that way, it would be like seeing through a window into heaven.

If the gods saw people’s souls but not their bodies, in mirror to the way people saw bodies but not souls, it might explain why the gods were so careless of such things as appearance, or other bodily functions. Such as pain? Was pain an illusion, from the gods’ point of view? Perhaps heaven was not a place, but merely an angle of view, a vantage, a perspective.

And at the moment of death, we slide through altogether. Losing our anchor in matter, gaining . . . what? Death ripped a hole between the worlds.

And if one death ripped a little hole in the world, quickly healed, what would it take to rip a bigger hole? Not a mere postern gate to slip out of, but a wide breach, mined and sapped, one that holy armies might pour in through?

If a god died, what kind of hole would it rip between earth and heaven? What was the Golden General’s blessing-curse anyway, this exiled thing from the other side? What kind of portal had the Roknari genius opened for himself, what kind of channel had he been . . . ?

Cazaril’s swollen belly cramped, and he rolled a little sideways to give it ease. I am a most peculiar locus at present. Two exiles from the world of spirit were trapped inside his flesh. The demon, which did not belong here at all, and Dondo, who should have left but was anchored by his unrelinquished sins. Dondo did not desire the gods. Dondo was a clot of self-will, a leaden plug, digging into his body with claws like grappling hooks. If not for Dondo, he could run away.

Could I?

He imagined it . . . suppose this lethal anchor were suddenly and—ha—miraculously removed. He could run away . . . but then he’d never know how it might have worked out. That Cazaril. If only he’d hung on another day, another mile, he might have saved the world. But he quit just an hour too soon . . . Now, there was a damnation to make the sundered ghosts seem a faint quaint amusement. A lifetime—an eternity?—of second-guessing himself.

But the only way ever to know for certain was to ride it out all the way to his destruction.

Five gods, I am surely mad. I believe I would limp all the way to the Bastard’s hell for that frightful curiosity’s sake.

Around him, he could hear the others breathing, the occasional little rustle of fabric. The fountain burbled gently. The sounds comforted him. He felt very alone, but at least it was in good company.

Welcome to sainthood, Cazaril. By the gods’ blessings, you get to host miracles! The catch is, you don’t get to choose what they are. . . .

Betriz had it exactly backward. It wasn’t a case of storming heaven. It was a case of letting heaven storm you. Could an old siege-master learn to surrender, to open his gates?

Into your hands, O lords of light, I commend my soul. Do what you must to mend the world. I am at your service.

The sky was brightening, turning from Father Winter’s gray to the Daughter’s own fine blue. In the shadowed court, Cazaril could see the shapes of his companions begin to shade and fill with the light’s gift of color. The scent of the orange blossoms hung heavily in the dawn damp, and more faintly, the perfume of Betriz’s hair. Cazaril pushed back up onto his knees, stiff and cold.

From somewhere in the palace, a man’s bellow split the air, and was abruptly cut off. A woman shrieked.