The Curse of Chalion

Chapter 3

The sounds of the household stirring—calls from the courtyard, the distant clank of pots—woke Cazaril in the predawn gray. He opened his eyes to a moment of panicked disorientation, but the reassuring embrace of the feather bed drew him down again into drowsy repose. Not a hard bench. Not moving up and down. Not moving at all, oh five gods, that was very heaven. So warm, on his knotted back.

The Daughter’s Day celebrations would run from dawn till dark. Perhaps he would lie slugabed till the household had departed for the procession, then get up late. Creep around unobtrusively, lie in the sun with the castle cats. When he grew hungry, dredge up old memories from his days as a page—he’d used to know how to charm the cook for an extra tidbit . . .

A crisp knock on the door interrupted these pleasant meditations. Cazaril jerked, then relaxed again as Lady Betriz’s voice followed: “My lord dy Cazaril? Are you awake? Castillar?”

“A moment, my lady,” Cazaril called back. He wallowed to the bed’s edge and tore himself from the loving clutch of the mattress. A woven rush mat on the floor kept the morning cold of the stone from nipping his bare feet. He shook the generous linen of the nightgown down over his legs, shuffled to the door, and opened it a crack. “Yes?”

She stood in the corridor with a candle shielded by a blown-glass lantern in one hand and a pile of cloth, leather straps, and something that clanked wedged awkwardly under her other arm. She was fully dressed for the day in a blue gown with a white vest-cloak that fell from shoulder to ankle. Her dark hair was braided up on her head with flowers and leaves. Her velvet brown eyes were merry, glinting in the candle’s glow. Cazaril could not help but smile back.

“Her Grace the Provincara bids you a blessed Daughter’s Day,” she announced, and startled Cazaril into jumping backward by firmly kicking the door open. She rocked her loaded hips through, handed off the candle holder to him with a Here, take this, and dumped her burden on the edge of the bed: piles of blue and white cloth, and a sword with a belt. Cazaril set the candle down on the chest at the foot of the bed. “She sends you these to wear, and if it please you bids you join the household in the ancestors’ hall for the dawn prayers. After which we will break our fast, which, she says, you know well where to find.”

“Indeed, my lady.”

“Actually, I asked Papa for the sword. It’s his second-best one. He said it would be an honor to loan it to you.” She turned a highly interested gaze upon him. “Is it true you were in the late war?”

“Uh . . . which one?”

“You’ve been in more than one?” Her eyes widened, then narrowed.

All of them for the last seventeen years, I think. Well, no. He’d sat out the most recent abortive campaign against Ibra in the dungeons of Brajar, and missed that foolish expedition the roya had sent in support of Darthaca because he’d been busy being inventively tormented by the Roknari general with whom the provincar of Guarida was bargaining so ineptly. Besides those two, he didn’t think there had been a defeat in the last decade he’d missed. “Here and there, over the years,” he answered vaguely. He was suddenly horridly conscious that there was nothing between his nakedness and her maiden eyes but a thin layer of linen. He twitched inward, clutching his arms across his belly, and smiled weakly.

“Oh,” she said, following his gesture. “Have I embarrassed you? But Papa says soldiers have no modesty, on account of having to live all together in the field.”

She returned her eyes to his face, which was heating. Cazaril got out, “I was thinking of your modesty, my lady.”

“That’s all right,” she said cheerfully.

She didn’t go away.

He nodded toward the pile of clothes. “I didn’t wish to intrude upon the family during celebration. Are you sure . . . ?”

She clasped her hands together earnestly and intensified her gaze. “But you must come to the procession, and you must, you must, you must come to the Daughter’s Day quarter-gifting at the temple. The Royesse Iselle is going to play the part of the Lady of Spring this year.” She bounced on her toes in her importunity.

Cazaril smiled sheepishly. “Very well, if it please you.” How could he resist all this urgent delight? Royesse Iselle must be rising sixteen; he wondered how old Lady Betriz was. Too young for you, old fellow. But surely he might watch her with a purely aesthetic appreciation, and thank the goddesses for her gifts of youth, beauty, and verve howsoever they were scattered. Brightening the world like flowers.

“And besides,” Lady Betriz cinched it, “the Provincara bids you.”

Cazaril seized the opportunity to light his candle from hers and, by way of a hint that it was time for her to go away and let him dress, handed the glass-globed flame back to her. The doubled light that made her more lovely doubtless made him less so. She’d just turned to go when he bethought him of his prudent question, unanswered last night.

“Wait, lady—”

She turned back with a look of bright inquiry.

“I didn’t want to trouble the Provincara, or ask in front of the royse or royesse, but what grieves the Royina Ista? I don’t want to say or do something wrong, out of ignorance . . .”

The light in her eyes died a little. She shrugged. “She’s . . . weary. And nervous. Nothing more. We hope she will feel better, with the coming of the sun. She always seems to do better, in the summertime.”

“How long has she been living here with her mother?”

“These six years, sir.” She gave him a little half curtsey. “Now I have to go to Royesse Iselle. Don’t be late, Castillar!” Her smile dimpled at him again, and she darted out.

He could not imagine that young lady being late anywhere. Her energy was appalling. Shaking his head, though the smile she’d left him still lingered on his lips, he turned to examine the new largesse.

He was certainly moving up to a better grade of castoffs. The tunic was blue silk brocade, the trousers heavy dark blue linen, and the knee-length vest-cloak white wool, all clean, the little mends and stains quite unobtrusive; dy Ferrej’s festival gear outgrown, perhaps, or possibly even something packed away from the late provincar. The loose fit was forgiving of this change in ownership. With the sword hung at his left hip, familiar/unfamiliar weight, Cazaril hurried down out of the keep and across the gray courtyard to the household’s ancestors’ hall.

The air of the courtyard was chill and damp, the cobbles slippery under his thin boot soles. Overhead, a few stars still lingered. Cazaril eased open the big plank door to the hall and peered inside. Candles, figures; was he late? He slipped within, his eyes adjusting.

Not late but early. The tiers of little family memori boards at the front of the room had half a dozen old candle stubs burning before them. Two women, huddled into shawls, sat on the front bench watching over a third.

The Dowager Royina Ista lay before the altar in the attitude of deepest supplication, prone upon the floor, her arms outflung. Her fingers curled and uncurled; the nails were bitten down to the red. A muddle of nightgowns and shawls puddled around her. Her masses of crinkly hair, once gold, now darkened by age to a dull dun, spread out around her head like a fan. For a moment, Cazaril wondered if she had fallen asleep, so still did she lie. But in her pale face, turned sideways with her soft cheek resting directly on the floor, her eyes were open, gray and unblinking, filled with unshed tears.

It was a face of the most profound grief; Cazaril was put in mind of men’s looks that he had seen, broken in not just body but soul by the dungeon or the horrors of the galleys. Or of his own, seen dimly in a polished steel mirror in the Mother’s house in Ibra, when the acolytes had shaved his nerveless face and encouraged him to look, see, wasn’t that better? Yet he was quite certain the royina had never been within smelling distance of a dungeon in her life, never felt the bite of the lash, never, perhaps, even felt a man’s hand raised against her in anger. What, then? He stood still, lips parted, afraid to speak.

At a creak and a bustle behind him, he glanced round to see the Dowager Provincara, attended by her cousin, slip inside. She flicked an eyebrow at him in passing; he jerked a little bow. The waiting women attending upon the royina started, and rose, offering ghostly curtseys.

The Provincara strode up the aisle between the benches and studied her daughter expressionlessly. “Oh, dear. How long has she been here?”

One of the waiting women half curtseyed again. “She rose in the night, Your Grace. We thought it better to let her come down than to fight her. As you instructed . . .”

“Yes, yes.” The Provincara waved away this nervous excuse. “Did she get any sleep at all?”

“One or two hours, I think, my lady.”

The Provincara sighed, and knelt by her daughter. Her voice went gentle, all the tartness drained out; for the first time, Cazaril heard the age in it.

“Ista, heart. Rise and go back to bed. Others will take over the praying today.”

The prone woman’s lips moved, twice, before words whispered out. “If the gods hear. If they hear, they do not speak. Their faces are turned from me, Mother.”

Almost awkwardly, the old woman stroked her hair. “Others will pray today. We’ll light all the candles new, and try again. Let your ladies put you back to bed. Up, now.”

The royina sniffed, blinked, and, reluctantly, rose. At a jerk of the Provincara’s head, the waiting ladies hurried forward to guide the royina out of the hall, gathering up her dropping shawls behind her. Cazaril searched her face anxiously as she passed, but found no signs of wasting illness, no yellow tinge to her skin or eyes, no emaciation. She scarcely seemed to see Cazaril; no recognition flickered in her eyes for the bearded stranger. Well, there was no reason she should remember him, merely one of dozens of pages in and out of dy Baocia’s household over the years.

The Provincara’s head turned back as the door closed behind her daughter. Cazaril was close enough to see her quiet sigh.

He made her a deeper bow. “I thank you for these festival garments, Your Grace. If . . .” he hesitated. “If there’s anything I can do to ease your burdens, lady, or those of the royina, just ask.”

She smiled, and took his hand and patted it rather absently, but didn’t answer. She went to open the window shutters on the room’s east side, to let in the peach-colored dawn glow.

Around the altar, Lady dy Hueltar blew out the candles and gathered up all the stubby ends in a basket brought for that purpose. The Provincara and Cazaril went to help her replace the sad lumps in each holder with a fresh, new beeswax candle. When the dozens of candles were standing up like young soldiers each in front of their respective tablets, the Provincara stepped back and gave a satisfied nod.

The rest of the household began arriving then, and Cazaril took a seat out of the way on a back bench. Cooks, servants, stableboys, pages, the huntsman and the falconer, the upper housekeeper, the castle warder, all in their best clothes, with as much blue and white as could be managed, filed in and sat. Then Lady Betriz led in Royesse Iselle, fully dressed and a trifle stiff in the elaborate, multilayered and brilliantly embroidered robes of the Lady of Spring, whose part she was selected to play today. They took an attentive seat on a front bench and managed not to giggle together. They were followed by a divine of the Holy Family from the temple in town, his vestments too changed from yesterday’s black-and-gray robes of the Father to the blue-and-white of the Daughter. The divine led the assembly in a short service for the succession of the season and the peace of the dead here represented, and, as the first rays of sun fingered through the east window, ceremonially extinguished the last candle left burning, the last flame anywhere in the household.

All then adjourned for a cold breakfast set up on trestles in the courtyard. Cold, but not sparing; Cazaril reminded himself that he needn’t try to make up for three years of privation in a day, and that he had some up- and downhill walking coming up soon. Still, he was happily replete when the royesse’s white mule was led in.

It, too, was decorated with ribbons of blue and fresh early flowers braided into its mane and tail. Its hangings were gloriously elaborated with all the symbols of the Lady of Spring. Iselle in her Temple garments, her hair arranged to ripple down like an amber waterfall over her shoulders from under her crown of leaves and flowers, was loaded carefully into her saddle, and her drapes and panels arranged. This time, she used a mounting block and the assistance of a couple of hefty young pages. The divine took the mule’s blue silk rope to lead her out the gate. The Provincara was hoisted aboard a sedate chestnut mare with showy white socks, also braided with ribbons and flowers, led by her castle warder. Cazaril muffled a belch, and at dy Ferrej’s beckoning hastened to position himself after the mounted ladies, courteously offering his arm to the Lady dy Hueltar. The rest of the household, those who were going, also fell in behind on foot.

The whole merry mob wound down through the streets of town to the old east gate, where the procession was to formally begin. Some couple of hundred people waited there, including fifty or so mounted horsemen from the Daughter’s guardsmen’s associations drawn from all around the hinterlands of Valenda. Cazaril walked right under the nose of the burly soldier who’d dropped him that mistaken coin in the mud yesterday, but the man gazed back at him without recognition, merely a courteous nod for his silks and his sword. And his trim and his bath, Cazaril supposed. How strangely we are blinded by the surfaces of things. The gods, presumably, saw straight through. He wondered if the gods found this as uncomfortable as he sometimes did, these days.

He put his odd thoughts aside as the procession formed up. The divine turned Iselle’s lead line over to the elderly gentleman who’d been selected to play the part of the Father of Winter. In the winter procession a young new father would have taken the god’s place, his dark garb neat as a judge’s, and he’d have ridden a fine black horse that the outgoing and ragged Son of Autumn led. Today’s grandfather wore a collection of gray rags that made Cazaril’s late wear look positively like a burgher’s, his beard and hair and bare calves streaked with ashes. He smiled and made some joke up at Iselle; she laughed. The guardsmen formed up behind the pair, and the whole parade began its circuit of the old town walls, or as nearly as it could come to them with the new building all around. Some Temple acolytes followed between the guardsmen and the rest, to lead the singing, and encourage everyone to use the proper words and not the rude versions.

Any townspeople not in the procession played the audience, and threw, mostly, flowers and herbs. In the van, Cazaril could see the usual few young unmarried women dart in to touch the Daughter’s garments for luck in finding a husband this season, and flurry off again, giggling. After a goodly morning walk—thank heavens for the mild lovely weather, one memorable spring they’d done this in a sleet storm—the whole straggling train snaked round to the east gate once more, and filed through to the temple in the town’s heart.

The temple stood on the one side of the town square, surrounded by a bit of garden and a low stone wall. It was built in the usual four-lobed pattern, like a four-leafed clover around its central court. Its walls were the golden native stone that so eased Cazaril’s heart, capped with the local red tile. One domed lobe held the altar for the god of each season; the Bastard’s separate round tower directly back of his Mother’s gate held his.

The Lady dy Hueltar ruthlessly dragged Cazaril to the front as the royesse was unloaded from her mule and led beneath the portico. He found Lady Betriz had taken up station on his other side. She craned her neck to follow Iselle. Beneath Cazaril’s nose the fresh odor from the flowers and foliage twined around her head mingled with the warm scent of her hair, surely spring’s own exhalation. The crowd pressed them onward through the wide-flung doors.

Inside, with the slanted shadows of morning still dimming the paved main courtyard, the Father of Winter cleaned the last of the ash from the raised hearth of the central holy fire and sprinkled it about his person. The acolytes hurried forward to lay the new tinder and wood, which the divine blessed. The ashy graybeard was then driven from the chamber with hoots, catcalls, little sticks with bells, and missiles of soft wool representing snowballs. It was considered an unlucky year, at least by the god’s avatar, when the crowd could use real snowballs.

The Lady of Spring in the person of Iselle was then led forward to light the new fire from flint and steel. She knelt on the cushions provided, and bit her lip charmingly in her concentration as she mounded up the dry shavings and sacred herbs. All held their breaths; a dozen superstitions surrounded the matter of how many tries it took the ascending god’s avatar to light the new fire each season.

Three quick strikes, a shower of sparks, a puff of young breath; the tiny flame caught. Quickly, the divine bent to light the new taper before any unfortunate failure could occur. None did. A murmur of relieved approval rose all round. The little flame was transferred to the holy hearth, and Iselle, looking smug and a trifle relieved, was helped to her feet. Her gray eyes seemed to burn as brightly and cheerfully as the new flame.

She was then led to the throne of the reigning god, and the real business of the morning began: collecting the quarterly gifts to the temple that would keep it running for the next three months. Each head of a household stepped forward to lay their little purse of coins or other offering in the Lady’s hands, be blessed, and have the amount recorded by the temple’s secretary at the table to Iselle’s right. They were then led off to receive in return their taper with the new fire, to return to their house. The Provincara’s household was the first, by order of rank; the purse that the castle warder laid in Iselle’s hands was heavy with gold. Other men of worth stepped forward. Iselle smiled and received and blessed; the chief divine smiled and transferred and thanked; the secretary smiled and recorded and piled.

Beside Cazaril, Betriz stiffened with . . . excitement? She gripped Cazaril’s left arm briefly. “The next one is that vile judge, Vrese,” she hissed in his ear. “Watch!”

A dour-looking fellow of middle years, richly dressed in dark blue velvets and gold chains, stepped up to the Lady’s throne with his purse in his hand. With a tight smile, he held it out. “The House of Vrese presents its offering to the goddess,” he intoned nasally. “Bless us in the coming season, my lady.”

Iselle folded her hands in her lap. She raised her chin, looked across at Vrese with an absolutely level, unsmiling stare, and said in a clear, carrying voice, “The Daughter of Spring receives honest hearts’ offerings. She does not accept bribes. Honorable Vrese. Your gold means more to you than anything. You may keep it.”

Vrese stepped back a half pace; his mouth opened in shock, and hung there. The stunned silence spread out in waves to the back of the crowd, to return in a rising mutter of What? What did she say? I didn’t hear . . . What? The chief divine’s face drained. The recording secretary looked up with an expression of jolted horror.

A well-attired man waiting toward the front of the line vented a sharp crack of gleeful laughter; his lips drew back in an expression that had little to do with humor, but much with appreciation of cosmic justice. Beside Cazaril, Lady Betriz bounced on her toes and hissed through her teeth. A trail of choked snickers followed the whispers of explanation trickling back through the mob of townspeople like a small spring freshet.

The judge switched his glare to the chief divine, and made an odd little abortive jerk of his hand, the bagged offering in it, toward him instead. The divine’s hands opened and clenched again, at his sides. He stared across beseechingly at the enthroned avatar of the goddess. “Lady Iselle,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth, not quite lowly enough, “you can’t . . . we can’t . . . does the goddess speak to you, in this?”

Iselle returned, not nearly so lowly, “She speaks in my heart. Doesn’t she in yours? And besides, I asked her to sign me approval by giving me the first flame, and she did.” Perfectly composed, she leaned around the frozen judge, smiled brightly at the next townsman in line, and invited, “You, sir?”

Perforce, the judge stepped aside, especially as the next man in line, grinning, had no hesitation at all in stepping up and shouldering past.

An acolyte, jerked into motion by a glare from his superior, hurried forward to invite the judge to step out somewhere and discuss this contretemps. His slight reach toward the offering purse was knifed right through by an icy frown tossed at him by the royesse; he clapped his hands behind his back and bowed the fuming judge away. Across the courtyard, the Provincara, seated, pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger, wiped her hand over her mouth, and stared in exasperation at her granddaughter. Iselle merely raised her chin and continued blandly exchanging the goddess’s blessings for the gifts of the quarter-day with a line of suddenly no longer bored nor perfunctory townsmen.

As she worked her way down through the town’s households, such gifts in kind as chickens, eggs, and a bull-calf were collected outside, their bearers alone entering the sacred precincts to collect their blessing and their new fire. Lady dy Hueltar and Betriz went to join the Provincara on her courtesy bench, and Cazaril took up station behind it with the castle warder, who favored his demure daughter with a suspicious parental frown. Most of the crowd drifted away; the royesse continued cheerfully in her sacred duty down to the last and least, thanking a wood-gatherer, a charcoal burner, and a beggar—who for his gift sang a hymn—in the same even tones as she’d blessed the first men of Valenda.

The storm in the Provincara’s face didn’t break till the whole family party had returned to the castle for the afternoon feast.

Cazaril found himself leading her horse, as her castle warder dy Ferrej had taken a firm and prudent grip on the lead line of Iselle’s white mule. Cazaril’s plan to quietly absent himself was thwarted when, helped down off her chestnut mare by her servants, the Provincara demanded shortly, “Castillar, give me your arm.” Her grip around it was tight and trembling. Through thinned lips, she added, “Iselle, Betriz, dy Ferrej, in here.” She jerked her head toward the plank doors of the ancestors’ hall, just off the castle courtyard.

Iselle had left her festal garments at the temple when the ceremonies had concluded, and was merely a young woman in pretty blue and white once more. No, Cazaril decided, watching her decided chin come up again; merely a royesse once more. Beneath that apprehensive surface glowed an alarming determination. Cazaril held the door as they all filed past, including Lady dy Hueltar. When he’d been a young page, Cazaril thought ruefully, his instinct for danger spilling down from on high would have sped him off at this point. But dy Ferrej stopped and waited for him, and he followed.

The hall was quiet, empty now, though warmly lit by the ranks of candles on the altar that would be allowed to burn all day today until entirely consumed. The wooden benches were polished to a subdued gleam in the candlelight by many pious—or restive—prior occupants. The Provincara stepped to the front of the room, and turned on the two girls, who drew together under her stern eye.

“All right. Which of you had that idea?”

Iselle took a half step forward, and gave a tiny curtsey. “It was mine, Grandmama,” she said in almost, but not quite, as clear a voice as in the temple courtyard. She offered after another moment under that dour gaze, “Though Betriz thought of asking the first flame for confirmation.”

Dy Ferrej wheeled on his daughter. “You knew this was coming up? And you didn’t tell me?”

Betriz gave him a curtsey that was an echo of Iselle’s, right down to the unbent backbone. “I had understood I was assigned to be the royesse’s handmaiden, Papa. Not anybody’s spy. If my first loyalty was to be to anyone but Iselle, no one ever told me. Guard her honor with your life, you said.” After a moment she added more cautiously, undercutting this fine speech a trifle, “Besides, I couldn’t know it was going to happen till after she had struck the first flame.”

Dy Ferrej abandoned the young sophist and made a helpless gesture to the Provincara.

“You are older, Betriz,” said the Provincara to her. “We thought you’d be a calming influence. Teach Iselle the duties of a pious maiden.” Her lips twisted. “As when Beetim the huntsman couples the young hounds to the older ones. Alas that I did not give your upbringing over to him, instead of to these useless governesses.”

Betriz blinked, and offered another curtsey. “Yes, my lady.”

The Provincara eyed her, suspicious of concealed humor. Cazaril bit his lip.

Iselle took a deep breath. “If tolerating injustice and turning a blind eye to men’s tragic and unnecessary damnations are among the first duties of a pious maiden, then the divines never taught it to me!”

“No, of course not,” the Provincara snapped. For the first time, her harsh voice softened with a shade of persuasion. “But justice is not your task, heart.”

“The men whose task it was appear to have neglected it. I am not a milkmaid. If I have a greater privilege in Chalion, surely I have a greater duty to Chalion as well. The divine and the good dedicat have both told me so!” She shot a defying look at the hovering Lady dy Hueltar.

“I was talking about you attending to your studies, Iselle,” Lady dy Hueltar protested.

“When the divines talked of your pious duties, Iselle,” dy Ferrej added, “they didn’t mean . . . they didn’t mean . . .”

“They didn’t mean me to take them seriously?” she inquired sweetly.

Dy Ferrej sputtered. Cazaril sympathized. An innocent with the moral advantage, and as feckless and ignorant of her dangers as the new pup the Provincara had compared her to—Cazaril was profoundly thankful that he had no part in this.

The Provincara’s nostrils flared. “For now, you may both go to your chambers and stay there. I’d set you both to read scriptures for a penance, but . . . ! I will decide later if you will be permitted to come to the feast. Good Dedicat, follow after and make sure they arrive. Go!” She gestured imperiously. As Cazaril made to follow, her sweeping arm stopped in midair, and she pointed firmly downward. “Castillar, dy Ferrej, attend a moment.” Lady Betriz shot a curious glance over her shoulder as she was ushered out. Iselle marched head high, and didn’t look back.

“Well,” said dy Ferrej wearily after a moment, “we did hope they would become friends.”

Her young audience removed, the Provincara permitted herself a rueful smile. “Alas, yes.”

“How old is the Lady Betriz?” Cazaril asked curiously, staring after the closing door.

“Nineteen,” answered her father with a sigh.

Well, her age was not quite so disparate from his as Cazaril had thought, though her experience surely was.

“I really did think Betriz would be a good influence,” dy Ferrej added. “It seems to have worked the other way around.”

“Are you accusing my granddaughter of corrupting your daughter?” the Provincara inquired wryly.

“Say, inspiring, rather,” dy Ferrej said, with a glum shrug. “Terrifying, that. I wonder . . . I wonder if we should part them?”

“There would follow much howling.” Wearily, the Provincara seated herself on a bench, gesturing the men to do likewise: “Don’t want a crick in my neck.” Cazaril clasped his hands between his knees and waited her pleasure, whatever it was to be. She must have dragged him along in here for something. She stared thoughtfully at him for a long moment.

“You have a fresh eye, Cazaril,” she said at last. “Do you have any suggestions?”

Cazaril’s brows climbed. “I’ve had the training of young soldiers, lady. Never of young maidens. I’m quite out of my depth, here.” He hesitated, then spoke almost despite himself. “It looks to me to be a trifle too late to teach Iselle to be a coward. But you might draw her attention to how little firsthand evidence she jumped from. How could she be so sure the judge was as guilty as rumor would have him? Hearsay, gossip? Even some apparent evidence can lie.” Cazaril thought ruefully of the bath man’s assumptions about the witness of his back. “It won’t help for today’s incident, but it might slow her down in future.” He added in a drier voice, “And you might look to be more careful what gossip you discuss in front of her.”

Dy Ferrej winced.

“In front of either one of them,” said the Provincara. “Four ears, one mind—or one conspiracy.” She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at him. “Cazaril . . . you speak and write Darthacan, do you not?”

Cazaril blinked at this sidewise jink in the conversation. “Yes, my lady . . . ?”

“And Roknari?”

“My, ah, court Roknari is a little rusty at present. Granted, my vile Roknari is quite fluent.”

“And geography? You know the geography of Chalion, of Ibra, of the Roknari princedoms?”

“Five gods, that I do, my lady. What I haven’t ridden over, I’ve walked, what I haven’t walked, I’ve been dragged across. Or through. I’ve had geography ground into my skin. And I’ve rowed round half the Archipelago at least.”

“And you write, you cipher, you keep books—you’ve done letters, reports, treaties, logistical orders . . .”

“My hand may be a trifle shaky at present, but yes, I’ve done all that,” he admitted with belatedly rising wariness. Where was she going with this interrogation?

“Yes, yes!” She clapped her hands together; Cazaril flinched at the sharp noise. “The gods have surely landed you upon my wrist. Bastard’s demons take me if I haven’t the wit to jess you.”

Cazaril smiled bewildered inquiry.

“Cazaril, you said you sought a post. I have one for you.” She sat back triumphantly. “Secretary-tutor to the Royesse Iselle!”

Cazaril felt his jaw unhinge. He blinked stupidly at her. “What?”

“Teidez already has his own secretary, who keeps the books of his chambers, writes his letters, such as they are . . . it’s time Iselle possessed her own warder, at the gate between her women’s world and the greater one she’ll have to deal with. And besides, none of those stupid governesses have ever been able to handle her. She needs a man’s authority, that’s what. You have the rank, you have the experience . . .” The Provincara . . . grinned, was all one could call that horrifying gleeful expression. “What do you think, my lord Castillar?”

Cazaril swallowed. “I think . . . I think if you lent me a razor now, for me to cut my throat with, it would save ever so many steps. Please Your Grace.”

The Provincara snorted. “Good, Cazaril, good. I do so like a man who doesn’t underestimate his situation.”

Dy Ferrej, who’d at first looked startled and alarmed, eyed Cazaril with new interest.

“I’ll wager you could direct her mind to her Darthacan declensions. You’ve been there, after all, which none of these fool women have,” the Provincara went on, gaining enthusiasm. “Roknari, too, though we all pray she’ll never need that. Read Brajaran poetry to her, you used to like that, I remember. Deportment—you’ve served at the roya’s court, the gods know. Come, come, Cazaril, don’t look at me like a lost calf. It would be easy work for you, in your convalescence. Eh, don’t imagine I can’t see how sick you’ve been,” she added at his little negating gesture. “You wouldn’t have to answer but two letters a week at most. Less. And you’ve ridden courier—when you rode out with the girls, I wouldn’t have to listen to a lot of wheezing and whining afterward about saddle galls from those women with thighs like dough. As for keeping the books of her chamber—why, after running a fortress, it should be child’s play for you. What say you, dear Cazaril?”

The vision was at once enticing and appalling. “Couldn’t you give me a fortress under siege, instead?”

The humor faded in her face. She leaned forward, and tapped him on the knee; her voice dropped, and she breathed, “She will be, soon enough.” She paused, and studied him. “You asked if there was anything you could do to ease my burdens. For the most part, the answer is no. You can’t make me young, you can’t make . . . many things better.” Cazaril wondered anew how the strange fragile health of her daughter weighed upon her. “But can’t you give me this one little yes?”

She begged him. She begged him. That was all wrong. “I am yours to command, of course, lady, of course. It’s just . . . it’s just that . . . are you sure?”

“You are not a stranger here, Cazaril. And I am in the most desperate need of a man I can trust.”

His heart melted. Or maybe it was his wits. He bowed his head. “Then I am yours.”

“Iselle’s.”

Cazaril, his elbows on his knees, glanced up and across at her, at the thoughtfully frowning dy Ferrej, and back at the old woman’s intent face. “I . . . see.”

“I believe you do. And that, Cazaril, is why I shall have you for her.”