Paladin of Souls

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  There was, apparently, no danger of that. Caria of Palma pointed out her fellow pilgrims, favoring Ista with a rambling account of their stations, origins, and holy goals; and if they rode sufficiently far out of earshot, with opinions of their manners and morals thrown in gratis. Besides the amused veteran dedicat of the Son of Autumn and his blushing boy, the party included four men from a weavers' fraternity who went to pray to the Father of Winter for a favorable outcome of a lawsuit; a man wearing the ribbons of the Mother of Summer, who prayed for the safety of a daughter nearing childbirth; and a woman whose sleeve sported the blue and white of the Daughter of Spring, who prayed for a husband for her daughter. A thin woman in finely cut green robes of an acolyte of the Mother's Order, with a maid and two servants of her own, turned out to be neither midwife nor physician, but a comptroller. A wine merchant rode to give thanks and redeem his pledge to the Father for his safe return with his caravan, almost lost the previous winter in the snowy mountain passes to Ibra.

  The pilgrims within hearing, who had evidently been riding with Caria for some days now, rolled their eyes variously as she talked on, and on. An exception was an obese young man in the white garb, grimed from the road, of a divine of the Bastard. He rode along quietly with a book open atop the curve of his belly, his muddy white mule's reins slack, and glanced up only when he came to turn a page, blinking nearsightedly and smiling muzzily.

  The Widow Caria peered at the sun, which had topped the sky. "I can hardly wait to get to Valenda. There is a famous inn where we are to eat that specializes in the most delicious roast suckling pigs." She smacked her lips in anticipation.

  "There is such an inn in Valenda, yes," said Ista. She had never eaten there, she realized, not in all her years of residence.

  The Mother's comptroller, who had been one of the widow's more pained involuntary listeners, pursed her mouth in disapproval. "I shall take no meat," she announced. "I made a vow that no gross flesh would cross my lips upon this journey."

  Caria leaned over and muttered to Ista, "If she'd made a vow to swallow her pride, instead of her salads, it would have been more to the point for a pilgrimage, I'm thinking." She sat up again, grinning; the Mother's comptroller sniffed and pretended not to have heard.

  The merchant with the Father's gray-and-black ribbons on his sleeve remarked as if to the air, "I'm sure the gods have no use for pointless chatter. We should be using our time better—discussing high-minded things to prepare our minds for prayer, not our bellies for dinner."

  Caria leered at him, "Aye, or lower parts for better things still? And you ride with the Father's favor on your sleeve, too! For shame."

  The merchant stiffened. "That is not the aspect of the god to which I intend—or need—to pray, I assure you, madam!"

  The divine of the Bastard glanced up from his book and murmured peaceably, "The gods rule all parts of us, from top to toe. There is a god for everyone, and every part."

  "Your god has notably low tastes," observed the merchant, still stung.

  "None who open their hearts to any one of the Holy Family shall be excluded. Not even the priggish." The divine bowed over his belly at the merchant.

  Caria gave a cheerful crack of laughter; the merchant snorted indignation, but desisted. The divine returned to his book.

  Caria whispered to Ista, "I like that fat fellow, I do. Doesn't say much, but when he speaks, it's to the point. Bookish men usually have no patience with me, and I surely don't understand them. But that one does have lovely manners. Though I do think a man should get him a wife, and children, and do the work that pays for them, and not go haring off after the gods. Now, I have to admit, my dear second husband didn't—work, that is—but then, he drank. Drank himself to death eventually, to the relief of all who knew him, five gods rest his spirit." She signed herself, touching forehead, lip, navel, groin, and heart, spreading her hand wide over her plump breast. She pursed her lips, raised her chin and her voice, and called curiously, "But now I think on it, you've never told us what you go to pray for, Learned."

  The divine placed his finger on his page and glanced up. "No, I don't think I have," he said vaguely.

  The merchant said, "All you called folk pray to meet your god, don't you?"

  "I have often prayed for the goddess to touch my heart," said the Mother's comptroller. "It is my highest spiritual goal to see Her face-to-face. Indeed, I often think I have felt Her, from time to time."

  Anyone who desires to see the gods face-to-face is a great fool, thought Ista. Although that was not an impediment, in her experience.

  "You don't have to pray to do that," said the divine. "You just have to die. It's not hard." He rubbed his second chin. "In fact, it's unavoidable."

  "To be god-touched in life," corrected the comptroller coolly. "That is the great blessing we all long for."

  No, it's not. If you saw the Mother's face right now, woman, you would drop weeping in the mud of this road and not get up for days. Ista became aware that the divine was squinting at her in arrested curiosity.

  Was he one of the god-touched? Ista possessed some practice at spotting them. The reverse also held true, unfortunately. Or perhaps that calf like stare was just shortsightedness. Discomforted, she frowned back at him.

  He blinked apologetically and said to her, "In fact, I travel on business for my order. A dedicat in my charge came by chance across a little stray demon possessed by a ferret. I take it to Taryoon for the archdivine to return to the god with proper ceremony."

  He twisted around to his capacious saddlebags and rummaged therein, trading the book for a small wicker cage. A lithe gray shape turned within it.

  "Ah-ha! So that's what you've been hiding in there!" Caria rode closer, wrinkling her nose. "It looks like any other ferret to me." The creature stood up against the side of the cage and twitched its whiskers at her.

  The fat divine turned in his saddle and held up the cage to Ista's view. The animal, circling, froze in her frown; for just a moment, its beady eyes glittered back with something other than animal intelligence. Ista regarded it dispassionately. The ferret lowered its head and backed away until it could retreat no farther. The divine gave Ista a curious sidelong look.

  "Are you sure the poor thing isn't just sick?" said Caria doubtfully.

  "What do you think, lady?" the divine asked Ista.

  You know very well it has a real demon. Why do you ask me? "Why— I think the good archdivine will certainly know what it is and what to do with it."

  The divine smiled faintly at this guarded reply. "Indeed, it is not much of a demon." He tucked the cage away again. "I wouldn't name it more than a mere elemental, small and unformed. It hasn't been long in the world, I'd guess, and so is little likely to tempt men to sorcery."

  It did not tempt Ista, certainly, but she understood his need to be discreet. Acquiring a demon made one a sorcerer much as acquiring a horse made one a rider, but whether skilled or poor was a more open question. Like a horse, a demon could run away with its master. Unlike a horse, there was no dismounting. To a soul's peril; hence the Temple's concern.

  Caria made to speak again, but the path to the castle split off at that point, and dy Ferrej reined his horse aside. The widow of Palma converted whatever she'd been about to say to a cheery farewell wave, and dy Ferrej escorted Ista firmly off the road.

  He glanced back over his shoulder as they started down the bank into the trees. "Vulgar woman. I'll wager she has not a pious thought in her head! She uses her pilgrimage only to shield her holiday-making from the disapproval of her relatives and get herself a cheap armed escort on the road."

  "I believe you are entirely right, dy Ferrej." Ista glanced back over her shoulder at the party of pilgrims advancing down the main road. The Widow Caria was now coaxing the divine of the Bastard to sing hymns with her, though the one she was suggesting more resembled a drinking song.

  "She had not one man of her own family to support her," dy Ferrej continued indignantly. "I suppose she
can't help the lack of a husband, but you'd think she could scare up a brother or son or at least a nephew. I'm sorry you had to be exposed to that, Royina."

  A not entirely harmonious but thoroughly good-natured duet rose behind them, fading with distance.

  "I'm not," said Ista. A slow smile curved her lips. I'm not.

  Chapter Two

  ISTA SAT IN HER MOTHER'S ROSE ARBOR, TWISTING A FINE HAND-kerchief in her fingers. Her lady attendant sat near her, poking at a piece of embroidery with a needle as narrow as, though rather sharper than, her mind. Ista had paced the garden round and round in the cool morning air till the woman, her voice rising, had begged her to stop. She paused now in her sewing to stare at Ista's hands, and Ista, irritably, set the tortured scrap of linen aside. Beneath her skirts, safely hidden, one silk-slippered foot took up a nervous—no, furious—drumming. A gardener bustled about, watering the flowers in the tubs placed around all the doorways for the Daughter's Season, just as he had done for years under the direction of the old Provincara. Ista wondered how long it would be before those drilled habits died away—or would they continue forever, as if the old lady's meticulous ghost still oversaw each task? But no, her soul had truly been taken up, and out of the world of men; there were no new ghosts in the castle, or Ista would have felt them. All the sundered spirits left here were ancient and tired and fading, a mere chill in the walls at night.

  She breathed out through pursed lips, flexing both curtained feet. She had waited several days to spring to her castle warder the proposal that she go on pilgrimage this season, in hopes that he would have forgotten the Widow Caria. A pilgrimage in humility, with only a small company; few attendants, simple gear, no royal train a hundred riders long, as he seemed instantly to think would be the minimum required. Dy Ferrej had thrown up a dozen annoyingly practical objections, and wondered at her sudden piety. He'd dismissed Ista's hint that she sought penance for her sins, being under the impression that she could have committed none to speak of under his good guard. Which was, she had to admit, certainly the case for such gross sins of the flesh as he imagined; dy Ferrej was not a theologically subtle man. As Ista's arguments had grown more intense, dy Ferrej had grown more stolid and cautious, till Ista had to bite back a frantic urge to scream at the man. The more fiercely she pleaded, the worse she made her case sound in his ears, she was sure. A galling paradox.

  A page trotted across the garden, favoring Ista with a most peculiar bow in passing, a sort of bending in mid-bounce. He disappeared into the keep. A few minutes later dy Ferrej appeared with the page at his heels, and trod gravely back across the garden. The castle keys, mark of his ward ship, jingled at his belt.

  "Where away, dy Ferrej?" Ista called idly. She forced her feet to stillness.

  He paused and gave her a bow, suitable to her rank and his dignity and girth, and made the page do his over correctly as well. "I am told some riders from Cardegoss have arrived, Royina." He hesitated briefly. "Your argument that I, by my oath to you and yours, owed you obedience as well as protection has been much on my mind."

  Ah-ha, so that one had struck home. Good. Ista smiled slightly.

  He smiled slightly back, the openly relieved expression on his features edged with triumph. "As my pleas did not seem to move you, I wrote to court to ask those to whom you will listen to add their voices, and their more august authority, to my own. Old dy Ferrej indeed has no right to thwart you, save for whatever forbearance he may be owed—no, that you may bestow upon him in charity—for his years of service—"

  Ista's lips thinned at his words. I cry a foul.

  "But Royina Iselle and Royse Bergon are your liege lords now, as well as having concern for your safety as their mother, and I believe Chancellor dy Cazaril is a man whose opinion you do somewhat regard. If I'm not mistaken, some calming advice arrives with these messengers." He nodded in satisfaction and moved off.

  Ista clenched her teeth. She declined to call down curses on Iselle, Bergon, or Cazaril. Or, in truth, on Old dy Ferrej, as he was pleased to style himself—a disputant's ploy, he was scarcely more than a decade older than Ista. But the tension in her body seemed almost to constrict her breathing. She half believed that in their urgency to guard her from old madness, her earnest protectors would drive her mad anew.

  The clack of horses' hooves, voices, and the calls of grooms floated around the curve of the keep. Abruptly, Ista rose and paced after dy Ferrej. Her lady attendant disentangled herself from her embroidery, scrambled to her feet, and pattered after her, making little protesting noises through sheer habit, Ista decided.

  In the cobbled entry court, two riders in the garb of the Daughter's Order were dismounting under dy Ferrej's benevolent and welcoming eye. They were certainly not local men from the temple at Valenda— nothing about their clothing or gear was mismatched, crude, or rustic. From their polished boots up through neat blue trousers and tunics, clean embroidered white wool vest cloaks, and the gray hooded cloaks of their order, their clothing shouted of Cardegoss tailoring. Weapons and their housings were clean and meticulously cared for, the bright-work polished and the leather oil rubbed—but not new. One officer-dedicat was a little above middle height, light and wiry. The shorter fellow was deeply muscled, and the heavy broadsword that hung from his baldric was clearly no courtier's toy.

  As dy Ferrej finished speaking a welcome and directing the servants, Ista stepped up beside him. She narrowed her eyes. "Gentlemen. Do I not know you?"

  Smiling, they handed off their reins to the cluster of castle grooms and swept her courtly bows. "Royina," the taller murmured. "A pleasure to see you again." Not giving her a chance to be discomfited with shaky memory, he added, "Ferda dy Gura; my brother Foix."

  "Ah, yes. You are those young men who rode with Chancellor dy Cazaril on his great Ibran mission, three years ago. I met you at Bergon's investiture. The chancellor and Royse Bergon praised you highly."

  "Kind of 'em," murmured the stout one, Foix.

  "Honored to serve you, lady." The elder dy Gura came to a species of attention before her, and recited, "Chancellor dy Cazaril presents us to you with his compliments, to escort you upon your journey, Royina. He begs you will regard us as your right hand. Hands." Ferda faltered and extemporized, "Or right and left hand, as the case may be."

  His brother raised an impenitent eyebrow at him, and murmured, "But which is which?"

  Dy Ferrej's satisfied look gave way to a startled one. "The chancellor approves this, this . . . venture?"

  Ista wondered what less flattering word he had just swallowed.

  Ferda and Foix looked at each other. Foix shrugged and turned to dig in his saddlebag. "M'lord dy Cazaril gave me this note to give into your hand, lady." With a cheerful flourish, he presented a paper folded with both a large red chancellery seal and dy Cazaril's personal stamp, a crow perched on the letters CAZ pressed in blue wax.

  Ista took it with thanks, and considerable mystification. Dy Ferrej craned his neck as she broke it open on the spot, scattering wax on the cobbles. She turned a little away from him to read it.

  It was brief, and written in a fine chancellery script, addressing her with all her full formal titles; the heading was longer than the body of the letter. It read: I give you these two good brothers, Ferda and Foix dy Gura, to attend you as captains and companions upon your road, wherever it may take you. I trust they may serve you as well as they have served me. Five gods speed you on your journey. Your most humble and obedient, and a semicircle with trailing scrawl, dy Cazaril's signature.

  In the same vile handwriting—dy Cazaril's fingers had more strength than delicacy, Ista recalled—was written a postscript: Iselle and Bergon send a purse, in memory of the jewels pawned for another jaunt, that bought a country. I have entrusted it to Foix. Do not be alarmed by his humor, he is much less simple than he looks.

  Slowly, Ista's lips curled up. "I think that is very clear."

  She handed off the letter to the hovering dy Ferrej. His face fell as his
eyes sped down the lines. His lips made an O, but were too well trained, perhaps, to complete the expletive. Ista credited the old Provincara for that.

  Dy Ferrej looked up at the brothers. "But—the royina cannot take to the roads with only two outriders, no matter how excellent."

  "Certainly not, sir." Ferda gave him a little bow. "We brought our full troop. I left them down in town to batten upon the temple's larder, except for the two men I dispatched to another task. They should return tomorrow, to complete our numbers."

  "Other task?" said dy Ferrej.

  "Marshal dy Palliar seized our going this way to add a chore. He sent up a fine Roknari stallion that we captured in the Gotorget campaign last fall, to cover the mares at our order's breeding farm at Palma." Ferda's face grew animated. "Oh, I wish you'd had a chance to see him, Royina! He bounds from the earth and trots on air—the most glorious silver coat—silk merchants would swoon in envy. Hooves that ring like cymbals when they strike the ground, tail like a banner flying, mane like a maiden's hair, a marvel of nature—"

  His brother cleared his throat.

  "Er," concluded Ferda, "a very fine horse, withal."

  "I suppose," dy Ferrej said, staring into the middle distance with the chancellor's note still in his hand, "we could write to your brother dy Baocia in Taryoon for a detachment of his provincial cavalry, in addition. And ladies of his household, to wait upon you in full panoply. Your good sister-in-law, perhaps—or some of your nieces may be old enough . . . ladies of his court, and your own attendants, of course, and all the necessary maids and grooms. And we must send down to the temple for a suitable spiritual conductor. No, better—we should write to Cardegoss and ask Archdivine Mendenal to recommend a divine of high scholarship."

  "That would take another ten days," said Ista in alarm. At least. Her thrill at dy Ferrej's forced reversal sank in dismay. If he had his way, so far from escaping, she would be constrained to crawl over the countryside trailed by a veritable army. "I wish no such delay. The weather and the roads are much improved now," she threw in a little desperately. "I would prefer to take advantage of the clear skies."