Paladin of Souls

by Lois McMaster Bujold

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

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

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

  "Yes," said Ista shortly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Some recover though, don't they?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Chapter Twelve

  THE ROOM WAS LIGHTER THAN SHE'D SEEN IT IN HER VISION, the shutters on the far wall open now to the blue sky beyond. The effect was airy and gracious. The chamber didn't smell like a sickroom, no bunches of heavy-scented herbs hanging from the rafters failing to mask an underlying tang of feces, vomit, sweat, or despair. Just cool air, wood wax, and a faint, not unpleasing aroma of masculine occupation. Not unpleasing at all.

  Ista forced her gaze to the bed, and stood rooted.

  The bed was made. He rested atop the counterpane not like a man in a sickbed, but like a man who had lain down for but a moment in the middle of a busy day. Or like a corpse laid out in best garb for his funeral. Long and lean, exactly as in her dreams, but dressed very differently: not patient or sleeper, but courtier. A tan tunic embroidered with twining leaves was fastened up to his neck. Matching trousers were tucked into polished boots buckled up to his calves. A maroon vest-cloak spread beneath and beside him, and a sheathed sword lay upon the neatly arranged folds, its inlaid hilt beneath his slack left hand. A seal ring gleamed on one finger.

  His hair was not merely combed back from his high forehead, but braided in neat cords up from each temple and over his crown. The dark, frosted length of it ended in a queue brought back over his right shoulder to rest upon his chest, the tail of it, beyond the maroon tie,

  brushed out straight. He was shaved, and that recently. A scent of lavender water tickled Ista's nostrils.

  She became aware that Goram was watching her with a painful intensity, his hands flexing as they gripped each other.

  All this silent beauty must be his work. What must the man on the bed have been to receive such devotion from this lackey now, when he had so plainly lost all power to punish or reward?

  "Five gods," gasped Liss. "He's dead."

  Goram sniffed. "No, he's not. He do
n't rot."

  "But he's not breathing!"

  "Does too. You can tell with the mirror, see." He sidled around the bed and picked up a tiny hand mirror from a nearby chest. With a glower at the girl from under his bristling eyebrows, he held it beneath Lord Illvin's nostrils. "See?"

  Liss bent nearer across the unmoving form and cast a wary glance downward. "That's your thumbprint."

  "Is not!"

  "Well. .. maybe ..." Liss straightened and backed away with a jerky gesture, as if inviting Ista to take her vacated place by the bedside and judge for herself.

  Ista drew nearer under Goram's anxious eye, trying to find something to say to the grizzled fellow. "You care for him well. A tragedy, that Ser dy Arbanos should have been hewn down like this."

  "Aye," he said. He swallowed and added, "So ... go on, lady."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "So . . . kiss him."

  For just a moment, she pressed her teeth so hard together that her jaw twinged. But there was no suppressed merriment in Goram's seamed, strained face, no hint of japery. "I don't follow you."

  He chewed on his lip. "It was a princess put him here. I thought maybe you could wake him. Being a royina and all." He added after a doubtful moment, "Dowager royina."

  He was deathly serious, she saw to her dismay. She said as gently as she could, "Goram, that's a children's story. We are not children here, alas."

  A slight choking noise made her glance aside. Liss's face was screwed up, but she forbore to laugh, five gods be thanked.

  "You could try. It wouldn't hurt to try." He was rocking again in his unease, forward and back.

  "I fear it would do no good, either."

  "No harm," he repeated doggedly. "Got to try something."

  He must have spent several hours in the meticulous preparation of the scene, of his master, for her view. What desperate hope could drive him to such bizarre lengths?

  Maybe he has dreams, too. The thought clotted her breath.

  The memory of the Bastard's second kiss heated her face. What if it had been not unholy jest, but another gift—one meant to be passed along? Might it be granted to her to perform a miracle of healing, as agreeably as this? So are the saints seduced by their gods. Her heart thumped in concealed excitement. A life for a life, and by the grace of the Bastard, my sin is lifted.

  In a kind of fascination, she bent forward. The closely shaved skin of Illvin's jaw was stretched too thinly over the fine bones. His lips were neutral in color, a little parted upon pale, square teeth.

  Neither warm nor cold, as her lips pressed upon them . . .

  She breathed into that mouth. She remembered that the tongue was the organ held sacred to the Bastard, as womb for the Mother, male organs for the Father, heart for the Brother, and brain for the Daughter. Because the tongue was the source of all lies, the Quadrene heretics falsely charged. She dared secretly to trace those teeth, touch the cool tip of his tongue with hers, as the god had invaded her mouth in her dream. Her fingers spread, hovering over his heart, not quite venturing to touch, to feel for a bandage wrapped around his chest beneath that decorated tunic. His chest did not rise. His dark eyes, and she knew their color by heart already, did not open in wonder. He lay inert.

  She swallowed a wail of disappointment, concealed chagrin, straightened. Found her voice, lost somewhere. "As you see. It does no good." Foolish hope and foolish failure.

  "Eh," said Goram. His eyes were narrowed, sharp upon her. He, too, looked disappointed, but by no means crushed. "Must be something else."

  Let me out of here. This is too painful.

  Liss, standing watching this play, cast Ista a look of mute apology. A lecture on a handmaiden's duties in screening the importunate, the simple, and the strange from her lady's presence seemed in order, later.

  "But you are the one he was going on about," repeated Goram in an insistent tone. Recovering his audacity, it seemed. Or perhaps the futility of her kiss had reduced his awe of her. She was, after all, merely a dowager royina, obviously insufficiently potent to breathe the near dead to life. "Not tall, hair curled all wild down your back, gray eyes, face all still—grave, he said you were grave." He looked her up and down and gave a short nod, as if satisfied with her graveness. "The very one."

  "Who said—who described me so to you?" demanded Ista, exasperated.

  Goram jerked his head toward the bed. "Him."

  "When?" Ista's voice came out sharper than she'd intended; Liss jumped.

  Goram's hands opened. "When he wakes up."

  "Does he wake up? I thought—Lady Cattilara gave me to understand—he had never come out of his swoon after he was stabbed."

  "Eh, Lady Catti," said Goram, and sniffed. Ista wasn't certain if he was making a comment or just clearing his nose. "But he don't stay awake, see. He comes up most every day for a while, around noon. We mainly try to get as much food into him as we can, while he can swallow without choking. He don't get enough. He's wasting away, you can see it. Lady Catti, she came up with a smart idea to put goat's milk down his throat with a little leather tube, and you can see that it helps, but not enough. He's too thin now. Every day, his grip is less strong."

  "Is he coherent, when he wakes?"

  Goram shrugged. "Eh."

  Not an encouraging answer. But if he waked at all, why not now, for her kiss, or at any other time? Why just at the time that his brother slept his motionless sleep . . . her mind shied from the thought.

  Goram added, "He does go on, sometimes. Some would say he just raves."

  Liss said, "Is it uncanny, do you think? Some Roknari sorcery?"

  Ista flinched at the notion. I wasn't going to ask it. I wasn't going to suggest it. I want nothing to do with the uncanny. "Sorcery is illegal in the princedoms, and the Archipelago." For more than just theological reasons; it was scarcely encouraged in Chalion, either. Yet given opportunity—and sufficient desperation, criminality, or hubris—a stray demon might present as much temptation to a Quadrene as to a Quintarian. More, since a Quadrene who had contracted a demon risked dangerous accusations of heretical transgression if he sought assistance from his Temple.

  Goram shrugged again. "Lady Catti, she thinks it's poison from that Roknari dagger, because the wound don't heal right. I used to poison rats in the stables—never saw any that worked like this."

  Liss's brows drew in, as she studied the still form. "Have you served him long?"

  "Going on three years."

  "As a groom?"

  "Groom, sergeant, messenger, dogs body, whatever. Tendant, now. The others, they're too spooked. Afraid to touch him. I'm the only one who does it really right."

  She cocked her head to one side; her puzzled frown did not diminish. "Why does he wear his hair in the Roknari style? Though I must say, it suits him."

  "He goes there. Went there. As the march's scout. He was good enough to pass, knows the tongue—his father's mother was Roknari, for all she learned to sign the Five, he told me once."

  Footsteps sounded outside, and he looked up in trepidation. The door opened. Lady Cattilara's voice said sharply, "Goram, what are you about? I heard voices—oh. I beg your pardon, Royina."

  Ista turned, crossing her arms; Lady Cattilara dipped in a curtsey, though she shot a brief scowl at the groom. She wore an apron over the fine dress she'd appeared in at dinner, and she was trailed by a maid bearing a covered pitcher. Her eyes widened a little as they passed over the courtly garb of the patient. She breathed out through her nostrils, an incensed huff.

  Goram hunched, dropping his gaze, and took refuge in a sudden renewal of his unintelligible mumble.

  Ista was moved by his hangdog look to try to spare him trouble. "You must excuse Goram," she said smoothly. "I asked him if I might view Lord Illvin, because ..." Yes, why? To see if he resembled his brother? No, that was weak. To see if he resembled my dreams? Worse. "I perceived Lord Arhys was most troubled by his plight. I've decided to write to a certain highly experienced physician of my ac
quaintance in Valenda, Learned Tovia, to see if she might have any advice in the case. So I wished to be able to describe him and his symptoms very exactly. She is a stickler for precision in her diagnoses."

  "That is extremely kind of you, Royina, to offer your own physician," said Lady Cattilara, looking touched. "My husband is grieved indeed by his brother's tragedy. If the master physicians we have sent for continue to prove unwilling to travel so far—such adepts tend to be old, we are finding—we should be most grateful for such aid." She cast a doubtful glance at the maid with the pitcher. "Do you think she would want to know how we feed him the goat's milk? I'm afraid the process is not very pretty. Sometimes he chokes it up."

  The implications were clear, sinister, and repulsive. Given all the labor to which Goram had gone to present his fallen master in the most dignified possible light, Ista had no heart to watch that long body stripped of its courtly adornment and subjected to indignities, however necessary. "I expect Learned Tovia is well acquainted with all the tricks of nursing. I do not think I need to mark it."

  Lady Cattilara looked relieved. With a carryon gesture to the maid and Goram, she ushered Ista and Liss back out onto the gallery, and walked with them toward Ista's chambers. Twilight was gathering; the courtyard was altogether in shadow, though the highest clouds glowed peach against the deepening blue.

  "Goram is a very dutiful man," Cattilara said apologetically to Ista, "but I'm afraid he's more than a trifle simple. Though he is by far the best of Lord Illvin's men who have undertaken to attend him. They are too horrified, I think. Goram had a rougher life, before, and is not squeamish. I could not begin to manage Illvin without him."