Paladin of Souls

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  "When we drew him out the second time, he was dead indeed, and not all our tears and prayers, regrets and recriminations, and oh, there were many of those last, brought him back again. Ias half decided, later, that Arvol's accusation of jealousy was true; half the time, I agreed myself. The fault was . . . Ias's, for weakness, and mine, for impatience and unwisdom. For if Ias had stood against me, I would have yielded, or if I had listened to my heart and not my head, and allowed Arvol more time, who is to say that after another day, or week, or month, he might have recovered his nerve? I'll never know, now. The gods forsook me. The curse remained, unbroken, worse in its effects than ever. Until another generation threw up another man, more fitted to lift it from the world." She drew breath. "And that is how I came to murder your father. If you really want to know."

  He was silent for a long time, remembered to inhale, and said, "Lady, I think this is not a confession. This is an indictment."

  She rocked back. "Of Arvol? Yes," she said slowly, "that, too. If he had never volunteered, I'd have thought no less of him. If he had died on the first attempt, well, I would have thought the task beyond any man, or my design mistaken. But to demonstrate the true possibility, and then fail . . . shattered my heart. It was not, I came later to learn, death by rote that the gods required. One cannot force another's soul to grow wide enough to admit a god to the world, but that dilation, not the mere dying, was what was wanted. Arvol dy Lutez was a great man. But. . . not quite great enough."

  He stared into the darkness. The torch had almost burned out, though at the top of the stairs Liss's candle still glowed. She sat with her chin propped in her hands, eyelids drooping; the page had fallen asleep, curled up against her skirts.

  "If my father had lived," he said at last, "do you think he would ever have called me to his side?"

  "If he had wrenched open his soul wide enough to succeed, I think it would thereafter have been more than wide enough to encompass you. Those who have admitted a god do not shrink back to their former size, in my experience. If he had never made the attempt. . . well, he was never quite small enough to turn aside from hazard, either. So, I do not know."

  "Mm." It was a little noise, but contained a cache of pain nonetheless. He glanced up at the sky, reading the clock of the stars. "Royina, I keep you from your bed."

  But not the reverse. In the long, lonely watches of his unsleeping nights, what did he now think about? She took the hint nonetheless and rose. He stood with her, his war gear creaking.

  He took her hand, half bowed, briefly pressed his cool forehead against its back. "Royina, I do thank you for these garlands of truth. I know they cost you dear."

  "They are dry and bitter thorns. I wish I could give you some better bier gift." With all my cracking heart, I do wish it.

  "I do not desire any softer wreath."

  Liss, seeing them pace once more across the court, prodded the page awake and came to the foot of the stairs to receive Ista back from Arhys's arm. Arhys saluted them solemnly and turned away, his sleepy page pattering after. The echoes of his receding footfalls in the archway sounded like muffled drums in Ista's ears.

  IT WAS LONG BEFORE ISTA SLEPT. IN THE GRAY OF DAWN, SHE SEEMED to hear thumping and low voices in the distance, but her exhaustion drew her back down into her pillow. She fell into an evil dream where she sat at a high table with Lady Cattilara. The marchess, glowing faintly violet, plied her guest with food until Ista's belly strained, and drowned her wits in drink until Ista lay back in her chair unable to rise for the paralysis in her limbs.

  Only a much louder thumping at the door to the outer chamber roused her from this bizarre dream imprisonment. She exhaled in relief to find herself in her own bed, her body normally proportioned and mobile again, if feeling anything but well rested. By the bright lines seeping through her shutters, it was broad day.

  Liss's steps sounded, then voices: Foix's, deep and urgent, dy Cabon's, sharp and excited. Ista had already swung out of bed and pulled her black robe about herself when the door between the chambers opened and Liss poked her head in.

  "Royina, something very strange has happened ..."

  Ista pushed past her. Foix was dressed for the day in blue tunic, trousers, boots and sword, his face flushed with exertion; dy Cabon's white under tunic was on askew, its front buttons mismatched with their buttonholes, his feet yet bare.

  "Royina." Foix ducked his head. "Did you see or hear anything, at Lord Illvin's chambers or on the gallery, along about dawn? Your room is closer than ours."

  "No—maybe. I fell back to sleep." She grimaced in memory of the unpleasant dream. "I was very tired. Was there something?"

  "Lady Cattilara came at dawn with some servants and carried off Lord Illvin on a pallet. To take him down to the temple to pray over, and consult with the temple physicians, she said."

  "The temple physicians should come up to attend upon him in Porifors, I would think," said Ista, disturbed. "Did Lord Arhys go with them?"

  "The march is nowhere to be found this morning. I first learned of all this when one of his officers asked me if I'd seen him."

  "I last saw Arhys last night. He came to speak with me down in the courtyard, around midnight. Liss was there."

  The girl nodded. She had evidently wakened before Ista—she was dressed and had a tray with morning tea and fresh bread sitting ready on a table—but not much before, for this all seemed news to her as well.

  "Well," Foix continued, "I felt strangely uneasy—probably left over from the bad dreams I'd had last night, which really made me wonder about the castle food, but anyway, I made an excuse to walk down to the temple to see what was happening. Lady Cattilara had never come there. I asked around. I finally discovered that she had commandeered a supply wagon and a team of dray horses from the garrison's stable down there. No one knew what had been loaded aboard, but the wagon, with Goram driving and one of the servants sitting beside him, was seen leaving the town gate at least an hour ago, on the road south."

  Ista's breath drew in. "Has she or Arhys been seen since?"

  "No, Royina."

  "Then she has stolen them away. Taken Arhys, and abducted Illvin to maintain him."

  Foix's gaze upon her sharpened. "This is the marchess's doing, do you think? Not Lord Arhys's?"

  "Lord Arhys would never abandon Porifors and his post. Not for all his wife's weeping," said Ista with certainty. Being a stronger-minded man than Las. But then, a dy Lutez always was.

  "But her demon wanted to flee, you told us," said dy Cabon. "Suppose it has gained the upper hand?"

  "Then why take the baggage?" asked Liss logically. "Lady Cattilara's body and her jewel case, and one fast horse, would serve it better."

  Foix eyed her with a flash of respect.

  "Not, I think, the upper hand," said Ista slowly. "But suppose her demon had persuaded her that both their goals could be better served by flight? She would have all its cooperation, then."

  "She desires her husband's life restored, or at least, his strange half death continued indefinitely," said Foix. "How is that served by heaving him and poor Lord Illvin into a wagon and driving off?"

  "Er," said dy Cabon.

  All the faces in the room turned toward him. "What?" said Ista sharply.

  "Ah, um . . . I'm wondering if something I might have said . . . Lady Cattilara came to me last evening after dinner. For spiritual guidance, I thought. We talked about this dire knot. Poor chick, her tears glittered down like little jewels of sorrow across her cheeks."

  Ista rolled her eyes. "No doubt. And then?"

  "I tried to counsel as well as console, to bring her to some sense of what a theological danger she had placed her husband in. As well as the physical danger inflicted upon his brother, and her own soul's peril. I said, more demon magic was no cure. Nothing but a miracle could alter the inevitable course of events. She asked me, where were miracles to be had, for all the world as if they came from some holy emporium. I said, only saints could channel them to
us from the gods. She asked, where were saints to be found? I said, all sorts of strange and unexpected places, both high and low. I said, I thought you, Royina, were the saint into whose hands this tangle had been given for unraveling. She said, um, well, some wild and unconsidered things—she seems to think you are her enemy. I assured her that could not be so. She suggested any other saint in the world would be better suited for the task, and asked me to send for one, as though saints were physicians, to be obtained from the Temple by draft. Well, some saints are physicians, but it's not like ... I suggested that she wasn't likely to get any other answer from the gods; most people don't even get one. I'm afraid she is not very interested in the subtler truths of theology."

  "She wants a rite by rote," said Ista. As I did, once. "A merchant's bargain. Pay the coin, get the goods. She just can't find the peddler."

  He shrugged. "I fear it is so."

  "So now she has taken her quick and her dead and gone on pilgrimage. To look for a miracle. To order."

  "The roads here are very unsafe, as we found yesterday," said Foix in a voice of worry. "Lord Arhys would surely not permit his wife to go out on them now, no matter what her hope."

  "Do you think he had a choice? Is there one pallet in that wagon, or two—the brothers lying side by side like bundles of cordwood? The demon could help her to it—the dual inactivity would likely be a relief to it."

  Dy Cabon scratched his head. "She has a better right to seek healing for Lord Arhys than any other person. He is her husband."

  "Illvin isn't," said Ista shortly. "And what Arhys needs goes beyond healing. They must be brought back. Foix, muster your troop and their horses. Liss, wrap my knees for riding, I don't want to tear open these scabs."

  Dy Cabon said, "Royina, you should not be out on the road either!"

  "I agree with you, but Foix has not the authority to command Cattilara's servants against her own wishes. And someone must handle her demon."

  "I think I might do that, Royina," said Foix. He glanced warily at dy Cabon.

  "Can you, simultaneously, handle a screaming, weeping, distraught woman?"

  "Ah," he said, contemplating this unpalatable vision. "Can you?"

  "I think so." In fact, I think I'm looking forward to it.

  "I would, urn, appreciate that, Royina."

  "Good. Warn Arhys's officers ... hm." Her eyes narrowed. "I suspect Arhys would not want this tale bruited about. Dy Cabon. If we're not back in—how long, Foix? Two hours?"

  "They had four horses hitched, and an hour's start—two or three hours."

  "If we're not back in three hours, tell Arhys's senior officers what we have done, and have them send men after us." Ista turned to Foix. "Hurry. We'll meet you in the forecourt as soon as the horses are saddled."

  He saluted her and was gone. Liss was already stripping out of her fine dress and kicking off her slippers. Ista pushed the protesting dy Cabon out the door.

  "But I should ride with you, Royina!" cried the divine. "And Foix should not be left unguided!"

  "No. I need you here. And if Foix's dancing bear requires a collar, I am better fitted to supply it."

  "And you're too fat and you ride too slow," Liss's unsympathetic voice floated through the window, accompanied by a thump of boots being lined up.

  Dy Cabon reddened.

  Ista rested her hand on his shoulder. "This is a dry country, and culverts are hard to come by. You will be one less terror for my heart to worry about, safe in here."

  His color deepened, but he bowed in unhappy obedience nonetheless. Ista shut the door on him and hurried to don her riding clothes.

  Chapter Nineteen

  IN THE FORECOURT, ISTA WAS STARTLED BY THE HORSE LISS LED out for her. Tall, shimmering white with a soft gray nose, mane and tail like silk banners—Ferda would have waxed poetic. The stall stains were carefully washed off its coat, with only a few faint yellow traces that reminded her inescapably of the blotches on dy Cabon's white robes. It snuffled and nudged at her, big dark eyes liquid and amiable.

  "What's this?" Ista asked, as Liss led it to the mounting block.

  "They tell me his name is Feather. Short for Featherwits. I asked for the best-trained horse in the stable for you, and they begged me to take him out, because since Lord Illvin fell sick he's done little but laze in his stall and eat and get fat."

  "Is this Lord Illvin's own mount, then?" asked Ista, throwing a leg over the broad back. The horse stood perfectly still for her as she disposed her padded knees gingerly against its sides and found her stirrups. "Surely it isn't a warhorse."

  "No, he has another stallion for that—evil-tempered scarred red brute that no one else will go near." Liss threw herself up on her courier palomino, which sidled uncooperatively and seemed inclined to buck, but settled under her stern hand. "It's savaged any number of grooms. They showed me their injuries. Very impressive."

  Foix's hand rose and fell, and he and Pejar on their mounts led the way out the gate, followed by Liss and Ista and then the half dozen remaining men of the Daughter's company. They sorted themselves into single file to descend the narrow switchback road past the village. Beyond its walls, they turned onto the road from Tolnoxo that Ista had arrived down so many crowded days ago. Foix set a brisk but not killing pace, walking up slopes, trotting down, cantering on the flat. Feather-wit seemed a slander, for the horse was so responsive to Ista's lightest command of rein or heel that it seemed she had only to think her desire. Its trot was a long smooth ripple, its canter like being rocked along in a sedan chair. She was relieved by its gentleness, for it seemed a long way to the hard ground from her perch. Lord Illvin would need a tall horse, certainly.

  Riding through a moist wooded area by the river, they stirred up a plague of large buzzing horseflies. Ista grimaced and slapped at the ones she could reach as they settled hungrily on Feather's silky sides. They crunched disgustingly, leaving blood streaks on her palm. Liss's palomino bucked and squealed. Foix glanced back over his shoulder; only Ista saw the little violet flicker from his hand, but the ugly flies lifted from Liss's mount. Since they then collected on Ista's, this seemed little improvement, but the cavalcade broke into the sunlight and left the flies behind before she could complain.

  They made the long climb up the valley's steeper side and stopped to water the horses at the village with the olive grove, some five miles out from Porifors. This shade was mercifully free of bloodsucking insects. Pejar went off to inquire of the villagers for word of the wagon they pursued. Ista found herself standing and stretching next to Foix in the shadow of a huge olive bole as the sweaty horses gulped from the stream.

  "Still playing with flies?" she inquired softly. "I saw that trick. No more, please, or I shall report you to the divine."

  He blushed. "It was a good deed. Besides, I wanted to please Liss."

  "Hm." She hesitated. "Take my advice, and do not use magic to court her. Most especially, do not yield to the temptation to use it directly to induce her favor."

  By his embarrassed grin, he knew precisely what she implied—and this wasn't the first time the notion of some sort of aphrodisiac spell had crossed his mind. "Mm."

  Ista's voice dropped further. "For if you do, and she finds out, it will destroy her trust not only in you, but in her own mind. She would never again be sure if a thought or a feeling were truly her own. She would be constantly halting, second-guessing, turning about inside her head. Madness lies down that road. It would be less crippling and more loving if you should take a war hammer and break both her legs."

  His smile had grown fixed. "As you command. Royina."

  "I do not speak as your royina. I do not even speak as one god-touched. I speak as a woman, who has walked to the end of that road and returns to report the hazards. If you still possess half the wits you started with—and if it is indeed love you seek and not just your gratification—you will listen as a man."

  His little bow, this time, was visibly more thoughtful, his smirk wiped clean.
>
  Pejar came back with the news that a wagon and team had indeed stopped at the grove earlier, lingering in the shade long enough to unhitch and water both pairs of horses; the wagon had left again not half an hour before. Foix grimaced satisfaction and cut their own rest short.

  Another four miles of trotting brought them to the top of a long rise. They at last saw their quarry rumbling down the road, small in the distance, the wagon's canvas top, painted with the sigil of Porifors's garrison, bright in the sunlight. Foix waved his troop onward. They had largely closed the gap before someone from the wagon spotted them. The invisible driver whipped up the team, but the lumbering dray horses, burdened by the load they towed, were no match for the pursuers' faster mounts.

  Men of Foix's company galloped up on either side of the noisily bouncing vehicle to lean over and seize the lead pair's reins. As she in turn urged her horse up and around, Ista could hear Cattilara's voice crying out in protest. The wagon slowed to a halt.

  Cattilara, dressed in an elegant traveling costume of gray and gold, was crouched on the driver's box berating a terrified Goram, who hunched down with his eyes nearly shut, clutching his team's reins in clenched and shaking hands. Ista narrowed her eyes against the light of the world and tried to extend her inner vision to its fullest sensitivity, to directly perceive not spirits hidden in matter, but spirits alone. Was this how the gods saw the world? Cattilara's demon was not, to Ista's relief, expanded and dominant, but curled in on itself within her again. Another male servant, one of Cattilara's younger ladies, and Arhys's page cowered together in the wagon's back.

  Two nearly extinguished forms lay side by side within. With the blockage of Ista's corporeal vision by the canvas and wood, it became almost easier to see what she was actually looking for. A wispy line of white fire, sluggishly drifting from one body to another; at a level of perception even below that, a net of violet light running three ways, the spell-channel.