Paladin of Souls

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  She tightened her fingers, and Feather stopped and stood in a placid obedience. She let the reins fall to his withers and stretched her hands, letting her spirit follow along with her body. And then, for the first time, flow beyond her body. Bastard, help me. Curse You. She did not, did not dare, try to break the underlying lines of the demon's spell yet, but she set her ligatures and summoned soul-fire. The white line from Illvin to Arhys blazed up like a thatch catching alight in a distant dark.

  Arhys's deep voice sounded from within, irritable as a man waking from sleep: "What is this? Illvin . . . ?"

  Cattilara's screaming abuse abruptly stopped. Her head drew in, and she shrank in her seat. Panting, she glowered at Ista.

  Movement sounded within the wagon: a creak, boot steps on the floorboards. Arhys poked his head out and stared around. "Bastard's hell! Where are we?" A glance at the familiar landscape evidently answered the question to his satisfaction, for he turned his frown on his weeping wife. "Cattilara, what have you done?"

  On the wagon's other side, the tensed Foix breathed relief and sent a small salute of thanks in Ista's direction. The mauve flicker waiting in his palm died away.

  Cattilara turned in her seat and threw her arms around her husband's thighs in wild supplication. Goram ducked out of her way. "My lord, my lord, no! Order these people away! Tell Goram to drive on! We must escape! She is evil, she wants to encompass your death!"

  Automatically, he patted her hair. His rolling eye fell on Ista, watching grimly. "Royina? What is this?"

  "What is the last thing you remember, Lord Arhys?"

  His brows drew in. "Cattilara sent me an urgent message to attend upon her at the garrison's stable yard. I walked in and found this wagon standing at the ready there, then—nothing after that." His frown deepened.

  "Your wife took it into her head to carry you off and seek healing for you elsewhere than Porifors. To what extent she was encouraged in this by her demon, I know not, but it certainly assisted her in it. Illvin was brought along principally, I suppose, as your commissary."

  Arhys winced. "Desert my post? Desert Porifors? Now?"

  Cattilara flinched at the iron in his voice. Her collapse in tears before him failed, for once, to have any softening effect. When he turned her face up to his, Ista could see the tension in the tendons of his hands, standing out like cords beneath his pale skin.

  "Cattilara. Think. This desertion dishonors my trust and my sworn oaths. To the provincar of Caribastos, to the Royina Iselle and Royse-Consort Bergon—to my own men. It is impossible."

  "It is not impossible. Suppose you were sick of, oh, any other illness. Someone else would have to take over then all the same. You are ill. Another officer must take your post for now."

  "The only one I would trust to take over at a moment's notice in this present uncertainty is Illvin." He hesitated. "Would be Illvin," he corrected himself.

  "No, no, no—!" She fairly beat on him with her fists in a paroxysm of frustration and rage.

  Ista studied the pulsating lines of light. Can I do this? She wasn't sure. Well, I am sure that I can try. So. She folded her fleshly hands quietly in her lap and reached again with her spirit hands. Again leaving the demon's underlying channels undisturbed, she tightened the ligature between Illvin and Arhys nearly to closure.

  Arhys fell to his knees; his lips parted in shock.

  "If you want him upright and moving," said Ista to Cattilara, "you must keep him so yourself, now. No more stealing."

  "No!" screamed Cattilara as Arhys half collapsed across her. Goram grabbed at him to keep his heavy body from toppling from the seat. Cattilara stared down at Arhys's pale confused face in horrified denial. The fire of her soul roiled up from her body and collected at her heart.

  Yes! Ista thought. You can. Do it, girl!

  Then, with a wail and a white rush, Cattilara fainted away. The disorderly fire burst from her heart, splashing irregularly in the spell-banks. Ista extended a transparent hand again. The flow steadied, settled. Not too swift, lest it drain its reservoirs altogether, nor too slow, lest it fail its purpose. Just. . . there. Her inner eye rechecked the lines. A tiny trickle of life still flowed from Illvin, just enough to maintain contact. She dared not touch the demon's subtle net, not that she was at all sure she could break it even if she tried. Arhys blinked, flexed his jaw, shakily stood up, one hand braced on Goram's shoulder.

  "Oh, thank you," muttered Foix into the blessed silence.

  "I used to carry on not unlike that, from time to time, in my first grief," murmured Ista across to him, in uncomfortable reminiscence. "Why in five gods' names did no one ever smother me and put themselves out of my misery? I may never know."

  A rasping voice from within the wagon said, "Bastard's demons, now what?"

  A flash of relief crossed Arhys's features. "Illvin! Out here!"

  A padding of bare feet; Illvin, wearing only his linen robe and looking much like a man wakened too early after a night of too much revelry, stumbled out and stood blinking into the bright morning, one lean hand grasping the canvas frame for balance.

  His eye fell on Ista, and his face lit. "Witless!" he cried in delight. This odd greeting, Ista concluded belatedly, was actually addressed to his horse, who flicked its ears and snuffed, flaring its gray nostrils, and almost, but not quite, moved from the spot on which its rider had bade it stand. "Royina," Illvin continued, giving her a nod. "I trust Feathers-for-Wits here has gone well for you? Five gods, did no one think to cut his feed?"

  "He is a most perfect gentleman," Ista assured him. "I find him very shapely."

  Illvin looked down at Catti, now slumped over against Goram's shrinking shoulder. "What's this? Is she all right?"

  "For the moment," Ista assured both him and Arhys, who was eyeing his wife even more uncertainly. "I, ah ... required that she change chairs with you for a little while."

  "I did not know you could do that," said Illvin cautiously.

  "Neither did I, till I tried it a moment ago. The demon's spell is unbroken, just. . . reapportioned."

  Arhys, his face rigid with his discomfiture, nevertheless knelt and gathered Cattilara up in his arms. Illvin felt his right shoulder and frowned; his frown deepened as his glance took in a slow red leak starting on Cattilara's shoulder. He leaned aside for his burdened brother to duck back into the wagon. Ista handed her reins to Liss and scrambled from her saddle across to the wagon seat; Illvin extended a hand to swing her safely aboard.

  "We must talk," she told him.

  He nodded in heartfelt agreement. "Goram," he added. His groom looked up with open relief in his face. "Get this wagon turned around and headed back to Porifors."

  "Yes, my lord," said Goram happily.

  Ista ducked after Arhys and Illvin as Foix began calling instructions to his men to help back and turn the team. Arhys laid Cattilara, her head lolling, down on the pallet he had just vacated. It was dim and musty under the canvas after the bright light outside, but Ista's eyes quickly adjusted. The other servant, Cattilara's woman, and the page squatted fearfully at the back of the wagon among three or four small trunks. It seemed modest provision for the journey, though the marchess's jewel case no doubt reposed somewhere within the baggage.

  Arhys sent the manservant and the woman forward to sit with Goram. His page, round-eyed with worry, settled near him; he gave the boy a reassuring ruffle of the hair. Arhys sat cross-legged by his wife's head. Illvin handed Ista down onto the pallet opposite; she felt her scabs crack under their pads as she folded her knees. Illvin started to settle cross-legged next to her, realized the inadequacy of his narrow robe for that position, and sat instead on his knees.

  Arhys glowered down at his wife. "I can't believe she'd think I would desert Porifors."

  "I don't imagine she did," said Ista. "Hence this deceit." She hesitated. "It's a hard thing, when all your life rides on the decisions of others, and you can do nothing to affect the outcome."

  The wagon finished its turn and
started off at a walking pace. The team would be tired enough by the time they'd retraced the ten or so miles to the castle.

  Arhys touched Cattilara's shoulder, now showing a dark red stain from the slow ooze beneath. "This won't do."

  "It must, till we get back to Porifors," said Illvin uneasily. He stretched his arms and hands and hitched his shoulders, as if settling back into a body grown unused to him. He tested his own grip, and frowned.

  "I can only hope the garrison hasn't fallen into an uproar over my disappearance," said Arhys.

  "As soon as we arrive," said Ista, "we must make another attempt to question Cattilara's demon. It must know what is afoot in Jokona and, most of all, who dispatched it." She repeated to Illvin the officer's tale of the sudden reform of Sordso the Sot.

  "How very strange," mused Illvin. "Sordso never showed any sign of such family feeling before."

  "But—will we be able to question the creature, Royina?" asked Arhys, still staring down at Cattilara. "We had little enough luck the last time."

  Ista shook her head in equal doubt. "I did not have Learned dy Cabon's advice, before. Nor the assistance of Foix dy Gura. We may be able to set one demon upon the other, to some good effect. Or ... to some effect. I shall take counsel of the divine when we return."

  "I would take counsel of my brother, while I can," said Arhys.

  "I would take counsel of some food," said Illvin. "Is there any in this wagon?"

  Arhys bade his page search; the boy emerged from rooting among the supplies with a loaf of bread, a sack of leathery dried apricots, and a skin of water. Illvin settled and began conscientiously gnawing, while Arhys detailed the reports from Porifors's scouts.

  "We are missing news from the north road altogether," Illvin observed as Arhys wound up his rapid account. "I mislike this."

  "Yes. I am most troubled for the two parties that have not yet returned or sent any courier. I was about to send another patrol after them, when my morning duties were so unexpectedly interrupted." Arhys glanced in exasperation at his unconscious wife. "Or possibly go myself."

  "I beg you will not," said Illvin, rubbing his shoulder.

  "Well . . . no. Perhaps that would not be wise, under the circumstances." His gaze upon Cattilara grew, if possible, more worried. She looked terribly defenseless, curled up on her side. Without the underlying strain of subterfuge in her face, her striking natural beauty reasserted itself.

  He glanced up and managed a brief smile for Ista's sake. "Do not be alarmed, Royina. Even if some unseen force approaches from that direction, there is little they can do against Porifors. The walls are stout, the garrison loyal, the approaches for siege engines difficult in the extreme, and the fortress stands upon solid rock. It cannot be undermined. Support from Oby would arrive before our assailants had time to finish making camp."

  "If Oby is not itself attacked at the same time," muttered Illvin.

  Arhys glanced away. "I have spoken at length with the temple notary in the past few days, and placed my will in writing under his care. The castle warder has charge of all my other papers. I have appointed you my executor, and joint guardian of little Liviana."

  "Arhys," said Illvin, his voice drawn with doubt. "I would point out that there is no guarantee that I will get out of this alive either."

  His brother nodded. "Liviana's grandfather becomes her sole sponsor in that case, and guardian of all her dy Lutez properties. In all events—given the lack of any child between Catti and me—I mean to return Cattilara with her jointure to the guardianship of Lord dy Oby."

  "Cattilara would care as little for my rule as I would care to exert it," said Illvin. "Thank you from us both."

  Arhys nodded in wry understanding. "If you—if—if you cannot undertake it in Liviana's name, Porifors's military command must revert to the provincar of Caribastos, to be assigned to a man he judges able to carry out its tasks. I have written him to warn him . . . well, only that I am ill, and that he may wish to look about him just in case."

  "You take care of every duty. No matter how distasteful." Illvin smiled bleakly. "You have always sought to take a father's care of us all.

  Is there any doubt which god waits to take you up? But let Him wait a little longer, I say." He glanced aside at Ista.

  But no god awaits him, Ista thought. That's what sundered means.

  Arhys shrugged. "The days gnaw at me as rats gnaw a corpse. I can feel it now, more and more. I have already overstayed, most grievously. Royina ..." His eyes upon her were uncomfortably penetrating. "Can you release me? Is that why you were tumbled down here?"

  Ista hesitated. "I scarcely know what I can do and what I cannot. If I am meant to channel miracles, that one would not be my first choice. Yet it is the nature of miracles that their human conduit may not choose them, except to cry them yes or no. It is only demon sorcery that we may bend to our own wills. No one bends a god."

  "And yet," said Illvin thoughtfully, "the Bastard is half a demon himself, they say. I think his nature is not wholly as the rest of his family's. Perhaps his miracles are not either?"

  Ista frowned in confusion. "I ... don't know. He seemed just as much beyond me in my dream as his Mother did in my vision of her, nigh on twenty years ago. In any case, I have only tried to rearrange the strength that flows among you three. I have not tried to break the bindings beneath, or force the demon to do so against its mistress's will, though it is clear enough that it would abandon all and fly if it could."

  "Try now," said Arhys.

  Both Ista and Illvin made simultaneous noises of protest, and glanced at each other.

  "Because if you cannot do this, I must also know," said Arhys patiently.

  "But—there is no way to test it but to do it. And then I would not know how to undo it."

  "I did not suggest that you then seek to undo it."

  "I would fear to leave you damned."

  "More than I am now?"

  Ista looked away, discomfited. She read a soul-deep exhaustion in his face; as if he grew hourly less loath to end his travails, even into the dwindling silence of nothingness. "But—what if this is not the task I was sent for? What if I am wrong in my reasoning—again? I should have been ecstatic if it had been given me to heal you. I do not wish to murder another dy Lutez."

  "You did once."

  "Yes, but not by sorcery. By drowning. The method would not work on you. You haven't taken a breath in the last fifteen minutes."

  "Oh. Yes." He looked embarrassed and made an effort to inhale.

  Illvin's eyes had grown wide. "What tale is this?"

  Ista glanced at him, gritted her teeth, and said, "Arvol dy Lutez did not die in the Zangre under questioning. Ias and I drowned him by mistake in the course of an attempt among the three of us to call down a miracle for Chalion's sake. The treason accusation was entirely false." Well. That was certainly getting more succinct with practice.

  Illvin's mouth hung open for a moment longer. He finally said, "Ah. I always did think that treason charge was oddly handled."

  "The rite failed because Arvol's courage failed." She stopped. Then blurted out, "And yet I might have saved the hour even at the last, if I could have called down a miracle of healing. Even as he lay drowned dead at our feet. The Mother, the very goddess of remedy, stood at my right hand, just around some . . . corner of perception. If my soul had not been so knotted with rage and fear and grief that there was no room in it for any god to enter." Three prior confessions had all evaded this codicil, she realized. She glanced aside again at Illvin. "Or if I had loved him instead of hated him. Or if—I don't know."

  Illvin cleared his throat. "Most people fail to work miracles most of the time. Such a dereliction scarcely needs accounting for."

  "Mine does. I was called." She brooded, as the wagon creaked along. Now I am called again. But what for? She glanced up at Arhys. "I wonder how our lives would have been different if your father had brought you to court? Maybe we put the wrong dy Lutez in that barrel." Now
, there was a vision. "What was he like at twenty, Illvin?"

  "Oh, quite as he is now," Illvin responded. "Not as polished or practiced, perhaps. Not as broad in the shoulder." A smile of memory flickered over his mouth. "Not as levelheaded."

  "Not as dead," growled Arhys, frowning at his hands, which he was stretching and clenching again. Testing for numbness? For increasing numbness?

  "When I was young and beautiful, at court in Cardegoss ..." When Arhys had not yet been married even once. When all things were still possible. Might she then have taken a dy Lutez as a lover after all, and made the false slander true? And yet Fonsa's dark curse had blighted all budding hopes in that court—to what horrors might it have bent that sweet dream, to what disasters drawn Arhys's youthful brilliance? Would it be true or false comfort to suggest to Arhys that Arvol had kept him away for his own safety? She suppressed a shudder. "It was still too late."

  Arhys blinked at her, missing the implications, but Illvin grunted a pained laugh. "Imagine you'd met him before you'd married Ias, then, as long as you're spinning might-have-beens," he advised dryly. He cast her an odd look. "All my might-have-beens come out the same either way."

  The wagon bumped and rocked, marking a turn off the road. Ista peeked out to discover that they had returned to the walled village, and were stopping in the olive grove again to water the horses. The sun had climbed to noon, and the day was growing very hot.

  Ista clambered down for a moment to stretch her half-healed legs and get a drink. Liss still had Lord Illvin's white horse in tow, watering it at the stream. Illvin looked out longingly at it, then abruptly disappeared back inside the wagon. Voices came from behind the canvas, some sort of argument involving Illvin, Goram, and the manservant. Illvin emerged a few minutes later smiling in satisfaction, wearing his groom's leather trousers and the manservant's boots below his light linen robe. The trousers were cinched in around his waist and barely reached his calves, but the boots made up the difference.

  Illvin reclaimed his horse and grinned as he mounted it. Appreciation for a body up and moving at will through the bright world again was plain in his face, perhaps the more keenly felt for the fragility of the stolen moment. He let Liss help lengthen his stirrups, spoke a word of thanks, settled in his saddle, and gave Ista a cheery salute.