Paladin of Souls (Curse of Chalion)

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “Royina!” he cried. “Thank the gods, one and five! Praise the Daughter of Spring! I was sure the Jokonans had snatched you away at the last! I’ve all who can still ride out with the march of Porifors’s men, searching for you—”

  “Our company, Ferda—were any hurt?” Ista struggled upright, a hand upon the march’s arm, as Ferda pushed his way up to the dappled horse’s shoulder.

  He ran a hand through his sweat-stiff hair. “One was hit in the thigh by a quarrel from the march’s men, bad luck, one had his leg broken when his horse fell on him. I set two to tend them, while we wait for the physicians to get free of the worse hurt fellows. The rest are as well as might be. Me, too, now that my heart isn’t being plowed through the dirt in terror for you.”

  Arhys dy Lutez had grown still as stone, beneath her. “Royina?” he echoed. “This is Dowager Royina Ista?”

  Ferda looked up, grinning. “Aye, sir? If you are her rescuer, I shall kiss your hands and feet! We were in agony when we counted the women captives and found her gone.”

  The march stared at Ista as though she had transmuted into some startling creature of myth before his eyes. Perhaps I have. Which of the several versions of the death of his father at Roya Ias’s hands had he heard? Which lie did he believe true?

  “My apologies, March,” said Ista, with a crispness she did not feel. “The Sera dy Ajelo was my chosen incognito, for humility’s sake on my pilgrimage, but for safety’s sake thereafter.” Not that it had worked. “But now I am delivered by your bravery, I can dare to be Ista dy Chalion once more.”

  “Well,” he said after a moment. “Dy Tolnoxo wasn’t wrong about everything after all. What a surprise.”

  She glanced up through her lashes. The mask was back, now, tied tight. The march let her down very carefully into Ferda’s upreaching arms.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ISTA CLUNG TO FERDA’S ELBOW AS HE ESCORTED HER ACROSS THE trampled greensward and poured out an excited account of the dawn’s battle as witnessed from somewhat farther forward in the column. She did not follow one sentence in three, though she gathered he was greatly enamored of Arhys dy Lutez’s warcraft. The meadow wavered before her gaze. Her head seemed poorly attached, and not always the same size. Her eyes throbbed, and as for her legs …

  “Ferda,” she interrupted gently.

  “Yes, Royina?”

  “I want … a piece of bread and a bedroll.”

  “This rough camp is no place for your repose—”

  “Any bread. Any bedroll.”

  “There may be some women I can find for your attendants, but they are not what you are used to—”

  “Your bedroll would do.”

  “Royina, I—”

  “If you do not give me a bedroll at once, I am going to sit down on the ground right here and start to cry. Now.”

  This threat, delivered in a dead-level tone, seemed to get through at last; at least, he stopped worrying about all the things he thought she ought to have, that weren’t here, and provided what she asked for, which was. He led her to the officers’ tents by the trees, picked one apparently at random, poked his head inside, and ushered her within. It was stuffy and warm, and smelled of mildew, strange men, leather, horses, and oil for blades and mail. There was a bedroll. She lay down on it, boots, bloody skirts, and all.

  Ferda returned in a few minutes with a piece of brown bread. She held up one hand and gave a vague wave; he pressed the morsel into it. She gnawed it sleepily. When the tent’s owner returned … someone else could deal with him. Foix could have convinced him that this blatant theft was an honor to be devoutly treasured, she had no doubt. Ferda might do almost as well. She was worried about Foix and dy Cabon. Were they still afoot in the wilderness? Liss had clearly escaped and reached Maradi, but what had she done after that? Had they found each other yet? And … and …

  SHE PULLED OPEN GLUEY EYES AND STARED UPWARD. POINTS OF light leaked through the tent fabric’s rough weave, winking as a faint breeze moved the leaves overhead. Her body felt beaten, and her head ached. A half-chewed morsel of bread lay where it had fallen from her hand. Afternoon? By the evidence of the light and her bladder, no later.

  An apprehensive female voice whispered, “Lady? Are you awake?”

  She groaned and rolled over to find that Ferda, or someone, had found attendants for her after all. Two rough-looking camp followers and a clean woman in the Mother’s green of a medical acolyte awaited her wakening. The acolyte, it transpired, had been conscripted from the nearest town by one of the march’s couriers. They shortly proved to have more practical skills among them than the whole troop of highborn ladies back in Valenda who had formerly plagued Ista with their services.

  Fully half of her own clothes had been retrieved from the Roknari spoils, presumably by Ferda or one of his men, and set in a pile on the opposite bedroll. Abundant wash water, tooth-sticks and astringent herb paste, medications and new bandages, a thorough brushing and replaiting of her feral hair, nearly clean garments—when Ista limped from the tent into the early-evening light on the acolyte’s arm, she felt, if not royal, at least womanly again.

  The camp was quiet, though not deserted; small groups of men came and went on mysterious postbattle errands. No one, it appeared, wished to load her aboard another horse at once, which saved her a fit of hysterics for which she had no stamina. She could only be grateful. Some cleaned-up, if exhausted-looking, men of her guard now had their own campfire in the grove, and had borrowed camp followers. She was invited to a seat upon an upturned log, hastily chopped into the form of a chair and thoughtfully padded with folded blankets. Upon this makeshift throne she idly watched a dinner being prepared for her company. She dispatched the acolyte to offer her medical services to any of her men who might still have unattended hurts; the woman returned hearteningly soon. At length, Ferda appeared. He, too, seemed to have snatched some sleep, to Ista’s relief, although clearly not enough.

  As aromatic smoke rose from the fire, Arhys dy Lutez rode in accompanied by a dozen officers and guards. He approached her and offered a bow that would not have been out of place in a noble’s palace in Cardegoss. He inquired politely after her treatment, accepting her assurances of its excellence rather doubtfully.

  “In Cardegoss, in the summer, the court ladies frequently made picnics in the forest, and pretended to rustic delights,” she told him. “It was quite fashionable to dine upon a tapestry spread under a grove much like this, in weather equally fine.” Minus the wounded men and strewn battle gear, granted.

  He smiled. “I hope we may soon do better by you. I have a few matters to attend to here, and reports to dispatch to my lord the provincar of Caribastos. But by tomorrow morning our road should be safe and clear of Jokonan stragglers. It is my desire and honor to welcome you to the hospitality of Castle Porifors, until your hurts and weariness are healed and your men restored, and then to lend you escort where you will.”

  Her lips pursed, considering this. She felt the solicitous weight of his stare upon her. “Is Porifors the closest haven?”

  “It is the strongest hold. There are villages and towns that lie closer, but their walls are lesser, and they are, frankly, but humble places. A half a day’s ride more for you, no worse, and that in easy stages, I promise. And”—a smile flickered across his lips, a flash of charm and warmth—“I confess, it is my home; I should be pleased and proud to show it to you.”

  Ista ignored her heart, melting like wax in a candle flame. Yet taking up his society must lead to further speech with him, which must lead to … what? Ferda, she noticed, was watching her with fervent hope. The young officer-dedicat breathed an open sigh of satisfaction when she said, “Thank you, my lord. We shall be pleased for the rest and refuge.” She added after a moment, “Perhaps the lost members of our company may find us there, if we tarry a time. When you write to dy Caribastos, would you ask him to pass the word that we seek them anxiously, and to speed them there if—when—they are found?”


  “Certainly, Royina.”

  Ferda whispered to her, “And if you are lodged in a secure fortress, then I can seek them, too.”

  “Perhaps,” she murmured back. “Let us reach it, first.”

  At Ferda’s earnest invitation, the march lingered by their fire, as the sun went down and the camp followers, thrown on their mettle by Ista’s royal presence, produced a surprisingly complex meal. Ista had not known that one could bake bread, redolent with herbs, garlic, and onions, in a pan over an open fire. Arhys refused the food, saying he had already eaten, but accepted a mug of watered wine, or rather, water tinted with a splash of wine.

  He excused himself early. Ista could see the glow from the candles in his tent as he scribbled at whatever campaign desk his servants carried along on such forays, receiving rolls of the dead and wounded and captured, dispatching orders and reports and letters to be carried away in the dark by swift riders. She saw one of the captured Jokonan tally officers marched in for a long interview. When she retired to her purloined tent again, now cleared of its owner’s gear and strewn with scented herbs, Arhys’s working lights still shone through his tent walls, like a lantern in the long night.

  THEIR DEPARTURE WAS DELAYED IN THE MORNING BY MATTERS OF Arhys’s troop and delegations from the town where he had sent the Jokonan prisoners, which she could see annoyed him, but at last the tents were folded. A fresh horse of the march’s company was presented to her, a pretty white gelding, clad in her own saddle and trappings. She had noted the young soldier who brought it to her riding it about the meadow earlier, presumably to take its edge off and be certain it was suitable for a lady to ride. A tired, aging lady. She would have preferred a staircase to board it, but made do with the soldier’s nervous leg up.

  “I hope he will do for you, Royina,” said the young man, ducking his head. “I picked him out myself. We miss our master of horse, since he has fallen ill—my lord tries to do two men’s tasks. But all will be easier when we return to Porifors.”

  “I’m sure it will.”

  It was a much-expanded company that clambered out of the river valley and across the dry countryside. Forty horsemen in the gray tabards of Porifors rode ahead, mail-clad and armed, before Ista and Ferda’s reduced troop. A long train of baggage mules and servants followed after, then another twenty men for rear guard. They struck a track, then turned north upon a greater road. Scouts came and went, ahead and along the fringes, to exchange brief but apparently reassuring reports with Arhys’s alert officers.

  They settled down to a steady plod through the warm morning. At length, Arhys won free of the plucking demands of his command long enough to drop back and ride by her side.

  He saluted her with good cheer, now that he had his little army headed in the preferred direction. “Royina. I trust you slept well, and that this last ride is bearable?”

  “Yes, I’ll do. Though I believe I would mutiny at a trot.”

  He chuckled. “None shall ask it of you, then. We’ll rest a space at noon, and come to Porifors in time for a rather better dinner than I could offer you last night.”

  “Then we shall dine very well indeed. I look forward to it.” The courtesies fell automatically from her lips. But by the tension in his smile, he wanted more than an exchange of pleasantries.

  “I feel I must apologize for not recognizing you yesterday,” he continued. “The courier from Tolnoxo who brought warning of the column told us a wild tale that you were among the taken, but all his reports were very garbled. Yet when I saw the Jokonan officers hustling a woman away, I thought they might be true after all. Then your alias confused me anew.”

  “You owe me no apology. I was overcautious, as it proved.”

  “Not at all. I … never thought to meet you. In the flesh.”

  “I must say, I am quite glad you did. Or I should have woken up someplace unpleasant in Jokona this morning.”

  He smiled briefly and glanced across at Ferda, riding on Ista’s other side as a contented audience to all this noble speech. Curiosity wrestled with dread in Ista’s stomach, and won. She took the hint and waved Ferda out of earshot. “My good dedicat, leave us a little.” With a disappointed look, he tightened his reins and dropped behind. She and Arhys were left riding together side by side, pearl-white horse and charcoal-gray, an elegant picture and as nice a balance between private and proper as could likely be obtained. She felt a pang of loneliness for Liss, and wondered where the girl was now. Carrying on competently, no doubt.

  Arhys regarded her through slightly lidded eyes, as though he contemplated enigmas. “I should have known at once. I’ve felt a gravity in your presence from the moment I first saw you. And yet you did not look like what I thought bright Ista should have been.”

  If this was the start of some suave dalliance, she was too tired to deal with it. If it was something else … she was much too tired. She finally managed, “How did you imagine me?”

  He waved vaguely. “Taller. Eyes more blue. Hair more pale—honeyed gold, the court poets said.”

  “Court poets are paid to lie like fools, but yes, it was lighter in my youth. The eyes are the same. They see more clearly now, perhaps.”

  “I did not picture eyes the color of winter rain, nor hair the shade of winter fields. I wondered if your long grief brought you to this sad season.”

  “No, I was always a dull dab of a thing,” she tossed off. He did not laugh. It would have helped. “I grant you, age has improved nothing but my wits.” And even they are suspect.

  “Royina—if you can bear to—can you tell me something of my father?”

  Alas, I didn’t think this interest was all for my rain-colored, weeping eyes. “What is there to say that all men do not know? Arvol dy Lutez was good at all things to which he turned his hand. Sword, horse, music, verse, war, government … If his brilliance had any flaw, it was in his very versatility, which stole away the sustained effort that would …” She cut off her words, but the thought flowed on. Dy Lutez’s many great starts, she realized at this distance, had not been matched by nearly as many great finishes. Fragrant in the flower, green and cankered in the fruit … Yes. I should have realized it then, even then. Or, if my girl’s judgment was too weak, where was that of the gods, who have no such excuse? “He was the delight of every eye that fell upon him.” Except mine.

  Arhys stared down at his horse’s withers. “Not dull,” he said after a moment. “I have seen more beautiful women, but you anchor my eye … I cannot explain it.”

  A suave courtier, she decided, would never commit the blunder of admitting the existence of women more lovely than his current auditor, and would have gone on to explain himself at poetic length. Mere dalliance might be dismissed with a smile. Arhys’s remarks were considerably more worrisome, taken in earnest.

  He continued, “I begin to understand why my father would risk his life for your love.”

  Ista, with regret, forbore to scream. “Lord Arhys. Stop.”

  He glanced across at her, startled, then realized she did not mean halt his horse. “Royina?”

  “I see the romantic rumors penetrated all the way to Caribastos. But there is no lapse in his exquisite taste to explain away, for Arvol dy Lutez was never my lover.”

  Taken thoroughly aback, he digested her words for a moment. At last he offered cautiously, “I suppose … you’ve no reason, now, to tell other than the truth.”

  “I never told other than the truth. The clapping iron tongues of rumor and slander were not mine. I was silent, mostly.” And any less at fault, therefore? Hardly.

  His forehead wrinkled as he worked this through. “Did Roya Ias not believe your protestations of innocence?”

  Ista rubbed her brow. “I see we must back up a little. What have you imagined to be the truth of those fatal events, all these years?”

  He frowned uneasily. “I believed … I concluded … my father was tortured to confess his fault in loving you. And when, to protect you or his honor, he would
not speak, the inquisitors went too far in their duress, and he died in accident there in the Zangre’s dungeons. The charges of peculation and secret dealings with the roya of Brajar were got up to cloak Ias’s guilt, afterward. A truth tacitly admitted by Ias when the dy Lutez legacy was not attaindered, as real traitors’ estates are, but let to flow to his heirs.”

  “You are shrewd,” she remarked. And about three-quarters correct. He lacked only the secret core of the events. “Dy Lutez was very nearly as brave as that, indeed. It is as good a tale as any, and better than most.”

  His gaze flicked to her. “I have offended you, lady. My abject pardon.”

  She sought better control of her tone. She desperately wanted him to know that she had not been his father’s lover. And why? What did it matter, at this late hour? His beliefs about dy Lutez, the father who, as far as she could tell, had ignored him utterly, were noble and romantic, and why should she take that heart’s lone legacy from him now?

  She studied his tall, easy power from the corner of her eye. Well, that question answered itself, didn’t it?

  It was pointless to replace his bright lie with some other lie. But to explain the truth, in all its dark complexity—and complicity—could hardly advance any secret romantic dream of hers.

  Perhaps, when she knew him better, she might dare to tell all. What, that his father was drowned by my word? How well will I have to know him for that?

  She took a long breath. “Your father was not a traitor, in bed or out of it. He was as courageous and noble a man as ever served Chalion. It took a task beyond all human fortitude to break him.” Failure, at the sticking point. Failure wasn’t treason, even if the rubble it left in its wake was every bit as dire.

  “Lady, you bewilder me.”

  Her nerve broke. Even as dy Lutez’s did, aye? “It is a state secret, and Ias died before ever releasing me from my sworn silence. I promised I would never tell a living soul. I can say no more, except to assure you that you need bear your father’s name with no shame.”