Paladin of Souls (Curse of Chalion)

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  An especially fine sword was then presented to Ferda, to his obvious pleasure. Cattilara bestowed a few pieces upon her ladies, Arhys distributed the bulk to his officers, with personal words or jokes, and the residue was disposed to the divine for prayers in the town temple. A young dedicat, apparently the elderly divine’s personal prop, took charge of it with thanks and blessings.

  Ista let her finger glide over the contents of her box. It made her skin crawl. She did not want this mortal legacy. Well, there was a solution for that. She started to pick out one ring for her brave handmaiden, formed of tiny galloping gold horses—where was Liss by now? But after a hesitant moment, her hand drifted to a curved dagger with a jeweled hilt. It had a certain elegant practicality that seemed more in the riding girl’s style. With a sigh, recalling that all her money was at the bottom of a river in Tolnoxo, she withdrew a few trinkets for vails as well. She laid both ring and dagger aside, and pushed the box down toward Ferda.

  “Ferda. Pick out the best piece for your absent brother. And the four next best for our wounded and the men who were left with them. Something appropriate for dy Cabon, too. Each man of your company may then take what he likes. The rest, please see that it comes to the Daughter’s Order, with my thanks.”

  “Certainly, Royina!” Ferda smiled, but then his smile faded. He leaned closer across the marchess’s empty seat. “I wanted to ask you. Now that you are indeed delivered to a place of safety, and look to be secure here under the march’s protection for a time, may I have your leave to go and search for Foix, and Liss and the divine?”

  I do not know what this strange place is, but I do not name it safety. She could not say so aloud. Almost, she wanted to order him to ready his men for her departure tomorrow. Tonight. Impractical, impossible. Impolite. The Daughter’s men were nearly as exhausted as she was. Half their horses were still back on the road with Porifors’s grooms, being brought along in slow stages.

  “You are as much in need of rest as any of us,” she temporized.

  “I will rest better when I know what has happened to them.”

  She had to allow the truth of that, but the thought of being trapped here without her own escort sent a shiver of unease along her nerves. She frowned in uncertainty as Lady Cattilara fluttered back to her place.

  Lord Arhys also returned, to lower himself into his chair with a covertly weary sigh. Ista asked after his letters of inquiry on her missing people’s behalf. He listened in what seemed to Ista especially grave sympathy to Ferda’s concern for his brother, but opined that it was too early for a reply. By tacit agreement, no one mentioned the complication of the bear-demon.

  “We know that Liss, at least, found her way to the provincar of Tolnoxo,” argued Ista. “Others might have given warning of the raiders, but only she knew that I was among the taken. And if she made it to safety, she will surely have had the sense to ask for searchers for your brother and the good divine.”

  “That’s … true.” Ferda’s lips wrinkled, tugged between reassurance and worry. “If they listened to her. If they gave her shelter …”

  “The chancellery’s courier stations will have given her refuge even if dy Tolnoxo did not, though if he did not reward her courage with a proper hospitality—and her pleas with all aid—he will certainly hear from me about it. And from Chancellor dy Cazaril, too, I warrant. By Lord Arhys’s letters, the world will shortly know where we have fetched up. If our strays find their way to Porifors while you are running about hunting for them, Ferda, you will miss them all the same. In any case, you surely cannot intend to hare off in the dark, tonight. Let us see what counsel—or messages—tomorrow morning brings.”

  Ferda had to agree to the sense of that.

  A cool twilight was falling in the court. The musicians concluded their offering, but no dancing or masque was presented. The men made sure that the last of the wine did not go to waste, and final prayers and blessings were offered. The divine doddered away on his dedicat’s arm, trailed by his rustic temple’s people. Arhys’s officers made slightly awed courtesies to the dowager royina, seeming honored to be permitted to kneel and kiss her legendary hands. But from the way they strode off afterward, faces already intent upon anticipated tasks, Ista was reminded that this was a working fortress.

  Cattilara made to put a helpful hand under her elbow as she rose.

  “Now I can take you to your rooms, Royina,” she said, smiling. She glanced briefly at Arhys. “They are not so large, but … the roof is in better repair.”

  The food and the wine, Ista had to admit, had combined to destroy any ambition of hers for further movement tonight. “Thank you, Lady Cattilara. That would be good.”

  Arhys formally kissed her hands good night. Ista was uncertain if his lips were cool or warm, confused by the disturbing tingle their imprints left on her knuckles. In any case, they did not burn with fever, though when he raised his clear gray eyes to hers, she flushed.

  Trailed by the usual gaggle of women, the marchess took her arm and strolled with her through another archway beneath the gallery and down a short arcade. They turned again and went under another looming line of buildings to emerge in a small, square courtyard. The evening was still luminous, but overhead, the first star shone in the high blue vault.

  A stone-arched walk ran around the court’s edge, the fine alabaster pillars carved with a tracery of vines and flowers in the Roknari style …

  Neither hot noon nor chill half-moon midnight, but still the same court as in Ista’s dreams, every detail identical, unmistakable, engraved on her memory as if with chisel and awl. Ista felt faint. She could not decide if she felt surprised.

  “I think I should like to sit down,” she said in a thin voice. “Now.”

  Cattilara glanced, startled, at the trembling of Ista’s hand on her arm. Obediently, she guided Ista to a bench, one of several around the courtyard’s margin, and sat down with her. The time-polished marble beneath Ista’s fingers was still warm from the heat of the day, though the air was cooling, growing soft. She gripped the stone edge briefly, then forced herself to sit straight and take a deep breath. This place seemed an older part of the fortress. It lacked the ubiquitous pots of flowers; only the legacy of the Roknari stonecutters kept it from being severe.

  “Royina, are you all right?” asked Cattilara diffidently.

  Ista considered various lies, or truths for that matter—My legs hurt. I have the headache. She settled on, “I will be, if I rest a moment.” She considered the marchess’s anxious profile. “You were going to tell me what struck down Lord Illvin.” With difficulty, Ista kept her eyes from turning toward that door, in the far corner to the left of the stairs to the gallery.

  Cattilara hesitated, frowning deeply. “It is not so much what, as who, we think.”

  Ista’s brows climbed. “Some evil attack?”

  “That, to be sure. It was all very complicated.” She glanced up at her waiting women and waved them away. “Leave us, please you.” She watched them settle out of earshot on a bench at the court’s far end, then lowered her voice confidentially. “About three months ago, the spring embassy came from Jokona, to arrange the trade of prisoners, set ransoms, obtain letters of safe passage for their merchants, all the things such envoys do. But this time, with a most unexpected offering in their train—a widowed sister of Prince Sordso of Jokona. An elder sister, married twice before, I gather, to some dreadful rich old Jokonan lords, who did what old lords do. I don’t know if she refused to be sacrificed so again, or if she’d lost her value in that market with her age—she was almost thirty. Though really, she was still fairly attractive. Princess Umerue. It soon became clear that her entourage sought a marriage alliance with my lord’s brother, if he proved to please her.”

  “Interesting,” said Ista neutrally.

  “My lord thought it a good sign, that it might be a way to secure Jokona’s acquiescence in the coming campaign against Visping. If Illvin were willing. And it was soon evident that Il
lvin—well, I’d never seen his head turned round like that by any woman, for all he pretended otherwise. His tongue was always quicker to bitter jest than to honeyed compliments.”

  If Illvin was only a little younger than Arhys … “Had not Lord Illvin—Ser dy Arbanos?—been married before?”

  “Ser dy Arbanos now, yes—he inherited his father’s title almost ten years ago, I think, though there was not much else to go with it. But no. Two times he was almost betrothed, I think, but the negotiations fell through. His father had devoted him to the Bastard’s Order for a period in his youth, for his education, though he said he did not develop a calling. But as time ran on, people made assumptions. I could see that always annoyed him.”

  Ista recalled making similar assumptions about dy Cabon, and grimaced wryly. Still, even if this Princess Umerue had grown seriously shopworn, a union with a minor Quintarian lord, and a bastard to boot, was a curiously reduced ambition for such a highborn Quadrene. Her maternal grandfather was the Golden General himself, if Ista recalled the old marriage alliances of the Five Princedoms aright. “Did she plan to convert, if the courtship proved successful?”

  “In truth, I am not sure. Illvin was so taken by her, he might well have gone the other way himself. They made a remarkable couple. Dark and golden—she had this classic Roknari skin, the color of fresh honey, and hair that nearly matched it. It was very … well, it was all very plain which way things were going. But there was one who was not happy.”

  Cattilara drew a deep breath, her eyes shadowed. “There was a Jokonan courtier in the princess’s train who was consumed with jealousy and resentment. He’d wanted her for himself, I suppose, and could not see why she was being bartered to an enemy instead. Lord Pechma’s rank and wealth were scarcely more than poor Illvin’s, though of course he had not Illvin’s military reputation. One night … one night, she sent away her attendants, and Illvin … visited her.” Cattilara swallowed. “We think Pechma must have seen, and followed. Next morning, Illvin was nowhere to be found, until her women entered her chambers and discovered the most dreadful scene. They came and woke my lord and me—Arhys would not let me enter the chambers, but it was said”—her voice dropped still lower—“Lord Illvin was found naked, all tangled in her sheets, senseless, bleeding. The princess had fallen dead near the window, as though she had been struggling to escape or call for help, with a poisoned Roknari dagger lodged in her breast. And Lord Pechma, and his horse and gear, and all the purse of the Jokonan party that had been entrusted to him, were gone from Porifors.”

  “Oh,” said Ista.

  Cattilara swallowed, and knuckled her eyes. “My lord’s men and the princess’s servants rode out together, looking for the murderer, but he was long fled. The entourage became a cortege, and took Umerue’s body back to Jokona. Illvin … never awoke. We are not sure if it was from some vile Roknari poison on the dagger that pierced him, or if he fell and hit his head, or if he was struck some other dire blow. But we are terribly afraid his mind is gone. I think that horror grieves Arhys more than even Illvin’s death would have, for he always set great store by his brother’s wits.”

  “And … how was this received in Jokona?”

  “Not well, for all that they brought their evil with them. The border has been very tense, since. Which did you some good, after all, for all my lord’s men were in readiness to ride out when the provincar of Tolnoxo’s courier galloped in.”

  “No wonder Lord Arhys is on edge. Appalling events indeed.” Leaking roofs, indeed. Ista could only be grateful to Arhys’s short temper, not to be lodged tonight in Princess Umerue’s death chamber. She considered Cattilara’s horrific account. Lurid and agonizing, yes. But there was nothing uncanny about it. No gods, no visions, no blazing white fires that yet did not burn. No mortal red wounds that opened and closed like a man buttoning his tunic.

  I would look upon this Lord Illvin, she wanted to say. Can you take me in to view him? And what excuse would she give for her morbid curiosity, this dubious desire to enter a man’s sickroom? In any case, she did not want to gawk at the high laid low. What she really wanted was to mount a horse—no—a cart, and be carried far from here.

  It had grown dark enough to drain the color from her sight; Cattilara’s face was a fine pale blur. “It has been a very long day. I grow weary.” Ista climbed to her feet. Cattilara sprang to assist her up the stairs. Ista gritted her teeth, let her left hand lie lightly on the young woman’s arm, and pushed her way up with her right hand on the railing. Cattilara’s ladies, still conversing among themselves, straggled after them.

  As they reached the top, the door at the far end swung open. Ista’s head snapped around. A runty, bowlegged man with a short grizzled beard emerged, carrying a mess of dirty linens and a bucket with a closed lid. Seeing the women, he set his burdens down outside the door and hastened forward.

  “Lady Catti,” he said in a gravelly voice, ducking his head. “He needs more goat’s milk. With more honey in’t.”

  “Not now, Goram.” With an irritated wrinkling of her nose, Cattilara waved him off. “I’ll come soon.”

  He ducked his head again, but his eyes gleamed from under his thick brows as he peered across at Ista. Curious or incurious, she could hardly tell in these shadows, but she felt his stare like a hand on her back as she turned right to follow Cattilara into the suite of rooms waiting for her on the gallery’s other end.

  His footsteps clumped away. She glanced back in time to see the door on the far end open and close once more, an orange line of candlelight flaring, narrowing, and blinking out.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CATTILARA’S LADIES WRAPPED ISTA IN A GRACEFUL, GAUZY nightdress, and tucked her into a bed covered in the finest embroidered linens. Ista had them leave the candle in its glass vase burning on her table. The women tiptoed out and shut the door to the outermost of the two chambers, where the acolyte and a maid would sleep tonight, within the royina’s call. Ista sat up on a generous bank of pillows, contemplating the wavering light and the darkness it drove back. Contemplating her options.

  It was possible to resist sleep for days on end, till the room swayed and strange, formless hallucinations spurted across one’s vision like sparks spitting from a fire. She’d tried that, once, when the gods had first troubled her dreams, when she’d feared she was going mad and Ias had let her go on thinking so. It had ended badly. It was possible to drown one’s wits, and dreams, in drink. For a little while. She’d tried that, too, and it had worked even less well, in the long run. There was no refuge from the gods to be had in madness, either; quite the reverse.

  She brooded about what might be lying, on a bed not dissimilar to this if less delicately perfumed, in that room on the other end of the gallery. Actually, she rather thought she knew quite precisely how the bed, and the rugs, and the room—and its occupant—appeared. She didn’t even need to look. I never saw Goram the groom before, though. Although she supposed his existence was implied.

  So, You dragged me here, whichever of You harries me. But you cannot force me through that door. Nor can you open it yourselves. You cannot lift so much as a leaf; bending iron or my will is a task equally beyond your capacities. They were at a stand, she and the gods. She could defy them all day long.

  But not all night long. Eventually, I must sleep, and we all know it.

  She sighed, leaned over, and blew out her candle. The hot wax smell lingered in her nose, and the dazzle of its light left a colored smear in her eyes as she rolled over and thumped her pillow into shape beneath her shoulder. You cannot open that door. And You cannot make me do it, either, send what dreams You will.

  Do Your second-worst. Your worst, you have done to me already.

  HER SLEEP AT FIRST WAS FORMLESS, DREAMLESS, BLANK. THEN SHE swam for a little in ordinary dreams, their anxious absurdities melting one into another. Then she stepped into a room, and all was changed; the room was solid, square, its angles unyielding as any real place, thou
gh not any place she’d yet been. Not Lord Illvin’s chamber. Not her own. It was bright afternoon outside, by the light falling through the tracery of the shutters. She knew it for a room in Castle Porifors by its style, then she realized she had glimpsed it once before, in a flash of candlelight. Lord Arhys had cried out …

  All was serene and empty now. The chamber was clean and swept. And unpeopled, but for herself—no, wait. A door opened.

  A familiar figure was briefly backlit by the hazy light falling into the flower-decked court beyond. It filled the door from side to side, heaved its hips through, let the door swing shut. Briefly, her heart lifted in joy and relief to see Learned dy Cabon safe and well.

  Except … it was not dy Cabon. Or not dy Cabon only.

  He was fatter, brighter, whiter. Faintly androgynous. Did that flesh swell as if to contain the uncontainable? His garments were spotless—by that alone, Ista might have known the difference—and luminous as the moon. Above the creases of his smile, cheerfully echoed by the curves of his chins, the god’s eyes glinted at her. Wider than skies, deeper than sea chasms, their complexity bent inward endlessly, each layer a lamination of other layers, repeated into infinity, or the infinitesimal. Eyes that might simultaneously contemplate each person and living thing in the world, inside and out, with equal and unhurried attention.

  My Lord Bastard. Ista did not speak His name aloud, lest He mistake it for a prayer. Instead, she said lightly, “Aren’t I a little overmatched?”

  He bowed over his immense belly. “Small, yet strong. I, as you know, cannot lift a leaf. Nor bend iron. Nor your will. My Ista.”