The Curse of Chalion

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  His muscles had seized up while he was sitting, despite the wine; Cazaril almost fell over, trying to rise from his chair. Palli caught him by the elbow and steadied him, and frowned deeply. Cazaril gave him a tiny shake of his head and went off to wash and change. And examine his bruises in private.

  SUPPER WAS A CHEERFUL MEAL, ATTENDED BY MOST of the household. Dy Palliar, no slouch at table when it came to either food or talk, held the attention of everyone, from the Lord Teidez and Lady Iselle down to the youngest page, with his tales. Despite the wine he kept his head in the high company, and told only the merry stories, with himself more as butt than hero. The account of how he’d followed Cazaril on a night sortie against the Roknari sappers, and so discouraged them for a month thereafter, drew wide-eyed stares upon Cazaril as well as himself. They clearly had a hard time picturing the royesse’s timid, soft-spoken secretary grinning in the dirt and the soot, scrambling through the burning rubble with a dirk in his hand. Cazaril realized he disliked the stares. He wanted to be…invisible, here. Twice Palli tried to toss the conversational ball to him, to take a turn at the entertaining, and twice he fielded it back to Palli or to dy Ferrej. After the second attempt fell flat, Palli desisted from trying to draw him out.

  The meal ran very late, but at last came the hour Cazaril had been both longing for and dreading, when all parted for the night, and Palli knocked on his chamber door. Cazaril bade him enter, pushed the trunk to the wall, tossed a cushion upon it for his guest, and settled himself upon his bed; both he and it creaked audibly. Palli sat and stared across at him in the dim double candlelight, and began with a directness that revealed the trend of his mind all too clearly.

  “Error, Caz? Have you thought about that?”

  Cazaril sighed. “I had nineteen months to think of it, Palli. I rubbed every possibility as thin as an old coin in my brain. I thought of it till I was sick to death of the thinking, and called it done. It’s done.”

  This time, Palli brushed the hint firmly aside. “Do you think it was the Roknari taking revenge upon you, by hiding you from us and saying you died?”

  “That’s one.” Except that I saw the list.

  “Or did someone leave you off the list on purpose?” Palli persisted.

  The list was in Martou dy Jironal’s own hand. “That was my final conclusion.”

  Palli’s breath blew out. “Vile! A vile betrayal, after what we suffered—dammit, Caz! When I get up to court, I am going to tell March dy Jironal of this. He’s the most powerful lord in Chalion, the gods know. Together, I wager we can get to the bottom of—”

  “No!” Cazaril lurched upright from his cushions, terrified. “Don’t, Palli! Don’t even tell dy Jironal I exist! Don’t discuss it, don’t mention me—if the world thinks I’m dead, so much the better. If I’d realized that was so, I would have stayed in Ibra. Just…drop it.”

  Palli stared. “But…Valenda is hardly the end of the world. Of course people will learn you’re alive.”

  “It’s a quiet, peaceful place. I’m not bothering anyone here.”

  Other men were as brave, some were stronger; it was Palli’s wits that had made him Cazaril’s favorite lieutenant at Gotorget. It only needed the one thread to start him unraveling…his eyes narrowed, glinting in the soft candlelight. “Dy Jironal? Himself? Five gods, what did you ever do to him?”

  Cazaril shifted uncomfortably. “I think it was not personal. I think it was just a little…favor, for someone. A little, easy favor.”

  “Then two men must know the truth. Gods, Caz, which two?”

  Palli would go nosing in—Cazaril must either tell him nothing—too late already—or else enough to stop him. Nothing halfway, Palli’s brain would keep plucking at the puzzle—it was doing so even now.

  “Who would hate you so? You were always the most agreeable man—you were downright famous for refusing duels, and leaving the bullroarers to look like the fools they were—for making peace, for wheedling out the most amazing treaty terms, for avoiding faction—Bastard’s hell, you didn’t even make bets on games! Little, easy favor! What could possibly drive such an implacable cruel hatred of you?”

  Cazaril rubbed his brow, which was beginning to ache, and not from tonight’s wine. “Fear. I think.”

  Palli’s lips screwed up in astonishment.

  “And if it becomes known you know, they’ll fear you too. It’s not something I wish to see fall on you, Palli. I want you to steer clear.”

  “If it’s that degree of fear, the fact that we’ve even talked together will make me suspect. Their fear, plus my ignorance—gods, Caz! Don’t send me blindfolded into battle!”

  “I want never to send any man into battle again!” The fierceness in his own voice took even Cazaril by surprise. Palli’s eyes widened. But the solution, the way to use Palli’s own ravenous curiosity against him, came to Cazaril in that moment. “If I tell you what I know, and how I know it, will you give me your word—your word!—to drop it? Don’t pursue it, don’t mention it, don’t mention me—no dark hints, no dancing about the issue—”

  “What, as you are doing now?” said Palli dryly.

  Cazaril grunted, half in amusement, half in pain. “Just so.”

  Palli sat back against the wall, and rubbed his lips. “Merchant,” he said amiably. “To make me buy a pig in a bag, without ever seeing the animal.”

  “Oink,” murmured Cazaril.

  “I only want to buy the squeal, y’know—damn, all right. I never knew you to lead us over wet ground unknowing, nor into ambush. I’ll trust your judgment—to the exact extent you trust my discretion. My word on that.”

  A neat counterthrust. Cazaril could not but admire it. He sighed. “Very well.” He sat silent for a moment after this—welcome—dual surrender, marshaling his thoughts. Where to begin? Well, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t gone over it, and over it, and over it in his mind. A most polished tale, for all it had never crossed his lips before.

  “It’s quickly enough told. I first met Dondo dy Jironal to speak to four, no, it’s five now, five years ago. I was in Guarida’s train in that little border war against the mad Roknari prince Olus—you know, the fellow who made a habit of burying his enemies up to the waist in excrement and burning them alive?—the one who was murdered about a year later by his own bodyguards?”

  “Oh, yes. I’d heard of him. Ended head down in the excrement, they say.”

  “There are several versions. But he was still in control at that time. Lord dy Guarida had cornered Olus’s army—well, rabble—up in the hills at the edge of his princedom. Lord Dondo and I were sent as the envoys, under the flag of parley, to deliver an ultimatum to Olus and arrange the terms and ransoms. Things went…badly, in the conference, and Olus decided he only required one messenger to return his defiance to the assembled lords of Chalion. So he stood us up, Dondo and me, in his tent surrounded by four of his monster guards with swords and gave us a choice. Whichever of us would cut off the other’s head would be permitted to ride with it back to our lines. If we both refused, we both would die, and he’d return both our heads by catapult.”

  Palli opened his mouth, but the only comment he managed was, “Ah.”

  Cazaril took a breath. “I was given the first chance. I refused the sword. Olus whispered to me, in this weird oily voice, ‘You cannot win this game, Lord Cazaril.’ I said, ‘I know, m’hendi. But I can make you lose it.’ He was quiet for a little, but then he just laughed. Then he turned round and gave the chance to Dondo, who was green as a corpse by then…”

  Palli stirred, but didn’t interrupt; he signaled Cazaril mutely to go on.

  “One of the guards knocked me to my knees and stretched my head, by the hair, over a footstool. Dondo—took his cut.”

  “On the guard’s arm?” said Palli eagerly.

  Cazaril hesitated. “No,” he said at last. “But Olus, at the last moment, thrust his sword between us, and Dondo’s sword came down on its flat, and slid—” Cazaril could still hear the
sharp scraping skree of metal on metal, in his memory’s ear. “I ended up with a bruise across the back of my neck that was black for a month. Two of the other guards wrestled the sword back from Dondo. And then we were both mounted up on our horses and sent back to dy Guarida’s camp. As my hands were being tied to my saddle, Olus came up to me again, and whispered, ‘Now we shall see who loses.’

  “It was a very silent ride back. Until we were in sight of camp. And Dondo turned and looked at me for the first time, and said, ‘If you ever tell this tale, I will kill you.’ And I said, “Don’t worry, Lord Dondo. I only tell amusing tales at table.’ I should have just sworn silence. I know better now, and yet…maybe even that would not have been enough.”

  “He owes you his life!”

  Cazaril shook his head, and looked away. “I’ve seen his soul stripped naked. I doubt he can ever forgive me for that. Well, I didn’t speak of it, of course, and he let it lie. I thought that was the end of it. But then came Gotorget, and then came…well. What came after Gotorget. And now I am doubly damned. If Dondo ever learns, if he ever realizes that I know exactly how I came to be sold to the galleys, what do you think my life will be worth then? But if I say nothing, do nothing, nothing to remind him…perhaps he has forgotten, by now. I just want to be left alone, in this quiet place. He surely has more pressing enemies these days.” He turned his face back to Palli, and said tensely, “Don’t you ever mention me to either of the Jironals. Ever. You never heard this story. You scarcely know me. If you ever loved me, Palli, leave it be.”

  Palli’s lips were pressed together; his oath would hold him, Cazaril thought. But he made a little unhappy gesture nonetheless. “As you will, but, but…damn. Damn.” He stared for long across the dim chamber at Cazaril, as if searching for who-knew-what in his face. “It’s not just that dreadful excuse for a beard. You are much changed.”

  “Am I? Well, so.”

  “How…” Palli looked away, looked back. “How bad was it? Really? In the galleys.”

  Cazaril shrugged. “I was fortunate in my misfortunes. I survived. Some did not.”

  “One hears all sorts of horrific stories, how the slaves are terrorized, or…misused…”

  Cazaril scratched his slandered beard. It was too filling in, a bit, he fancied. “The stories are not so much untrue as twisted, exaggerated—exceptional events mistaken as daily bread. The best captains treated us as a good farmer treats his animals, with a sort of impersonal kindness. Food, water—heh—exercise—enough cleanliness to keep us free of disease and in good condition. Beating a man senseless makes him unfit to pull his oar, you know. Anyway, that sort of physical…discipline was only required in port. Once at sea, the sea supplied all.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Cazaril’s brows flicked up. “Why break a man’s skin, or his head, when you can break his heart simply by putting him overboard, in the water with his legs dangling down like worms for the great fishes? The Roknari only had to wait a very little to have us swim after and beg and plead and weep for our slavery again.”

  “You were always a strong swimmer. Surely that helped you bear it better than most?” Palli’s voice was hopeful.

  “The opposite, I’m afraid. The men who sank like stones went mercifully quickly. Think about it, Palli. I did.” He still did, sitting up bolt upright in the dark in this bed from some nightmare of the water, closing over his head. Or worse…not. Once, the wind had come up unexpectedly while the oar-master had been playing this little game with a certain recalcitrant Ibran, and the captain, anxious for port before the storm, had refused to circle back. The Ibran’s fading screams had echoed over the water as the ship drew away, growing fainter and fainter…. The captain had docked the oar-master the cost of the slave’s replacement, as punishment for his misjudgment, which had made him surly for weeks.

  After a moment Palli said, “Oh.”

  Oh indeed. “Grant you, my pride—and my mouth—did win me one beating when I first went aboard, but I still fancied myself a lord of Chalion then. I was broken of that…later.”

  “But…you weren’t…they didn’t make you an object of…I mean, use you after a degrading…um.”

  The light was too dim to tell if Palli reddened, but it finally dawned on Cazaril that he was trying to inquire in this worried and tongue-tumbled fashion if Cazaril had been raped. Cazaril’s lips twisted in sympathy. “You are confusing the Roknari fleets with those of Darthaca, I think. I’m afraid those legends represent wishful thinking on someone’s part. The Roknari heresy of the four gods makes a crime of the sort of odd loves the Bastard rules, here. The Roknari theologians say the Bastard is a demon, like his father, and not a god, after his holy mother, and so call us all devil worshippers—which is a deep offense to the Lady of Summer, I think, as well as to the poor Bastard himself, for did he ask to be born? They torture and hang men caught in sodomy, and the better Roknari shipmasters do not tolerate it aboard in either men or slaves.”

  “Ah.” Palli settled in relief. But then, being Palli, thought to ask, “And the worse Roknari shipmasters?”

  “Their discretion could become deadly. It didn’t happen to me—I fancy I was too bony—but a few of the young men, the softer boys…We slaves knew they were our sacrifice, and we tried to be kind to them when they were returned to the benches. Some cried. Some learned to use the mischance for favors…few of us begrudged them the extra rations or trivial treats so dearly bought. It was a dangerous game, for the Roknari inclined to them in secret were like to turn on them at any moment, and slay them as if they could so slay their own sin.”

  “You make my hair stand on end. I thought I knew my way around the world, but…eh. But at least you were spared the worst.”

  “I don’t know what is the worst,” said Cazaril thoughtfully. “I was once used after a vile humor for the space of one hellish afternoon that made what happened to some of the boys look like a friendly gesture, but no Roknari risked hanging for it.” Cazaril realized he’d never told anyone of the incident, not the kind acolytes of the temple hospital, not, certainly, anyone in the Provincara’s household. He’d had no one he could talk to, till now. He continued almost eagerly. “My corsair made the mistake of tackling a lumbering Brajaran merchanter, and spotted its escorting galleys too late. As we were being chased off, I failed at my oar, fainted in the heat. To make some use of me despite all, the oar-master hauled me out of my chains, stripped me, and hung me over the stern rail with my hands tied to my ankles, to mock our pursuers. I couldn’t tell if the crossbow bolts that thumped into the rail or the stern around me were good or bad aim on the Brajaran archers’ parts, nor by what god’s mercy I didn’t end my life with a few in my ass. Maybe they thought I was Roknari. Maybe they were trying to end my misery.” For the sake of Palli’s widening eyes, Cazaril skipped certain of the more grotesque details. “You know, we lived with fear for months on end at Gotorget, till we were used to it, a sort of nagging ache in the gut that we learned to ignore, but that never quite went away.”

  Palli nodded.

  “But I found out that…this is odd. I don’t quite know how to say it.” He’d never had a chance to try to put it into words, out where he could see it, till now. “I found there is a place beyond fear. When the body and the mind just can’t sustain it anymore. The world, time…reorder themselves. My heartbeat slowed down, I stopped sweating and salivating…it was almost like some holy trance. When the Roknari hung me up, I’d been weeping in fear and shame, in agony for the disgust of it all. When the Brajarans finally veered off, and the oar-master took me down, all blistered from the sun…I was laughing. The Roknari thought I had gone mad, and so withal did my poor benchmates, but I didn’t think so. The whole world was all…new.

  “Of course, the whole world was only a few dozen paces long, and made of wood, and rocked on the water…all time was the turning of a glass. I planned my life by the hour as closely as one plans a year, and no further than an hour. All men were kind and bea
utiful, each in his way, Roknari and slave alike, lordly or vile blood, and I was a friend to all, and smiled. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I did take care never to faint at my oar again, though.”

  His voice slowed, thoughtfully. “So whenever fear comes back into my heart, I am more pleased than anything, for I take it as a sign that I am not mad after all. Or maybe, at least, getting better. Fear is my friend.” He looked up, with a quick, apologetic smile.

  Palli was sitting plastered back against the wall, his legs tense, his dark eyes round as saucers, smiling fixedly. Cazaril laughed out loud.

  “Five gods, Palli, forgive me. I did not mean to make you a donkey for my confidences, to carry them safely away.” Or perhaps he had, for Palli would be going away tomorrow, after all. “They make a motley menagerie to burden you with. I’m sorry.”

  Palli waved away his apology as if batting a stinging fly. His lips moved; he swallowed, and managed, “Are you sure it wasn’t just sunstroke?”

  Cazaril chuckled. “Oh, I had the sunstroke, too, of course. But if it doesn’t kill you, sunstroke passes off in a day or two. This lasted…months.” Until the last incident with that terrified defiant Ibran boy, and Cazaril’s resultant final flogging. “We slaves—”

  “Stop that!” cried Palli, running his hands through his hair.

  “Stop what?” asked Cazaril in puzzlement.

  “Stop saying that. We slaves. You are a lord of Chalion!”

  Cazaril’s smile twisted. He said gently, “We lords, at our oars, then? We sweating, pissing, swearing, grunting gentlemen? I think not, Palli. On the galleys we were not lords or men. We were men or animals, and which proved which had no relation I ever saw to birth or blood. The greatest soul I ever met there had been a tanner, and I would kiss his feet right now with joy to learn he yet lived. We slaves, we lords, we fools, we men and women, we mortals, we toys of the gods—all the same thing, Palli. They are all the same to me now.”

  After a long, indrawn breath, Palli changed the subject abruptly to the little matters of managing his escort from the Daughter’s military order. Cazaril found himself comparing useful tricks for treating leather rot and thrush infections in horses’ hooves. Soon thereafter Palli retired—or fled—for the night. An orderly retreat, but Cazaril recognized its nature all the same.