The Curse of Chalion

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Dy Sanda glared at him. Cazaril smiled and bowed out of the argument, leaving Teidez to his badgering.

  Over nuncheon, Iselle took up a descant version of a similar song, though the authority she assailed was her grandmother and not her tutor.

  “Grandmama, it’s so hot. Can’t we go swimming in the river as Teidez does?”

  As the summer simmered on, the royse’s afternoon rides with his gentleman-tutor and his grooms and the pages had been exchanged for afternoon swims at a sheltered pool in the river upstream of Valenda—the same spot overheated denizens of the castle had frequented when Cazaril had been a page. The ladies were, of course, excluded from these excursions. Cazaril had politely declined invitations to join the party, pleading his duties to Iselle. The true reason was that stripping naked to swim would display all the old disasters written in his flesh, a history he did not care to expound upon. The misunderstanding with the bath man still mortified him, in memory.

  “Certainly not!” said the Provincara. “That would be entirely immodest.”

  “Not with him,” said Iselle. “Make up our own party, a ladies’ party.” She turned to Cazaril. “You said the ladies of the castle swam when you were a page!”

  “Servants, Iselle,” said her grandmother wearily. “Lesser folk. It’s not a pastime for you.”

  Iselle slumped, hot and red and pouting. Betriz, spared the unbecoming flush, drooped at her place, looking pale and wilted instead. Soup was served. Everyone sat eyeing their steaming bowls with revulsion. Maintaining the standards—as always—the Provincara picked up her spoon and took a determined sip.

  Cazaril said suddenly, “But the Lady Iselle can swim, can she not, your grace? I mean, she presumably was taught, when she was younger?”

  “Certainly not,” said the Provincara.

  “Oh,” said Cazaril. “Oh, dear.” He glanced around the table. Royina Ista was not with them, this meal; relieved of concern for a certain obsessive subject, he decided that he dared. “That puts me in mind of a most horrible tragedy.”

  The Provincara’s eyes narrowed; she did not take the bait. Betriz, however, did. “Oh, what?”

  “It was when I was riding for the provincar of Guarida, during a skirmish with the Roknari prince Olus. Olus’s troops came raiding over the border under the cover of night, and a storm. I was told off to evacuate the ladies of dy Guarida’s household before the town was encircled. Near dawn, after riding half the night, we crossed a high freshet. One of his provincara’s ladies-in-waiting was swept off when her horse fell, and was carried away by the force of the waters, together with the page who went after her. By the time I’d got my horse turned around, they were out of sight…We found the bodies downstream next morning. The river was not that deep, but she panicked, not having any idea how to swim. A little training might have turned a fatal accident into merely a frightening one, and three lives saved.”

  “Three lives?” said Iselle. “The lady, the page…”

  “She had been with child.”

  “Oh.”

  A very daunted silence fell.

  The Provincara rubbed her chin, and eyed Cazaril. “A true story, Castillar?”

  “Yes,” Cazaril sighed. Her flesh had been bruised and battered, cold, blue-tinged, inert as clay beneath his clutching fingers, her sodden clothes heavy, but not as heavy as his heart. “I had to tell her husband.”

  “Huh,” grunted dy Ferrej. The table’s most reliable raconteur, he did not try to top this tale.

  “It’s not an experience I ever wish to repeat,” added Cazaril.

  The Provincara snorted and looked away. After a moment, she said, “My granddaughter cannot go sporting about naked in the river like an eel.”

  Iselle sat up. “But suppose we wore, oh, linen shifts.”

  “It’s true, if one needed to swim in an emergency, one would most likely have clothes still on,” Cazaril said helpfully.

  Betriz added wistfully under her breath, “And we could cool off twice. Once when we swam, and once when we sat about drying out.”

  “Cannot some lady of the household instruct her?” Cazaril coaxed.

  “They do not swim either,” said the Provincara firmly.

  Betriz nodded confirmation. “They just wade.” She glanced up. “Could you teach us how to swim, Lord Caz?”

  Iselle clapped her hands. “Oh, yes!”

  “I…uh…” Cazaril stammered. On the other hand…in that company, he might keep his shirt on without comment. “I suppose so…if your ladies went along.” He glanced across at the Provincara. “And if your grandmother would permit me.”

  After a long silence, the Provincara growled grudgingly, “Mind you don’t all catch chills.”

  Iselle and Betriz, prudently, suppressed hoots of triumph, but they cast Cazaril sparkling glances of gratitude. He wondered if they thought he had made up the story of the night-ride drowning.

  THE LESSONS BEGAN THAT AFTERNOON, WITH CAZARIL standing in the middle of the river trying to persuade two rather stiff young women that they would not drown instantly if they got their hair wet. His fear that he had overdone the dire safety warnings gradually passed as the women at length relaxed and learned to let the waters buoy them up. They were naturally more buoyant than Cazaril, though his months at the Provincara’s table had driven a deal of the wolf-gauntness from his bearded face.

  His patience proved justified. By the end of the summer, they were splashing and diving like otters in the drought-shrunken stream. Cazaril had merely to sit in the shallows in water up to his waist and call occasional suggestions.

  His choice of vantage had only partly to do with staying cool. The Provincara was right, he had to allow—swimming was lewd. And loose linen shifts, thoroughly wetted down and clinging to lithe young bodies, made fair mockery of the modesty they attempted to preserve, a stunning effect he carefully did not point out to his two blithe charges. Worse, the effect cut two ways. Wet linen trews clinging to his loins revealed a state of mind—um, body—um, recovering health—that he earnestly prayed they would not notice. Iselle didn’t seem to, anyway. He was not entirely sure about Betriz. Their middle-aged lady-in-waiting Nan dy Vrit, who declined the lessons but waded about in the shallows fully dressed with her skirts hoisted to her calves, missed nothing in the play, and was clearly hard-pressed to control her snickers. Charitably, she seemed to grant him his good faith, and did not laugh at him out loud, nor tattle on him to the Provincara. At least…he didn’t think she did.

  Cazaril was uncomfortably conscious that his awareness of Betriz was increasing day by day. Not yet to the point of slipping anonymous bad poetry under her door, thank the gods for the shreds of his sanity. Playing the lute under her window was, perhaps fortunately, no longer within his gift. And yet…in the long summer quiet of Valenda, he had begun to dare to think of a life beyond the turning of an hourglass.

  Betriz did smile at him—that was true, he did not delude himself. And she was kind. But she smiled at and was kind to her horse, too. Her honest friendly courtesy was hardly ground enough to build a dream mansion upon, let alone bring bed and linens and try to move in. Still…she did smile at him.

  He stifled the idea repeatedly, but it kept popping up—along with other things, alas, especially during swimming lessons. But he’d sworn off ambition—he didn’t have to make a fool of himself anymore, dammit. His embarrassing arousal might be a sign of returning strength, but what good did it do him? He was as landless and penniless as in his days here as a page, and with far fewer hopes. He was mad to entertain fantasies of either lust or love, and yet…Betriz’s father was a landless man of good blood, living a life of service. Surely he could not despise a like sojourner.

  Not despise Cazaril, no—dy Ferrej was too wise for that. But he was also wise enough to know his daughter’s beauty and connection with the royesse was a dowry that could bring her something rather better in the way of a husband than fortuneless Cazaril, or even the local petty gentry’s sons who se
rved the Provincara’s household as pages now. Betriz clearly considered the boys to be annoying puppies anyway. But some of them had elder brothers, heirs of their modest estates…

  Today he sank down in the water to his chin and pretended not to watch through his eyelashes as Betriz scrambled up onto a rock, translucent linen dripping, black hair streaming down over her trembling curves. She stretched her arms to the sun before belly-flopping forward to splash Iselle, who ducked and shrieked and splashed her back. The days were shortening now, the nights were cooling, and likewise the afternoons. The festival of the ascent of the Son of Autumn was at hand. It had been too cool to swim all last week—only a few days were likely left warm enough to make these private wet river excursions tolerable. Fast gallops, and the hunt, would soon entice his ladies to drier delights. And his good sense would return to him like a strayed dog. Wouldn’t it?

  THE SLANTING LIGHT AND CHILLING AIR DROVE THE lingering swimming party from the water to dry a while on the stony banks. Cazaril was so drenched in mellow ease that he didn’t even make them conduct their idle chitchat in Darthacan or Roknari. At last he pulled on his heavy riding trousers and boots—good new boots, a gift from the Provincara—and his sword belt. He tightened the browsing horses’ girths and removed their hobbles, and helped the ladies mount. Reluctantly, with many backward glances at the sylvan river glade falling behind, the little cavalcade wound up the hill to the castle.

  In a spurt of recklessness, Cazaril pressed his horse forward to match pace with Betriz’s. She glanced across at him, quick fugitive dimple winking. Was it want of courage, or want of wits that turned his tongue to wood in his mouth? Both, he decided. He and the Lady Betriz attended Iselle together daily. If some ponderous attempt of his at dalliance should prove unwelcome, might it damage the precious ease that had grown between them in the royesse’s service? No—he must, he would say something—but her horse broke into a trot at the sight of the castle gate, and the moment was lost.

  As they entered the courtyard, the scrape of their horses’ hooves echoing hollowly on the cobbles, Teidez burst from a side door, crying “Iselle! Iselle!”

  Cazaril’s hand leapt to his sword hilt in shock—the boy’s tunic and trousers were bespattered with blood—then fell away again at the sight of the dusty and grimy dy Sanda trudging along behind his charge. Teidez’s gory appearance was merely the result of an afternoon training session at Valenda’s butcher’s yard. It wasn’t horror that drove his excited cries, but rapture. The round face he turned up to his sister was shining with joy.

  “Iselle, the most wonderful thing has happened! Guess, guess!”

  “How am I to guess—” she began, laughing.

  Impatiently he waved this away; his news tumbled from his lips. “A courier from Roya Orico just arrived. You and I are ordered to attend upon him this fall at court in Cardegoss! And Mother and Grandmama are not invited! Iselle, we’re going to escape from Valenda!”

  “We’re going to the Zangre?” Iselle whooped, and slid from her saddle to grab her brother’s reeking hands and whirl with him around the courtyard. Betriz leaned on her saddlebow and watched, her lips parted in thrilled delight.

  Their lady-in-waiting pursed her lips in much less delight. Cazaril caught Ser dy Sanda’s eye. The royse’s tutor’s mouth was set in a grim frown.

  Cazaril’s stomach lurched, as the coins of conclusion dropped. The Royesse Iselle was ordered to court; therefore her little household would accompany her to Cardegoss. Including her handmaiden Lady Betriz.

  And her secretary.

  7

  The royse and royesse’s caravan approached Cardegoss from the south road. They struggled up a rise to find the whole of the plain between the cradling mountains rolling out below their feet.

  Cazaril’s nostrils flared as he drew in the sharp wind. Cold rain last night had scoured the air clean. Tumbling banks of slate-blue clouds shredded away to the east, echoing the lines of the wrinkled blue-gray ranges hugging the horizon. Light from the west thrust across the plains like a sword stroke. Rising up on its great rock jutting out above the angle where two streams met, dominating the rivers, the plains, the mountain passes, and the eyes of all beholders, the Zangre caught the light and blazed like molten gold against the dark retreating cloud banks. Its ochre stone towers were crowned and capped with slate roofs the color of the scudding clouds, like an array of iron helmets upon a valiant band of soldiers. Favored seat of the royas of Chalion for generations, the Zangre appeared from this vantage all fortress, no palace, as dedicated to the business of war as any soldier-brother sworn to the holy orders of the gods.

  Royse Teidez urged his black horse forward next to Cazaril’s bay and stared eagerly at their goal, his face lit with a kind of awed avarice. Hunger for the promise of a larger life, free of the careful constraints of mothers and grandmothers, Cazaril supposed, certainly. But Teidez would have to be much duller than he appeared not to be wondering right now if this luminous miracle of stone could be his, someday. Why, indeed, had the boy been called to court, if Orico, despairing at last of ever getting heirs of his own body, was not meaning to groom him as his successor?

  Iselle halted her dappled gray and stared nearly as eagerly as Teidez. “Strange. I remembered it as larger, somehow.”

  “Wait till we get closer,” Cazaril advised dryly.

  Ser dy Sanda, in the van, motioned them forward, and the whole train of riders and pack mules started down the muddy road once more: the two royal youths, their secretary-guardians, Lady Betriz, servants, grooms, armed outriders in the green-and-black livery of Baocia, extra horses, Snowflake—who might at this point more aptly be named Mudpot—and all their very considerable baggage. Cazaril, veteran of a number of hair-tearingly aggravating noble ladies’ processions, regarded the progress of the convoy as a wonder of dispatch. It had taken only five days to ride from Valenda, four and a half, really. Royesse Iselle, ably backed by Betriz, had driven her subhousehold with verve and efficiency. Not one of the journey’s inevitable delays could be laid to her feminine caprice.

  In fact both Teidez and Iselle had pushed their entourage to its best speed from the moment they’d ridden out of Valenda and galloped ahead to outdistance Ista’s heart-wrenching wails, audible even over the battlements. Iselle had clapped her hands over her ears and steered her horse with her knees till she’d escaped the echo of her mother’s extravagant grief.

  The news that her children were ordered from her had thrown the dowager royina, if not into madness outright, into deep distraction and despair. She had wept, and prayed, and argued, and, at length, gone silent, a relief of sorts. Dy Sanda had confided to Cazaril how she’d cornered him and tried to bribe him into flying with Teidez, where and how being unclear. He described her as gibbering, clutching, barely short of foam-flecked.

  She had cornered Cazaril, too, in his chamber packing his saddlebags the night before the departure. Their conversation went rather differently; or at least, whatever it had been, it wasn’t gibbering.

  She had regarded him for a long, silent, and unnerving moment before saying abruptly, “Are you afraid, Cazaril?”

  Cazaril considered his reply, and finally answered simply and truthfully, “Yes, my lady.”

  “Dy Sanda is a fool. You, at least, are not.”

  Not knowing what to say to this, Cazaril inclined his head politely.

  She inhaled, her eyes gone huge, and said, “Protect Iselle. If ever you loved me, or your honor, protect Iselle. Swear it, Cazaril!”

  “I swear.”

  Her eyes searched him, but rather to his surprise she did not demand more elaborate protestations, or reassuring repetitions.

  “From what shall I protect her?” Cazaril asked cautiously. “What do you fear, Lady Ista?”

  She stood silent in the candlelight.

  Cazaril recalled Palli’s effective entreaty. “Lady, please do not send me blindfolded into battle!”

  Her lips puffed, as from a blow to the sto
mach; but then she shook her head in despair, whirled away, and rushed from the room. Her attendant, obviously worried to the point of exasperation, had blown out her breath and followed her.

  Despite the memory of Ista’s infectious agitation, Cazaril found his spirits lifted from their mire of dread by the young people’s excitement as their goal neared. The road met the river that flowed out of Cardegoss, and ran alongside it as they descended into a wooded area. At length, Cardegoss’s second stream joined the main. A chill draft coursed through the shaded valley. On the side of the river opposite the road, three hundred feet of cliff face erupted from the ground and soared aloft. Here and there, little trees clung desperately to crevices, and ferns spilled down over the rocks.

  Iselle paused to stare up, and up. Cazaril reined his horse in beside hers. From here, one could not even see the beginnings of the human masons’ puny defensive additions decorating the top of this natural fortress wall.

  “Oh,” said Iselle.

  “My,” added Betriz, joining them craning in their necks.

  “The Zangre,” said Cazaril, “has never in its history been taken by assault.”

  “I see,” breathed Betriz.

  A few floating yellow leaves, promise of autumn to come, whirled away down the dark stream. The party pressed their horses forward, climbing up out of the valley to where a great stone arch, leading to one of the seven gates of the city, spanned the stream. Cardegoss shared the stream-carved plateau with the fortress. The town ramparts flared back along the tops of the ravines like the shape of a boat with the Zangre at its prow, then turned inward in a long wall forming the stern.

  In the clear light of this crisp afternoon, the city failed signally to look sinister. Markets, glimpsed down side streets, were bright with food and flowers, thronged with men and women. Bakers and bankers, weavers and tailors and jewelers and saddlers, together with such trades and crafts that were not required by their need for running water to be down by the riversides, offered their wares. The royal company rode through the misnamed Temple Square, which had five sides, one for each of the big regional mother-houses of the gods’ holy orders. Divines, acolytes, and dedicats strode along, looking more harried and bureaucratic than ascetic. In the square’s vast paved center, the familiar cloverleaf-and-tower shape of Cardegoss’s Temple of the Holy Family bulked, impressively more extensive than the homey little version in Valenda.