The Curse of Chalion

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “Of course I do,” said the physician, although in a gentled tone. He rose to his feet. “How can the royesse choose good actions without good knowledge?”

  An all too cogent point. Cazaril chewed on it in embarrassment as he followed the dedicat back upstairs.

  Betriz leaned out onto the corridor at the sound of their approaching steps. “Is he going to be all right?” she demanded of Rojeras.

  Rojeras held up a hand. “A moment, my lady.”

  They made their way into the royesse’s sitting chamber, where Iselle waited bolt upright on the carved chair, her hands tight in her lap. She accepted Rojeras’s bow with a nod. Cazaril didn’t want to watch, but he did want to know what was said, and so sank into the chair Betriz anxiously dragged up for him, and to which Iselle pointed. Rojeras remained standing in the presence of the royesse.

  “My lady,” Rojeras said to Iselle, bowing again as if in apology for his bluntness, “your secretary is afflicted with a tumor in his gut.”

  Iselle stared at him in shock. Betriz’s face drained of all expression. Iselle swallowed, and said, “He’s not…not dying, surely?” She glanced fearfully at Cazaril.

  Rojeras, losing his grip on his stated principles of forthrightness in the face of this, retreated briefly into courtly dissimulation. “Death comes to all men, variously. It is beyond my skills to say how long Lord Cazaril may yet live.” His glance aside caught Cazaril’s hard, pleading stare, and he added faithfully, “There is no reason he may not continue in his secretarial duties as long as he feels well enough. You should not permit him to overtax himself, however. By your leave, I should like to return each week to reexamine him.”

  “Of course,” said Iselle faintly.

  After a few more words on the subject of Cazaril’s diet and duties, Rojeras made a courteous departure.

  Betriz, tears blurring her velvety brown eyes, choked, “I didn’t think it was going to be—had you guessed this when—Cazaril, I don’t want you to die!”

  Cazaril replied ruefully, “Well, I don’t want me to die either, so that makes two of us.”

  “Three,” said Iselle. “Cazaril—what can we do for you?”

  Cazaril, about to reply, nothing, seized this opportunity instead to rap out firmly, “This above all—kindly do not discuss this with every castle gossiper. It is my earnest desire that this stay private information for—for as long as may be.” For one thing, the news that Cazaril was dying might give dy Jironal some fresh ideas about his brother’s death. The chancellor had to return to Cardegoss soon, possibly frustrated enough to start rethinking his missing corpse problem.

  Iselle accepted this with a slow nod, and Cazaril was permitted to return to his antechamber, where he failed to concentrate upon his account books. After the third time Lady Betriz tiptoed out to inquire if he wanted anything, once at the royesse’s instigation and twice on her own, Cazaril counterattacked by declaring it was time for some long-neglected grammar lessons. If they weren’t going to leave him alone, he might as well make use of their company. His two pupils were very subdued, ladylike, and submissive this afternoon. Even though this meek studious virtue was something he’d long wished for, he found himself hoping it wouldn’t last.

  Still, they brushed through the lessons pretty well, even the long drill on court Roknari grammatical modes. His prickly demeanor did not invite consolation. The ladies, bless their steadfast wits, did not attempt to inflict any on him. By the end the two young women were treating him almost normally again, as he plainly desired, though around Betriz’s grave mouth no dimples solaced him.

  Iselle rose to shake out her knots by pacing about the chamber; she stopped to stare out the window at the chill winter mist that filled the ravine below the Zangre’s walls. She rubbed absently at her sleeve, and remarked querulously, “Lavender is not my color. It’s like wearing a bruise. There is too much death in Cardegoss. I wish we’d never come here.”

  Considering it impolitic to agree, Cazaril merely bowed, and withdrew to make himself ready to go down to dinner.

  THE FIRST FLAKES OF WINTER SNOW POWDERED THE streets and walls of Cardegoss that week, but melted off in the afternoons. Palli kept Cazaril informed of the arrival of his fellow lord dedicats, filtering in to the capital one by one, and in turn decanted Zangre gossip from his friend. Mutual aid and trust, Cazaril reflected, but also a dual breach of the walls that each of them, in theory, helped to man. Yet if it ever came down to choosing sides between the Temple and the Zangre, Chalion would already have lost.

  Dy Jironal, Royse Teidez in tow, returned as if blown in by the cold southeast wind that also dumped an unwelcome gift of sleet on the town in passing. To Cazaril’s relief, the chancellor was empty-handed, balked of quarry in his quest for justice and revenge. No telling from dy Jironal’s set face if he had despaired of his hunt, or had just been drawn back by spies, riding hard and fast, to tell him of the forces gathering in Cardegoss that were not of his own summoning.

  Teidez dragged back to his quarters in the castle looking tired, sullen, and unhappy. Cazaril was not surprised. Chasing down every death for three provinces around that had occurred during the night of Dondo’s taking-off had surely been gruesome enough even without the vile weather.

  During his bedazzlement by Dondo’s practiced sycophancy, Teidez had neglected his elder sister’s company. When he came to visit Iselle’s chambers that afternoon, he both accepted and returned a sisterly embrace, seeming more eager to talk to her than he had for a long time. Cazaril withdrew discreetly to his antechamber and sat with his account books open, fiddling with his drying quill. Since Orico had for a betrothal gift assigned the rents of six towns to the support of his sister’s household, and not taken them back when funeral had replaced wedding, Cazaril’s accounts and correspondence had grown more complex.

  He listened meditatively through the open door to the rise and fall of the young voices. Teidez detailed his trip to his sister’s eager ears: the muddy roads and floundering horses, the tense and cranky men, indifferent food and chilly quarters. Iselle, in a voice that betrayed more envy than sympathy, pointed out how good a practice it was for his future winter campaigns. The cause of the journey was scarcely touched upon between them, Teidez still baffled and offended by his sister’s rejection of his late hero, and Iselle apparently unwilling to burden him with knowledge of the more grotesque causes of her antipathy.

  Besides being shocked by the sudden and dreadful nature of Lord Dondo’s murder, Teidez must be one of the few who’d known the man who genuinely mourned him. And why not? Dondo had flattered and cajoled and made much of Teidez. He’d showered the boy with gifts and treats, some toxically inappropriate for his age, and how was Teidez to grasp that grown men’s vices were not the same as grown men’s honors?

  The elder dy Jironal must seem a cold and unresponsive companion by comparison. The expedition had apparently left a trail of disruption behind as its inquiries grew rough and ready in dy Jironal’s frustration. Worse, dy Jironal, who needed Teidez desperately, was insufficiently adept at concealing how little he liked him, and had left him to his handlers—secretary-tutor, guards, and servants—treating him as tailpiece rather than lieutenant. But if, as his surly words hinted, Teidez had begun to reciprocate his chief guardian’s dislike, it was surely for all the wrong reasons. And if his new secretary was taking up any of the abandoned load of his noble education, nothing in Teidez’s tale gave hint of it.

  At length, Nan dy Vrit bade the young people prepare for dinner, and drew the visit to a close. Teidez walked slowly out through Cazaril’s antechamber, frowning at his boots. The boy was grown almost as tall as his half brother Orico, his round face hinting that in future he might grow as broad as well, though for now he kept youth’s muscular fitness. Cazaril turned a leaf in his account book at random, dipped his pen again, and glanced up with a tentative smile. “How do you fare, my lord?”

  Teidez shrugged, but then, halfway across the room, wheeled back, and ca
me to Cazaril’s table. His expression was not miffed—or not merely miffed—but tired and troubled as well. He drummed his finger briefly on the wood, and stared down over the pile of books and papers. Cazaril folded his hands and cast him an encouraging look of inquiry.

  Teidez said abruptly, “There’s something wrong in Cardegoss. Isn’t there.”

  There were so many things wrong in Cardegoss, Cazaril scarcely knew how to take Teidez’s words. He said cautiously, “What makes you think that?”

  Teidez made a little gesture, pulled short. “Orico is sickly, and does not rule as he should. He sleeps so much, like an old man, but he’s not that old. And everyone says he’s lost his”—Teidez colored slightly, and his gesture grew vaguer—“you know…cannot act as a man is supposed to, with a woman. Has it never struck you that there is something uncanny about his strange illness?”

  After a slight hesitation, Cazaril temporized, “Your observations are shrewd, Royse.”

  “Lord Dondo’s death was uncanny, too. I think it’s all of a piece!”

  The boy was thinking; good! “You should take your thoughts to…” not dy Jironal, “your brother Orico. He is the most proper authority to address them.” Cazaril tried to imagine Teidez getting a straight answer out of Orico, and sighed. If Iselle could not draw sense from the man, with all her passionate persuasion, what hope had the much less articulate Teidez? Orico would evade answer unless stiffened to it in advance.

  Should Cazaril take this tutelage into his own hands? Not only had he not been given authority to disclose the state secret, he wasn’t even supposed to know it himself. And…the knowledge of the Golden General’s curse needed to come straight to Teidez from the roya, not around him or despite him, lest it take up a suspicious tinge of conspiracy.

  He’d been silent too long. Teidez leaned forward across the table, eyes narrowing, and hissed, “Lord Cazaril, what do you know?”

  I know we dare not leave you in ignorance much longer. Nor Iselle either. “Royse, I shall talk to you of this later. I cannot answer you tonight.”

  Teidez’s lips tightened. He swiped a hand through his dark amber curls in a gesture of impatience. His eyes were uncertain, untrusting, and, Cazaril thought, strangely lonely. “I see,” he said in a bleak tone, and turned on his heel to march out. His low-voiced mutter carried back from the corridor, “I must do it myself…”

  If he meant, talk to Orico, good. Cazaril would go to Orico first, though, yes, and if that proved insufficient, return with Umegat to back him up. He set his pens in their jar, closed his books, took a breath to steel himself against the twinges that stabbed him with sudden movement, and pushed to his feet.

  AN INTERVIEW WITH ORICO WAS EASIER RESOLVED upon than accomplished. Taking him as still an ambassador for Iselle’s Ibran proposal, the roya ducked away from Cazaril on sight, and set the master of his chamber to offer up a dozen excuses for his indisposition. The matter was made more difficult by the need for this conversation to take place in private, just between the two of them, and uninterrupted. Cazaril was walking down the corridor from the banqueting hall after supper, head down and considering how best to corner his royal quarry, when a thump on his shoulder half spun him around.

  He looked up, and an apology for his clumsy abstraction died on his lips. The man he’d run into was Ser dy Joal, one of Dondo’s now-unemployed bravos—and what were all those ripe souls doing for pocket money these days? Had they been inherited by Dondo’s brother?—flanked by one of his comrades, half-grinning, and Ser dy Maroc, who frowned uneasily. The man who’d run into him, Cazaril corrected himself. The candlelight from the mirrored wall sconces made bright sparks in the younger man’s alert eyes.

  “Clumsy oaf!” roared dy Joal, sounding just a trifle rehearsed. “How dare you crowd me from the door?”

  “I beg your pardon, Ser dy Joal,” said Cazaril. “My mind was elsewhere.” He made a half bow, and began to go around.

  Dy Joal dodged sideways, blocking him, and swung back his vest-cloak to reveal the hilt of his sword. “I say you crowded me. Do you give me the lie, as well?”

  This is an ambush. Ah. Cazaril stopped, his mouth tightening. Wearily, he said, “What do you want, dy Joal?”

  “Bear witness!” Dy Joal motioned to his comrade and dy Maroc. “He crowded me.”

  His comrade obediently replied, “Aye, I saw,” though dy Maroc looked much less certain.

  “I seek a touch with you for this, Lord Cazaril!” said dy Joal.

  “I see that you do,” said Cazaril dryly. But was this drunken stupidity, or the world’s simplest form of assassination? A duel to first blood, approved practice and outlet for high spirits among young courtly hotheads, followed by The sword slipped, upon my honor! He ran upon it! and whatever number of paid witnesses one could afford to confirm it.

  “I say I will have three drops of your blood, to clear this slight.” It was the customary challenge.

  “I say you should go dip your head in a bucket of water until you sober up, boy. I do not duel. Eh?” Cazaril lifted his arms briefly, hands out, flipping his own vest-cloak open to show he’d borne no sword in to dinner. “Let me pass.”

  “Urrac, lend the coward your sword! We have our two witnesses. We’ll have this outside, now.” Dy Joal jerked his head toward the doors at the corridor’s end that led out into the main courtyard.

  The comrade unbuckled his sword, grinned, and tossed it to Cazaril. Cazaril lifted an eyebrow, but not his hand, and let the sheathed weapon clatter, uncaught, to his feet. He kicked it back to its owner. “I do not duel.”

  “Shall I call you coward direct?” demanded Joal. His lips were parted, and his breath already rushing in his elation, anticipating battle. Cazaril saw out of the corner of his eye a couple of other men, attracted by the raised voices, advance curiously down the corridor toward this knot of altercation.

  “Call me anything you please, depending on how much of a fool you want to sound. Your mouthings are naught to me,” sighed Cazaril. He did his best to project languid boredom, but his blood was pulsing faster in his ears. Fear? No. Fury …

  “You have a lord’s name. Have you no lord’s honor?”

  One corner of Cazaril’s mouth turned up, not at all humorously. “The confusion of mind you dub honor is a disease, for which the Roknari galley-masters have the cure.”

  “So much for your honor, then. You shall not refuse me three drops for mine!”

  “That’s right.” Cazaril’s voice went oddly calm; his heart, which had sped, slowed. His lips drew back in a strange grin. “That’s right,” he breathed again.

  Cazaril held up his left hand, palm out, and with his right jerked out his belt knife, last used for cutting bread at supper. Dy Joal’s hand spasmed on his sword hilt, and he half drew.

  “Not within the roya’s hall!” cried dy Maroc anxiously. “You know you must take it outside, dy Joal! By the Brother, he has no sword, you cannot!”

  Dy Joal hesitated; Cazaril, instead of advancing toward him, shook back his left sleeve—and drew his knife blade shallowly across his own wrist. Cazaril felt no pain, none. Blood welled, gleaming dark carmine in the candlelight, though not spurting dangerously. A kind of haze clouded his vision, blocking out everyone but himself and the now uncertainly grinning young fool who’d hustled him for a touch. I’ll give you touch. He spun his knife back into its belt sheath. Dy Joal, not yet wary enough, let his sword slide back and lifted his hand from it. Smiling, Cazaril held up his hands, one arm bleeding, the other bare. Then he lunged.

  He caught up the shocked dy Joal and bore him backward to the wall, where he landed with a thump that reverberated down the corridor, one arm trapped behind him. Cazaril’s right hand pressed under dy Joal’s chin, lifting him from his feet and pinning him to the wall by his neck. Cazaril’s right knee ground into dy Joal’s groin. He kept up the pressure, to deny dy Joal his trapped arm; the other clawed at him, and he pinned it, too, to the wall. Dy Joal’s wrist twisted in the slipper
y blood of his grip, but could not break free. The purpling young man did not, of course, cry out, though his eyes rolled whitely, and a grunting gargle broke from his lips. His heels hammered the wall. The bravos knew Cazaril’s crooked hands had held a pen; they’d forgotten he’d held an oar. Dy Joal wasn’t going anywhere now.

  Cazaril snarled in his ear, low-voiced but audible to all, “I don’t duel, boy. I kill as a soldier kills, which is as a butcher kills, as quickly, efficiently, and with as least risk to myself as I can arrange. If I decide you die, you will die when I choose, where I choose, by what means I choose, and you will never see the blow coming.” He released dy Joal’s now-enfeebled arm and brought his left wrist up, and pressed the bloody cut to his terrified victim’s half-open, trembling mouth. “You want three drops of my blood, for your honor? You shall drink them.” Blood and spittle spurted around dy Joal’s chattering teeth, but the bravo didn’t even dare try to bite, now. “Drink, damn you!” Cazaril pressed harder, smearing blood all over dy Joal’s face, fascinated with the vividness of it, red streaks on livid skin, the catch of rough beard stubble against his wrist, the bright blur of the candlelight reflected in the welling tears spilling from the staring eyes. He stared into them, watching them cloud.

  “Cazaril, for the gods’ sake let him breathe.” Dy Maroc’s distressed cry broke through Cazaril’s red fog.

  Cazaril reduced the pressure of his grip, and dy Joal inhaled, shuddering. Keeping his knee in place, Cazaril drew back his bloodied left hand in a fist, and placed, very precisely, a hard blow to the bravo’s stomach that shook the air again; dy Joal’s knees jerked up with it. Only then did Cazaril step back and release the man.

  Dy Joal fell to the floor and bent over himself, gasping and choking, weeping, not even trying to get up. After a moment, he vomited.

  Cazaril stepped across the mess of food and wine and bile toward Urrac, who lurched backward until stopped by the far wall. Cazaril leaned into his face and repeated softly, “I don’t duel. But if you seek to die like a bludgeoned steer, cross me again.”