The Curse of Chalion

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  A groom in the royal tabard of the menagerie was staggering in circles before its open doors, screaming and crying, blood running down his face. Two of Teidez’s green-and-black-clad Baocian guards stood before the doors with swords drawn, holding off three Zangre guards who hovered apprehensively before them, also with blades out, seeming not to dare to strike. The crows lacked no such courage. They stooped awkwardly at the Baocians, trying to claw with their talons and stab with their beaks. The Baocians cursed and beat them off. Two bundles of black feathers lay on the cobbles already, one still, one twitching.

  Cazaril strode up to the menagerie doors, roaring, “What in the Bastard’s name is going on here? How dare you slay the sacred crows?”

  One of the Baocians pointed his sword toward him. “Stay back, Lord Cazaril! You may not pass! We have strict orders from the royse!”

  Lips drawn back in fury, Cazaril knocked the sword aside with his cloaked arm, lunged forward, and wrenched it from the guardsman’s grasp. “Give me that, you fool!” He flung it to the stones in the general direction of the Zangre guards, and Palli, who had drawn in a panic when the unarmed Cazaril had waded into the fray. The sword clanged and spun across the cobbles, till Foix stopped it with a booted foot stamped down upon it, and held it with a challenging weight and stare.

  Cazaril turned on the second Baocian, whose blade drooped abruptly. Recoiling from Cazaril’s step, the guardsman cried hastily, “Castillar, we do this to preserve the life of Roya Orico!”

  “Do what? Is Orico in there? What are you about?”

  A feline snarl, rising to a yowl, from inside whirled Cazaril around, and he left the daunted Baocian to the Zangre guards, now encouraged to advance. He strode into the shadowed aisle of the menagerie.

  The old tongueless groom was on his knees on the tiles, bent over, making choked weeping sounds. His thumbless hands were pressed to his face, and a little blood ran between his fingers; he looked up at the sound of Cazaril’s step, his quavering wet mouth ravaged with woe. As he ran past the bears’ stalls, Cazaril glimpsed two inert black heaps studded with crossbow bolts, fur wet and matted with blood. The vellas’ stall door was open, and they lay on their sides in the bright straw, eyes open and fixed, throats slashed.

  At the far end of the aisle, Royse Teidez was rising to his feet from the limp body of the spotted cat. He pushed himself up with his bloodied sword, and leaned upon it, panting, his face wild and exultant. His shadow roiled around him like thunderclouds at midnight. He looked up at Cazaril and grinned fiercely. “Ha!” he cried.

  The Baocian guard captain, a twisted little bird still in his hand, plunged out of the aviary into Cazaril’s path. Bundles of colored feathers, dead and dying birds of all sizes, littered the aviary floor, some still fluttering helplessly. “Hold, Castillar—” he began. His words were whipped away as Cazaril grasped him by the tunic and spun him around, throwing him to the floor into the path of Palli, who was following on his heels muttering in astonished dismay, “Bastard weeps. Bastard weeps…” That had been Palli’s battle-mumble at Gotorget, when his sword had risen and fallen endlessly on men coming up over the ladders, and he’d had no breath for cries.

  “Hold him,” Cazaril snarled over his shoulder, and strode on toward Teidez.

  Teidez threw back his head and met Cazaril’s eyes square-on. “You can’t stop me—I’ve done it! I have saved the roya!”

  “What—what—what—” Cazaril was so frightened and furious, his lips and mind could scarcely form coherent words. “Fool boy! What destructive madness is this, this…?” His hands opened, shaking, and jerked about.

  Teidez leaned toward him, his teeth glinting in his drawn-back lips. “I’ve broken the curse, the black magic that has been making Orico sick. It was coming from these evil animals. They were a secret gift from the Roknari, meant to slowly poison him. And we’ve slain the Roknari spy—I think…” Teidez glanced somewhat doubtfully over his shoulder.

  Only then did Cazaril notice the last body on the floor at the far end of the aisle. Umegat lay on his side in a heap, as unmoving as the birds or the vellas. The carcasses of the sand foxes lay tumbled nearby. Cazaril had not seen him at first, because his clear white glow was extinguished. Dead? Cazaril moaned, lurched toward him, and fell to his knees. The left side of Umegat’s head was lacerated, the gray-bronze braid disheveled and soaked with gore. His skin was as gray as an old rag. But his scalp was still sluggishly bleeding, therefore…

  “Does he still breathe?” asked Teidez, advancing to peer over Cazaril’s shoulder. “The captain hit him with his sword pommel, when he would not give way…”

  “Fool, fool, fool boy!”

  “No fool I! He was behind it all.” Teidez nodded toward Umegat. “A Roknari wizard, sent to drain and kill Orico.”

  Cazaril ground his teeth. “Umegat is a Temple divine. Sent by the Bastard’s Order to care for the sacred animals, who were given by the god to preserve Orico. And if you have not slain him, it is the only good luck here.” Umegat’s breath came shallow and odd, his hands were cold as a corpse’s, but he did breathe.

  “No…” Teidez shook his head. “No, you’re wrong, that can’t be…” For the first time, the heroic elation wobbled in his face.

  Cazaril uncoiled and rose to his feet, and Teidez stepped back a trifle. Cazaril turned to find Palli, blessedly, at his back, and Ferda at Palli’s shoulder, staring around at it all in horrified amazement. Palli, at least, Cazaril could trust to know field aid.

  “Palli,” he rasped out, “take over here. See to the wounded grooms, this one especially. His skull may be broken.” He pointed down to Umegat’s darkened body. “Ferda.”

  “My lord?”

  Ferda’s badge and colors would gain him admittance anywhere in the sacred precincts. “Run to the temple. Find Archdivine Mendenal. Let no one and nothing keep you from coming instantly to him. Tell him what has transpired here, and have him send Temple physicians—tell him, Umegat needs the Mother’s midwife, the special one. He’ll know what you mean. Hurry!”

  Palli, already kneeling beside Umegat, added, “Give me your cloak. And run, boy!”

  Ferda tossed his cloak at his commander, whirled, and was gone before Palli drew a second breath. Palli began to wrap the gray wool around the unconscious Roknari.

  Cazaril turned back to Teidez, whose eyes were darting this way and that in growing uncertainty. The royse retreated to the life-emptied husk of the leopard, six feet from nose to tail tip lying limply on the tiles. Its beautiful spotted fur hid the mouths of its wounds, marked by matted blood on its sides. Cazaril thought of dy Sanda’s pierced corpse.

  “I slew it with my sword, because it was a royal symbol of my House even if it was ensorcelled,” Teidez offered. “And to test my courage. It clawed my leg.” He bent and rubbed awkwardly at his right shin, where his black trousers were indeed ripped and hanging in blood-wet ribbons.

  Teidez was the Heir of Chalion, and Iselle’s brother. Cazaril could not wish the beast had bitten out his throat. Should not, anyway. “Five gods, how did you come by this black nonsense?”

  “It is not nonsense! You knew Orico’s illness was uncanny! I saw it in your face—Bastard’s demons, anyone could see it. Lord Dondo told me the secret, before he died. Was murdered—murdered to keep the secret, I think, but it was too late.”

  “Did you come up with this…plan of attack, on your own?”

  Teidez’s head came up, proudly. “No, but when I was the only one left, I carried it through all by myself! We had been going to do it together, after Dondo married Iselle—destroy the curse, and free the House of Chalion from its evil influence. But then it was left to me. So I made myself his banner-carrier, his arm to reach from beyond the grave and strike one last blow for Chalion!”

  “Ah! Ah!” Cazaril was so overcome, he stamped in a circle. But had Dondo believed his own rubbish, or had this been a clever plan to use Teidez, obliquely and unprovably, to disable or assassinate Orico? Malice, or
stupidity? With Dondo, who could tell? “No!”

  “Lord Cazaril, what should we do with these Baocians?” Foix’s voice inquired diffidently.

  Cazaril looked up to find the disarmed Baocian guard captain held between Foix and one of the Zangre guards. “And you!” snarled Cazaril at him. “You tool, you fool, you lent yourself to this, this stupid sacrilege, and told no one? Or are you Dondo’s creature still? Ah! Take him and his men and lock them in a cell, until…” Cazaril hesitated. Dondo was behind this, oh yes, reaching out to wreak chaos and disaster, it bore his stamp—but for once, Cazaril suspected, Martou was not behind Dondo. Quite the opposite, unless he missed his guess. “Until the chancellor is notified,” Cazaril continued. “You there—” A downward sweep of his arm commanded another Zangre guard’s attention. “Run to the Chancellery, or Jironal Palace or wherever he may be found, and tell him what has happened here. Beg him to wait upon me before he goes to Orico.”

  “Lord Cazaril, you cannot order my guards arrested!” cried Teidez.

  Cazaril was the only one here with the air, if not the fact, of authority needed to carry out this next step. “You are going straight to your chamber, until your brother orders otherwise. I will escort you there.”

  “Take your hand off me!” Teidez yelped, as Cazaril’s iron grip closed around his upper arm. But he did not quite dare to struggle against whatever he was seeing in Cazaril’s face.

  Cazaril said through his teeth, in a voice dripping false cordiality, “No, indeed. You are wounded, young lord, and I have a duty to help you to a physician.” He added under his breath, to Teidez’s ear alone, “And I will knock you flat and drag you, if I have to.”

  Teidez, recovering what dignity he could, grumbled to his guard captain, “Go quietly with them, then. I’ll send for you later, when I have proved Lord Cazaril’s error.” Since his two captors had already spun the captain around and were marching him out, this ended up addressed to the Baocian’s back, and fell a little flat. The injured grooms had crept up to Palli’s side, and were trying to help him with Umegat. Palli glanced over his shoulder and gave Cazaril a quick, reassuring wave.

  Cazaril nodded back, and, under the guise of lending support, strong-armed the royse out of the nightmarish abattoir he had made of the roya’s menagerie. Too late, too late, too late… beat in his brain with every stride. Outside, the crows were no longer whirling and screaming in the air. They hopped about in agitation upon the cobbles, seeming as bewildered and directionless as Cazaril’s own thoughts.

  Still keeping a grip on Teidez, Cazaril marched him through the Zangre’s gates, where, now, more guards had appeared. Teidez closed his lips on further protest, though his sullen, angry, and insulted expression boded no good for Cazaril later on. The royse scorned to favor his wounded leg, though it left a trail of bloodied footprints across the cobbles of the main courtyard.

  Cazaril’s attention was jerked leftward when one of Sara’s waiting women and a page appeared in the doorway to Ias’s Tower. “Hurry, hurry!” the woman urged the boy, who dashed toward the gates, white-faced. He nearly caromed off Cazaril in his haste.

  “Where away, boy?” Cazaril called after him.

  He turned and danced backward for a moment. “Temple, lord. Dare not stay—Royina Sara—the roya has collapsed!” He turned and sprinted in earnest through the gates; the guards stared at him, and, uneasily, back toward Ias’s Tower.

  Teidez’s arm, beneath Cazaril’s hand, lost its stiff resistance. Beneath his scowl, a scared look crept into his eyes, and he glanced aside warily at his self-appointed detainer.

  After a moment’s indecision, Cazaril, not letting go of Teidez, wheeled around and started for Ias’s Tower instead. He hurried to catch up with the waiting woman, who had ducked back inside, and called after her, but she seemed not to hear him as she scurried up the end stairs. He was wheezing as he reached the third floor, where Orico kept his chambers. He stared in apprehension down its central corridor.

  Royina Sara, her white shawl bundled about her and a woman at her heels, was hurrying up the hall. Cazaril bowed anxiously as she came to the staircase.

  “My lady, what has happened? Can I help?”

  She touched her hand to her frightened face. “I scarcely know yet, Castillar. Orico—he was reading aloud to me in my chambers while I stitched, as he sometimes does, for my solace, when suddenly he stopped, and blinked and rubbed his eyes, and said he could not see the words anymore, and that the room was all dark. But it wasn’t! Then he fell from his chair. I cried for my ladies, and we put him in his bed, and have sent for a Temple physician.”

  “We saw the roya’s page,” Cazaril assured her. “He was running as fast as he could.”

  “Oh, good…”

  “Was it an apoplexy, do you think?”

  “I don’t think…I don’t know. He speaks a little, and his breath is not very labored…What was all that shouting, down by the stables, earlier?” Distractedly, not waiting for an answer, she passed him and mounted the stairs.

  Teidez, his face gone leaden, licked his lips but said no more as Cazaril turned him around and led him down to the courtyard.

  The royse did not find his voice again till they were mounting the stairs in the main block, where he repeated breathlessly, “It cannot be. Dondo told me the menagerie was black sorcery, a Roknari curse to keep Orico sick and weak. And I could see that it was so.”

  “A Roknari curse, there truly is, but the menagerie is a white miracle that keeps Orico alive despite it. Was. Till now,” Cazaril added bitterly.

  “No…no…it’s all wrong. Dondo told me—”

  “Dondo was mistaken.” Cazaril hesitated briefly. “Or else Dondo wished to hurry the replacement of a roya who favored his elder brother with one who favored himself.”

  Teidez’s lips parted in protest, but no sound came from them. Cazaril didn’t think the royse could be feigning the shocked look in his eyes. The only mercy in this day, if mercy it was—Dondo might have misled Teidez, but he seemed not to have corrupted him, not to that extent. Teidez was tool, not co-conspirator, not a willing fratricide. Unfortunately, he was a tool that had kept on functioning after the workman’s hand had fallen away. And whose fault was it that the boy swallowed down lies, when no one would feed him the truth?

  The sallow fellow who was the royse’s secretary-tutor looked up in surprise from his writing desk as Cazaril swung the boy into his chambers.

  “Look to your master,” Cazaril told him shortly. “He’s injured. He is not to quit this building until Chancellor dy Jironal is informed what has occurred, and gives him leave.” He added, with a little sour satisfaction, “If you knew of this outrage, and did nothing to prevent it, the chancellor will be furious with you.”

  The man paled in confusion; Cazaril turned his back on him. Now to go see what was happening with Umegat…

  “But Lord Cazaril,” Teidez’s voice quavered. “What should I do?”

  Cazaril spat over his shoulder, as he strode out again, “Pray.”

  18

  As he turned onto the end stairs, Cazaril heard a woman’s slippers scuffing rapidly on the steps. He looked up to find Lady Betriz, her lavender skirts trailing, hurrying down toward him.

  “Lord Cazaril! What’s going on? We heard shouting—one of the maids cried Royse Teidez has run mad, and tried to slay the roya’s animals!”

  “Not mad—misled. I think. And not tried—succeeded.” In a few brief, bitter words, Cazaril described the horror in the stable block.

  “But why?” Her voice was husky with shock.

  Cazaril shook his head. “A lie of Lord Dondo’s, nearly as I can tell. He convinced the royse that Umegat was a Roknari wizard using the animals to somehow poison the roya. Which turned the truth exactly backwards; the animals sustained Orico, and now he has collapsed. Five gods, I cannot explain it all here upon the stairs. Tell Royesse Iselle I will attend upon her soon, but first I must see to the injured grooms. Stay away—keep Isel
le away from the menagerie.” And if he didn’t give Iselle action, she’d surely take it for herself…“Wait upon Sara, both of you; she’s half-distracted.”

  Cazaril continued on down the stairs, past the place where he had been—deliberately?—decoyed away by his own pain, earlier. Dondo’s demonic ghost made no move to grip him now.

  Back at the menagerie, Cazaril found that the excellent Palli and his men had already carried off Umegat and the more seriously injured of the undergrooms to the Mother’s hospital. The remaining groom was stumbling around trying to catch a hysterical little blue-and-yellow bird that had somehow escaped the Baocian guard captain and taken refuge in the upper cornices. Some servants from the stable had come over and were making awkward attempts to help; one had taken off his tabard and was sweeping it up, trying to knock the bird out of the air.

  “Stop!” Cazaril choked back panic. For all he knew, the little feathered creature was the last thread by which Orico clung to life. He directed the would-be helpers instead to the task of collecting the bodies of the slain animals, laying them out in the stable courtyard, and cleaning up the bloody mess on the tiles inside. He scooped up a handful of grains from the vellas’ stall, remains of their last interrupted dinner, and coaxed the little bird down to his own hand, chirping as he’d seen Umegat do. Rather to his surprise, the bird came to him and suffered itself to be put back into its cage.

  “Guard it with your life,” he told the groom. Then added, scowling for effect, “If it dies, you die.” An empty threat, though it must do for now; the grooms, at least, looked impressed. If it dies, Orico dies? That suddenly seemed frighteningly plausible. He turned to lend a hand in dragging out the heavy bodies of the bears.

  “Should we skin them, lord?” one of the stable hands inquired, staring at the results of Teidez’s hellish hunt piled up outside on the paving stones.