The Curse of Chalion

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “No!” said Cazaril. Even the few of Fonsa’s crows still lingering about the stable yard, though they regarded the bloody carcasses with wary interest, made no move toward them. “Treat them…as you would the roya’s soldiers who had died in battle. Burned or buried. Not skinned. Nor eaten, for the gods’ sakes.” Swallowing, Cazaril bent and added the bodies of the two dead crows to the row. “There has been sacrilege enough this day.” And the gods forfend Teidez had not slain a holy saint as well as the sacred animals.

  A clatter of hooves heralded the arrival of Martou dy Jironal, fetched, presumably, from Jironal Palace; he was followed up the hill by four retainers on foot, gasping for breath. The chancellor swung down from his snorting, sidling horse, handed it off to a bowing groom, and advanced to stare at the row of dead animals. The bears’ dark fur riffled in the cold wind, the only movement. Dy Jironal’s lips spasmed on unvoiced curses. “What is this madness?” He looked up at Cazaril, and his eyes narrowed in bewildered suspicion. “Did you set Teidez onto this?” Dy Jironal was not, Cazaril judged, dissimulating; he was as off-balance as Cazaril himself.

  “I? No! I do not control Teidez.” Cazaril added sourly, “And neither, it appears, do you. He was in your constant company for the past two weeks; had you no hint of this?”

  Dy Jironal shook his head.

  “In his defense, Teidez seems to have had some garbled notion that this act would somehow help the roya. That he’d no better sense is a fault of his age; that he had no better knowledge…well, you and Orico between you have served him ill. If he’d been more filled with truth, he’d have had less room for lies. I’ve had his Baocian guard locked up, and taken him to his chambers, to await…” the roya’s orders would not be forthcoming now. Cazaril finished, “your orders.”

  Dy Jironal’s hand made a constricted gesture. “Wait. The royesse—he was closeted with his sister yesterday. Could she have set him on?”

  “Five witnesses will say no. Including Teidez himself. He gave no sign yesterday that this was in his mind.” Almost no sign. Should have, should have, should have…

  “You control the Royesse Iselle closely enough,” snapped dy Jironal bitterly. “Do you think I don’t know who encouraged her in her defiance? I fail to see the secret of her pernicious attachment to you, but I mean to cut that connection.”

  “Yes.” Cazaril bared his teeth. “Dy Joal tried to wield your knife last night. He’ll know to charge you more for his services next time. Hazard pay.” Dy Jironal’s eyes glittered with understanding; Cazaril took a breath, for self-control. This was bringing their hostilities much too close to the surface. The last thing he desired was dy Jironal’s full attention. “In any case, there is no mystery. Teidez says your amiable brother Dondo plotted this with him, before he died.”

  Dy Jironal stepped back a pace, eyes widening, but his teeth clenched on any other reaction.

  Cazaril continued, “Now, what I should dearly like to know is—and you are in a better position to guess the answer than I am—did Dondo know what this menagerie really did for Orico?”

  Dy Jironal’s gaze flew to his face. “Do you?”

  “All the Zangre knows by now: Orico was stricken blind, and fell from his chair, during the very moments his creatures were dying. Sara and her ladies brought him to his bed, and have sent for the Temple physicians.” This answer both evaded the question and abruptly redirected dy Jironal’s attention; the chancellor paled, whirled away, and made for the Zangre gates. He did not, Cazaril noted, stay to inquire after Umegat. Clearly, dy Jironal knew what the menagerie did; did he understand how?

  Do you?

  Cazaril shook his head and turned the other way, for yet another weary march down into town.

  Cardegoss’s Temple Hospital of the Mother’s Mercy was a rambling old converted mansion, bequeathed to the order by a pious widow, on the street beyond the Mother’s house from the Temple Square. Cazaril tracked Palli and Umegat through its maze to a second-floor gallery above an inner courtyard. He spotted the chamber readily by the reunited dy Gura brothers standing guard outside its closed door. They saluted and passed him through.

  He entered to find Umegat laid out unconscious upon a bed. A white-haired woman in a Temple physician’s green robes bent over him stitching up the lacerated flap of his scalp. She was assisted by a familiar, dumpy middle-aged woman whose viridescent tinge owed nothing to her green dress. Cazaril could still see her faint effulgence with his eyes closed. The archdivine of Cardegoss himself, in his five-colored vestment, hovered anxiously. Palli leaned against a wall with his arms crossed; his face lightened, and he pushed to his feet when he saw Cazaril.

  “How goes it?” Cazaril asked Palli in a low voice.

  “Poor fellow’s still out cold,” Palli murmured back. “I think he must have taken a mighty whack. And you?”

  Cazaril repeated the tale of Orico’s sudden collapse. Archdivine Mendenal stepped closer to listen, and the physician glanced over her shoulder. “Had they told you of this turn, Archdivine?” Cazaril added.

  “Oh, aye. I will follow Orico’s physicians to the Zangre as soon as I may.”

  If the white-haired physician wondered why an injured groom should claim more of the archdivine’s attention than the stricken roya, she gave no more sign than a slight lifting of her eyebrows. She finished her last neat stitch and dipped a cloth in a basin to wash the crusting gore from the shaved scalp around the wound. She dried her hands, checked the rolled-back eyes under Umegat’s lids, and straightened. The Mother’s midwife gathered up Umegat’s cut-away left braid and the rest of the medical mess, and made all tidy.

  Archdivine Mendenal clutched his fingers together, and asked the physician, “Well?”

  “Well, his skull is not broken, that I can feel. I shall leave the wound uncovered to better mark bleeding or swelling. I can tell nothing more until he wakes. There’s naught to do now but keep him warm and watch him till he stirs.”

  “When will that be?”

  The physician stared down dubiously at her patient. Cazaril did, too. The fastidious Umegat would have hated his present crumpled, half-shorn, desperately limp appearance. Umegat’s flesh was still that deathly gray, making his golden Roknari skin look like a dirty rag. His breath rasped. Not good. Cazaril had seen men who looked like that go on to recover; he’d also seen them sink and die.

  “I cannot say,” the physician replied at last, echoing Cazaril’s own mental diagnosis.

  “Leave us, then. The acolyte will watch him for now.”

  “Yes, Your Reverence.” The physician bowed, and instructed the midwife, “Send for me at once if he either wakes, or takes a fever, or starts to convulse.” She gathered up her instruments.

  “Lord dy Palliar, I thank you for your aid,” the archdivine said. He added, “Lord Cazaril, please stay.”

  Palli said merely, “You’re entirely welcome, Your Reverence,” then after a heartbeat, as the hint penetrated, “Oh. Ah. If you’re all right, Caz…?”

  “For now.”

  “Then I should perhaps return to the Daughter’s house. If you need anything, at any time, send for me there, or at Yarrin Palace, and I’ll ‘tend upon you at once. You should not go about alone.” He gave Cazaril a stern look, to be sure this was understood as command and not parting pleasantry. He, too, then bowed, and, opening the door for the physician, followed in her wake.

  As the door closed, Mendenal turned to Cazaril, his hands outstretched in pleading. “Lord Cazaril, what should we do?”

  Cazaril recoiled. “Five gods, you’re asking me?”

  The man’s lips twisted ruefully. “Lord Cazaril, I’ve only been the archdivine of Cardegoss for two years. I was chosen because I was a good administrator, I fancy, and to please my family, because my brother and my father before him were powerful provincars. I was dedicated to the Bastard’s Order at age fourteen, with a good dower from my father to assure my care and advancement. I have served the gods faithfully all my life, but…they
do not speak to me.” He stared at Cazaril, and glanced aside to the Mother’s midwife, with an odd hopeless envy in his eyes, devoid of hostility. “When a pious ordinary man finds himself in a room with three working saints—if he has any wits left—he seeks instruction, he does not feign to instruct.”

  “I am not…” Cazaril bit back the denial. He had more urgent concerns than arguing over the theological definition of his current condition, though if this was sainthood, the gods must exceed themselves for damnation. “Honorable Acolyte—I’m sorry, I have forgotten your name?”

  “I am Clara, Lord Cazaril.”

  Cazaril gave her a little bow. “Acolyte Clara. Do you see—do you not see—Umegat’s glow? I’ve never seen him when—is it supposed to go out when a man is asleep or unconscious?”

  She shook her head. “The gods are with us waking and sleeping, Lord Cazaril. I’m sure I don’t have the strength of sight you do, but indeed, the Bastard has withdrawn his presence from Learned Umegat.”

  “Oh, no,” breathed Mendenal.

  “Are you sure?” said Cazaril. “It could not be a defect in my—in your second sight?”

  She glanced at him, wincing a little. “No. For I can see you plainly enough. I could see you before you came in the door. It is almost painful to be in the same room with you.”

  “Does this mean the miracle of the menagerie is broken?” asked Mendenal anxiously, gesturing at the unconscious groom. “We have no dike now against the tide of this black curse?”

  She hesitated. “Umegat no longer hosts the miracle. I do not know if the Bastard has transferred it to another’s will.”

  Mendenal wheeled to stare hopefully at Cazaril. “His, perhaps?”

  She frowned at Cazaril, absently holding her hand to her brow as if to shade her eyes. “If I am a saint, as Learned Umegat has named me, I am only a small domestic one. If Umegat’s tutelage had not sharpened my perceptions over the years, I should merely have thought myself unusually lucky in my profession.”

  Luck, Cazaril couldn’t help reflecting, had not been his most salient experience since he’d stumbled into the gods’ maze.

  “And yet the Mother only reaches through me from time to time, then passes on. Lord Cazaril…blazes. From the day I first saw him at Lord Dondo’s funeral. The white light of the Bastard and the blue clarity of the Lady of Spring, both at once, the constant living presence of two gods, all mixed with some other dark thing I cannot make out. Umegat could see more clearly. If the Bastard has added more to the roil already there, I cannot tell.”

  The archdivine touched brow, lips, navel, groin, and heart, fingers spread wide, and stared hungrily at Cazaril. “Two gods, two gods at once, and in this room!”

  Cazaril bent forward, hands clenching, hideously reminded by the pressure of his belt of the terrifying distention beneath it. “Did Umegat not make known to you what I did to Lord Dondo? Did you not talk to Rojeras?”

  “Yes, yes, and I spoke to Rojeras too, good man, but of course he could not understand—”

  “He understood better than you seem to. I bear death and murder in my gut. An abomination, for all I know taking physical and not just psychic form, engendered by a demon and Dondo dy Jironal’s accursed ghost. Which screams at me nightly, by the way, in Dondo’s voice, with all his vilest vocabulary, and Dondo had a mouth like the Cardegoss main sewer. With no way out but to tear me open. It is not holy, it is disgusting!”

  Mendenal stepped back, blinking.

  Cazaril clutched his head. “I have terrible dreams. And pains in my belly. And rages. And I’m afraid Dondo is leaking.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Mendenal faintly. “I had no idea, Lord Cazaril. Umegat said only that you were skittish, and it was best to leave you in his hands.”

  “Skittish,” Cazaril repeated hollowly. “And oh, did I mention the ghosts?” It was surely a measure of…something, that they seemed the least of his worries.

  “Ghosts?”

  “All the ghosts of the Zangre follow me about the castle and cluster around my bed at night.”

  “Oh,” said Mendenal, looking suddenly worried. “Ah.”

  “Ah?”

  “Did Umegat warn you about the ghosts?”

  “No…he said they could do me no harm.”

  “Well, yes and no. They can do you no harm while you live. But as Umegat explained it to me, the Lady’s miracle has delayed the working out of the Bastard’s miracle, not reversed it. It follows that, hm, should Her hand open, and the demon fly away with your soul—and Dondo’s, of course—it will leave your husk with a certain, um, dangerous theological emptiness which is not quite like natural death. And the ghosts of the excluded damned will attempt to, er, move in.”

  After a short, fraught silence, Cazaril inquired, “Do they ever succeed?”

  “Sometimes. I saw a case once, when I was a young divine. The degraded spirits are shambling stupid things, but it’s so very awkward to get them out again once they take possession. They must be burned…well, alive is not quite the right term. Very ugly scene, especially if the relatives don’t understand, because, of course, being your body, it screams in your voice…. It would not, in the event, be your problem, of course, you would be, um, elsewhere by then, but it might save, hm, others some painful troubles, if you make sure you always have someone by you who would understand the necessity of burning your body before sunset…” Mendenal trailed off apologetically.

  “Thank you, Your Reverence,” said Cazaril, with awful politeness. “I shall add that to Rojeras’s theory of the demon growing itself a new body in my tumor and gnawing its way out, should I ever again be in danger of getting a night’s sleep. Although I suppose there’s no reason both could not occur. Sequentially.”

  Mendenal cleared his throat. “Sorry, my lord. I thought you should know.”

  Cazaril sighed. “Yes…I suppose I should.” He looked up, remembering last night’s scene with dy Joal. “Is it possible…suppose the Lady’s grip loosened just a little. Is it possible for Dondo’s soul to leak into mine?”

  Mendenal’s brows rose. “I don’t…Umegat would know. Oh, how I wish he would wake up! I suppose it would be a faster way for Dondo’s ghost to get a body than to grow one in a tumor. You would think it would be too small.” He made an uncertain measuring gesture with his hands.

  “Not according to Rojeras,” said Cazaril dryly.

  Mendenal rubbed his forehead. “Ah, poor Rojeras. He thought I had taken a sudden interest in his specialty when I asked about you, and of course, I did not correct his misapprehension. I thought he was going to talk for half the night. I finally had to promise him a purse for his ward, to escape the tour of his collection.”

  “I’d pay money to escape that, too,” Cazaril allowed. After a moment he asked curiously, “Your Reverence…why was I not arrested for Dondo’s murder? How did Umegat finesse that?”

  “Murder? There was no murder.”

  “Excuse me, the man is dead, and by my hand, by death magic, which is a capital crime.”

  “Oh. Yes, I see. The ignorant are full of errors about death magic, well, even the name is wrong. It’s a nice theological point, d’you see. Attempting death magic is a crime of intent, of conspiracy. Successful death magic is not death magic at all, but a miracle of justice, and cannot be a crime, because it is the hand of the god that carries off the victim—victims—I mean, it’s not as if the roya can send his officers to arrest the Bastard, eh?”

  “Do you think the present chancellor of Chalion will appreciate the distinction?”

  “Ah…no. Which is why Umegat advised that the Temple prefer a discreet approach to this…this very complicated issue.” Mendenal scratched his cheek in new worry. “Not that the supplicant of such justice has ever lived through it, before…the distinction was clearer when it was all theoretical. Two miracles. I never thought of two miracles. Unprecedented. The Lady of Spring must love you dearly.”

  “As a teamster loves his mule that carries his b
aggage,” said Cazaril bitterly, “whipping it over the high passes.”

  The archdivine looked a little distraught; only Acolyte Clara’s lips twisted in appreciation. Umegat would have snorted, Cazaril thought. He began to understand why the Roknari saint had been so fond of talking shop with him. Only the saints would joke so about the gods, because it was either joke or scream, and they alone knew it was all the same to the gods.

  “Yes, but,” said Mendenal. “Umegat concurred—so extraordinary a preservation must surely be for an extraordinary purpose. Have you…have you no guess at all?”

  “Archdivine, I know naught.” Cazaril’s voice shook. “And I am…” he broke off.

  “Yes?” encouraged Mendenal.

  If I say it aloud, I will fall to pieces right here. He licked his lips, and swallowed. When he forced the words from his tongue at last, they came out a hoarse whisper. “I am very frightened.”

  “Oh,” said the archdivine after a long moment. “Ah. Yes, I…I see that it would be…Oh, if only Umegat would wake up!”

  The Mother’s midwife cleared her throat, diffidently. “My lord dy Cazaril?”

  “Yes, Acolyte Clara?”

  “I think I have a message for you.”

  “What?”

  “The Mother spoke to me in a dream last night. I was not altogether sure, for my sleeping brain spins fancies out of whatever is common in my thoughts, and I think often of Her. So I had meant to take it to Umegat today, and be guided by his good advice. But She said to me, She said”—Clara took a breath, and steadied her voice, her expression growing calmer—” ‘Tell my Daughter’s faithful courier to beware despair above all.’”

  “Yes?” said Cazaril after a moment. “And…?” Blast it, if the gods were going to trouble to send him messages in other people’s dreams, he’d prefer something less cryptic. And more practical.

  “That was all.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Mendenal.

  “Well…She might have said, her Daughter’s faithful courtier. Or castle-warder. Or captain. Or all four of them—that part’s blurred in my memory.”